Phnom Penh - Round 2

---

Day 35/36 - Phnom Penh

We rolled into Phnom Penh around 2PM Thursday Feb. 12 and headed straight to the guesthouse to pick up our passports. Luckily they still had them; they actually didn't even know they still had them in the safe. After to speaking to so many people in the last month, the one constant thing we kept hearing was how great Burma (Myanmar) is for travelers. So we got a tuk tuk driver Elvis (who ended up being our new BFF in Cambodia) to drive us to the embassy to see about getting visas. It was just our luck that embassy was for some reason closed that day. We had Elvis take us back to the guesthouse and he agreed to meet up at 7:45AM the next day to take us to the embassy again for another try. We said good bye to Elvis and then much to our delight he shouted back "catch ya on the flip side". That night we didn't do much, ate up near the lake and played "Snakes and Latters" (S was ahead most of the time but G with sheer luck ended up the champion).

The next morning, we reluctantly woke up early and head to the embassy. It wasn't busy, but the guy behind the desk had a whole stack of passports that were awaiting visas. We filled out a form, handed in 3 photos and were told to pick up our passports on Tuesday. It seems that the government has begun letting more and more tourist in after the cyclone. It is now no longer necessary to change over $200 into Burmese currency upon entering the country. We know that going to Burma is a Catch-22, since so much is government run. But we planning on not using Mandalay Airlines (which is state owned so the money goes directly to the repressive government) and are looking into doing a 10 day temple stay (instead of staying in government owned hotels).

Our hunka hunka burning love driver, Elvis, had waited for us and suggested we go to a local orphanage since we had seen most of the sights in Phnom Penh. We stopped by a local market first to get some things to bring to the kids. Elvis suggested rice but we couldn't afford the $40 bag so opted for some sweet tamarinds and a couple of tubes of toothpaste. We drove for about 20 minutes past dusty roadside houses through a Muslim community before turning off the main road and pulled up to a gate. A little boy opened the gate for us and a bunch of children ran after our tuk tuk all screaming "hello, hello, hello". The director walked us around showing us the study room and where the children sleep. The kids usually sleep about 3-4 to a bed with bunk beads stacked in medium size rooms. There are 91 children altogether in the orphanage, the oldest ones were at school but the younger ones only go half a day at school. Most of the kids were receiving some sort of lesson when we arrived but 2 girls (probably about 7-8 years old) immediately took to us and we read them stories and played games. We eventually had a volleyball game (competitive one at that) going btw 6 of us, which was so much fun. We played for a little over and hour and then headed over the shade and gave our red achy wrist a break. G read some more to some children, while S played hangman with a little boy and girl. Even Elvis was sitting with the kids at this point. The kids we spoke to, spoke English extremely well and were quite articulate for their age. There were some much younger kids (about 3-4 yrs old) that didn't really interact with us, kept to themselves, other then the occasional smile and wave. It was getting close to lunch, so we said our goodbyes to all the kids and got back into our tuk tuk. It was Steph this time that couldn't keep the tears in check and started sobbing on our way back into town. Just thinking of her niece and nephew and that just pure circumstance sets them apart from this children. Luckily, G was able to comfort S and she eventually regained her composure. Even though we could only offer a little bit of money and just a few hours of our time to the kids, if any one is interested in helping out - check the below website.
http://lighthouseorphans03.org/

Later that day, we headed to lunch at Ebony Aspara Cafe for a yummy curry lunch and then walked around for a bit and came across our version of Mecca. A grocery store called "Pencils" that sold all sorts of stuff we hadn't seen in months - red delicious apples, peanut butter, granola bars, etc. We walked up and down every isle, "ooooh" and "ahhh" everthing on the shelf and stalked up on all of above (along with some coil bug repellent for our room) and head on our way. The sun however really took it's toll on us and by the time we arrived back at our guesthouse we were drenched in sweat.

We had heard of hotels allowing non-guest to use their pool for a small fee, so we decided to check it out. Elvis took us to The Pavilion that we read in Lonely planet only charges $5.00 to use the pool. But when we got there, they said they and changed their policy, but suggested a nearby place - Kabiki. Elvis agreed to pick us up in two hours, so the two of us headed over there to cool off. It was a really nice, swank place with a lush garden and nice size pool. There was just a family with 3 small children at the pool, so it was pretty chill. We did some competitive timed swims (G won each time -oh S was so mad) and did some ballet & gymnastic floor routines in the pool - ya know, mature stuff.

After cooling down, we headed back to our hotel and relax the rest of the night. And once again as we have done so so so so many times before packed our bags as we were heading to Kampot for the weekend.

Till then - lots of love

xx
S & G

---

Photos

Elvis is Alive
Our amazing tuk tuk drive Elvis! We LOVED him and he has amazing English!

Streets of Phnom Penh
The streets have a mixture of family run businesses and western companies.