The Pearl of Asia again (or A 72 hour stop-over in Phnom Penh ;-)

Day 1

Where am I?  

Right...

I just exited the Royal Railway Station in Phnom Penh.

My Tuk-Tuk driver knows the fastest roads to get around so after less than a 10 minute drive, we're in front of the hotel and I rush in to get change to pay his $5 fare.   

Back on my Balcony ;-)

16:00
I've done my usual coming-home walk.   A CARTON of Ara Gold for US$ 4.90 (NO, I kid you NOT, LOL).  Right across the street is my incense store.  Every time I come here, I buy a beautiful box of YUMMY-smelling incense for $4.   The only disappointment:  The OLD dog that was always laying on the floor between the table and my brand of incense is no longer there.    

16:15
They're REALLY slipping.   Their check-in process is completely disorganized AND now there is NO-ONE to take an order in their roof-top bar that is supposed to be open at 16:00.   I'm STARVING and dying for a glass of wine !  

I despair to the level of using my Google Translate on my phone to get a glass of wine out of the help staff that is HERE but does not speak a SINGLE glass of English.   Imagine me rubbing my belly and pointing at the booze fridge.  Her response: Rubbing HER belly. But I think she got the idea, LOL.

Dismantling the Bon Om Touk floats

The news in the evening is all bad, even on this side.  Typhoon Damrey killed 27 people in Vietnam and McDonald's will open it's first 'restaurant' in Ha Noi soon.   

Day 2

5:30 am
Enough sleep; I will nap during the day anyway.

And I'm reminded why I LOVE this place (this hotel & this city) so much ;-)

 Where else do you get a sunrise that looks as if the Riders of the Apokalypse are about to set the horizon on fire?

Before the first time I actually visited Phnom Penh, I expected sprawling ugliness in a wide dusty plane.  Something to do with that name.   Boy was I wrong, LOL.

My mood has changed since I've returned to this room. More at peace.  Finally a balcony with a view worth the name AND comfy chairs to lounge and drink in. Finally a toilet without the sign "Do NOT flush toilet paper'. Finally a bed with a mattress one is happy to just turn around on and start reading a book.  All for US$ 31 / night. 

Life can be tough .....

 I decide to extend my stay here for at least one more night. Phu Quoc can wait.

7:00
Breakfast in Star Bar. HOW do they manage to get that much FLAVOUR into these eggs ???? 

 A tradition and a decadent way to prolong the time spent looking over the morning Mekong.    

GOD, I LOVE IT HERE, LOL.


9:00
YIPPEEE!   Success after 3 failed attempts.  And how miserably those attempts failed during the last 2 years, LOL.  But now I confirmed by e-mail that I WILL be on board the speedboat down the Mekong to Chau Doc in Vietnam on Wednesday.   After 7 trips to Vietnam and 6 to Cambodia (or is it more already?) I will finally get to see parts of the Mekong Delta !!!   It's hard to convey my excitement on the digital page, so just imagine me bouncing up and down on my chair while I'm typing this, LOL.

 No words necessary to express my opinion on the above breakthrough in culinary Ice-cream tastelessness.  A picture says it all:

After getting the boat ticket, I stop at a local mini-mart to buy essentials:  A corkscrew (YEAH! I now get to open the bottle of Rose I bought in Sihanoukville), a toe-nail clipper (a necessity after 2 weeks ;-), and a jug of anti-bacterial hand soap (nothing better for sink laundry). 






These are ALL items that the security NAZIs at the airports are just waiting to get their hands on. 

Hah!  

But I'm taking a boat to Vietnam and to Phu Quoc, so THERE ! 


10:30
I pay for the extra night in my hotel.  The owner did NOT know that bookings with my super-cheap rate do NOT include breakfast.   I'm getting one of my favourite hotel rooms in this world for $31 and I knew beforehand that I should pay $3 per day for breakfast.  

NO BS around here !

What kind of a Low-Life Turd would I be if I hadn't told the owner, eh?

11:30
Can you tell I opened that bottle of Rose a while ago? LOL

OMG. I've reached that hard-to-describe state again.   
OK, I'm not sober anymore, but that's NOT what I'm trying to say here ;-)

The whole afternoon is an extremely LAZY one.  But lazy in a good way. 
I read. I write. I think. I drink. I plan. I enjoy life !  

Every time I leave Vancouver it takes less time to get to this state. Only 10 days is a new record. 

But there is still some way to go ....  Who knows what I'll turn into eventually ? Life, which always STALLS in Vancouver, has kicked into motion again. And THAT is the reason why I'm here ;-)

17:30
That weakness I feel is the lack of food. I just know it.   Time to head back up to Star Bar for another F&C with pepper/lime dipping sauce ;-)

''Cigarette Street '

It has become noticeably MUGGY outside.  So I almost have to force myself to venture out to Sunflower Market at the end of Cigarette street.   They seem to have changed owners.  Too bad.  I still find what I'm looking for, including both Nescafe and VIETNAMESE instant coffee.  And NOT the bloody 3-in-1 (cream and sugar crap already in the mixture), but the pure black coffee instant.  The good stuff was impossible to find for the entirety of my trip so far, and now I finally got the Viet kind.  Happy sips!

Day 3

The Grandma Skype call at 4:30 goes reasonably well, but her mental state is starting to worry me.

And then it's already time for dawn over the Mekong !

I doze off again......

Breakfast at 8

I book my room for tomorrow night.   In Vietnam.  I don't get the cheapest room.  I get the more EXPENSIVE room.  Deluxe Double Room with balcony with river view, free WiFi & a fridge. All for US$ 12.50.   Yes, TWELVE ;-)  We'll see how that will turn out, but I've stayed in many $10-$20 rooms in Vietnam before and most of them are brand new and fabulous.

I'm out of WINE?   NO NO NO !  Got to go get more.

And I'm glad I did ;-)

 There is something about that colour ....

 And seeing THIS makes me feel like I grew up in a somehow dysfunctional and spiritually crippled part of the world.

11:00
It's overcast and windy and muggy with the sun only popping out occasionally.  It's turning into another LAZY day today ....

Time to start planning the end of this trip.  I book a flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Hong Kong. A 3.5 hours VietJet Air flight for CAD$ 74. 
 LOL.  I am reminded of airplane ticket prices back in Canada (they are equally outrageous in Australia !)   FUCK YOU, Air Canada & WestJet !  And guess what: Asian Airline Stewardesses even clean the washrooms during the flight !  Air Canada stewardesses on the other hand might just use one hand to close a left-open washroom door while they're serving food.    YUK !

14:15
I've finished the book I was reading. Not bad, but it's one of those one would leave in the books-are-too-heavy-to-carry libraries of guest houses. But I don't think this place has one.

And now I NEED to get OUT of my room.  How about a trip to the labyrinthine Central Market to buy a new shirt or some new shorts.  By now my clothes have gone through so many tropical trips and cycles of sink-laundry that it wouldn't hurt to find some new ones.  In particular here in SE Asia, where clothes are in general nice AND cheap.   

Does this explain the Electrifying Vibe of this city?

But the Central Market disappoints again.   It's just a GIANT MAZE of a Tourist Trap !   Cheap designs that no one in China wanted to buy end up here.  A waste of a trip with respect to shopping, but it got me out of the room and exposed me to new sights and smells. 

That WIRED feeling again ;-)

16:00 is rolling around.

And THAT means it's time for Fish & Chips with that DIVINE pepper sauce on the rooftop again, LOL

Joanna (Vietnam) had sent me an e-mail with a list of places on Phu Quoc, where I'm heading at a glacial pace.  One of them attracts my attention:

.... something different .....

19:00
I don't think I ingested enough calories today.  A quick walk to the store around the corner. Munchies is the word.



On the way back, I see a brand-new Rolls Royce with Cambodian plates parked on the street.   I internally blush when I realize that my first thought is to KEY it, i.e drag a key along the paintwork while walking by.  There are kids starving here.  What kind of a PRICK would drive around in a Rolls Royce?  It's a good thing that my hotel key doesn't have any sharp edges !  

On the other hand:  A person driving around in a Rolls in a city like Phnom Penh has a miserable life already.  (If you don't understand that yourself, me explaining it won't be any help either ;-)

Day 4

3:30
Enough sleep really; I putter around for an hour and decide to have another nap.

7:00
I wake up refreshed and ENERGIZED.  Today is the day!

The skies are overcast and it is windy and almost chilly at 24 degrees.


But hang on.  There is a sliver of golden sunshine over the Mekong in the South-East.  

And THAT is where I'm going today.  I'm going HOME today, LOL.

8:00

The sun has come out.  All my clothes are freshly sink-laundered.

My last breakfast on the breeze-swept and sun-drenched room terrace of the hotel.  

It's strange, even after all my traveling, I STILL feel a tiny tiny bit of Angst when I'm leaving a comfortable well-known place for The Unknown ;-)

During Breakfast I decide to buy another bottle of wine here before I leave and boat trips are always more fun with a bottle of booze.  

Yes, you can call me Jack, LOL.

11:15
After seeing public workers SCRUBBING the sidewalks (I kid you NOT; LOOK!),

I've had enough of the WiFi that's been nonfunctional for more than 3 hours now.  This fabulous hotel is family-run and as much as I like them, I must say that they're clue-less ;-)

I decide to check out early ....

Bon Om Touk boat races.  Saw those one year ago ;-)

Something doesn't sound right about this !

....  to get my WiFi fix and a glass of wine at La Croissette.

My regular table.  Something about Brigitte Bardot, LOL.

Plumeria?   Must be a country where I like it ;-)

That's it.  I can't recall how many times I've stayed in Phnom Penh by now.    I've liked it here every single time and I was always a bit sorry to leave.  

But there is a World out there that is waiting to be discovered!