Phnom Penh - Fun with a capital - Jan 28 - 30
On the bus to Phnom Penh, a woman says hello in that way that you do when you've met someone before. I don't recognise her, but that comes as no surprise to those of you I've known for years and don't recognise sometimes :-). At the lunch stop, she does it again, then says somthing about seeing something about one of the temples on Getaway in Australia. I ask how she knew I would know that program. She says that when I was explaing to her and her two friends the other day what some of the scultptures outside one of the temples meant I had said I was from Australia and that she told me that they were from Sweden but she lived in Sydney for 9 months and it became clear I had not recognised them but now remembered. Oops!!. Anyway, when we get to Phnom Penh, T, Kim, Afa and I catch a tuktuk together and explore the guesthouses around the lake and choose the same one. The rooms are large and clean and there is a huge deck built out over the lake with movies, a pool table, cheap food and the sun setting into the other side right in front of us. The girls are tired and stay, I walk a few km around the city, get online with Jett and Beck though get shitty about the crappy connection which is not what I want. I guess I so wanted to talk to Beck and when the line was crappy I got crappy too. Want to let go of the expectations of the communications system here, it is a developing country and it's a miracle they even have the systems available. I walk to the river and past all the more expensive guesthouses and restaurants until I too am tired and catch a mototaxi back.
The next day T and I visit the museum which has lots of examples of the kinds of statues and artifacts that were found at the temples when they were rediscovered. It changes the image of what they would have looked like, full of remnants of their former lives rather than the empty shells visible now. The garden around which the museum is built is possibly the most spectacular thing there - a riot of pink and green with scultpures, friezes and Buddha statues. T is wearing pink and green and blends in well. We catch a mototaxi to one of the markets looking for silk. The driver first takes us to the wrong market and when we get to the right one it's closed for Chinese New Year, which it would have been nice for him to tell us except he couldn't understand which market we wanted to go to let alone communicate that it was closed. Part of the travel experience. We catch a mototaxi to the main market which is also closed. T has had enough and goes back to the guesthouse. I go to Wat Ounalom which is the centre of Buddhism in Cambodia which is, of course, closed. I sit and talk to a monk there for about 20 minutes about what it's like for him and as I'm getting ready to leave ask if it will be open the next day, which it will, and ask if he will be there, which he won't because he is going back to his village for a few days to visit his family for Chinese New Year. He asks if I would like to go with him. This is great. Only the previous day I said to T that I was missing not connecting as much with the locals as I did when Beck is around and that I want to visit a local village, so I say yes. Then comes the clincher. Will I pay for a taxi to get us there? How much I ask. $50US he says. That's a lot, buses are only a few dollars. Yes, but they are crowded and slow he says. I am happy to go by bus. Anyway, he wouldn't pay $50 if he was catching a taxi. That's the foreigners price. How much would it be for him without me I ask. Taxi takes 7 people, $1 each so $7 for the taxi. I say I might be willing to pay $7 but not $50. He says he will arrange it. Then he asks me to buy him some shoes. I start to wonder if there is a monk costume hire place around the temple because this guy sounds less and less like a monk all the time. When we were talking before, he was bragging about how quickly he had progressed from being a novice to becoming a monk. I get the feeling that it's time to move on, say thanks for the offer and leave.
I catch a ktottaxi to the bus station to get tickets for Kampot the next day. There isnt that much in Kampot itself except that its where you catch the train to Sihanoukville that you can sit on the roof of which sounds great to me. All the bus companies say there are no tickets to Kampot for the next 6 days because of Chinese New Year and all the locals have booked them out. A mototaxi driver says he knows where he can get tickets. I say ok, but if there arent any tickets than you dont get your fare, and he agrees. He takes me to a bus staion a bit out of the centre of the city wher, yes, there is a bus going the next day, and yes there are seats. All good. I go back to the main market and into a Westfield type shopping centre next door. On the top floor there is a restaurant with 360 degree views of Phnom Penh and great noodles which I have for dinner. I walk to the Foreign Correspondents Club on the river where foreign journalists hung out during the Pol Pot years, which has been turned into a very funky bar. I decide I want some company, so get a mototaxi back to the guesthouse and persuade T, Kim, Afa and 3 other girls to spontaneously join me to go back to the FCC before happy hour is over. We make a mad dash back on 4 mototaxis through the rush hour traffic in time to have a couple of cocktails before I have to go to chat with Beck while the girls go out for dinner. I am particularly missing her and she is feeling the same - so much so that we are considering changing our plans to meet up earlier than March 5.
The girls have finished eating and I get back to the guesthouse first. They are all tired and go to bed except for Afa who I stay up chatting with til about 12. At 7 the next morning T knocks on the door and says she wants to go shopping for silk which I said I wanted to as well. There was a silk fair on while we were in Siem Reap and we didnt buy any. Also, 2 of the girls came across an orphanage where you can donate rice for them all for the day, which we decide to do instead. We are taken to a rice wholesaler and negotiate 3 x 50kg bags for $12US each, and shuttle them to the orphanage which is built in the middle of slums on the edge of the city. I play hackydart with the kids (like hackysack but with plastic disks on a spring and a feather out the top. It is addictive, you'll all be playing it when we get back because I'm going to import tens of thousands of them, they are going to be a craze). They show us their classroom (and ask for a donation), invite us to be godbrother and sister to an orphan each (for a monthly donation) and ask us to try to get them to a western country. It is wonderful to see what can be done at a grass roots level,once again, for about the cost of one day's travel through Cambodia, a foreigner can feed an entire orphanage for a day.
We have lunch (5 mushroom, silken tofu and veg hotpot) at the rooftop resataurant I had dinner at yesterday, go to get our bags and head to the bus station. T got an email from her ex saying he was going to be in Kampot at the same time, and she is pretty nervous and excited about seeing him again. I say I will stay at a different guesthouse, just to give them some uninterrupted time together, which she appreciates. The bus arrives at a river cossing and we are all ushered out, lead to a boat to cross the river and then see why. I truch has hit a pylon in the middle of the bridge, collapsing it into the river. We get on another bus which takes us into town. Kampot looks like a practice bombing site. Every road is torn up, many shops, petrol station and houses look abandoned and, as it's early evening, the guesthouses look a bit spooky. I say goodbye to Tatianna, saying that it's been great travelling with her but I feel that cycle is over and things will now change. She doesnt get it. We agree to meet with Joppe, her ex, at that spot in 2 days to travel to Sihanoukville.
posted by flamethrower77 at 1:30 AM
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