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Published: October 25th 2011
I woke up early on Monday morning ready to head off on the next leg of the adventure and meet up with Danni, a workmate. We were meeting in Phnom Penh at Blue Lime Guesthouse. After heading downstairs for New Siam's 'best banana pancakes in the world' and real coffee, I went upstairs to pack my bags. Tong phoned me while I was getting ready and said she would come pick me up and take me to the airport... I was thinking SWEEEET since I was down to my last 1000 baht! Tong arrived a bundle of energy, and we drove to the airport.
After Tong dropped me off I nervously approached the Air Asia sales counter. I had been trying to pay for my luggage online without success and after a last minute desperate phone call to my bank in Australia the night before (who assured me it was an Air Asia problem) I was hoping that they would allow me to pay online pricing... No problem at all.. They didn't even question it. To me, their customer service is definitely improving.
I checked my luggage in and then decided to check out 'Chinatown' - a restaurant I
had seen the night before when I bought Ben to the airport. Once seated, I couldn't make my mind up so I ordered everything I wanted... which was of course, way too much food (always a theme with me!) .. there were pork dumplings, wonton soup and duck over rice! LOL
Rolling away from the restaurant, I headed for my departure gate. While waiting at my gate, I had an American chick approaching me asking if she was at the correct gate. I asked her which gate she should be at and she said F3. I said 'Oh are you going to Phnom Penh too?' and she was like 'No, Kuala Lumpur' ... I was like 'oh I thought my plane was at F3... what time are you boarding?'; she then says 2.15pm. I was like 'oh, I am 2.25pm... hmmmm'. At this point I decided to go back up the stairs and check the departure board, as it wasn't on my ticket.... Upon getting to the departure board, I realised I should have been at F1! Whoops that could have been a complete disaster.. I went back down, thanked her and moved to the correct gate.
It
was at this point that I observed a disturbing phenomenon. There were a very large amount of middle aged 'pedophile' type looking men on my flight... I am talking at least half the flight looked 'that way'. Interesting! And disgusting! I hadn't paid for seating allocation on my ticket so wasn't real sure what my seat would be but was pleasantly surprised to see I had an A seat near the window.. When I boarded the plane, I was even more pleasantly surprised to see I had an emergency exit.. You normally pay extra for those suckers! Even better was that I was the only person in all two rows of emergency seats both sides! Special treatment for an Air Asia fan perhaps!
A non-eventful flight passed, and as we came into landing over Phnom Penh, I was overwhelmed by the amount of flooding/water surrounding the city.. It was like an ocean as far as the eye could see! Amazing stuff! So far however, we have been untouched by any flooding here so its just a matter of keeping our eye on things as we go!
Airport rip-offs
I zipped through Immigration with ease (thanks to doing
an online E-Visa) and decided to get a Cambodian SIM card. In the airport I had seen an advertisement for $5 Happy SIM cards with bonus $5 of credit ($10 all up).. After comparing to the other two phone companies, I went back to Happy to purchase.. Upon giving the guy a $20 note, he only gave me back $10 change. I questioned him over it saying I thought I should only be paying $5 but he was adamant that it was $10 for $10 credit... I should have argued the point, but by this stage it was 5pm and I was dying to get to the hotel, so I walked off... Afterwards I fumed about it... Clearly a scamwhere he would be pocketing the extra $5!
A long and slow tuktuk ride from the airport to my guesthouse, but finally I was there.. back at Blue Lime where I had stayed the year before and it was just as gorgeous.. Upon arriving, I was given a cold towel and a beautiful fruit juice before being shown to my room on the top floor (those stairs were a KILLER). Danni was there waiting, and as we settled in to
catch up, I was given another cold drink by the staff....
Danni had arrived that morning, so had spent the day doing S21 and the Killing Fields and was still feeling the effects.. She was able to laugh however when explaining that she too had been ripped off at the airport ... but this time it was by the Visa Department (yep Govt officials)... apparently she gave them a $50 note to get change for her photo for her visa, and one of the $20 notes they gave back was a counterfeit! LOL.... She only found out when she went to pay later in the day with it but was told due to the big pink stripe down one side, they wouldn't accept it as it was a counterfeit!
After I had a quick freshen up, we headed to Romdeng Restaurant for dinner. This is a restaurant run by the same owner of 'Friends' in Phnom Penh. The owner is a former street kid who now employs street kids to work in the restaurants. They get full training and jobs.. The atmosphere was great and the old building it is housed in stunning.
Anyone for a
spider or three??
We started the meal with deep fried tarantulas... now let me say two things ... 1. I am TERRIFIED of spiders.. dead or alive, and 2. Of all the crappy things I've eaten this was the most challenging.... The legs were still hairy and the tarantulas HUGE... It actually took me some time to work up the courage to just touch them, let alone put them in my mouth, but I am proud to say I did it and managed to eat a head, body and a few legs (not all 8).
We then had some beautiful pork rolled up around fresh baby coconut, Fish Amok and a banana leaf salad. Everything we ate (except the tarantulas understandably) was divine. Great service polished off a wonderful first night in Cambodia's capital city!
Shop Until You Drop
The following morning we had a leisurely breakfast by the pool (Blue Lime is highly recommended if you are ever in Phnom Penh) and then we hired a tuktuk driver from out the front of our hotel for the day. His name was Sambo and he was GREAT. Again find him if you are
staying at Blue Lime...
First stop was the Russian Markets... I had forgotten just how good the shopping here was.. Nike, Adidas, Abercrombie & Finch amongst other high end brands are made in Cambodia and the stuff you can find here in the Russian Markets is the genuine stuff that apparently fell off the back of the truck! We both shopped until we dropped... or ran out of money is probably more accurate. We then headed back to the guesthouse for a toilet break, drop off our gear and pick up more money!
We headed to the riverfront for lunch, inviting Sambo to join us! Lunch was amazing.... We ate Banana Flower Salad and Fish Amok again and it was just as good, if not better than the night before!
After lunch, we headed to Wat Phnom to have a look. While in the temple we met a lovely Bulgarian couple who had just arrived in Phnom Penh and were leaving the next day. They told us they were staying at The Quay Hotel near the river and paying $140 a night for a dumpy room. They said that the first room they were given for $100
had no window and so when they asked to get a room with a window they were charged an extra $40! Incredible! Watch out for that hotel!
They had then been charged $35 for a car by the hotel to drive them around to two tourist sites.. When the driver told them the palace was shut for lunch he said he could take them to Wat Phnom but it would cost an extra $5!! They paid up and he literally drove two blocks before pulling up out the front of the temple! LOL We chatted for ages giving them hints/tips. They thought Cambodia was so expensive and we couldn’t believe how much they had been ripped off.. Cambodia is a cheap country by South East Asia standards... Shows how a little prior planning can pay off! We left Wat Phnom sweaty and tired so decided to head back for a swim at the hotel. Sambo waited patiently out the front for us and once we were refreshed we had him take us for a massage at Seeing Hands.
Crap Massage Part 1
Seeing Hands is set up all around Cambodia and is where you get a massage
by a blind person. They are meant to be the best due to the person not having any sight and relying on other senses! Danni’s guy walked in and appeared very professional and lovely to chat to… As he started on Danni, a female walked in. I said in my best cheerful friendly voice “Hello” to which she grunted… Hmmm not a good start! What resulted for the next long hour was a very average massage by someone who really didn’t want to be massaging some sweaty foreigner… It is seriously the first time I have not tipped after a massage but she was useless! Danni on the other hand, was raving about her wonderful massage! Grrrr!
From our massages, Sambo took us back to the hotel where we quickly showered before heading to a restaurant I had found a recommendation for on the internet called 54 Langreach Sros. We had planned to meet Gael and Donna (friends from Australia) there. Sambo had no idea where it was but we eventually found it and 15 minutes later the girls turned up. The restaurant was very Khmer and we were the only Westerners there. There was frogs and ants on
the menu amongst other weird things, but we were there for the highly recommended pork ribs! Along with an order of ribs each, we got fried rice and stirfry vegetables. The food was amazing… and we ordered a second round of ribs (they weren’t very big). With $2 jugs of Anchor Beer we were in heaven! The bill came to a huge total of about $22 for the 4 of us!
After dinner, we had some leftover rice that Donna hadn’t eaten due to not feeling well… We put it in a takeaway pack just in case we ran into a homeless person along the way.. Sambo was driving us back to our hotel before taking the girls to theirs. Along the way there were heaps of small children picking through the garbage looking for recycling and food. We gave the rice to one small child and the look on his face was priceless..
Back at the hotel, Danni and I felt awful having seen the children scrounging through the garbage and we decided we couldn’t just sit there after an amazing meal and do nothing. We headed back outside and got a tuktuk. Heading back to the
restaurant we ordered $20 worth of individual fried rice packs (13 in total) and decided we would drive around the streets and give it away to children in need.
An interesting thing we have found in our travels, which first really came to our attention that night while waiting for the fried rice, was the phenomenon that is Cambodian men pissing in the streets. They will do it anywhere, anytime as long as they have a wall or a gutter! They were all coming out of the restaurant and pissing against a wall across the road.. All were clearly pissed and after weeing, they would jump in their brand new Lexus 4WD and head off. Interestingly our tuktuk driver was saying that they all carry guns… and about 2 minutes after telling us, I spotted one guy jump on his trail bike to leave with a semi-auto in a gun pouch on his belt.. Kind of scary to see!
Breaking Our Hearts
Once the rice was ready, we headed off in search of children…. Going along the riverbank we saw a mother laying on the ground with two very small children. We pulled up beside
her, called her over and handed her 3 packs of rice. She was very grateful. As we went to drive off, two little girls and a boy saw what we had done and ran up begging for food. Although I was tempted to not give them food (I could see they were the street kids that sell stuff to tourists along the riverfront), Danni was a little softer and handed them some packs.
Just around the corner we spotted 3 women with about 6 kids laying on the footpath. We pulled up and called them over. They knew STRAIGHT away why we were there, as we didn’t even have a chance to speak to them, before they were pulling and clawing at the packs of food on the seat in front of us. Danni tried to stop them and yelled to stop, hoping to gain some sort of control over the situation, but by this stage there was rice starting to fly! I told her to just let them go.. and then right before our eyes they were scoffing down the food like a pack of dogs. It was a very sad and mind-blowing situation!
It appeared that
the 3 women were grandmother, mother and a 25yo who I am not sure if it was a daughter. There were then about 5-6 other kids ranging from 13 down to maybe 5. Interestingly the women that appeared to be the mother, ate nothing, giving the food to the children. Once they finished the food (it didn’t take long), they all crowded around the tuktuk and talked to us for about 10 minutes. It was a very sad situation. Upon leaving, Danni slipped a $20 note in the Mum’s hand while noone was watching. As we drove off, Danni said the Mum looked at the note and her eyes widened in shock/surprise. While we still felt so sad and helpless at the tragedy that is Phnom Penh, a little part of us felt better that those people all had some food in their tummy’s for the night… Back to our hotel, we collapsed in bed left to our own thoughts about the nights events.
Cambodia has a way of tugging at your heart strings like no other place in the world….
Reet xx
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Tavia Sterk
non-member comment
Love your blogs Reet!!
Hey Reet, Just wanted to say that I enjoy reading your blogs & seeing your holiday snaps. You clearly love Thailand (& SE Asia) as much as I do! You put a lot of effort into your blogs & I wanted you to know that myself, along with other travellers really appreciate it. Have a fantasic time & I look forward to following the rest of your journey! Cheers, Tavia