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Holiday in Cambodia
Oct. 21st, 2008 05:06 pm(title primarily to pre-empt the rest of you...)
Successfully acquired bus ticket, after having to wade through ankle-deep rainwater to get myself out of the internet cafe. Which was exciting. So now I'm in Phnom Penh, and, to continue a theme, it is very hot. But there's a breeze as well, so it could be worse - and it is a little less humid than Saigon.
Helpfully, the bus fetched up around the corner from the guesthouse I was headed for (this is because they had a deal with another guesthouse, whose representatives got on the bus on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, dished out flyers, and then got the bus to stop right outside their place. I politely declined the offer to "just look at the room" and took off up the street on foot.). Friendly proprietors, a 2nd-floor restaurant/lounge with open walls and a splendid breeze, and a room with bathroom and a fan, for $7 a night ($6 without hot water). Bargain.
This afternoon I wandered round the Royal Palace, and had a conversation with a very cheerful teenager selling cold water on the street (she goes to school in the mornings, sells water in the afternoons to pay for school, and studies English, apparently very successfully as her English is pretty good, in the evenings to improve her future. "Where are you from?" she said. "London - England"[0] "Ah - lovely jubbly," with a big grin. I was highly amused.
Here until first thing Saturday, so I have a few days to potter around - this is good, as the weather means that 11.30 till about 2.30 is a total washout. I am bracing myself to go to the very depressing museum (site of the Khmer Rouge's Phnom Penh prison/torture centre) tomorrow morning. I am almost certainly not going to the Killing Fields of Choeung El, partly because there's only so much miserable stuff I can cope with at once, and partly because apparently the Cambodian government has sold the site off to a private firm (causing some distress & outrage to relatives of those who are buried there) & I don't particularly want to be generating profit for them.
[0] I have noticed that my instinctive reaction to the question "where are you from?" is "London". Rather than England or Britain (OK, former experience is that England is better-understood than Britain, anyway.). This doesn't surprise me that much - I did kind of already know that I identify as a Londoner more than I do as anything else. (The fact that I explicitly don't identify as English, but British, may also be a factor.)
Successfully acquired bus ticket, after having to wade through ankle-deep rainwater to get myself out of the internet cafe. Which was exciting. So now I'm in Phnom Penh, and, to continue a theme, it is very hot. But there's a breeze as well, so it could be worse - and it is a little less humid than Saigon.
Helpfully, the bus fetched up around the corner from the guesthouse I was headed for (this is because they had a deal with another guesthouse, whose representatives got on the bus on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, dished out flyers, and then got the bus to stop right outside their place. I politely declined the offer to "just look at the room" and took off up the street on foot.). Friendly proprietors, a 2nd-floor restaurant/lounge with open walls and a splendid breeze, and a room with bathroom and a fan, for $7 a night ($6 without hot water). Bargain.
This afternoon I wandered round the Royal Palace, and had a conversation with a very cheerful teenager selling cold water on the street (she goes to school in the mornings, sells water in the afternoons to pay for school, and studies English, apparently very successfully as her English is pretty good, in the evenings to improve her future. "Where are you from?" she said. "London - England"[0] "Ah - lovely jubbly," with a big grin. I was highly amused.
Here until first thing Saturday, so I have a few days to potter around - this is good, as the weather means that 11.30 till about 2.30 is a total washout. I am bracing myself to go to the very depressing museum (site of the Khmer Rouge's Phnom Penh prison/torture centre) tomorrow morning. I am almost certainly not going to the Killing Fields of Choeung El, partly because there's only so much miserable stuff I can cope with at once, and partly because apparently the Cambodian government has sold the site off to a private firm (causing some distress & outrage to relatives of those who are buried there) & I don't particularly want to be generating profit for them.
[0] I have noticed that my instinctive reaction to the question "where are you from?" is "London". Rather than England or Britain (OK, former experience is that England is better-understood than Britain, anyway.). This doesn't surprise me that much - I did kind of already know that I identify as a Londoner more than I do as anything else. (The fact that I explicitly don't identify as English, but British, may also be a factor.)
