Cambodia - Back to Phnom Penh and then good bye.
31st July - The riverside and the Olympic Stadium.
The bus we caught this morning was actually much cheaper than the one we had caught to get here. Do you want to know why? Because it didn't have the annoying guide on it, who I couldn't understand anyway and because it was a double decker. However it was so nice, it was only half full so we got two seats each and was nice and peaceful at the top, so I had chance to finish yet another book. When we stopped of at the same rest stop that we had stopped at on the way to Siem Reap, this time, the snacks and drinks had dramatically increased in price, with out Sarem to stop people taking the piss, we now had to pay the special 'westerner prices' Never the less I still bought some fresh (but hard) Mango.
When the bus came into Phnom Penh it was nice to see familiar sights and know where we were. When we arrived and were bombarded by the masses of tuk tuk drivers, trying to grab our bags and put them on their tuk tuks, I was delighted to shout,: 'No our friend is taking us, out of my way...Please' and muscle and barge my way through the crowds to Sarem's familiar smile and reliable tuk tuk.
This time we opted to stay on the riverside, despite being strongly advised not to by others we had met with their stories or rats in their rooms etc, this time we could take our time and find somewhere cheaper. After looking round some really grim places that certainly had rats, we settled on a nice place right on the river, with its own veranda to look out across the 'morning glory', we had our own tap and a fan so couldn't really complain for about two pounds a night.
We dumped out stuff and went of in search for the newly released 'Harry Potter' book. We saw a girl reading it the day before so we figured that we must be able to get it from somewhere in the city. We hunted and hunted to no avail, even the markets and the street sellers with all their dodgy photo copies hadn't got hold of it yet, so instead Sarem took us off to see it Olympic Stadium (funnily enough the Olympics had never been held there). It was a very entertaining place, as we approached it, we passed stalls with people selling all different unusual things. We bought some strange fish bread, some dried bananas on a stick and a 'bag' of sugar-cane juice (yest they sell it in a carrier bag). We then sat on the steps for hours being entertained by the hundreds of people (mainly older women) doing their fitness classes. All around the top of the stadium there we classes going on, all blaring out their own music and practicing anything form Tie chi to Taequando. It was very entertaining, but this time (unlike in the Philippines) we opted not to join in.
Sarem then took us out to a lovely restaurant in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by lush plants, excellent service and delicious food. I had a yummy piece of fish in coconut milk served with spicy rice and vegetables. I will say again, Sarem is so useful, we would have never found a place like this on our own. We all went back to the lake side for a night cap, and Kat and I watched "Tomb Raider", and we could actually recognise the tombs she was in, shouting out "Ive been there" Like excited kids.
1st August - Lazy Hammocks
As the sun rose, our room became very hot so it was a good excuse to have an early start to our day. I begun my day with sitting by the waterfront hoping for any breeze that would come my way and writing up my postcards (I hope that everyone got them OK). We then went to the post office with Sarem to send home some of our belongings that we no longer wanted to carry home. It was pretty expensive for such a small box, It was cheaper to send bigger boxes (maybe I should have treated myself to more things at the market)
Sarem then drove us out of the center of Phnom Pen and further into the 'locals parts', now we are used to being stared at a lot, but these people couldn't take their eyes off us, with heir mouths open, rather embarrassing really. I was relieved when he took us through the bar and to some little sectioned off huts at the back. They were really cute, simply made of bamboo and banana leaves and each one had four hammocks hanging at each side of the square hut. They were so comfortable and we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, eating corn on the cobs, drinking and looking out across the rice paddies and fields, with the faint sound of Karaoke coming from the next bar. What a lovely and relaxing day. I could happily have a hut like this in my garden, sitting for hours with my book on a rare summer day in England....Lovely.
We headed back to Happy Herb Pizza that evening (don't worry, it may seem like it but we are not addicted). This time trying a seafood one, and our favourite chicken and spinach, both 'happy' of course. Now Sarem has good English and we had been taking about our 'pizza' all day, so towards the end of the meal when he came out with 'I feel funny', we felt kind of bad, letting him know that he was stoned, and he was embarrassed to admit that he hadn't known what we had been talking about earlier and that he had never done it before. Oops. He took a while to feel well enough to drive us back to our guest house. While waiting for him to feel better I came across a coincidence, a couple who I had met in Korea were on the table next to us. I thought that they looked familiar, so when they approached me saying "You were on the Soraksan trip with your Parents" i suddenly remembered them. They were chatting with my dad all the way down the mountain (I doubt he would remember them though). It is funny how that happens, how you bump into different people through different walks of life. I wonder is it some kind of fate, or just a big coincidence?
After a busy month, it felt good to get into bed, laying back and thinking about being in Vietnam in the morning, while watching the gecko lizards scuttling up the walls and perch upside down on the ceiling, with out blinking, looking for any light they could find and gobbling up flys. Thinking how different this place is from home makes me appreciate how lucky I am to have had the opportunity to do all of this. I will always reflect on my amazing time at the Temples of Angkor and the harrowing experiences at the genocide museum and the killing fields. I think the hugest influence was the book that I read, about one guys gripping memoirs of life under the Khmer Rouge, with his experiences in the rice fields and the labour camps and the horrors of three stints in jail, and the country's decent to hell in a way I find it difficult to even fully imagine. I think I will remember Cambodia as a beautiful place with friendly people, but will always try to find empathy to this county of war, with slaves, brutality beyond anyone's wildest nightmares with people that have experienced senseless and unimaginable horrors. The book certainly affected me more than I thought it would. Perhaps I would have seen Cambodia in a totally different light if I had remained ignorant to its terrible history and I hadn't felt like I knew the character from my book so personally.
I would certainly love to come back to Cambodia at some point, if only to go back to the Russian market an to marvel once more at the temples.
- Posted by emily1183 on 30/08/2007.
- emily1183's site
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