Phnom Penh, part 2

It is clear that the city of Phnom Penh is still recovering from the loss of so many lives under the Khmer Rouge Regime and from the lasting blow to its economy. As a result, the streets don't seem as crowded as they do in other big cities, and the population is noticeably poorer. Tuk-tuk drivers and motorbike "taxis" aggressively pursued me, and once delivering me to my destination, they would often insist on waiting for me in the hope of a return trip - which I soon realized may be one of their only chances for business for the day with tourism having taken a recent downturn. (This picture was an accident, but hey, it shows my view for a better part of the day)...I felt slightly out of place here as a female tourist traveling on my own; at one point I walked down a road toward a temple I could see in the distance and quickly noticed I was the only female in sight. Worse, there were monks everywhere, and they, along with the other men, were accutely interested in my activities (which only happened to include walking down the street). I saw monk robes hanging in doorways, drying from recent laundering, and hordes of monks congregating all down the street. I finally saw one old lady, a vendor trying to sell her product to a few men who were busy avoiding being struck by a group of teenage boys playing with a hackey sack. However, I decided the temple wasn't worth it the weirdness I was feeling; I've seen plenty of temples on this trip! So I turned back.

As I was exiting the street, a young monk caught up with me and started talking. Is that allowed? In Bangkok we were told repeatedly don't touch the monks, they can't touch women. I guess I assumed that meant they wouldn't be talking to us either. :) But he wanted to try out his English and be seen talking to me in front of his friends, who were waiting down the street in a tuk-tuk, grinning at him. I had to laugh.
I was also intrigued that they use US dollars as their currency; all prices are listed in USD and my familiar green bills came shooting out of the ATM. In fact, when I arrived, I had to change my Euros into dollars. I don't even know what their actual currency is called; I only saw it when my change was less than a dollar. Rather than use coins, they give you thousands of their Riel (I just looked it up); one dollar is around 4200 Riel.

My hotel was great - minus the 15 mosquitoes I killed in my room upon arrival and also the power outage in the morning - and I had the best night's sleep there on the whole trip. It's only too bad I didn't have more time to enjoy it:

Walked down near the river and around the city a bit...I didn't take too many photos here, but this was priceless...

Why not have an aerobics class in the park? I also saw one in a large u-turn lane on a busy boulevard. What fumes?