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Published: December 6th 2020
With the hills surrounding Los Angeles up in flames and the fires dangerously close to my home, there was no better time than now to be getting out of town. For the past few months, Shea and I were both excitedly looking forward to this trip. For the both of us, this would be our first time on the continent of Asia where we would be joining a 6 day tour of Cambodia with Intrepid Travel and afterwards we would be spending a few days in Thailand. We set out at 8:00 PM on Halloween night to make it to LAX for our 1:05am flight on China Eastern Airlines to Shanghai, China. I was a bit apprehensive about flying with this airline. The reviews that I had read on-line did little to ease my apprehensions. Once on board, I realized there was nothing to be worried about. Although nothing fancy and memorable, the food and entertainment system on the flight were just fine. Most importantly, I just couldn't beat the $470 round trip cost of the flight. 13 hours after departing Los Angeles, we arrived in Shanghai.
After an uneventful transfer in Shanghai, we arrived in Phnom Penh
The View From Our Hotel Balcony
The Ohana Phnom Penh Palace Hotelat around noon. We located our airport pickup and were finally outside of the airport only to be greeted by a torrential rainstorm. Our driver informed us that these short torrential downpours are typical for Cambodia in the afternoon. Within just a few minutes, the rain had stopped and we arrived 30 minutes later at our hotel, the Ohana Phnom Penh Palace Hotel which was located just a few steps from the banks of the Tonle Sap River. We settled into our room which would be our home for the next 2 nights and freshened up before doing a bit of exploration in the surrounding area. We grabbed a small bite to eat and had our first taste of Angkor, a Cambodian Beer, at a nearby restaurant Metro Hassakan. After our snack and beers, we walked south along Preah Sisowath Quay and it was clear that we were in a touristy area of Phnom Penh. Looking into the shops as we walked by, I noticed many Europeans here. I also noticed many older white men walking hand in hand with young Cambodian women. Unfortunately, I've seen documentaries of the sex tourism trade that is rampant here in Cambodia. I suspect
these older white men that I've seen are here to partake in this. We had to meet our group this evening at 6:00pm so we didn't explore very far. We visited the nearby Wat Ounalom Monastery which is the most important wat in Phnom Penh and the center of Cambodian Buddhism. Away from the hustle and bustle of the main road, we had a brief walk around and saw a few pagodas here as well as a golden temple while trying to avoid the touts trying to convince us to take a guided tour. Back on the busy streets, we made our way over to the Royal Palace Park located just outside of the entrance to the Royal Palace. Knowing that we would be touring the Royal Palace tomorrow with our group, we were okay with just wandering the park which was just outside the Royal Palace premises. This seemed to be a very popular place for locals to go and hang out. Many families were relaxing on the grass with their kids running around and vendors selling everything from snacks to balloons and toys. If we had wanted to interact with some locals, this probably would have been a
good place to do so but we just decided to backtrack and relax back at the hotel before meeting our group this evening. While walking back to the hotel, we stumbled upon and had some fun playing on the exercise equipment that was placed on the boardwalk to promote health through exercise.
This evening at 6pm, we met Sreymon, our group leader as well as the other 10 people who we would get to know over the next 6 days. Our group consisted of Susan and Gordon, a couple from Scotland, Phil and Mariead, an Irish couple living in Geneva, Carey and Laura, 2 friends from Chicago, Josh from Kansas City, Kris from Sydney, and a couple from Quebec whose names escape me as I write this. After the group meet and greet, we all met back up in the hotel lobby where Sreymon lead us over to Friends The Restaurant for dinner tonight. This restaurant is well known in Phnom Penh for providing former street children with training in the hospitality and restaurant industry. We were served various Cambodian dishes in tapas style which we all shared as a group. All of this also washed down
with Cambodian Beer. After dinner, Sreymon gave us a brief walking tour of some nearby night street markets where we saw tarantulas and insects for sale. However, the oddest thing I saw was gasoline for all the motor bikes being sold in plastic bottles. Knowing that we would have a more extensive street food tour later in Siem Reap, we called in a night as we all anticipated a great tour ahead of us for the next 5 days.
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