First Impressions of Phnom Penh
The city is very bustling even compared to Saigon, but in a much different way. It reminds me of cities in Thailand more than those in Vietnam and Laos. The people here are different too; they seem ragged, like life here is harder than in the surrounding countries. That always makes me a bit nervous because desperate people are willing to do things they wouldn't normally do, but reasonably and statistically I don't think it's anymore dangerous here than other big cities in SEA. This is the first place that I've really felt like the people here have had a really raw deal and wanted to help them, but all I can do is spend my money. Horse drawn carts are a practical means of transport and may out number the cars in the country side (not motorbikes -- nothing out numbers those!). There seems to be a much larger distance between the wealthy and the poor with almost no middle class, which I guess is typical of a recovering country. I understand why it has become a charity case for developed countries as there are easy projects for them to take on that make large differences to the local people. Phnom Penh, like Luang Prabang, has some very nice parts to it. Along the river there are luxury hotels after luxury hotels and fancy restaurants to go with them. There are also happy pizza places serving small doses of marijuana to it's costumers. Cambodia realizes that tourism is a very large source of income and they want to cater to the tourist to extricate as much money as possible. This is also why I think it's safe here as the people have realized that it's better to offer a service than any thing else. That means though, at ever corner there are a few moto-taxis asking you if you want a ride, which get quite irritating if you like walking.
Drugs in Cambodia
Drugs are a real issue here since this is one of the largest opium/heroin producer in the world and supplies a large part of the marijuana to SEA. Since this is a country of payoffs, drugs are readily available in PP. They are technically illegal here, but they are also well tolerated. With the cost of living being so cheap, this does attract a certain type of drug users. If you want to worry about someone stealing your stuff, watch out for westerners. About 15 min after I checked into my room, someone tried to open my door. The door lock was open, but she couldn't get in because I had latched the bolt. I'm pretty sure she wanted to go through my stuff to see if there was anything to steal. Since I was there, I opened to door as she was taking off down the hall. I could be misreading the whole situation, but I don't think so because most people drop their bag in the room and immediately leave, giving thieves a perfect window of opportunity. I don't think anyone came into my room during my 2 night stay there, but I made sure to keep my bag unlocked so they could easily get inside it if they wanted. Hopefully then they would be able to look through my dirty clothes, quickly realizing there was nothing to steal, and not just take my whole bag or try to cut it open.
My time in Phnom Penh
The first morning I woke up a little late (evil tv in my room with hbo and star) and spent some time on the web as it's very nice to have wi-fi in the room. It's truly amazing what you get for $7usd/night. After my web addiction was satisfied, I struck out to try and find some food. I wanted to go over to the river and see what was there and maybe try to find some street food. It turned out to be quite a walk and I passed through a couple of really nice parks. By the time I got to the river it was after noon and I was getting hungry. As I walked down the riverfront, I checked out a few menus, noticing that most were serving mains starting at $5 USD and going up from there. This was way too much for me and I knew there were better options than those. I got off the main street and found a small place serving one dish. They charged me $1usd for two large scoops of rice, some marinated grilled pork and a fried egg. It also came with some spicy sauce and pickled veggies. They were serving it to go and were going through a lot of food. I'm sure I paid at least twice as much as locals but it was still so cheap for what it was. I took my food and headed for a shady spot along the river to eat and watch the people going by. Very nice lunch.
Walking Tour
So after breakfast, or lunch really, since it was almost 1pm, I wanted to do the walking tour of Phnom Penh out of LP as we have liked them in other cities. I think that LP is only good for their cheap maps, walking tours, and info on the popular sights. It seems like once a place is listed in LP, the owners either sell it off to the highest bidder or become lazy and always raise prices. The walking tour started in Wat Phnom just north of all the nice restaurants and hotels along the river. This was a very nice city park with a wat (temple) in the middle. They charged foreigners $1 to get in, but it was well worth it. There was an elephant that they were selling rides on and a roaming pack of monkeys. Jen, you would have loved the monkeys because you could get really close to them and one was carrying baby underneath it as it moved around. It was a very nice park with many large trees that shaded most of the park. The wat up on the hill in the middle of the park was forgettable. After the park, I walked by the huge complex that is the US embassy and the national library, which was closed down. The market was the next stop. There really are two markets right next to each other, one is the old market which is similar to most markets that we have been to and the other is an 8 story modern shopping mall. At the old market, I bought a cotton scarf for $1 usd in hopes that I would use it to cover my head and neck in the very hot sun, but it turned out to be too small. I then went to check out the large mall. This was crazy. The top floor had a skating rink and a movie cinema, every floor had its own large sit down restaurant that really was some kind of American fast food, one floor had a food court, again with a lot of American fast food. There were also 2 supermarkets, a sporting goods store, and an electronics store similar to Best Buy. It was quite impressive to see the two markets side by side.
Happy Pizza
After the markets I had done half of the 6km walking tour, the other half I did that morning, so I was ready for something cold to drink and a happy pizza. I walked back to the river and choose one of the 10 or so happy pizza places that were serving $0.50usd draght beers (the place LP recommends, and yes, they do recommend a happy pizza place, was serving the same beer for $0.75usd and a similar increase in price for pizza) and seemed to have some people eating there. I ordered a couple of beers and a small veggie happy pizza for $3.50. The pizza really wasn't all that "happy" as I could tell, but it was still pretty tasty. Nice greens on it. At this point, I decided that I wanted to go home and clean up, see if I felt like coming back for the night life scene. I didn't make it back out of the room. By the time I got there, it was almost 9pm, which is late for me these days.
Leaving Phnom Penh
The next morning I woke up and fooled around on the web a little until I got fed up and decided to check out of the hotel and head for Kampot. I packed up and in 15 min, I was checking out of my room and heading for the bus station to catch the next bus. A $1.50 tuktuk ride and 14,000khr bus ticket and I was on my way to Kampot. Of course there was a couple of hours wait for the next bus, but that's to be expected when you just show up at the bus station.
NOTE: Sorry for the delay in editing, Robert sent this out a few days ago, but I have been completely consumed by my first interview at UW. (Done now, and gearing up for the next in a week.)
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