Phnom Penh – Old & Lost

20 March 2018 – Travel Day – Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, Cambodia

Published on March 20, 2021April 23, 2021 by Old&LostLeave a comment

We had an early pickup for the bus today, so we were up early to get breakfast. Breakfast was once again pathetic. So happy to be leaving this hotel.

The bus showed up 15 minutes early. Good thing we were ready and just about to head down anyways.

We were the first two to be picked up and got to see many new areas of Phnom Penh City. I think we must have been staying in the grungiest area of the city as there appeared to be lots of nice areas. Not that we would ever go back, but if we did, I would stay in a better area. We had chosen our area of town to stay as it was close to the Kings Palace. Guess it was a mistake.

Our drive to Sihanoukville took approximately 5 hours once we got on our way. Traffic getting out of the city was totally insane. Until you have experienced it, you wouldn’t believe it. One way streets and then there is a scooter or a car coming at you. Doesn’t seem to phase anyone except us. LOL. We drove through jungle like terrain with the roads lined with palms trees and small villages. Mountains in the background, with some really beautiful scenery. Driving on the other hand was a little harey scary at times with all the passing going on. No pictures of the passing but saw this on the way. This guy had lost a cushion a few kilometres back.

Even saw a random cow every now and then, either walking along the road or crossing the road. There was pretty much everything on this road.

This is where we stopped for our bathroom break. The washrooms were really nice, especially by Cambodian standards.

Loved their Canadian Maple Leaf umbrella!

The bus took us right to our resort which was great since it turns out we are definitely out of the way. We are staying at Spayhiti Resort. It’s rated #1 of 242 in the B&B / guest houses category on a Trip Advisor in Sihanoukville. Great by Cambodian standards, but not 5 star by Canadian standards. Got all checked in which involved ringing a big brass bell to get service and being shown to our room. Room was nice.

Received our welcome drinks, which were a couple of beers and sat out on our patio to enjoy them. Ordered some food, fish and chips for Doug and fried noodles with chicken for me, which they brought to us, as their eating area is currently being reroofed. Not sure what it’s being reroofed with. I only saw large palm fronds heading in that direction.

Their ‘Chef’ is from France. They seem to be very proud of that. Food was good but it’s not like they will be cooking up French Cuisine here.

We made a new friend while sitting out.

It was a great, quiet, lazy day. Part of the reason we have stopped here, is to rest up.

19 March 2018 – Phnom Penh – Day 3 – Who is Conning Who?

Published on March 19, 2021March 24, 2021 by Old&LostLeave a comment

Today was going to be a busy day. We had arranged with the travel agent to hire a driver for the day to take us to see the Killing Fields, S-21 Museum, Watt Phnom and the Independence Monument. This also involved quite a bit of driving as the Killing Fields/The Choeung Ek Genocidal Center was approximately 15 km southeast of the city. It doesn’t sound too far unless you are battling rush ‘hours’ traffic in Phnom Penh. From the distance and length of time it took to get from our hotel I am guessing we were not located at the southeast edge of the city. Traffic was insane here but that seems to be the norm for all of these SE Asia cities.
Pick up time was 9:00 am from our hotel and the driver was right on time. We had paid US$35 but this was only for the driver and did not include admission to the Killing Fields or the S-21 Museum. Still a pretty good deal in my opinion. Here are a few sites we saw on our way.

The ticket pictures show admission being US$3 to the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center and US$3 for the audio headset. For some reason I thought it was more than that but honestly don’t remember now.

Choeung Ek is the most well-known of over 300 killing fields throughout Cambodia.

It is a sad place with a story to be told. A horrific story of how it was while the Khmer Rouge was in power. How they murdered close to 2 million people.

Many of the stops are now just a picture and a sign with a brief description. The narratives were more detailed and excellent. Very moving.

Locals came up to the fence begging for money. It was so sad to see. Above bottom right is Logan Orchard were people were worked to death by Angkar

From here we basically drove in silence as we processed what we had just seen.
Once we got back to the city of Phnom Penh I saw this building, Ashley Furniture. Same company we have at home.

Our next stop was the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum also known as Security Prison S 21, Interrogation and Detention Center of the Khmer Rouge. One of what I understand was many similar prisons. This had been the Tuol Svay Prey High School in the city, but was taken over in 1975. Again very moving with an important story to be told and to be remembered. Between the years of 1975 and 1978 more than 17,000 prisoners were held here and later taken to Choeung Ek Genocidal Center to be murdered. They would take before and sometimes after torturing pictures of each person who arrived here. Everything and everyone was well documented. Unfortunately, our driver did not give us enough time to tour the whole complex. Our admission ($5 US) and audio tour ($3 US) was so full of information.
Since we were running into rush hour traffic again, (I’m starting to think that it is always rush hour here), we didn’t really stop and get to see the National Monument. Our driver just pulled to the side of the road and I hopped out to grab a photo from there. Was a little disappointed in this especially since it was part of the package we had arranged. We also drove by the Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house.

From here we headed off to the Watt Phnom which is in Phnom Penh. It was built-in 1372 and is the tallest religious structure in this city. Our driver gave us around 30 minutes to tour here. Foreigners once again had to pay, but only US$1.

I thought that 30 minutes was not going to be enough time but it turned out to be plenty. Though it looked like a large temple and grounds from the road it really wasn’t and we finished in 20 minutes.
Our driver dropped us back at our hotel around 3:00. Have to say that it was really great having our own driver and not dealing with a bus load of people at every stop.
We rested up for a very short bit and then headed out search of food. We hadn’t eaten since our breakfast at the hotel. We headed back down to the main road by the water as this is where most of the restaurants seemed to be in our area. It was always so hard for me to find something that I would eat. We stopped and looked at many menus along the road and then decided to head back to one of the first places we had seen, Pka Chan Restaurant & Bar. Draft beer was cheap as it was Happy Hour. I know surprise, surprise. It always seems to be Happy Hour in Phnom Penh. Menu also had a good selection of food with reasonable prices.

Since I was starving we ordered a jug of Anchor Draft and a plate of spring rolls to start while we looked over the menu and decided on what to eat. Doug chose beef tacos and I went with chicken satay. Both were delicious and my satay serving was so large that I gave Doug one to eat. There was no way I could eat all three of them. But of course I had room for dessert! The ice cream with Baileys on it just sounded too good to resist. Doug ordered strawberry ice cream with no Baileys and I ordered vanilla ice cream with Baileys. Both came with Baileys! LOL The ice cream was more expensive than the jug of beer.

Total for our meal with a jug of beer was $21.75 US. There is a story behind this next picture.

There was a guy sitting at the table next to us who ordered Spaghetti Napoli with chicken. I know this because it appeared on our bill but was crossed off. He finished before us and was paying his bill with a $100 US bill. The waitress went to the bar to settle the bill but came back to him explaining she did not have enough change for the $100 bill. He had nothing else, so she went outside, to do what I assume was to try to find someone who could change the $100 bill, but she had no success. Next she was back saying to him that it was a fake (counterfeit) $100 US bill. She did not know the word counterfeit, but you definitely could tell what she was saying. He argued with her about this, saying that the bill wasn’t counterfeit for quite a while, but finally he offered to pay with his credit card which was declined so he tried with another credit card which was then accepted. He left the restaurant only to return a very short time later. He approached the bartender and was accusing him of making a switch, as the bill in question was not the one he had given the waitress. Next up, appeared another lady, who we are assuming was the management or owner. The bits and pieces that we picked up were in reference to calling the police and calling lawyers. So that is why I took a picture of our bill with the money that we were paying with. This wasn’t going to happen to us if in fact the restaurant did pull a change of bills on him. Guess we will never know the outcome of it. Neither side were backing down by the time we left and there were even more people involved in the ‘discussion’ by then.

After all this excitement we headed back to hotel and had a nap, snapping a few photos along the way. You can see the Monks robes hanging out to dry.
Not a high paying job by Canadian standards.

Later that night we headed to the Circle K that we had found on our street to pick up bottled water and snacks. On our very short trip there we had the pleasure of seeing a huge rat running along in the gutter. Gross!!! I will NEVER get used to rats!! Back to the room to pack up for tomorrow’s bus trip to Sihanoukville.

18 March 2018 – Phnom Penh, Cambodia – Day 2 – Best Day Ever: Flip Flop Repair Day!

Published on March 18, 2021April 23, 2021 by Old&LostLeave a comment

After getting up we headed downstairs via the elevator to have the included breakfast at the hotel. There wasn’t much of a selection but it would suffice.

We headed back to the travel agents office that we had been at yesterday and booked our car and driver to go to killing fields along with a few other places tomorrow. Caught a glimpse at this shop on our way. Beautifully painted coffins.

Before doing anything else we headed back to the hotel to get my busted flip flop as we had seen a shoe repair guy on the street. We always forgot to put the flip flop in the backpack in the mornings, so back we went to get it. Flip flop in the backpack we arrived at the corner where the repair guy had been and he was gone!!!!! OH NO!!!!Thankfully he returned in a few minutes. Even though he had a pile of repairs to do, he set to work on my flip flop right away as I waited. He did such an excellent job and just made my day. Not only did he glue my flip flop back together, he stitched it too. He only asked for US$1.00 but I was so happy that I gave him US$5.00. Back home last year I had one glued only and it was Cdn $10.00 so the US$5.00 was cheap to me.

It was now too late to tour the King’s Palace this morning as they closed for lunch and so we decided to head to the National Museum of Cambodia. We hadn’t really planned on doing this attraction but decided to, as it was close to the palace and would fill in the time until the palace opened. We bought our US$10 admission tickets and entered. If you wanted to take pictures of the pieces you needed to purchase a ticket for your camera also. I didn’t think I would take any until we entered and I saw part of the collection. Headed back to the entrance and purchased my US$1 camera ticket. Turns out this museum holds one of the worlds largest collections of Khmer art. Over 14,000 pieces. Needless to say I would be taking a few, okay maybe a lot, of pictures. So many of the pieces were just magnificent.

There were rooms upon rooms of art work. So many that I am not even sure that we viewed them all.

This turned out to be a spectacular place to see. Highly suggest it, if you are ever in Phnom Penh. In the center of all the buildings there was a beautiful courtyard with ponds. So calm, quiet and relaxing.

We probably could have spent more time here but it was now time to head over to the King’s Palace. You could tell it was open from the crowds.

We had to cover up to enter here so Doug had to zip on the lower part of his pant legs and I had to put on my sarong. The King’s Palace was made up of numerous buildings with many that were closed to the public or under renovation. Probably a good thing as there were still many to see. The Throne Hall was the only building that we could really enter and from the lack of inside photos I am guessing we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside. There were lots of people, but everyone moved through quickly. Doesn’t take as long when no photos are allowed.

They had this amazing model of Ankor Wat. It was rather neat to see this after touring the actual place already.

As I was looking through the last couple of buildings Doug was off making friends with the four legged inhabitants of the Kings Palace.
We thought that Thailand was hot, but Cambodia is hotter and more humid! I feel like we will just melt into the sidewalk at times. We were each given a ‘free’ (price included in admission) small bottle of water. Guzzled that down in a few seconds and headed back to our room to rest up and cool down for a bit. Well a bit turned into 4 hours and we were getting hungry so decided to head out in search of some place for dinner. The burritos sounded good but I was afraid of what might actually be in them, so passed on this option.

Just as we often seem to do once we have found a place we like, we gravitated back to the Angkor Mithona restaurant, which is just up the street on the corner from our hotel.

Definitely can’t complain about the prices here. Of course it was happy hour on the drinks. Draft beer was buy 1 get 1 free. Cocktails were also buy 1 get 1 free. Can’t go wrong with US$20 for 6 drinks, 2 meals and 1 dessert.

Headed back to our hotel for the night where I worked on future travel arrangements. I managed to book our flight and hotel for Kuala Lumpur. Nothing is really easy or simple when working on an iPad with iffy internet service.

Found that I had a new bite of some sort tonight and it appeared as if they left something behind. Thankfully I was able to pull whatever it was out.

17 March 2018 – Travel Day – Battambang to Phnom Penh, Cambodia – Day 1

Published on March 17, 2021April 23, 2021 by Old&LostLeave a comment

We had to get up early at 0700 to catch our bus (actually 11-passenger van) to Phnom Penh at 0830. No need for a taxi or should I say a Tuk-Tuk to take us to the bus station as it was just around the corner and down the street from our hotel. We had picked up a couple of extra donuts and a slice of a rolled cake for this morning’s breakfast and had them with some water. Didn’t really want coffee as the buses didn’t seem to have washrooms on them and you never knew if or when the bus would actually stop for a bathroom break. As we left Battambang I snapped a few pictures.

The trip took 5 hours with only one 20-minute rest stop break. The bus finally stopped for the break after approximately 3 hours of travel. I have to say that the rest stop could have used a little sprucing up in the washroom department.

As we got closer to Phnom Penh we noticed more and more police ‘directing’ traffic. Not sure how effective they are standing on the sides like this.

After checking into the Silver River Hotel we were extremely happy to find that this hotel finally had an elevator. Of course I took some pictures of the room and ‘admired’ our view. Room was quite nice, but the ‘view’ left a bit to be desired. This is what you get when you book the cheapest room in a hotel on Expedia. What more could you want for $46.00 a nights, taxes and fees in?

Since we hadn’t eaten since breakfast we headed out in search of food and to see the surrounding area. Came across a restaurant, Angkor Mithona on the corner of our street and there were people in here eating and enjoying a beverage. Our indicator that the restaurant might be okay. It was Happy Hour. Turns out there is lots of happy hours in Phnom Penh. So we headed in and selected a table beside the road. After all we need to enjoy our view. Ordered a couple of COLD draft beers and a pepperoni pizza. Both were pretty good and once again I can’t believe I don’t have any pictures. I’m starting to think my iCloud is loosing some of my picture.

After our bellies were full we continued to tour around and headed over to what seemed to be the main street down by the river. Came across a travel agent and booked our next “bus” for 20 March to Sihanoukville, Cambodia in the country’s south-west on the Gulf of Thailand.

On the way to the travel agent we had passed by a couple of bakeries, so on our way back the temptation got the better of us and I guess we weren’t as full as we had thought we were. We decided to stop at a pastry shop and enjoyed desserts and yes you guessed it, iced vanilla lattes. Desserts were okay but definitely not good enough to go back again.

We headed across the street to walk around the riverfront park. There were many of these beautiful trees along the path.

There were so many people begging for money. Some seemed to be in real rough shape and many others were missing limbs. We gave money to a couple of legless street people but had to stop as there were just so many of them. We actually crossed the street and out of this area as it was a very uncomfortable feeling there were that many. Further along the street we crossed back over to take a few pictures of the flags that lined the pathway.

We are not sure if there was some special event going on or whether it was just an ordinary Saturday night down by the river and the Royal Palace but there were hundreds of people and venders setting up. Saw this little guy on the right playing in the water naked as could be.

Also many people lined up for this building. I’m guessing it was for some religious event they participate in as they all seemed to be coming out with bouquets of the same flowers and stopping to do something .

Since the sun would be setting soon we or should I say I decided to wait around to photo the Royal Palace at sunset.

Stopped at a Circle K mini-mart, similar to a 7 Eleven (which are now popping up back home in Ottawa) to buy water and Gatorade. We love Circle K as they usually have the snacks we enjoy…..Pringles, Oreos and Ritz crackers…..LOL This is often where I get my random snack of the day to photograph.

We were ready to head back to the hotel as we had hand laundry to do (when don’t we?) and wanted to work on the blog if the wifi and internet were strong enough.

While relaxing we managed to eat a whole can of Pringles and drank the Gatorade and liters of water to replace electrolytes (especially sodium and potassium) that our bodies lost in this wretched heat. Today had been one of the hottest days we have encountered so far and as we all know everyday has been HOT!