You might say we were less than enthusiastic to be getting up early for another bus ride, particularly knowing that breakfast might be a while in arriving at the restaurant.
But they did have a breakfast buffet available, which was hot, so we paid about 50c more for that and did well out of the transaction.
And although we didn’t really have much to drink last night, the late-ish night wasn’t doing us any favours. But there were others in the group who were looking a bit more second-hand; even the people who were staying on in Sihanoukville had gotten up early just to say goodbye, which was really nice. Staying at the beach pretty much forever would have been great; if you had to pick a beach to stay at. But w were within a conceivable time of ‘going home.’ Four months? Inconceivable. A week? Hmm… can we have our own shower back yet?
The bus actually pulled up in front of our hotel, just as it had done in other towns, so really, we didn’t have a damn thing to complain about. Just the same, everyone was looking forward to making their seat as comfy as possible, pulling their hat over their head and nodding off.
The bus trundled on through town, past the big roundabout with the Golden Lions with the unusually large (or possible just realistic) testicles, then to the bus station, which in true Cambodian style was really just a carpark with some stalls around the edge. But it still works OK. Except when you’re three American ladies who somehow managed to miss an earlier bus. Turns out, as we are able to ascertain while they ‘discussed matters’ with the bus driver, that their earlier bus was supposed to come get them from their hotel. And it sort of, well, didn’t. Therefore, they should be allowed to go on this bus. By all known current laws of international justice and customer service, they should be allowed to go on this bus.
Except that according to the omniscient clipboard, of which said driver was sole possesser of and referrer-to, this bus was full. Booked out.
Except that this bus was not actually booked out. This bus was not full, because we’d left three ticket holders named Kiel, Lou and Sherry on the beach.
Once again Nak stepped in to explain things in Khmer to the bus driver, and to assure the driver, on our request, that we didn’t care at all if somebody sat in those three seats and those three people definitely were not coming.
And then the bus rolled on out of the dusty carpark back to what was, for us, the end of the line. We trundled along through flat farming kind of countryside, palms 50-million deep next to the road in places, and a very determined breeze pushed anything not a vehicle to an acute angle. At the morning stop-over somewhere between some place and somewhere else, in a dusty bus park out the front of a restaurant kind of building, we had a little giggle about how ungrateful our guests were to be offered seats on the bus. We’d heard of the trouble in Bangkok and Amanda was talking about going straight to her airline office when we got to Phnom Penh. The airport, they said, officially, was to be open by 9pm tonight.
‘But that’s just an estimate, isn’t it?’, we asked, ‘and it just means they’ll have another look tonight and might declare it closed for another 24 hours if the protesters are still occupying the terminals?’
And that’s why Amanda was going straight to the office.
On the bus we nodded off extensively, save some short interludes of attempting to read my book about the Angkor Wat complex, and asking Nak questions about the names, e.g., why do all the ruler’s names end in Varman?
‘Varman mean like, great? Or like, you know, glorious?’
‘So it’s Jaya the Great is Jayavarman, Suryavarman mean Surya the Great?’
‘Mmmm.’
‘Just like with Western rulers, like Alexander the Great. That’s funny.’
The only solid period of sleep I managed, with the bumping and the horn beeping and the arctic AC, about which I think I have already complained in these pages, was just before we rolled on into Phnom Penh. I woke up just as we were crossing the huge concrete bridge over the Mekong. And it was sort of refreshing to find ourselves somewhere we had already seen, and knew where the supermarkets and ATMs were. Not that we’d have much opportunity to frequent the ATM, being just about out of money entirely.
Hi Mum. Yes, I should have told we were just about out of money entirely.
(whistles innocently)
Yes. Phnom Penh. Millions of motorbikes and Tuk-tuks. Wide main avenue. Men riding in the backs of trucks full of…. flowers? Yes. Flowers. Take a picture. Along Preah Monivong Boulevard we stopped at traffic lights in front of the Sydney Shopping Center. Oh look. Sydney. I remember you. We’ll be flying there next Wednesday. Just think of it. We’ll be going home. But it was spelled Center… Hmm. Not quite home yet.
I thought we were taking a wrong turn when we didn’t hang a left to the bus station, or the bus had to go round the block to fit in, or something, but : Joy of Joys! They took us straight to our hotel. Good old Town View. Same people working the desk; 20-something man with short hair and 20-something woman in elegant skirt. Different room this time though. On the second floor.
In that room we spread our bags out and tried to think of something to do until 5.30pm when we tuk-tukked over to a building past the central market, back toward the north end of town, to see traditional Cambodian kick-boxing. I have a feeling, a sort of suspicion, that Nak didn’t take us to see this for heritage value, for understanding of culture, or that sort of thing. He probably just goes to see a fight every friday night and thought we might like to come along. On the door they were handing out bottles of energy drink as a promotion to every customer. It was called Carabou. Green bottle with a picture of bison skull and horns poking out. Tastes no better than Red Bull but I think there might be some ingredients which are legal in Cambodia that are not exactly legal in other countries.
I went a bit silly.
OK, so in the small auditorium, they set up the ring in the middle, judges just next to that, and next to the judges is the five-man band, and that’s the traditional part. They play the fight music, which was a kind of jungle rhythm thing, and the seats crowding up the concrete step in the auditorium have no backs on them. It’s just a bum-shaped piece of plastic, bolted to the step. They play the traditional music and the two guys, in red or blue head gear, sort of menace towards one another, except they don’t keep their hands sort of in front of their throat like we do, they hold them up next to their heads, and sort of jiggle them up and down to the music while one of them decides whose going to try and kick who in head first.
Then the fight starts, and it’s just normal kick-boxing from then on, except for the slightly cheerful backing music, and the crowd chanting something in particular, which may just be roaring with each blow, or may in fact translate as something like ‘Kill’. But the thing is, they chant all together. And they love it.
I guess we watched either five fights in total, maybe six. Clearly the bigger, stronger, faster and better exponents were reserved for later on in the evening. I took a bunch of photos from up in our seats, then went down ringside with the faster 1.8 lens, because even with the lighting most of the punches were too fast. And I didn’t really want to use the flash, due to the signs saying, Please Do Not Use FLash. With a picture of a camera. I went right up in the corner of the building, and had a look from there, and went back to our seats, and then back ringside with the other lens. I took probably 900 million photos, something like that. It was great fun.
I suppose we’re confused about how many fights it was because one of them was over real fast. In the first round, they’d hardly even finished dancing towards each other gently, and waving their hands around their heads in time with the music, before dude in blue headgear unleashed this kind of lightning punch. Knocked the other guy flat. I wasn’t even sure if he would ever get up. He got hit hard. Real hard. Dude in blue takes off his headgear, bows to every corner of the room, prays something, and goes and has a giggle with his coach in the stands. Guy in red; still flat on his back in the ring.
I hope he got paid a flat fee.
We had a little break back at the hotel and then met downstairs again for dinner; everyone had been hearing about and wanting to go to the Starfish restaurant, because it’s in the Intrepid Cambodia booklet and because it’s one of their charities of choice, and we were finally getting to do that.
Everyone had also been hearing about how much the situation in Bangkok was changing, about how the anti-government protesters, who wanted democracy, were blockading the airport and how there was like a thousand times more people involved today than yesterday, and how even the red-clad pro-government protesters were holding up proceedings downtown. And how it really wasn’t looking good for anyone intending to fly to or through Bangkok in the next little while, which would be us, Ella, Amanda, and even Sherry, who was going to be coming back to Phnom Penh on Monday morning for a monday night flight. And the yellow-clothed protesters had even gone to the trouble of sending a deputy delegation to blockade the old Don Mueang airport, which was only replaced by Suvarnapumi about to years ago, and was still more or less in working order.
Amanda had to wait in line for ages and ages and ages at Thai airways, while the queue machine was handing out ticket 109 and the desk lady was serving 34 or 35 or something like that. Now because people have connections and people want some options and because of other things like that it was taking them quite some time to sort out each individual person. People were queue-jumping wantonly. Not being particularly interested in the brad of malarkey, and knowing, courtesy of Amanda, that the office would only be open until midday on saturday, we resigned ourselves to an early morning trip to the Thai Airways office. To get our flights rescheduled. Meaning we probably wouldn’t get to go to Hawaii.
So… dinner.
What the booklet don’t tell you is just how nice the restaurant it. Some of the smaller and less frequented streets in Phnom Penh had a, well, uncared-for appearance, but Starfish was a leafy walled sort of area, and inside was all polished wood, and adobe walls, high ceilings, the lot. And the restaurant had a swimming pool that you could make use of so long as you ordered something. If they did accommodation I’d never leave. Or I might go somewhere else now and then to get a slightly cheaper feed, because while the meals were stupendous, and delicious, and creative in their presentation and combinations of ingredients and so on, we were paying more or less what you’d pay for the same thing in Sydney.
But if anyone happened to stumble on this website looking for travel tips or similar, do not go to Phnom Penh without going to Starfish Restaurant.
And also Happy Birthday Simon.
Greg
