Eat a fried spider? Hell yeah, well maybe , or how about we just think about it

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Eat a fried spider? Hell yeah, well maybe , or how about we just think about it…

Hi all! We have settled into Phnom Penh and are enjoying life at the “Billabong Hotel”.
The trip was long and tiring but of course all worth it, especially as we managed to avoid the temptation to strangle each other! We had the real backpacker experience in Singapore sleeping in the airport for a few hours as we had an 8 hour lay over. The children coped well and were all asleep before their head hit the floor, chair or suitcase. All flights were on time (strange but true) and the only drama was when Mac gave one of the air hostesses a whack on the bottom! Luckily she saw the funny side of it.

The airport at Phnom Penh was a bit like arriving at a hot Launceston compared to other International airports and the drive in was dusty and through a very poor neighborhood, I admit the words “what have we done??’ rushed through my head.
The Billabong was a welcome relief, very clean with a big salt water pool that we have all spent a lot of time in. As you can imagine the children have hijacked anyone brave enough to get in there too.

The centre of the city is quite westernized and has everything we need. While there are lots of similarities to Vietnam the feel is quite different, the first thing we noticed is it is much quieter. There is not the constant beeping of the Vietnamese cars and bikes which is something that many visitors to Vietnam don’t like but unexpectedly I do, like a constant conversation in the air. The people too are much quieter and almost appear aloof in comparison to the Vietnamese however they are easy to engage with just a smile. The men do approach us to talk but there is not the constant attention that the kids have had in the past. We have used the tuk tuk drivers to get us around the city so far, most of the tourist action is down at the river side which is a $2 ride. The kids like the tuk tuk and generally sit quietly until they spot a monk in their saffron robes which is always pointed out with great excitement.

The poverty is very obvious here, there are between 10 000 and 20 000 street kids in the city and lots of beggars wherever you go. We give out the occasional money but I have since tried to give fruit or dried food but then kids come from everywhere which causes bickering among them.
We now have a childsafe network brochure which says that it is best to support the services that help the street people which we hope to do during the trip, even so it is heartbreaking to walk past the poor wee things.

We have taken in some of the sites, the Killing Fields and the Russian market yesterday.

The killing fields was an extermination camp during the reign of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in 1975-1978 and 17-20 000 men, women and children were executed there. The regime may have killed over a million people through murder and the famine that resulted from their devastation. It seems unbelievable that this occurred in our lifetime.
We were quite unsure as to how this excursion would go. Our plan was that one of us would walk through while the other stayed with the children and then swap. What actually happened was that we all walked through and strangely enough there is a real sense of peacefulness there now despite the obvious horror that took place there. Half an hour is long enough to walk through the fields and there are signs in English however I would say that hiring a guide would be the best thing to do if you were ‘sans children‘.
The Memorial Stupa houses the skulls of 8000 of the victims of the fields in a glassed in monument, you can buy flowers and incense sticks at the bottom of the memorial which we did and this was a lovely way for the kids to offer a thought to the souls that had died there. The children surprised us with their understanding of why we were there and their respect for the fields.
We are planning a trip to S 21 in the next few days which is the prison that housed anyone who was not a peasant farmer prior to them being killed. It is by all accounts very confronting and I have memories of the emotion of the War Remnants in Ho Chi Minh but it is important for Mitchy and I to visit and reflect.

The Russian market was worth a visit, lots of trinkets, clothes, shoes, jewellery and fresh meat! Finn bought a chess set but before he becomes a world famous player we might have to tell him that it is not called ‘chest’. We went through the Central Market (Psar (market) Themi)this morning which is in a huge art deco building a few blocks from our hotel. Myer merchandising has nothing on this place and you can pick up some fresh pork innards and a bra almost in the same transaction!

Food and drink are cheap and delicious! We have eaten at the cafes in town so far, depending on where you go there are great meals for around $4 US, we did go to the Foreign Correspondents Club which is now a restaurant and bar which is more expensive. We are yet to try the signature dish of Cambodia which is amok trey, fish in curry wrapped in banana leaves. However, in breaking news, Mitchy has eaten a spider! He told Finn that he would do it if Finn bought it and handed it to him which he did but luckily for Finn he was given it in a plastic bag, but in further developments Olivia and Finn also had a try of some hairy spider leg!!! If you are wondering, it apparently doesn’t taste like chicken, but has a close resemblance to eating cardboard!

The kids are again enjoying their love affair with sprite while I have discovered the margaurita. For those of you who know Mitchy well you won’t believe that he ordered drinks 2 minutes before happy hour started, something that will not happen again I am sure; it definitely won’t happen up the road at the King’s Court (Special Happy Pizza) where the Happy Hour goes from 9am to to 6pm but the prices are the same all day. We had the most delicious crab in green peppercorns here yesterday and I think we will be back again tonight.

The children started their ‘school’ yesterday and were all really enthusiastic about this which is great, the girls nearly had to have their maths books prized from their hands (I wonder whose children they are?). We are yet to send some emails back to their school but will get onto this soon.

The next two days we are planning to see some more sites and I imagine that we will spend a few hours in the pool. I have some shopping to do , the girls need long pants but as someone here has taken an eighties fashion catalogue and a bedazzler to create the latest trends this might prove to be tricky!

We head down to the beach at Sihanouk Ville by bus on Sunday. Tough life I know!

“Do one thing every day that scares you”
Eleanor Roosevelt

(A hard choice for me on our visit so far: was it scarier to see Mitchy and two of my children devour a fried spider, or watching Mitchy do aerobics in the park with about two hundred Khmer people?)

Tourist Tid Bits

Billabong Hotel
Great hotel, great pool, clean rooms with tv, AC, small fridge and fan. Rooms are small but very clean and comfortable.
$2 ride to the river side in a tuk tuk. Three short blocks from a good supermarket and large shopping centre.

Foreign Correspondents Club
Right on the river side, great for the first day meal until you get your bearings and some sleep, make sure that you check the happy hour time to the second!

King’s Court (Special Happy Pizza) Cafe
On the river side, has one of the best dishes we have ever eaten, pepper crab for $4 , other meals are good too!
We have just realized that ‘happy pizza’ has a ‘happy ingredient’ so best avoided unless things get really ugly!

Sunglasses
Wear sunglasses (kids too) when out on the tuk tuks or walking long distances as it is quite dusty and bring some eye drops or purchase solution here

Phone cards
Mitchy thinks that he may have bought ours on the black market, he may also be trying to sound a bit Indianna Jones but apparently no-one wanted to sell him one! You need a Cambodian resident card or something . It cost $25 and that gives $5 credit. So maybe he just got ripped off

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Photos

Mermorial Stupa
killing fields