Hot Day in Phnom Penh

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Today, the heat has reached the maximum of the trip.....by 8am, it was burning into my room.....

I had a kind of expat meltdown, first with the internet not working at the office nor the hotel, all the internet cafes don't have air conditioning, the wireless on my laptop had been disabled after trekking across town to find a cafe that had it, then the heat and the lack of air conditioning, but I tried to hold my spoiled side at bay.

We went to the Russian Market today with Susan and her kids, which was amazing. Any movie you can imagine is on sale for less than a $1 for each one. Even documentaries series like The Planet Earth and every movie which is still in theaters. Unfortunately, the afternoon rains came while inside, which of course poured into the market, mixing with the dead chickens and all sorts of food and trash, and then became a river washing over all foreigners' sandals. Oh well.

Also, today, I started to notice how many social enterprises are active here. On every block, there is an IT company run by trained and disadvantaged youth, a cafe run by disabled people, blind massage salon, and this is really encouraging for me to see. I wonder if it would work in the Middle East, but probably not as consumers would almost avoid it!! Last night, we went to eat at a restaurant which has cooks and servers which were all former street children. They served fried tarantulas, which Susan's cousin ate.

More work tomorrow.......and am looking forward to the air conditioned city of Singapore on Thursday afternoon.

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