Day 30 - High Flight!

I am here and completely wrung out. Fortunately I've been wrung out for several days now so I've spent most of today in a pleasant haze! I caught the nice plane, Angkor Air, after a slight snafu with my penknife, necessitating checking in twice and putting my hand luggage in the hold! This meant I was without my carefully printed visa entry instructions. Nevertheless met at the rather nice airport by "Chammy" (sounds like something out of Absolutely Fabulous!) and driven, with two others, young French girls, through the city to Apartment #2. This city is smaller and therefore cleaner than Hanoi. They wear better motobike helmets generally and the car to bike ratio is smaller. There are more walls and the walled buildings themselves are more modern. However, there is no hot water and no air con. I have a large fan thank god. Best of all though, I have a room to myself! Phew. Most of the volunteers here are French, Swiss or other French speaking regions. With no other British around in my apartment it does make it a little more sophisticated!

We arrived at 11.45am just in time for lunch. All meals being prepared for us, they are all eaten at set times. It was delicious, with, wait for it, HOT noodles!  Somewhat surprisingly the volunteers eat with spoon and fork, not chopsticks. With my head spinning, the volunteers I met at lunch announced they were going to the pool for Sunday afternoon. We all agreed to join them, I only just had enough time to snatch up my mobile Sims before we were off in a tuk-tuk (in fact I had to run after them!).  A tuk-tuk in Cambodia is a four seater people litter on two wheels with a motobike providing the horsepower at the front. Some of them have wooden seats and are prettily painted a la Indian cliches, and they have curtains and rain covers.  

We went to the Phnom Penh Sports Club. This has two pools and a large fitness gym. No air con of course but you can get soft drinks and hot snacks. Apparently there is another one called Good Times sports club. I immediately set about trying to get my sim to work but no luck. O2 has not penetrated to Cambodia yet!  I will need a local phone. However, I was making such a fuss one of the old hands, Leah, lent me hers to send a text to Dad. Phew! I do hope it was received Ok, it was sent about 2 hours after I landed.

We took a tuk tuk to the Riverside from the Sports Club. This was actually rather unfortunate as not only did the heavens open but we had what is apparently a very rare occurrence of a grumpy tuk tuk driver! This resulted in a slanging match between the driver and Leah when he dropped us off, in the downpour, at the wrong end of the riverside promenade.  We took shelter with many Cambodian under a promenade pagoda.  There I saw insects for sale as snacks, including cockroaches, crickets, frogs and (huge) maggots.  Culture shock would have set in about now if I had not been so completely zonked anyway. Dripping, we headed on down the promenade, past the Royal Palace and the National Museum, to see the delights of riverside. There, comforting sights at last such as balcony cafes and restaurants with a view and also a very smart pharmacy that sells smart snacks too.  Incidentally the river is the Tonle Sap I think, not having found a city map yet) and quite wide where it meets the Mekong. Rainbow!

On the way back, in yet another tuk tuk (motos really not recommended), price of $2 negotiated in advance, we passed the Independence monument on our way to the Bayon supermarket. Indeed a supermarket. Home in time for dinner, served at 7pm, of mashed pumpkin and curry. Yummy. The others have gone out for ice cream, but not me, too tired!

I intend to try the Library cafe for wifi tomorrow morning, before my induction at 2pm, which should hopefully enable purchase of a Cambodian phone.