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Day 11 Phnom Penh.
Today was goodbye Siem Reap and onto Phnom Penh. This meant a lie in as we weren't being picked up until 10.30. Shame Andy couldn't sleep and was up at 5.15 whereas julie was sleeping like a babe/snoring like a pig (delete as appropriate).
We were safely dropped off at the Siem Reap terminal for internal flights, which is not a lot bigger than our living room. Here I happened upon an aspect of Cambodian life that is far more advanced than the UK. Whilst using the men's loo I noticed, at eye level, that every individual urinal had a reference number. For example, the urinal I used was reference 'urin_017'. Apart from the fact that I had no idea where and how they could fit in urinals urin_001 to urin_016 in such a small terminal, it seemed to me to be a great idea from a plumbing perspective. Now, when a blockage is reported, the plumber can be directed directly to the site of the incident whereas in the UK such incidents are left unattended as the plumber is unable to locate the scene of the crime.
So onto Phnom Penh- a short 45 minute flight. Traffic was manic when we landed so a schedule change was necessary. Swapping our 2 half days we visited the kings royal palace, which was full of buddhas, the silver pagoda which was full of buddhas and Wat Phnom which was...you guessed it...full of buddhas.
We passes on a visit to the National museum as no doubt it was full of buddhas, and went straight to our hotel. Our room was a corner room, so spacious, with a private balcony (overlooking a glorious building site). However here we encountered our first hiccough of the trip. No sooner had we entered the room when the electricity for our room tripped. On calling the manager, he fixed the problem only for the electrify to trip again. A third attempt failed so I had to exert my authority to resolve the situation (apparently losing your temper is extremely bad form no matter what the circumstances). So using my advanced customer feedback skills I successfully negotiated a pokey room, three times smaller! But at least I got dinner on the house.Still only one night in Phnom Penh.
After dinner, we took a tuk-tuk to the riverside (Sisowarth quay). here locals stroll along the quay, enjoying the cambodian equivalent of candi-floss. If you shut your eyes you could have been on Weston seafront. We had a quick drink in the FCC club (Foreign correspondents club), where the american journalists used to congregate whilst the Vietnam war was ongoing (those based in Cambodia that is). Then it was back to our hotel by return tuk-tuk before retiring.
Not that impressed with Phnom Penh but looking forward to tomorrows visit to the Killing fields..
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