Welcome to the Kingdom of Cambodia

11th August 2012

 

This building at Phnom Penh airport welcomes travellers to “Cambodia, Kingdom of Wonder”.

Although we arrived in Phnom Penh three days before the beginning of our tour, we were still met at the airport by a tour guide, and driven to our hotel in a pleasantly air conditioned car.

I mention this, as stepping out of the airport terminal was like jumping into a hot, damp oven.  Our senses were further bombarded by blazing sunlight, the beeping of horns and clamour of traffic, and the amazing sight of hundreds of motor scooters carrying up to four people or enormous loads of vegetables or other products – all on (for us) the wrong side of the road! 

We arrived at our hotel on the riverfront in a state of disbelief, so seeing we had had very limited sleep on the plane, decided a short nap would be in order.

Three hours later, after both of us being totally dead to the world, we decided we should push ourselves to go out.  In hindsight, we should have slept a bit longer – at 4pm, it was still extremely hot.

 

 

On our surreal drive from the airport, we passed this statue of an elephant man, which didn’t seem at all unusual.

 

In fact, Phnom Penh is very liberally elephanted – here’s Pat with one just across the road from our hotel.

 

Crossing the streets was quite terrifying at first.  Not only do you have to negotiate the traffic, but the roads are lined with street vendors’ carts. 

Here is Pat beside a cart of large grapefruit-like citrus which Pat had first come across in Tahiti under their French name of pamplemousse.

 

Also notice the overhead wiring which I’m sure would not pass Australian Workplace Health & Safety standards.

 

We walked past the Royal Palace, home of King Norodom Sihamoni, the present King of Cambodia.

 

It didn’t take us long to decide that we had walked far enough, and needed to stop for a drink.  We settled ourselves onto the upstairs balcony of the Khmer Saravan cafe, from where we could see boats going by on the Mekong, and people walking beside the river.

 

Some Buddhist Monks stroll by the river.  As it grew later (and cooler), there were many more people, mainly locals, walking along or sitting by the river.

 

I hadn’t even had one drink before I photographed this menu so badly that I missed the prices, which was why I photographed it in the first place.  But as you can almost see, beers were US$2 or less each.

As it was Happy Hour, we had two glasses at $US1 each.

 

I didn’t do any better photographing the cocktail menu – cocktails were US$2-$3 each.

 

My Singapore Sling.  Pat pointed out that I could have had about 15 of them for the price that he paid for me to have just one at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore two years ago.  I thought I showed great restraint in having just the one. 

We also had some dinner there.  Pat had a chicken curry, and I had Cambodian sour soup, which featured tamarind, as well as other delicious ingredients.  

 

One of our waitresses.

 

Meanwhile, more boats passed by.

 

Boats with many people…..

 

…..or just a few.

 

Finally, we dragged ourselves back into activity.  The street was busy with tuk tuks and motor cycles.

 

These people were being much more active than we were.  There were also groups of men playing a kind of badminton where instead of using a racquet, they kicked the shuttlecock to each other.

 

Street vendors, like this lady with an enormous tray of peanuts on her head, wandered up and down, selling food and cold drinks.

 

Here, the setting sun is reflected off a building on the other side of the river.

 

Walking back to our hotel (there’s Pat on the left).  Now that it’s getting dark, there are a lot more people about.

 

There’s the Khmer Saravan, where we had drinks and dinner.  It’s the lighted balcony to the right of the picture.  

 

Cambodian silhouette.

 

Now the boats on the river have their lights on.

 

I had never heard of the World Toilet Association, or Mr. Toilet Public, for that matter.  They do say travel broadens the mind.

 

Mekong twilight, from our hotel window (finally).

Being hot and tired by now, we attempted to take a shortcut to our hotel through another hotel, only to find the way blocked off at night.  Consequently, we had to retrace our steps, quite a long way, carrying some cheap but heavy drinking water we had acquired at what we thought was near the end of our walk home. 

Thus we arrived back at our hotel very hot and tired, and fell into bed at about 8.30pm (although in our defence it was 11.30pm Australian time).

So that was our first day in Phnom Penh.