Took a 4.5-hour bus ride from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh yesterday morning (stopping briefly in Kompong Thom -- see photo below). The locals stared at us and did not appear to be terribly friendly -- no one seemed to speak English -- but on the plus side they did not mob us with requests to buy their wares. In fact, they pretty much ignored us completely! This was not a bad thing at all as it allowed us to take photos and video of the town without interruption during our brief 30 minute layover. Kompong Thom is described as a town people "travel through rather than to" -- this seems like a pretty good description. In looking it up on the internet we found that there are some definite tourist attraction but the weird vibe we were getting from the locals made us glad to leave. Whatever.
Made it to Phnom Penh around 1:00 PM. The hotel we are staying at is the most deluxe one yet -- the "Foreign Correspondents Club"-- a joint that actually was just that until it got a new owner and face lift a few years ago. There are only four rooms here and Laura was able to book the last one just a few days before our trip! Since we were staying for Christmas we thought we'd stay at a very cool spot -- here's a link to our room.
Here is a cool view of the street below our balcony:
Spent the afternoon on a one-hour boat trip on the Mekong (just the two of us for $5.00 USD!) then, since everything was pretty much closed, had a drink at this ex-pat place near our hotel, then had goat cheese pizza and saw film about Pol Pot (all at the same place!).
Phnom Penh is very different from what we expected. When you look at the large French-style boulevard in front of our hotel (which appears to be one of the main drags in this city), and see the riverbank one can easily imagine the French colonials strolling about, having a tuk tuk ride, taking a boat trip, etc. It looks like it was a beautiful city at one time. But then you see the poor people, begging for change, constantly asking, "tuk tuk?" to see if you need a ride, trying to sell you laser-copied Lonely Planet books, etc., and it's a bit sad. This city has a lot of potential. One can only hope the current political regime does something with it.
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