Advertisement
Published: October 9th 2009
After an early start in Australia, napping on the plane, and an incident involving new shoes, suspected dog faeces and me washing footwear in the women's toilets, we arrived at Phnom Penh safely and pretty much on time. Having negotiated the procedure for acquiring visas and navigating our way though customs we all emerged safely from the thoroughly air conditioned airport and stepped out into the warm and rather humid land of Cambodia for the first time, where P and Sokren were waiting to meet us with the mini van that is to be our home away from home for the next couple of weeks. The van seems to come equipped with industrial strength air con, which led me to wonder whether perhaps I'd under packed and might actually need some warmer clothes for the trip!
First stop - the Asia Hotel, a place to leave our bags before heading out for our first taste of Khamer cuisine. This is of course where I began to get a little nervous - the group handed over the power of menu selection to P and I crossed my fingers and hoped that at least one or two items would be peanut and chilli free - it turned out that most of the selection was actually really good AND mango smoothies were available (all of which meant that my emergency cadbury supply could be kept in reserve for a little longer).
After a short language lesson from P we were all fully qualified to embark on deep and meaningful conversations with the local Khamer people... provided that conversation didn't stray to far from 'hello' (chum reap suor)
*, 'good bye', 'how are you' and 'thank you'. I couldn't help wishing that I'd learned 'thank you'
before getting to the airport!
Thus ended a rather long day (especially for those of us who had hens nights and packing to prevent us from sleeping the night before!). Julie, Amanda and I had a triple room containing three double beds... placed side by side to form almost one continuous bed, interesting but no cause for complaint. Tomorrow - up bright and early for another language lesson and a visit to some of the most notorious places in Cambodia's recent history.
* Disclaimer: may not be actual spelling!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.167s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 9; qc: 62; dbt: 0.0684s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.1mb
peter abell
non-member comment
great to hear from you shells!! and glad to see you are out (still) there and making things happen! Enjoy Cambodia and do take care over there . . . !