Goodbye Cambodia!

There are three phases of approach towards tuk tuk drivers. Firstly, you are polite and even stop for 2 seconds to chat. Then you get annoyed a lot and depending on other factors you are rude. The last phase is just laugh, bright smile and coming up with most vivid excuses like you have to lose some weight so you have to walk!

The national outfit of Cambodia seems to be pyjamas. Regardless of the time of day, they love to walk around in colorful yellow, pink or green pyjamas.

Locals compete here on vehicle capacity. Doesn’t matter what is the vehicles allowance, it’s how many people can you fit on a motorbike (we saw up to 2 adults plus 3 kids) or a truck (maybe 20?). Also they have the weirdest vehicles. What we admired was something like a tractor front (front wheels and an engine) combined with a platform on wheels (similar to that bamboo train carriage we took back in Battambang).

Bargaining is like a national sport. As a foreigner you can get 50% off the quoted price at least but be warned, they will pull the heaviest “help me miss”, “very little profit, give me more miss!” weapons. And the kids… the dirtier they look the more foreigners are willing to pay for crappy bracelets (“5 for 1 dola miss, buy from me!”, “you want cold water later? No problem, buy from me! Remember me by my hat!”.

There are also Buddhist monks, all in bright orange outfits, selling Buddha images and offering to pray for you. But they nearly all wear shoes!! The real monk as we heard should renounce all the down-to-earth possessions and pleasures – that includes shoes too. Sorry monk, if you wear shoes, no matter how orange your robe is, no money for you (wouldn’t give it anyways, but at least we have an excuse).

So remember the famous saying: if you wanna have a soft heart you need to have a hard ass (or a thick wallet in this case).

On the whole Phnom Penh is a big city, even though it doesn’t feel like it. The riverfront restaurants are nice, although pricey. I finally got to eat my potato after talking about it and smelling it everywhere for the past month at least. Today there seemed to be nothing to do. We arranged our forward trip to Saigon, and tried visiting the Palace and Silver Pagoda but were discouraged by huge lines, heat and 6$ entrance fee. So instead we checked out the biggest shopping mall in the city. Sorya was not what I hold for a mall, it looked more like a fake bag/clothes/electronics market than a mall. Then walked back to the riverfront getting lost a few times on the way. We’ve been in Cambodia for a week now – time to move on we’re getting bored :P Next stop: Vietnam! Cross your fingers for us not getting robbed on the way!