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I'm here, finally, after a nine day wait in England and then a fourty hour journey to get here I have made it. I flew into Bangkok and then organised a flight to Phnom Penh where I checked into a guesthouse called The Boddhi Tree.
I had been to the cafe/restaurant part of it on my last trip to Cambodia and liked it so much that I thought I'd and stay there this time around. On the first night that I was there I got talking to a guy called Piseth who worked in the restaurant, we talked for quite a while about all sorts of things including the fact that his birthday was a month different to mine and then he asked me what I was planning on doing while I was in Phnom Penh the next day. He then offered, as it was his day off (and his birthday), to take me out for the day. He was going out to the countryside outside the city to meet some of his friends for the day. So the next morning I got up early and jumped on the back of his moped and off we went!
I had
the most incredible morning riding on the back of his bike out of the city taking in all the weird and wonderful things and amazing feats of engineering that people undertake to transport things on the back of moto's! I saw bamboo crates of piglets, racks of chickens hanging by their feet and king sized mattresses all strapped to back seats of mopeds! We had to cross the Mekong river to get to his friend's village on a flat car ferry thing and we were accosted by lots of people selling different types of fruit and insects. Piseth suggested I try this pickled fruit that I can't remember the name of which the seller took out of jar of brine and chili, an interesting flavour combination! I then went all out and had a go at some deep fried crickets that they carry around on huge trays, they are surprisingly good and i have since bought a bag myself to snack on. I would describe them as a sort of crunchy spring roll/filo pastry texture and they're slightly salty. Pretty good!
When we finally got to the village we were greeted by his friend Mai and she took us
back to the house that she lives with her husband, sister in law (with her two children) and her grand parents in law. The house was built of wood and bamboo and was on stilts with a dirt floor living area downstairs along with the kitchen and bathroom and then the sleeping section upstairs. Piseth's other friends arrived and we all sat around helping to prepare some of the food. They gave me a bowl of mangoes to peel which I struggled to do with my cack-handedness aswell as the fact that I was trying to do it without touching the fruit with my left hand, very tricky! So after much hilarity from everyone at my incompetence we sat down to eat.
The meal consisted of rice with a selection of other dishes including, stir fried fresh water crab, frog curry, palm fruit curry, fish paste, omlettes and dried salted fish. The food was amazing especially the palm fruit curry! The grandmother turned to Piseth half way through, "tell him not to be shy, I want him to eat lots" and so I tried although the frog curry was pretty hard to stomach, with some pretty huge chunks of
gristly bits filled with some unknown substance. They finished with lots of fresh fruits but I had to pass on the Durian fruit (absolutely awful mushy fruit that smells of rotting flesh which they all seem to love over in Asia.)
After the huge lunch we all sat down and then one of the girls appeared from upstairs with Piseth's friends wedding album from the month before so I had a look through that. The photos were incredible, the makeup that the girls wear for the day is stunning and completely transforms their appearance. I asked who a few of the people were and a some of them I had spent the day with!
Piseth and his friends decided that it would be a good idea to go and cool off and go for a swim in the river, so off we went down to the bank. Much more hilarity ensued as I bared my luminous white skin, blinding everyone in the process. It was an excellent hour or so swimming about and diving down to collect mussels off the river bed.
We all got dried off, which didn't take long in the heat, said our goodbyes
and then headed back to the city. That night Piseth and his friend who also works at the guesthouse took me out for drinks to celebrate Piseth's birthday. We went to a little Cambodian bar/restaurant first and had a few beers and some stir fried eel which was absolutely disgusting. I think I made the mistake that my dad made with jellied eels by eating the whole thing and crunching through all the bones. Not nice! Then after that we waited for the HUGE rain storm to stop and then drove over to a club through 3 ft of water! It was up to my knee level when i was on the bike. Crazy! We entered "Fly" and got searched for handguns before getting a load of beers in and dancing the night away to weird Cambodian remixes of western songs. They even had a happy hardcore version of 'what to do with a drunken sailor'.
For my last day in Phnom Penh I chilled out at the guesthouse during the day and briefly went across the road to Tuol Sleng (the high school that the Khmer Rouge turned into a detention and torture centre and where some 17,000
people were killed) again to take some photos and then in the evening Piseth took me out again for a tour around the city and some local street food. We also went with Allie, a New Zealander girl who lives in Singapore who was staying for a long weekend at the guesthouse. Again, great fun cruising around on the back of the bike narrowly missing death at every junction and seeing the sights.
So needless to say my first two days in Cambodia were absolutely amazing! I'm at the orphanage now (New Futures Organisation) in Takeo, around 70km south of Phnom Penh. Ive been here for 5 days so far but the internet has been down for a few days so haven't had a chance to update this. I will post a blog about that in the next couple of days. We're all going out for karaoke and rice wine tonight with the volunteers and some of the girls who work at the orphanage. Should be good! I managed to slice the bottom of my big toe off on a rock hidden in the sand when I was playing volleyball a couple of days ago, but its all cleaned
up and bandaged so apart from hobbling along it's all good. Right I'm off to go start rebuiding and cementing some cookers that are in a bad state at the orphanage in the blazing heat. See ya!
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tiffany
non-member comment
amazing
Niick, It looks like you are having an amazing time, I am soooo jealous. Keep safe and have a wonderful time and keep updating this when you can.... xxx