Day 3 Cambodia

Early Morning, Phnom Penh Railway Station

3rd January began early. Kampot was planned for the day, and the first train out of Phnom Penh left at 7 AM. That meant leaving the hotel by 6. Frangipani Hotel packed breakfast boxes for us, a small kindness that mattered more at that hour than it might have later.

When you arrive in a new country, unfamiliar in both geography and habit, it feels important to experience its different modes of transport. Each one offers a closer look at how people move, how systems function, and how the day begins. We took a tuk tuk from the hotel and reached the station around 6.30 AM.

Phnom Penh railway station is modest in size. It is neat, quiet, and carries a gentle calm. It reminded me of small stations I have seen in Chicago, places that do not overwhelm but settle into you quickly. There were perhaps a hundred people in total. Nothing felt hurried. Nothing felt strained.

We had booked first class tickets. The journey was scheduled to take about five hours, longer than the road journey we would take while returning. The trains are Japanese, and their precision shows in small, thoughtful details. The seating is comfortable, legroom is generous, and there is a clear place to keep belongings. Footrests are placed sensibly. The movement is smooth and quiet, without unnecessary sound.There were two brief stops along the way. At these smaller stations, local vendors appeared with fruit and simple food. We finished some of our breakfast boxes and carried the rest with us. There was no need to rush anything.

We reached Kampot station late in the morning. From there, a short tuk tuk ride brought us into the central part of town.

By Train to Kampot

The central square of Kampot sits close to the Praek Tuek Chhu river. It feels active without being loud, lively without being chaotic. Coffee houses line the riverfront, facing the water, open to the slow movement of the day.

We began in what is commonly referred to as the French colony area. Our first stop was Tube Café, one of the most visible coffee brands in Cambodia. Founded by young Cambodians, Tube has spread across Phnom Penh, and we had seen it repeatedly during our stay. Encountering it again in Kampot felt familiar rather than repetitive, like seeing a known face in a new place.

Phnom Chhngok Cave

After coffee, we set out for our first major stop of the day, Phnom Chhngok Cave. The caves lie about twelve kilometres from Kampot. We travelled by tuk tuk, though the journey itself turned out to be far more eventful than expected.

The tuk tuk struggled almost immediately. It would move for about a kilometre and then stop. The driver waited for the engine to cool, made small roadside adjustments, and tried again. Nothing seemed to fully resolve the issue. The repeated interruptions stretched the journey, but they did not dampen the group’s mood. Six of us, slightly amused by the situation, filled the waiting time with jokes and light conversation, standing under the sun between short bursts of movement.

Aparna was not feeling well that morning. By the time we reached the foothills, she chose to wait at a small Buddha temple nearby while the rest of us continued toward the caves.

The climb to Phnom Chhngok Cave begins gently and then sharpens. There are a little over a hundred steps going up and a similar descent on the other side. The effort is brief but noticeable, especially in the heat.

From the entrance, the countryside opens out quietly. Rice fields stretch into the distance, broken by limestone hills that rise without drama. The view does not demand attention. It simply remains.

Phnom Chhngok Cave houses a small seventh century Shiva temple within a limestone cavern. The structure is modest and well preserved. Its presence inside the cave feels natural, almost inevitable, as though it belongs there rather than having been placed. Light enters sparingly, shaping the space without fully revealing it. The atmosphere is calm, neither heavy nor performative.

The cave itself is marked by narrow passages and crevices. Nearby caverns are known to house bats. We leaned into one such opening and could hear them clearly, their presence conveyed through sound rather than sight. It felt unnecessary to see more.

After spending some time inside, we descended the steps and regrouped at the base. Aparna was waiting near the Buddha temple, rested and ready to return. From there, we made our way back toward town.

Kampot Town and the River

Back in Kampot, we went in search of lunch. The town has several Indian restaurants, and we chose Indigo. The food was satisfying and familiar, a welcome pause after the heat and effort of the morning.

After lunch, we spent some time along the promenade by the Praek Tuek Chhu river. The river behaves differently as the day progresses. In the afternoon, it feels subdued, almost withdrawn. The opposite banks sit quietly, and the water reflects rather than speaks. Sitting there brought back fragments of memory, not sharply, but in passing. Nothing insistent. Just a slowing of time.

As evening approached, the river began to change. Activity increased, boats moved more frequently, and people gathered along the edges. The shift was gradual but unmistakable.

Later, we walked to another coffee stop, Brown Café. Like Tube, Brown is a well established Cambodian coffee chain with branches across the country. It felt confident in its space, unhurried in its rhythm, clearly part of Cambodia’s evolving café culture.

By this time, my body had started sending clearer signals. The mild throat irritation from earlier had grown into body ache and discomfort. I took a Combiflam and continued walking, not wanting to slow the group down.

Aparna, on the other hand, was feeling better. She and a friend went for a short walk through nearby shops. Among the items they picked up, the different varieties of pepper stood out. Kampot is known for its pepper plantations as much as for its French architecture. We were aware of La Plantation, one of the better known estates, but the day did not allow for a visit. We were returning to Phnom Penh the same evening.

Evening Return to Phnom Penh

The return journey was by bus. The drive back to Phnom Penh took about four hours. By then, the discomfort had settled firmly into my body. Fever, headache, and a deepening cold had begun to take hold.

The road passed without incident. Conversation faded. I leaned back, conserving energy, letting the motion do its work. Outside, the light receded gradually. Inside, the body focused on its own quiet negotiation.

By the time we reached Phnom Penh, the day felt complete in a simple way. Kampot had offered what it had, without insisting on anything more. We returned carrying the weight of travel, the residue of places seen, and the early signs of an illness that would soon demand attention.

Day 2 in Cambodia

Getting Up in Phnom Penh

The day began without urgency. The writing had been taken care of the previous night. Notes, the blog, and the social posts were completed before sleep. That sense of completion carried into the morning, leaving the mind settled and free to receive the day.

Once awake, I got ready and completed my morning riyaz.

Breakfast was at the rooftop restaurant and sky bar. The open space and morning light made it an easy place to begin the day. There were enough vegetarian options to eat without effort, flat noodles, a ramen style soup with boiled vegetables, and the usual breakfast items.

The setting itself contributed quietly to the mood. Being above the city, with open air and a wide view, allowed the day to start in high spirits.

Wat Phnom and the Spiritual Origins of Phnom Penh

From breakfast, we went to Wat Phnom. This was our first temple visit of the day and an important one, as this small hill is closely tied to the origin of Phnom Penh itself.

Wat means temple. Phnom means hill. Penh refers to Lady Penh, the woman at the centre of the legend. According to tradition, Lady Penh found sacred Buddha images floating in the river after a flood and built a simple shrine on this hill to house them. Over time, that individual act of devotion became the spiritual seed around which the city grew.

People were present throughout the temple, praying, offering flowers and incense, and sitting quietly. The space reflected the deeply rooted spiritual practice of the Cambodian Buddhist people.

We walked slowly around the shrine in circumambulation and then sat quietly for a few minutes. The Buddha altar was richly detailed, with layered carvings, gilded surfaces, and small narrative elements worked into the structure. Figures, floral motifs, and symbolic forms were arranged with precision, inviting attention rather than demanding it. The craftsmanship reflected patience and devotion, meant to be approached closely and taken in gradually.

People offered lotus flowers, incense sticks, money, and fruit before the altar. Some paused briefly, others stayed longer, absorbed in prayer. Each person related to the space in their own way, quietly and without display.

Sitting there for a while, it became clear that places like Wat Phnom are not understood through architecture alone. What gives them meaning is the continuity of practice, the way belief is woven into ordinary routines.

Choeung Ek Genocidal Center

Before arriving at Choeung Ek, it is necessary to understand what Cambodia went through under the Khmer Rouge. Between 1975 and 1979, the country was ruled by the regime led by Pol Pot, which sought to radically remake society through forced agrarian collectivisation. Cities were emptied, religion was suppressed, education was dismantled, and suspicion became a governing principle.

During these four years, an estimated 1.7 to 2 million people, nearly a quarter of Cambodia’s population at the time, died due to execution, starvation, forced labour, and untreated illness. Choeung Ek is one among more than three hundred identified genocidal sites across the country, often referred to as killing fields, where detention, torture, and mass execution took place.

Choeung Ek lies outside central Phnom Penh, surrounded by open land and quiet roads. The distance from the city was deliberate. Prisoners were brought here at night from detention centres such as S 21, also known as Tuol Sleng, after interrogation and torture. For many, this was the final destination.

Walking through the site with the audio guide was deeply disturbing. Each stop revealed another layer of what had taken place here. People were executed without bullets to save ammunition. Loud music was played to drown out screams. Mass graves were dug and filled repeatedly.

What was most difficult to absorb was the systematic nature of the violence. Even infants were not spared. Thousands of babies were killed deliberately, often by being smashed against tree trunks, a method chosen to ensure that no future revenge could ever be imagined. This detail does not exist to shock, but to reveal how completely empathy had been erased.

At the centre of the site stands the memorial stupa, housing the skulls of the dead. Arranged by age and gender, they confront the visitor quietly, without explanation or display. The absence of dramatization makes the encounter harder to look away from.

The calm of the surroundings only deepens the unease. Grass, trees, and birds remain indifferent to history. The site does not attempt to recreate horror. It allows the ordinary appearance of the landscape to carry the weight of what happened beneath it.

Walking through Choeung Ek, it became difficult not to think about how systems of absolute power function. Paranoia replaces trust. Ideology replaces empathy. Violence turns inward and consumes ordinary lives. This was not a failure of humanity in the abstract, but a reminder of how fragile it can become under unchecked authority.

After Choeung Ek

After leaving Choeung Ek, we went for lunch at Haveli. A sense of heaviness and gloom stayed with us. We ate quietly, carrying the weight of what we had seen and heard, and found ourselves reflecting on how ideologies that appear just and fair in principle, such as communism, can in practice create monsters who carry out the extremes of the very opposite.

Phnom Penh Seen from the Mekong River

Later in the evening, we boarded a Mekong river cruise. The journey lasted close to two and a half hours, taking us through long stretches of the river and offering wide views of Phnom Penh from the water.

As night set in, the city changed character. The skyline lit up, traffic increased, and Phnom Penh revealed itself as busy and active, its movement and energy clearly visible from the river.

Food and drinks were served on board. As had become familiar by now, french fries were the only available vegetarian option. We took a piña colada, which added to the high of the evening.

Watching the city from the river offered a different perspective. The movement felt continuous rather than hurried, with buildings, lights, and boats forming a steady rhythm along the water.

The cruise ended, and we returned to land. We ended the day with dinner at the Indian restaurant Indigo, followed by a fine cappuccino and Butterfly honey pea ice tea at Alchemist.

The day was vividly mix. Too heavy to handle I would say and yet profoundly reflective. Aparna is recovering from cold and cough and now throat pain has started. My backache troubled me the whole day. Nothing in relation to what some people in the world have to go through.

Cambodia ! Here we come

Leaving Without an Agenda

When travel is freed from obligation, curiosity returns.

It took me almost fifteen years of globe trotting to finally step out on an international journey purely for pleasure.

No meetings waiting at the other end.

No work agenda.

No professional pressing duty to perform.

Strangely, that very absence of work created a deeper excitement. It opened new vistas of opportunity to explore without any constraints. For learning. For reflection. For value creation of a different kind, personal, relational, and quietly transformative.

This journey was not just mine. It belonged equally to Aparna, to a small group of close friends, and to the shared seriousness with which we approach life itself. Six of us set out as if we were six musketeers to a land that had always intrigued me.

“Cambodia.”

A country layered with culture, scarred by history, and shaped profoundly by what it endured under an extremist communist regime.

Preparation itself felt like part of the joy. Planning sharpened the excitement.

We left Kharghar at 4.45 PM and reached Mumbai Terminal 2 by 6 PM. The early arrival gave us space to breathe. While waiting for the others, Aparna and I shared a cup of tea. We clicked a few photographs, both of us upbeat.

Just behind us stood a small but striking pandanus, or screw pine, its stems intertwined in a way that felt symbolic. The way close friendships and destinies often grow, separate origins, shared growth, inseparable with time.

Between Departure and Arrival

Movement, waiting, and the quiet work travel does on the mind.

Airport gates have always felt symbolic to me. People depart. People meet. The journey exists somewhere between departure and meeting, where departures and good byes matter as much as arrival.

It was the 31st of December, and very few people were traveling. The airport felt almost half populated, calm and unhurried. Check in, security, and immigration were largely painless, helped by increasing automation and quiet efficiency. Instead of retreating into a lounge, the six of us sat together and shared simple food brought from home. There was something grounding about beginning an international journey with familiar tastes and unforced conversation.

Aparna was observing Ekadashi, following it with discipline even while traveling. Since our flight was scheduled late at night, dinner service would come after midnight, making it permissible for her to eat. It was a simple reminder of how personal rhythms in a disciplined life continue seamlessly across geographies.

At 11.52 PM, the aircraft taxied and lifted off, and with that, the journey truly began.

As the aircraft moved steadily through the night sky, I found myself watching the map more than the movie screen. Names of places appeared and disappeared below us, each one triggering curiosity. Who lives there. What do their days look like. What are they doing at this very moment.

Flying over the Nicobar Islands stirred something deeper in me, especially the passing presence of North Sentinel Island. I felt a profound curiosity about the people who live there, untouched, protected, and entirely outside the modern world I inhabit. A little later, the aircraft traced the Strait of Malacca, one of the world’s great maritime corridors, before curving toward Kuala Lumpur, since we were traveling by Malaysian Airways.

Putting all our worries to rest, we took the connecting flight to Phnom Penh within a short span of one hour.

Rivers that breath life into the Capital

First impressions of Cambodia from the air.

From above, the lifelines of Cambodia, the Mekong and the Tonle Sap, were unmistakable. Water dominated the land, wide, slow, and decisive, nourishing fields and shaping the terrain. Fields, settlements, and movement seemed arranged around it. Watching this from the air, I felt a growing curiosity about a country shaped not by speed of activity or height of mountains or development, but by the rivers and the terrains and lives they sustain.

We landed at Phnom Penh’s new Techo International Airport, and the transition into Cambodia felt unexpectedly gentle. The terminal was open and uncluttered, with a roof design inspired by Angkor that allowed light and air to flow freely. There were no loud commercial distractions, no sense of rush.

On my request, the cab driver agreed to play some Cambodian music as he drove us toward the city. The tunes felt melancholic and reflective, and in that moving car, Cambodia began to speak to me through sound and music even before it revealed itself through sights.

Traffic flowed smoothly as we entered the city, reflecting a sense of civic discipline.

Hotel Frangipani revealed itself gradually. From the outside, it carried an artistic, slightly old world character rather than a modern, polished look. The reception process felt laid back, but the location immediately compensated for it. We were in the heart of the capital, surrounded by important buildings, monuments, and the everyday pulse of Phnom Penh.

Before settling in, we walked toward Sisowath Quay, the riverside walk, and stopped for a meal at Pizza 4P’s. Familiar food helped us settle a bit after a long journey. We ordered a margherita, a burrata vegetable pizza, and a chicken pizza. The food was well made, the service attentive.

We returned to the hotel and checked in. The room was on the seventh floor, overlooking this central part of the city. After the long movement of the day, it felt right to stop, unpack quietly, and allow the body and mind to catch up with where we were.

History sets the context for everything present.

Entering the country through its memory and belief systems.

After a short rest, we headed to the National Museum of Cambodia. It felt early to step into history so soon, but in hindsight that was the right instinct. Before the city could turn into a series of sights and movements, the museum offered a quiet entry point into what Cambodia really carries within it.

Inside, I did not follow any planned sequence. I walked slowly, stopping when something held my attention and moving on when it did not. Gods, bodhisattvas, kings, and symbols of devotion appeared together, as if they belonged to the same long conversation rather than separate chapters of history.

Very quickly, a pattern became clear. Much of what I was seeing came from the Angkor period, roughly between the ninth and thirteenth centuries, when the Khmer empire was at its height. What struck me was how naturally Hindu and Buddhist traditions coexisted. Vishnu, Shiva, Ganesha, and figures from the Mahabharata stood alongside Buddhas and bodhisattvas. In several places, the boundaries felt deliberately soft.

The inscriptions deepened this feeling. They spoke not only of kings and dynasties, but also of donors and individuals. One inscription mentioned a young boy who had installed a Shiva lingam. That single detail stayed with me. It collapsed the scale of history. This was not just empire level belief. It was personal, lived, and carried forward by ordinary people.

The evolution of Buddhism revealed itself quietly as well. Early forms without idols slowly gave way to Mahayana influences where imagery became central. Lokeshwara appeared repeatedly, embodying compassion rather than authority. The many heads of Buddha, calm and inward looking, seemed less concerned with time and more with stillness.

Royal palanquins hinted at ceremony and statehood, while monks in ochre robes moved through the space with ease. That was an important realization. This was not a closed past. What I was seeing had not ended. It continued to live, walk, and observe in present day Cambodia.

There were moments of irritation, especially when visitors ignored requests not to photograph certain artifacts. But even that felt like a reminder of how difficult it is to maintain reverence in a world trained to capture everything.

By the time I stepped out into the courtyard, I realized that the physical tiredness of walking had disappeared. In its place was a quiet attentiveness. The museum had done its work without announcing it.

Phnom Penh at Walking Pace

Evening movement, adjustment, and the city after dark.

Soon after, refreshed and changed, we headed out again. This time the mood was different. The day’s seriousness softened into something lighter and more observational. We took a long drive toward the Mekong, climbing up to a sky bar that offered a view from above. From the eighteenth floor, Phnom Penh stretched out quietly, low and wide, held together by the dark ribbon of the river.

There was some struggle explaining vegetarian requirements at the bar. Language was limited, and the menu leaned heavily toward meat, fish, and seafood. Eventually, we settled for simple drinks and finger chips. It was not ideal, but it was part of the learning curve.

On the walk back, Phnom Penh revealed a different face. The area around our hotel was alive with night energy. Lights, movement, music, conversations. Street food carts lined the roads, one of them preparing something that looked like a waffle dosa filled with assorted ingredients.

We returned to the hotel later that night, closed our accounts for the day, and stocked up on a few essentials in case hunger returned.