Company’s coming, company’s coming! As we neared the end of our second full year of living in Phnom Penh, we finally had an opportunity to play tour guide with visitors from the U.S. — in this case, Kimberly’s niece Jenny, her boyfriend David, and their friend Jose. Having spent a few days in Thailand, they were coming to Phnom Penh, and we had about 4 days to show them Cambodia, or as much of it as we could.

At around 7:00 p.m. Sunday night, we met them at the hotel they’d booked, and once they’d settled in we caught a ride to our favorite restaurant (in the whole world!), Magnolia Veggie, which they seemed to love as much as we do. In fact, they expressed a desire to return in the near future.

The next morning, they arrived at our apartment building bright and early, toting along (at our invitation) their dirty clothes to be cleaned at the laundry service on the ground floor. Then we made breakfast for them, and it was the first time in our entire year of living in this apartment that we’ve entertained guests. We’ve just been too busy working.

After that, we walked with them down to the school where we’ve been teaching (about 15 minutes away) and gave them a tour. Then we all headed out to Silk Island, which we wrote about in a separate post.

Wat Phnom

When we returned from Silk Island, we had the driver drop us at a restaurant near Wat Phnom, since we wanted to show them this historic landmark, and we were all working up quite an appetite. The restaurant was an “Asian fusion” place that was rather pricey by Cambodian standards — about double what we’d been accustomed to paying (or more). But hey, they made up for it by making the portions only about half as big; a bowl of soup almost looked like an accidental spill. It was all tasty, but didn’t fill us up, and we knew we’d be foraging before the afternoon was over.

Then we moseyed on over to Wat Phnom (“hill temple”) which is neither large nor spectacular as wats go, but it’s a must-see because of its historical significance as ground zero in the development of Phnom Penh. It’s on top of a hill, the highest hill in the city — and even then it’s not much more than a molehill — that has been occupied by a temple since the 14th Century. That’s when a wealthy woman named Penh reportedly found four Buddha statues inside a tree floating in the river, and decided to establish a shrine for them. Thus the city of Phnom Penh (Penh’s hill) was founded. So they say.

One of the cool things about having visitors in town is that not only do you get to show them the landmarks you’re familiar with, but you also have an excuse to explore attractions you have not seen yet. When you live in a particular city, it’s very easy to get so caught up in living there that you neglect to play tourist. (We both lived in San Francisco for years — Dennis was a San Franciscan for 15 years — and never went to Alcatraz until later after we’d moved away and returned for a visit.) On this day, we hit two such sites, beginning with Central Market, which is a short walk away from Wat Phnom.

Central Market

Central Market is the name we barang (westerners) call this bazaar, but the locals call it Psaa Tmei, meaning “new market”. But “new” is a relative term, as it was constructed in 1937. So it’s certainly newer than Angkor Wat, but its design is in the quaint Art Deco style so characteristic of a bygone era. Seen from an aerial view, the market looks like a spaceport for UFO’s coming in to land. Yet up closer and on the inside, it appears very old-fashioned. Weird.

With its lofty dome and arteries, Central Market offers a spacious space for browsing among the stalls of clothing, jewelry, souvenirs and bric-a-brac. There is also food, though it took us a bit of detective work to locate that section. From one of the vendors we purchased some snacks, including some of those delicious nom lpo’v, which are basically pumpkin tamales; so these somewhat appeased our bellies that were feeling neglected because of the meager rations at lunch.

S-21 Tuol Sleng Museum

Up next was another attraction which we had thus far not managed to visit, Tuol Sleng — otherwise known as the Genocide Museum. It’s one of those places, like Auschwitz, which you feel that you have a duty to see at some point in your life, but you tend to put it off because you know it will be grim. We’d already visited Auschwitz and, more locally, Choeung Ek, better known as the local “killing field”. Both of them turned out to be surprisingly uplifting — the latter was even downright tranquil. But we didn’t expect Tuol Sleng to be any such thing. Originally constructed as a high school, which was closed like other schools during the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror and genocide, the building was converted into a prison, the notorious S-21, to house, interrogate, and torture “dissidents” — which included anyone and everyone.

Tuol Sleng, it turned out, though not as inspiring as Choeung Ek, perhaps wasn’t quite as grim as we’d feared either. It did have dozens of former prison cells on display, some of them with floors still bearing bloodstains, and with cots where former prisoners had slept, had been tortured, and in some cases had been killed. Beside each cot was a metal ammo box which, we later realized, was the prisoner’s toilet. On many of the walls was a photo of the prisoner’s body on the cot, often completely covered with blood. (These photos, fortunately in black and white, were taken by a Vietnamese photographer of the last few prisoners executed, when the facility was being closed.)

Out in the courtyard, where schoolchildren once played, was another somber memento of the horrors that transpired here: a gallows used for the brutal form of torture known as strappado, which involved hanging someone by their wrists with their arms behind them — which resulted in dislocated shoulders. Next to it was a listing of the “rules” for inmates — including one stipulating that they must not cry out when receiving lashes or shocks, or they would be penalized with more.

But there are also more positive exhibits on the premises, including photos of the trials at which the perpetrators were convicted of crimes against humanity or some such.

The displays here make you squirm, of course, which is kind of the point. People often feel incredulous that such large-scale barbarity could occur. Sure, some individuals can be evil; but how could evil be so organized and widespread? Well, that’s actually the norm; institutionalized cruelty is the inevitable result of ideological fanaticism, of any stripe, running its course unchecked. Which is why repositories of dark history like Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek and Auschwitz are so important. A wise person once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” To which another wise person added: “And those who do remember are doomed to stand by helplessly while others repeat it.” These museums exist to teach us… well, the lesson we keep refusing to learn.

On the way out, we passed an elderly gentleman, a former internee of the prison, seated at a table with copies of a book he had written about his experiences. Tired and hungry, we didn’t want to linger much longer, and merely greeted him in passing. Later, we were kicking ourselves for not taking the time to talk to him further. And that regret was amplified about a week later when we read that he had just passed away at the age of 85. One of only two surviving prisoners of S-21 at the time, he was an artist whose life had been spared so he could be put to work churning out propaganda for the regime. Our failure to take a little time to chat with him drives home the importance of making an effort to gather ye rosebuds while ye may, to make hay while the sun shines, to carpe all the diems. As much gallivanting as we’ve done, we should never forget that.

That night, we again had a sumptuous vegetarian dinner at Magnolia Veggie, and then our three visitors made their way, at our urging, to our favorite Khmer massage emporium to get their kinks worked out. Our original plan was to join them, but we were uncertain whether the establishment could handle all five of us at once, and we can go there anytime. Plus, we wanted to get home and pack a bag and turn in early for the excursion we were all taking to Siem Reap the next day.

Events occurred: Aug 9 – 10, 2026