falling in love

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I've just come back from a work-sponsored junket to Phnom Penh (thank you the Australian tax-payer! 😉 ), for two nights and three days. It wasn’t really a junket, as I stayed in drab hotels and didn’t pay for anything on a work credit card, though I did do lots of shopping at the Russian Market. Phnom Penh (the capital of Cambodia) is actually quite a pretty city, with lots of pretty buildings dating from its French colonial period (though all in need of many coats of paint) and a really nice riverfront area. There’s no skyscrapers and a population of 1 million, which is a nice change from the sky-scraper-laden 10 million people + city of Bangkok! Phnom Penh had such a nice feel to it, I’d really love to go back there for a longer time. The streets are totally chaotic, with very few traffic lights, and multi-lane roads with lots of cars and many more motorbikes. Crossing the road there is fun and definitely an activity best left for the fearless - you just gotta cross, taking one lane at a time. The hard thing about Phnom Penh are the motor-bike drivers, other random men and the beggars. All three groups are incredibly persistent and ever-present. The motor-bike drivers and random men really harassed me, and some of it was sexual harassment which you just don’t get in Bangkok - “hey, where you go? Where you from? You have boyfriend? You want to come with me?” leering all the while. As for the beggars… it’s just heart-breaking. So many children and disabled people either begging or selling books and postcards. They don’t have enough resources (teachers/ class rooms) for children to spend a whole day in school, so kids just go for half a day. So not only are the current generation of children having to work long hours and late into the night on the street, begging, but the future doesn’t look much brighter for the next generation.

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Photos

Phnom Penh
View from my hotel over the river.