Advertisement
Published: November 27th 2008
Edit Blog Post
But it wasn't all so sad in Phnom Penh. The following day was Independence Day, so we went down the riverfront in the evening to celebrate freedom from those Frenchies! The place was crowded with festive types. It was a bit of a bonfire night atmosphere only without the cold and the rain. We sat on the sea wall waiting for the Fireworks, chatting to a local teenage girl. She was very sweet and was asking all those weird questions you get taught when learning a language at school like 'what do you want to be when you're older?' 'what's your favourite colour?' 'what's your favourite subject (at school)'. The fireworks were cool, much bigger and louder than we are allowed in the UK!
2 days later was the beginning of the water festival, which was an even bigger do! The streets were closed off to traffic (except mopeds of course, no-where is ever closed off to mopeds. If it will physically fit then it's ok.) and were even more packed than before. Food vendors lined the river front selling unidentifiable produce. We joined all the other white guys at the Foreign Correspondant's Club for a bit of a view
of the action. We bought a seriously overpriced drink and watched the crouds mingle and the boats race past. Oh yes, I forgot, that was the center of the water festival. Absolutely heaps of teams in very long long boats paddled furiously down the river. It wasn't an obvious race as such, in that there didn't appear to be boats competing against each other, just lots of them coming down the river independently. How do they know who wins? Clearly outpriced at the FCC we rejoined the crowds and discovered a special section with stadium seating that was just "for foreigners". It felt very weird indeed sitting in there on the nice seats while just over the fence were all the Cambodians crammed in trying to see the races. We could see them, but we didn't much know what was going on. Ah well, I figured the rest of the time we have to pay more than the locals for everything, so why not make the most of this advantage!
In the evening were fireworks again, and boats all lit up floating past. The festival went on for 3 days, but we had pretty much got the gist of
it so we didn't go back. Instead we spent the next day trying to sort out our Vietnamese visas. One of the best things about Phnom Penh is that you can get motos everywhere, i.e. the driver and us 2 on the back! It's wicked good fun, you'd never brave that traffic on your own bike. I must admit though, sorry parents, helmet wearing is not the norm and the driver's don't give you any! 3 on a bike was a half empty bike in Cambodia. We saw 5 fairly often. Once or twice we saw a mother on the back holding a sick baby in one arm and the baby's drip (as in hospital drip) high up with the other!
Anyway, after much messing about and suspected over-charging by the difficult Vietnamese at the embassy, we got our visas and made our way out of the country the next day. Trying to do things independently hardly ever works out. There were agencies in town all offering to sort out visas for us, but in the spirit of independant travel we decided to organise them ourselves. It worked out considerably more expensive and time-consuming. It's so frustrating!
We
really liked Cambodia and wished we had more time to explore it properly. In general the people were really friendly and polite and while there is alot of beggars it is a very poor country so you can't really hold it against them. We will have to go back one day for a proper explore.
So we booked a bus/boat combo to take us to Chao Doc in Vietnam, on our way to the island of Phou Quoc.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.134s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 8; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0593s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
CatBrook
....
Brown Becky!!
watching the traffic with a cocktail, only in s.e.a.....sounds like you're still having an awesome time and you seem to have beaten the odds and acquired a tan....have fun in Vietnam! xx