Phnom Penh – Day 1
Waking up at 6am or earlier was getting more and more common. The reason on this day was to catch a 7am bus to Phnom Penh. After waiting in front of our guesthouse for what was probably only 15 minutes we started to worry that they’d forgotton about us. This was probably only partially due to the fact that the road we were waiting on was narrower than a bus (and we were waiting for a BIGGGG coach), and it was also bumpier than the bumpiest cobblestone road in London.
Half an hour later a mini bus arrived to pick us up and took us to a HUGE bus station where many, many coaches were all going somewhere. And of course, where there are tourists you can always be assured that there’ll be someone selling fresh warm baguettes…. even if it’s from a bus station. I miss that.
The bus trip was meant to take something like four hours, but that wasn’t including the extra hour to get to the bus station and wait for the bus to decide to leave, or the hour “lunch” stop at around 10am in a hot miscellaneous town. I think the moral of the story is to chill out and forget about efficency.
There were quite a few fun things about the bus trip. Firstly, we had hostess much like you get on a plane. She came in traditional dress and did a running commentary on the various features of places we were driving through. She also handed us all a box of yummy pasteries and refresher towels.
When we made the halfway “lunch” stop there were plenty of beggars waiting. As I was buying a bag of chopped up pineapple that’s served with toothpicks a hungry looking boy stood next to me so I offered him the same as what I was getting. He pointed to something else which I bought for him, but not long after Nicole was sure she saw the same boy sans fruit and trying to get more. I don’t mind if he was doing a cash deal with the fruit selling woman, as long as he wasn’t going hungry to pass the money onto others.
Back on the bus.
We hit a traffic jam and so I knew we must be getting close to Phnom Penh. For some reason there were heaps of little shops selling brightly coloured ceramics animals – identical animals shop after shop after shop. Surely that’s not good for competition? Nicole was dozing at the time and so I can’t confirm that I wasn’t just imagining things.
Arriving in Phnom Penh made us want to run away from the place. We got an insight into how rock bands must feel when they arrive in Japan to screaming fans. Before we were even off the bus local men were holding signs to the bus windows trying to entice us to stay at a certain guesthouse. We fought through the scrum of tuk-tuk drivers and accommodation pushers to get our bags, but realised we’d actually need to take one of them up on their offer to drive us to our guesthouse. So we went with the one who seemed least annoying (it was a difficult choice). The funny thing was that a couple of days later when we needed a tuk-tuk the same guy spotted us and remembered us and where we were staying.
From there Phnom Penh could only get better and it certainly did.
We wandered down the road from the Scandic where we were staying and stopped at the first decent looking restaurant. We ate more excellent Thai food and listened to excellent music drift down from the building next door. Nicole was sure someone was listening to Triple J. Turns out it was a record store called Boom Boom Room. This place seriously rocked. It had a fantastic selection of rock, electronic and hip-hop from the best labels around the world and all the CDs were $2-3, oh and they just happened to be burnt and photocopied versions. I decided that I didn’t actually need to spend money on CDs that I could download and burn for free back home, but I loved the place so much that I went back a couple of days later to buy some funky Cambodia pants, a Boom Boom Room singlet, and a Boom Boom Room double compilation CD with classics from The Cure, Yo La Tengo, Pixies and The Clash.
The day was really coming to an end so we thought we’d squeeze in a trip to the Royal Palace. Too bad the Lonely Planet didn’t tell us no singlets were allowed.
What’s one to do but go back to the guesthouse for more swimming? The European men who were smoking and drinking at the bar when we checked in were still there – still smoking and drinking. In fact, for the few days we were in Phnom Penh, these men were ALWAYS at the bar. Sometimes more rowdy than other times, sometimes smoking funny smelling things, sometimes just eating breakfast. But they never left and rarely saw us or said anything to us. Very bizarre.