March 17th 2002
Managed to be up on time and arranged to leave a bag at hotel as we seem to
have to much stuff to carry, agree that next back pack holiday we will bring 2
changes of clothes each and a toothbrush. Hotel can't find laundry so they will
sort that out for our return. Have a coffee and chat at airport to Glenn
and Amir while Wi locates Peter and Jonathan who stayed in a different hotel.
Board a happy fishy plane and have an excellent breakfast en route to
Phnom
Penh, Cambodia's capital. If the Thai's can produce really good
airplane food why can't any other airline?
We arrive in Cambodia at
8.05am and a people carrier collects us and deposits us at the
Golden Gate
Hotel - home for the next 2 nights. Our drive from the airport was full of
surprises, main mode of transport are very old motorbikes. We are getting to
know each other a bit better now and are all calling look there's 4
or 5 on a bike! The ladies all ride side saddle and hold bags of shopping plus
the babies. Sacks of rice etc. are slung across fronts of bikes and children
over 2yrs sit in front of the driver with the rest of the family behind!
One thing we all noticed is that everyone here, in the midst of such deprivation
and poverty, all have such smiley happy faces. We hand in our laundry then rest
for a while before meeting for lunch at 1pm at cafe across the road. Wi has
reserved a table and ordered our food and water in advance, as she does daily. We
order and pay for any alcohol we want and the rest is all done for us.
After
lunch we went to the Royal Palace the flag is flying so the King is in residence
{he has cancer, poor man} We were guided around the Palace buildings and
Temples by Pohn, whom Wi has booked as our guide for Phnom Penh. The Silver
Temple has a solid silver tiled floor {each tile weighing 1 kilo} and is vast and very
ornate. The Golden Buddha is solid gold set with diamonds and has a beautiful
serene face. The story of this Buddha is that he was born from his mother's rib,
and walked 7 steps on birth, each of his footprints turned into a flower, and so
the lotus blossom was created.
I talked for 10 minutes or so to a young Buddhist
monk, who spoke reasonable English and wants to go to college over here, he was
very sweet. We walked through the paddock where all the ceremonial
head dresses and riding baskets for the elephants are stored, but they don't keep
elephants there anymore.
Pohn is a good tour guide and has a great sense of
humour, he chats to us while we are driving along and answers any questions we
ask on the history of Cambodia, and what the future holds for the people here
who are trying so desperately to put their country back on it's feet. We drove back through a Carnival and I was blown a kiss
by a boy of around 4 years old! We have a couple of hours before dinner, siesta
time. We meet and eat at the same place as last night, drink beer and
chat about our days events then bed for us "oldies" the lads are
going to find a bar and have some fun!
