Laurie's World

So I really should be working on our travel plans….but instead I’m doing this. I spent a good chunk of the day on it already and will go back once I’m done this, but I am so inspired by my supper….I felt I should blog.

The weather here has been really crummy for two days and while we believe the next two are going to be much better, it is supposed to go south again by Tuesday. So we are crying uncle and moving on to drier pastures (we hope) more on that later.

So to start things off, let me tell you how awful supper was yesterday. We were super lazy and didn’t even want to walk back to town for supper once we finally got hungry again (close to 8pm). Thanks late lunch 😉😉. We went down to the hotel restaurant and ordered spring rolls and amok. Chicken for me and Troy ordered fish. It took a LONG time to come, but this can be very normal….so no cause for concern. The spring rolls came and they were quite good. So, happy enough with that. A few moments later out the amok came. Troy’s first….red alert red alert, something was off, they were right behind with mine. Equally confusing. It was in a large curry style bowl and it looked weird, runny, and the wrong colour, and it had a LOT of green stringy stuff in it. And it was too much….but we are trying to roll with it. The steamed rice looked the same as it always does, so we could have just eaten that (if we hadn’t both dumped the entire amount in the bowl of “stuff”. Anyway, it was awful, absolutely awful and I don’t know what the meat in mine was, but it wasn’t chicken. What a huge disappointment! So either they don’t know how to make it right, or there are regional differences in this dish that I can’t explain, because I had it twice in Phnom Penh and it was delicious, nothing like this. It was the very first time I have not finished my meal in all the years we have been coming to SE Asia, in any country. I really tried, but I just had to push it away.

We sadly walked back to our room, not happy or satisfied, but accepting our fate.

Super lazy day today again as the wind and rain were just not something we felt ready to face. Worked on the “travel plan”! Highly motivated to find a place with better weather forecast. And Cambodia is not it. We are bailing on the Sihanoukville plan and going back to Thailand.

There was no doubt in my mind that we are going back to the Rusty Keyhole 2 for pizza tonight. We deserve it after that debacle last night. Plus we skipped lunch…so we are due for an awesome meal. We walked straight there at 5pm and ordered a pepperoni pizza. We chatted a little bit with the owner, Kristian, and asked him about his crust and his ribs, trying to understand the differences between the two places. As we noticed the ribs were different. Apparently they only do ribs at the RK2 location on Saturdays. And they do a spareribs style of rib, he called them Chinese ribs, vs the style at the original location that still have the loin attached. He makes all his own pizza crusts and his pizza oven was purchased, used, for $700 vs $1,100 new. All very interesting things (I think anyway).

I totally forgot the photo! I would like to show you the pizza, maybe I’ll remember one of these times 😉 so another fabulous meal for $13. Same same as last time…..we did get the water and cheeses fries.

I did however get the camera out when we got to the dessert shop!

The sign looks as old as the hills….but I’m not deterred, based on how yummy the brownie was yesterday.

So this was the best $3.75 we’ve spent here in Cambodia! Where else can you get two generous pieces of homemade pie and three scoops of ice cream for $3.75?????

And then look what I noticed on the menu? Is this a sign? Too bad I’m too full for this tonight! But there is always tomorrow…..and I promise to take a photo of the real thing!!

We are planning on renting motorbikes tomorrow and driving ourselves to Kep for the day. I’ll slip this in at the very end, maybe some folks won’t notice I said it and will be surprised when the pictures pop up 😃😃

….Only because I haven’t done anything noteworthy enough else to blog about, but we always have to eat right? So our intentions were solid yesterday when we made plans to go back to the Rusty Keyhole for ribs. We got ourselves down there by 6:40pm and would you believe that it was too late for ribs. They were sold out! They must get a lot of folks who come just for ribs, because as we walked in and the girl handed us menus, she straight up said “no pork” I was like “pardon?” And she opened the menu, pointed to the ribs and said “all gone”. So that was that. We were out of luck for the night on the famous Rusty Keyhole ribs. We decided to try our luck elsewhere….so we wandered off to see what we could find. Some folks we met at the hotel from Nethelands (I think) told us about a place called Captain Chims where they said they had something called red soup. Not sure if that was actually what it was called or that was their description of it. We has a rough idea of where this place was, so we set off to find it. We wandered up and down several streets with no luck. 😩

So, at this point we were open to whatever, Cambodian Food, Western food, European food, any food. We had seen a place called Old Irish Pub (I think) and it caught our eye again. It was an old “half in the pail” (Troy said he had a whiskey nose) guy with a sawed in half oil barrel grill set up on the sidewalk in front of a very small pub. He had a whiteboard propped up in front with cheeseburger, bacon cheeseburger, ribs or pulled pork on it. Looked like that was maybe the menu? We sat down and ordered burgers. Not without some small trepidation….but at this point it was $4 for a burger….might as well give it a go. We could always go next door for a happy pizza if we needed to. (Whatever that is).

As is our way we end up chatting with the guy, he is 60 years old, from Texas, been in Cambodia 2 years, Kampot 7 months. Lived all over the place (out of the states for 16 years). He has an arrangement with the pub owner where he can serve food and get 50 cent draft beer and he does his best to bring customers into the pub. The pub has no kitchen, so this seems like a good working relationship. Anyway, he was a chatterbox and we learned all about what is involved in retiring to Cambodia. Certainly seems way easier than retiring to Thailand, but let’s be honest, Cambodia isn’t Thailand now is it? The part of this story that amazes me is what a small world it is. When we told the dude we were from “Seattle” (so much easier than trying to explain Woodinville) he said (and this is no word of a lie) “Seattle huh, Oh I spent about 4 months in a town close to there called Bothell”. So it made it a lot easier then to say….Ha we actually love in Woodinville….he knew right where that was. Such a small world to run into someone like that here in this tiny little Cambodian town.

The burgers were fantastic BTW there were fresh fried potatoes and veggies served along with the burger which was delicious in its own right. He buys fresh ground beef from some Muslim lady and seasons it himself. So was great 😋😋 can’t believe I forgot to take a picture, but by the time it came I was so hungry and delighted I just flew into it.

We came home happy happy and then watched a movie in our room…..

This morning, the rain and wind (SO much WIND) was pretty much solid all morning and into the afternoon. This is the road that runs in front of our hotel that we have to walk 60 metres on before we get to the paved road.

The soil is so red….

By 2 pm we were ready to venture out. Thinking we needed to get to the Rusty Keyhole before they sell out of ribs 😳

We walked into the place and it was about 2/3 full and every table had ribs on it! Amazing….must be like a license to print money! We ordered the ribs to share. They were very very tasty. We decided not as good as ours at home and maybe not as much of a winner as the pepperoni pizza we had at the Rusty Keyhole 2 a couple days ago. But still very good and worth the $8 (total-not each). We did start in before remembering the photo…

We ate it all up, coleslaw and everything. Pretty impressed, it was a sweet tangy sauce.

There was lemon pie on the specials menu, so we were going to go in for that, but it wasn’t ready yet 😔

So we walked over to a pie and ice cream place I found. We only got a brownie to go because we wanted to get to the Ecran Movie house. The brownie was very very good though, and I think we might just find our way back over there for pie soon. The movie house thing was a bust for today. The two $2.50 movies they had showing were of no interest to us and the $3.50 private rooms were all full. So we will have to try again another day. We could go back at 7pm, but that seems a little late….we will see. The redeeming thing about this little side trip was we found Captain Chims! It was bumpin’ so a very good sign, we will have to go there too. Good thing I booked three more nights here 😉😉

So we picked up our laundry and made our way back to the hotel, maybe there will be a movie on the TV. I did find an English movie channel last night. 😃😃

And when that happens, nothing happens!! We woke up and whilst we were having our omelette by the river, the wind picked up something fierce and then rain came pelting down. It passed in about 10 minutes or less, then we saw blue sky. So we started to brain storm about the day. Should we do something, should we do nothing? We decided to do something since the rain forecast for the next two days is for rain. It is the rainy season after all. So we decide we should try to get to Bokor Hill. Supposedly the are a few nice things to see up,the, an old abandoned Catholic Church, an abandoned casino? And a waterfall….

We could hire a driver and a car, a tuk tuk or rent motorbikes and go ourselves. Thinking tuk tuk is our best option as a car and driver is $40 for a half day. So we ask a couple tuk tuk guys, they say nope, a tuk tuk can’t make it up there, must go on a tour or hire a driver. So we wander into town (with laundry in hand) to see about renting motorbikes. Apparently this is $5 per day per bike investment. By the time we get laundry place found and dropped off, the nasty clouds have rolled back in so we think bikes maybe are not the best idea if it is going to rain and the road is clearly steep and windy. Thus the tuk tuks not being able to make it. So we are back to tour, or car. It is too late to catch a tour today (they leave at 8:30 am) and we are just not sure about the expense of the car and driver yet. We decide to think about it over a light lunch. 😃😃 We went to the original Rusty Keyhole and I order fries and Troy orders a bacon and chicken sandwich. Very tasty lunch but when we are done it is still quite windy with ominous clouds overhead. So back to the hotel we come to rest and blog. As it turns out, it is 4:19pm and there hasn’t been a drop of rain since the bit this morning at breakfast, so we could have rented the bikes…..but you just never know. I guess it is best to catch up on my blog anyway.

There are a couple dogs that hang out here, I guess they live here, they are scraggly looking mutts to be sure. Kinda cute though. This one growled when I took his picture. Maybe he is shy….

I love how they just lay about wherever and expect folks to go around them….

Here is what the place we are staying at looks like and the view from the restaurant. We have breakfast out in those huts…

So we have heard the Rusty keyhole has absolutely amazing ribs, so pretty sure we will be back down there at 6pm ish for supper. I’ll let you know what I think.

So this is bad news folks. I forgot my camera today, so if you want to see pictures, you may have to click over to Troy’s blog….

I slept well last night, maybe Troy not so much, apparently he spent a large portion of the night battling nature in our room. I see a piece of toilet paper stuffed into a hole in the corner of the ceiling 😉. Plus there was a massive thunder and lightening storm (I did wake up once to that), but did go back to sleep quite easily. My light sleeping darling did not perhaps. 😥

The day started with an omelette and a warm crusty roll for breakfast, plus one cup of very very strong coffee on the beautiful setting of the river. What else do we need I ask??

We had asked our new tuk tuk friend Bun Loung, to pick us up at 9am to start our trek into the countryside. We knew we were going to see a pepper plantation and also a salt place. But not sure about the rest….the country (that’s what I heard). I asked him where we were going and he said “the killing fields” no joke, he said that! I was looked at Troy and said, “I don’t want to do that again”. I know there are many many places (~300) where this happened in this country. But I decided to let it ride and see what he meant. We got to a place that looked like a temple with many pagodas etc. Sure enough it was just that, there was one large glass case of skulls and bones with a Buddha where people come to pray, but other than that, nothing like the place we went before. It seemed like many other temples we have been to, just with a Cambodian flare (vs the Thai flare) I can actually tell the difference now! There really is a difference.

After that we did go to a salt “farm” not sure if that is what it is called. It looks exactly like rice paddies, except they flood them with sea water (there is a river very close by that is fed by the ocean) and then let them dry out/evaporate and viola, salt is left behind. Apparently it takes 14 days to dry up. They scoop the salt up, put it in a shed, then bag it up and take it to Phnom Penh and Siem Reap to sell. So strange….I never really thought about where salt comes from. Still not at all sure how they get it off the soil without collecting a tonne of dirt along with it. But alas we are not in the season to see that part of the process. We are in the bag it up out of the shed season 😀

We also saw a lot of rice paddies, which of course we have seen before, but also amazes me what a load of work that is. We understand from Vanna that while it takes longer to harvest by hand….there is much less wasted rice, so all in all a better way to do it. Plus the machine to harvest rice is probably expensive, so most farmers can not afford this?

We also went to Starling Farms. This is apparently the most famous and very best Kampot pepper. And apparently Kampot pepper is the best in the world. So yes, we bought some. I am sure I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, but I’m not a pepper person. A pepper lover might, but that’s not me. We will have to do blind taste tests when we get home.

We rode on some of the very smallest roughest potholed filled back woods paths (I won’t call them roads) that you can imagine. All in an open air tuk tuk. We went to an area where we had the pleasure of two more tag along teens that felt we needed a guide to climb to the top of a hill to see a temple and go into a cave. Sigh….what can I do? As it turns out, the view was ok, but the caves were lame. We get in there and they tell me I have to put a dollar for each of us in a bowl to give to the monks. It’s not the dollar, because that’s nothing, but just the way they go about it that kind of bugs me sometimes. So then they ask if we want them to come with us into the cave, the are two etc etc, how much they give us is up to us etc etc. It is SO awkward! What am I going to do, send them away to their face. So we say ok. Anyway, maybe we have been spoiled with the absolutely amazing caves in Thailand, but these caves were puny. Total disappointment. But the walk was nice and it felt good to get out of the tuk tuk. The boys were funny and flirty just like the two at the last temple we went to on the day trip to Udong Hill from Phnom Penh, I think it is what they must be told to do to get a bigger tip. I gave them each a dollar when we were leaving. They want to know if we were angry with them. Not sure if that is the word choice they actually meant, but it made me smile. No I wasn’t angry, I just don’t like having to pay for a service I didn’t ask for then get shaken down for money all along the way. It’s not my style. Sawry!

We stopped at Secret Lake for lunch, reminds me of the lakeside restaurant we have been to in Chiang Mai where they have bamboo huts out into the water and depending on how high the lake is, it depends on how far into the water you are. Hmmmmmm–quite the adventure ordering. The menu was in English and Cambodian so we thought we knew what we were doing, all we wanted fried rice and another dish that said chicken with red chilies and basil. Sounds simple enough. After much much discussion between Bun Loung and the staff and Bun Loung and us, we get to the following, “no we don’t want a whole chicken, just a half, yes, just a half, and we want pork in our fried rice, yes pork, pork? Yes pork. And yes, just half a chicken. And pork with our fried rice. And yes only half a chicken” I bet you think I am exaggerating. I’m not….it went on for a good 4 minutes.

So the fried rice comes out! It was incredible! If this is any indicator, we are very excited about our “half chicken with basil and chilies”….but as is often the case we are surprised with what we actually get. So the dish comes about 10 or 12 minutes later, I guess it took them that long to chase the chicken around the yard or something, but either way, the initial presentation is pleasant. As I start to poke around, I am thinking oh darn, it’s on the bone still, not my favourite way to eat chicken as there are often shards of bone when you bite it as the bones split when they hack at with their knife. But I can deal with it. It will force me to slow down and enjoy the meal. The first bite I take out is ok, a little tough, still has the skin on, so now I have to be on alert for feathers (just kidding-maybe not-read on). Then the next piece I pull out is the freaking claw! Gross!! I go to great pains to avoid things like this in my daily life here, I need to see that the chicken I eat is either a wing, leg, thigh or breast. I don’t do claws or heads or other chicken parts. So I push that aside and take a much better look at everything on the plate. Troy is just staying back waiting for my assessment. What do I find but an organ, kidney or liver or something, whole too! All nice and roasted in the sauce. I’m really freaking out now. I found another claw….so then I was done. All I can think is, at the most there should have been one claw, this is only half a chicken! This adventure cost $10.25. I was so flustered I think I left her $1 tip. So I guess $11.25. They use USD and riel here simultaneously. The USD for dollars in a price and riel for the cents. So if something is $10.25 you can give them a ten plus 1000 riel. I have her a ten and a 5000 riel note as it was the smallest I had, so she tried to give me $1 back and I just wandered off dazed.

Troy fed the whole plate to the dogs that were hanging out under our bamboo hut, they were very happy with that, I finished my rice (I was still very happy with that) then I got in the hammock and relaxed in the breeze.

We got back to Kampot at 3pm and the tuk tuk driver wanted us to commit to another trip the next day….wouldn’t we like to go to Kep?? He said the weather would be nice for one more day, then rain was coming etc etc. After 6 hours in a tuk tuk, I was inclined to say I needed a break from that much fresh air. So we sent him along saying we would call if we needed him. He looked doubtful that we knew what we were doing….

We freshened up and then set off to try to find the Rusty Keyhole 2. Which we believed was also very good food. We took a detour through the Market. Oh goodness, I can’t take much more of these markets, where I have to see and smell all that meat and seafood and rotting scraps. When it is open air, it’s doable, but some of these markets are inside and the air just doesn’t move. Plus they go on forever! All this was so I could try and find banana chips, which I did not find. I am really starting to think I need to keep where my food comes from more mysterious (maybe even a total secret).

We did find the Rusty Keyhole 2. A pub style restaurant owned and run by a English chap and his Cambodian wife (I assume) His name is Kristian and the special was lasagna (Kristian’s lasagna) I sure was tempted, but we decided to get a pizza instead. SO GOOD! Oh my! Really really good. We were very happy. $13 for a large pizza, large water and a large plate of cheese fries! What a deal! On the way out we asked him about the original location. He said they were still open there, they just close every other Tuesday. Imagine our luck?? Well, now we know.

We thought about massage, but the only places we can find here for massage are done by blind people. So we aren’t sure about that….we passed for tonight.

Well, very slow start to the day…knowing full well we don’t have to be anywhere until 2-2:15pm to catch the VIP minibus to Kampot. They are going to pick us up at our hotel….which is nice because then we don’t have to try to find the bus depot. 😳

Sure as can be, they are right on time and we are the first ones on. Always an adventure to see what they do with luggage. Since is it a minibus (glorified name for a full size van), there is no place to put luggage, not like in a coach where there is storage under or over. So the stack beside the driver starts to grow. And with us being the first stop, guess what, ours is on the very bottom. We drove around the area picking up travelers. There was about 8 people by the time all this occurred and we were thinking “sweet!” We can spread out, get comfy. Hahahahahahahaha! Nope, we then stopped at the bus depot and filled that puppy up to the brim wih 16 or 17 people. Could have gotten a couple more people in if they had flipped out the extra stow away seats in the aisle…..but thankfully they didn’t do that. At the stroke of 2:45pm we were out of the station just as promised. They must have done this once or twice before eh? 😉😉

Here is our sweet ride!

Troy loves the minibus selfie…..so I had to torture him with it again. Sometimes we ask others to take it for us (actually how we met Jackie and Bruce in Laos 2 years ago). But since we were the first ones on, we (I) resort to the selfie.

The ride took 3hr and 15 minutes. So very close to the actual estimate of 3 hours we were told. I am very impressed! Not much to note on the ride, very flat countryside, rural farming pretty much. We came across a massive collection of trucks that were loaded to the gills with people. If I had to guess I would say there was a factory shift that was just being released and these were folks riding home. Love their efficiency….

We pull into Kampot and I can already say I like it better than Phnom Penh. So much smaller and quieter. WAY more our speed. As the driver opens the side door, there is a gathering of men maybe 6-8 that are anxiously unloading all the luggage. They carry it inside the depot and I’m like, ” UH!!” But then they let us off and I see what the system is. These are Tuk Tuk drivers who eagerly want to know where we are going? Can they drive us etc etc. Here we go….so we get a driver to agree to $2 (down from $3) to take us to our hotel (The Natural Bungalows). Then he starts to hard sell us on other tours. “We will see”I say.

It was a very short ride to the hotel, but certainly too far to walk with our 15K backpacks plus camera bags etc. so good enough deal for $2. Once we got to the hotel, we did agree to have him come back the next day to take us on a tour of the countryside. It was going to be $25 for the whole day….sounds reasonable enough.

The hotel is a very neat place. Quiet and right on the river. I don’t have pictures yet, bcz I keep forgetting my camera, but I will take some. The view from the restaurant is stunning. It’s right on the river.

We walked around a bit trying to find a place called the Rusty Keyhole which had been recommended. But it was closed once we found it, so we went to a place right beside it that serves local food. I gave the Lok Lak another go. With pork this time. Also very very tasty, but honestly, either I didn’t get pork or the pork here is just as chewy as beef. 😳😳

We came back to the hotel and had ice cream out on the pier/wharf restaurant. What a lovely end to the day.

At certain moments we weren’t sure…but overall, the adventure was worth it. We woke up around 9am this morning….so as you can see we are way over the waking up too early thing 😳

Just got to breakfast and ate in time before they closed up at 10 am. By noon we had made the decision to try and get ourselves to Udong Hill where there is supposedly a fantastic climb with a temple at the top. It is about 45 Km’s outside of Phnom Penh. I asked at the front desk and was told that a taxi would be $40, and a tuk tuk would be $35. I had read on the tripadvisor website that folks had taken tuk tuks for $15-20 or maybe as much as $30. So we decided to try to find a tuk tuk on the street that would take us for $15-20. If not we were going to wander down to the river and do a river tour maybe?

Well the opening offer was $35 from the tuk tuk driver. So we walked….he followed us and said “how much you pay” ahhhhh, now we are talking, we play along, Troy looks at me and says “how much did you say?” and I said “well I saw on the Internet $15-20” Troy says to the guy “$20?), the guy looks at his buddy, hums and haws for a few seconds, then says “OK”. So we are off for $20. This seems like a good enough deal since it is at least 1.5 hours drive each way. I ended up giving him $22 cuz I felt a tiny bit bad about the $20 (no idea why), then find out from Vanna that we should/could have paid $15 😳😳 now I don’t have to feel bad anymore. I feel generous!

So after the ride yesterday out to the killing fields, I knew better than to wear my contacts today….the dust on the roads here is too much to bear in the open air environment of a tuk tuk. The ride was fun….I think that is the word I will choose. Our driver’s tuk tuk was not in very good condition, there were no signal indicators or rear view mirrors (although there was evidence there used to be) and it made a lot of strange noises. There was a open gallon jug behind the driver that had a little hose running out of it. We were not totally sure what it could have been, other than it was not gasoline, because we stopped for gas a couple times (2 litres at a time) and they didn’t put it in there. So it was either coolant or water or something else more dubious?? Matters not because it only splashed out all over the seat every time we went over a bump THE ENTIRE WAY! Hahahahahahahaha. Pretty sure he filled up when we were at the temple too…..

The roads we travelled over were horrendous. I don’t know what to say about the roads here, they really are not good. As we ride along, there are huge potholes, places where they are washed out, construction, mud, all kids of exciting things and I think the tuk tuks are the most vulnerable, cars, vans, gas trucks, garbage trucks, dump trucks and busses and coaches all barrel down on us with insistent honking (that basically means get the H out of my way or I will run you over). The driver always dutifully gets out of the way if he can, but without the ability to scoot around like a plain motorbike, it gets a little dicey sometimes. Nevertheless, we made it back just fine obviously. I just think the ride was way more exciting in a tuk tuk than in an a/c taxi 😉😉

The temple was indeed a beautiful climb (509 steps!!!) with a fantastic view of the area. The warnings I read before we went was that there would be a lot of children begging there and to be prepared. It is hard to prepare yourself for the begging children here. There are physically disabled adults who beg and the elderly who beg everywhere, but I find the children the hardest to see and deal with. I know I can’t give them all money but if you give one money, then it starts something that just gets too big. I remember that from when we were in northern Cambodia three years ago. I also heard about the “teen guides” who want to walk you up to the top and tell you everything you need to know in English. So two teen boys latched on to us and despite the fact we didn’t say even one word to them the whole way up and avoided eye contact, they stuck with us, fanned us, complimented us (Troy mostly), offered to carry him up (good lord!). So we felt on the hook to give them a little something. Despite my attempts to be discreet about it, a couple little girls saw and they hung on me saying they would sing their school song for a dollar. Over and over….sigh

Beautiful view….

Saw many different homes on the way there and back. Some I could live in, some I couldn’t. I’ll let you decide which is which.

So how about the power poles here 😳😳😳😳? Yes that is a power pole! And so are the twigs strung together down the road…..

Also to note is the sheer amount of garbage that is everywhere here. I though Laos had a lot of garbage, but I think Phnom Penh is the dirtiest city I have ever been in. There are piles of it everywhere. There was a pile growing since we got here just down the street from our hotel, I was starting to get concerned. Most of it was loose garbage, not in bags or anything, so how possibly does this get picked up?? I dunno, but when we walked home for supper tonight Troy remarked “Margory is gone” and sure enough the whole pile (that was big enough to be named) was indeed gone. So they either come with shovels of a backhoe or something. I should have taken a photo, but I did get a couple other random pictures today. These piles are simply everywhere here. We have not seen any rats (other than the one super flat one we saw in the road yesterday afternoon).

We stopped at Happy Phnom Penh pizza for supper tonight. I wanted to try the lok lak dish Troy had last night, but he had pizza. Both were good! I think his dish was better last night, as I missed asking them to substitute the “beef” for pork or chicken. But it was tasty if only slightly chewy (beef is not their strong suit here).

I did think about having the fungi pizza, or maybe the happy PP pizza….but nope, not tonight 😀😀

I must include a photo or I don’t think you would believe me that the was fungi pizza

We are off to Kampot tomorrow, catching the bus at 2:45. It will be a “3 hour” drive….so likely close to 5 if things are like they usually are in SE Asia. Supposedly a VIP bus, with A/C and wifi, but we will see. Wondering what it will be like to be one of those ginormous coaches bearing down on the tiny little tuk tuks on the “roads”…I hope our driver is nice.

….of the vehicles here. We notice the same thing in Thailand, but they load their vehicles to the brink here. I suppose it makes sense to get the most out of your trip, but sometimes we see the most bizarre things. We see them flying down the road on motorbikes with sheets of glass, ladders, far too many people the list goes on. But when they overload their bikes or tuk tuks in such a way it always amazes us.

I was right about the breakfast! That’s a great way to start the day isn’t it?

So there are some very disturbing things in Cambodian history. And not a long long time ago…we are talking about in my lifetime. Which isn’t very long.

From 1975-1979 the Khmer Rouge killed 3 million of the 8 million people in Cambodia. There were 300 sites where this was done, but the most famous one, the Killing Fields, Choeung Ek Genocidal Center, is 15km from Phnom Penh so we decided to hire a tuk tuk for a half day ($15 (see why the $10 from the airport wasn’t a fab deal?)) and go out and observe, pay our respects and learn what happened. It was really awful. I can’t even fathom it. And I’ve seen it now…..very real and very graphic. I didn’t take any pictures. Then we went back into the city to go to visit the Genocide Museum TUOL SLENG (also known as S21 Museum). This is where the prisoners were held tortured and “interrogated” before they were sent to be executed at Choeung Ek. Also very awful to see.

That’s all I have to say about that.

The roads we travelled today were more than sketchy to say the least. Can’t believe the places that motorcycles and tuk tuks can go. Cars and trucks also actually…

The road was a cement path that was wide enough for one car, one path for each direction. Until it got to the point where there wasn’t a path anymore, and it was a dirt road. All fine until it rains I suppose.

We got back to the hotel around 4:00 and after freshening up we headed out to meet Vanna for a coffee. We met her father and two cousins (both 17). Made plans for supper at 7pm at the place up the street where Vanna’s sister works. While we were waiting for 7pm, we walked along the river again. My mind is blown by the traffic here.

Solid cars (99% Toyotas–over 50% of those are Lexus rx300), motorcycles, and tuk tuks going on forever.

We had another awesome meal at YingYen. I did have amok again, Troy tried a different dish, lok lac, which was so good, if I can, I will order that next time!

Also as I was sitting there gazing at the traffic, I noticed a tuk tuk with a few stickers….made me think of home!

So ’twas another full day. We are sticking around here for one more day before we head to Kampot on Tuesday at 2:45pm. Vanna has arranged for us to get the VIP bus. 😀😀

I am not sure what adventures we will have tomorrow. But I’m sure it will be good.

TTFN

We had a leisurely(ish) morning as we didn’t need to head off to airport until 10:30 or so. We were actually ready a little early, so were off shortly after 10. GO ME!!!!! We asked at the desk and they said 150B for a taxi to airport or 100B for a tuk tuk, no idea on a songtao. So we decided to head off and find our own transport as these prices seemed high. Pretty sure we flagged a tuk tuk for 60 baht two years ago. Funny how when you are wanting to walk and you just wander down the road, we are continally getting honked at and asked if we want a ride. We walked all the way to the moat with all our bags before we came across a songTao. But nonetheless it was a 60baht ride, ($2 USD)so we were happy enough with that.

The flights were uneventful. Had to fly through Bangkok 😳 never a popular choice for me, but it was fine, AirAsia uses Don Muang airport so much smaller that BKK. On the second leg I sat next to an American (Kentucky) lady that lives in a village 12 miles outside of Phnom Penh. She moved there 17 years ago with her husband and 4 children all under the age of 5. They started an NGO to provide health and hygiene services, water and other services to the village. She was in Chiang Mai for meetings, but was on her way home. She was very nice and had sound very helpful tips for us! So you just never know who you might meet. 😀

She told me a ride shouldn’t cost more than $10 USD to where we needed to go. I came out and arranged a tuk tuk for $9. It was the guys opening offer, since it was less than $10 I was pleased. But Troy had a good point. We probably could have had air conditioned taxi for $10. Hahahahahahahaha oh well, the tuk tuk was more FUN!

It caused me to reminisce about the first tuk tuk ride that we had when we were here with all the kids in 2009. Traffic here is similarly crazy to Bangkok, perhaps ever more so. It was CRAZY! I shot some video….thought maybe if we got in an accident the video footage might come in handy. But the roads here are lawless, no doubt in my mind. Red lights are merely suggestions, lane markings are non existent, traffic moves in multiple directions in all lanes. It’s a total free for all. The only thing that makes sense to me is that at least they “drive on the same side as us” I use that phrase loosely as oncoming traffic travels on both sides of you when traveling down the road. If traffic gets too backed up, they just take to the sidewalks. Completely acceptable way to avert the traffic and be able to carry on your journey. It’s unbelievable.

We survived the ride. It was about 9km, but took close to 45 minutes. We got to the hotel, absolutely no way we could have found this place. But the guy drove right here. When it was time to pay, I showed him a $20 and asked if he could make change. I knew this was a stupid question, but I had a momentary lapse. His face lit up and he said “maybe you want to give me a little tip?” Hahahahahahahaha. Maybe a little tip is a dollar or two. Not eleven!! So I had ones, no problem, I got them out and counted him $10. He seemed happy enough about that. As I learned the next day, he made good money on that trip, but usually they do when taking you to or from airport. It is what it is….it is not like you have much choice in these scenarios. Same thing happens in Chiang Mai, we pay 120B to get out of the airport, but clearly can get back for 60B.

The room at the Silver River Hotel is simple but nice, this is a bigger hotel than we usually stay at (58 rooms). This bodes well for a decent breakfast. When we stay at a place with 16-25 rooms, they just have a set breakfast, but this place has many more, so they will have a buffet breakfast. I can tell as we check in because they have the serving dishes on banquet tables in the restaurant 😄😄

Got ourselves a tiny bit settled, then headed out for a walk/food hunt. My initial impressions are that I may like this place. We decide we “feel safer than Bangkok” but not as comfortable as Chiang Mai. I am shocked by the garbage accumulating in the streets. There seems to be a lot of street food, BUT none of it looks like anything I should eat. Sooooooo after we walk down the river and take some pictures…

We end up at a restaurant where I can try a dish I have been curious about Khmer Amok chicken. It is delicious! I think I have a new food love!

Troy had Indian food, I believe this was Tikka Masala butter chicken, so I think those are actually two different dishes, so maybe this was a combination of them or something? I dunno, but Troy said it was delicious, and I agree, I had a bite 😉

We hung out for a bit and I had a Vietnamese coffee (I know-I’m in Cambodia) and Troy tried their beer Angkor.

After eating, we thought we should take a walk down the promenade along the river, right at 8pm a fantastic fireworks show started. What a treat! Since we missed the 4th 😉😉

We also noticed earlier that there was a very grand building down the street with lights strung on it like it was Christmas! So we walked down to see what it was, we suspected the Royal Palace. We were right, it was indeed the Palace. And clearly there was something being celebrated. If the massive amount of traffic and people and fireworks weren’t giving it away…then the celebration going on at the palace cemented it.

We also discovered a night market. As always, loads of people, food, clothes chaos. It was a little bit rainy earlier I think so the market was all set up with tarps etc just in case it returned. But the challenging part is the average height of a Cambodian must be close to 5 feet bcz me at 5’7″ was clipping my head on pretty mush all the tarps and their supporting twine.

Found these yummy little treats….didn’t try them, but thought about it 😉

Not sure who puts them out, but the centre of the food area has all these mats that folks can sit down to eat on. Notice how everyone takes their shoes off. Seems like a good idea, unless you are the unfortunate one trying to make your way around the area and keep tripping over all the shoes scattered all over.

So if I get tired of Amok, I know I won’t starve….there is always snails….loads and loads of snails. Far and away the most common street food we see down by the river.

Or popcorn

Or if I’m in a real pinch….the lucky burger 😳

We did stop for a foot massage at the place right next door to the hotel. We felt the artwork was a good omen.

We were right….perhaps the most exceptional foot massage ever, particularly Troy’s I hear 😉 even though my girl was in a black cocktail dress…. We did get the answer to what everyone was celebrating. It was the anniversary of the old king’s death. They celebrate it every year. Big day for sure. I love counties with monarchies. ❤️

We had the most amazing meal with our new friends David and Et. They live in an apartment close by but it doesn’t have a kitchen so they do the majority of their cooking at the shop they now own as of 4-6 weeks ago (depending on who you ask😉)

Et made spring rolls and a pork noodle soup that was out of this world. Perhaps I need to re evaluate how I evaluate food. I have passed by this very dish many many times as I don’t do noodle soup….but this was SO good! Then we had a dessert of Thai melon with tapioca in coconut milk. Sounds odd but it was exceptionally good, and I DON’T eat melon!😳😳 maybe it was the corn, yes there was corn in it. We sat around and visited for quite a while, until close to 10pm I think. Sure will be staying in touch with them and visiting again when we are back next year.

Back to the room to see if all the very wet laundry from this morning was dry enough to pack. Spoiler alert…..it wasn’t…..😩😩

The animals need to say goodbye to the Tadkham Village.