Cambodian Run
Trip Start
Mar 14, 2006
1
93
374
Trip End
Mar 15, 2007
Phnom Phen,
Cambodia
Thursday, June 15, 2006
The small bus arrived at the border just a few hours after leaving Saigon with the Vietnamese officials ushering people through in double quick time to then spend ages on the Cambodian side hopping from one little counter to another seemingly filling in forms with the same information at each one (not surprised I've memorized my passport number now).
Once through my first taste of Cambodia was at a restaurant just over the border where we would get a bus to Phnom Phen but seemingly still on the same 'relaxed' time as Vietnam it did not leave in a hurry
Night Market
.With the bus underway it would be a few more hours till we reached Phnom Phen which gave me a glimpse of Cambodia albeit from the window of a bus which surely never gives the most representative look at a place but from the little I did see it appeared a world away from even Vietnam with a level of poverty I'd not yet witnessed up to now.
The bus journey also introduced me to the Cambodians themselves but again I should not judge the whole country on my 1st encounter which was with poor little girl sitting with her mother next to me throwing up throughout the journey looking very ill with little I could do other than give them my bottle of water.
Arriving in Phnom Phen the bus tried to dump us at some other hotel rather that the one the majority onboard was wanting and even tried to tell us the bus was not going any further when people refused to take a room.
Driving to the (other) hotel in Phnom Phen I saw my first orange robe clad monks (not counting the two onboard since Saigon who where apparently on holiday) in and around the many Wats in the city which looked completely different to the Buddhist temples in Vietnam and China which made a pleasant change after being templed out with seeing so many.
Finding a local market I chose to have some Chinese dumplings which I'd not had since, erm China, and on hearing the cook speak Mandarin I managed to confuse him just as much as myself with ordering and thanking him in a mishmash of English, Vietnamese and Chinese.
