The 14th of November, in addition to being Dominic’s birthday, was scheduled as a recovery day.
We had a pretty slow morning and then walked down the main road near our hotel (Sihanouk Boulevarde), stopping at a bakery for snacks, and then found a bank to change the remainder of our travellers cheques. Further down the same boulevarde we came across the Independence Monument, which was put up in 1954 when the French turned tail. Further again we came to the Tonle Sap river, which stems from the massive Tonle Sap lake in the middle of Cambodia. Around the edge of this river a small army of people was very busy cleaning up mountains of bottles and garbage and other remnants of what must have been the water festival.
‘If nothing else’, we said to ourselves, ‘there definitely was a water festival.’
This leaves us with the following confirmed and unconfirmed data:
Confirmed:
1. There was a water festival.
2. The night we arrived was the last night of that festival.
Unconfirmed:
1. You are not allowed to drive buses into town on the last night of the water festival because it’s too busy.
2. There is a fee to get through the police checkpoints (although there might actually be…)
3. The fee is $5USD (and if it is why do the police wear such cheap jewellery?)
Important data we were too furious to mention in yesterday’s post:
1. The bus which ‘took’ us to ‘Phnom Penh’ was run by a company called Sapaco.
2. All the tuk-tuks swarming around the bus when they dumped us on the side of the road were wearing red shirts with ‘Sapaco’ logos on them.
3. Do not associate, tour with or otherwise engage in transactions with Sapaco ever, for any reason.
4. If you are in Vietnam or Cambodia and see anything marked ‘Sapaco’, run, and hide.
OK… deep breaths.
In a supermarket across the road from the bakery, on the way back, we bought some things like bottled water and yoghurts and emergency ice creams for a grand total of about $5, and retired to our hotel room, to compose travel journals. But in our hotel room we discovered the following piece of laminated paper, written in Khmer and then English:
Town View Hotel
Room Rules and Regulations
Dear Valued Guests!
1. Our hotel doesn’t have the sex services.
2. Drugs, arm gun, or weapon and all illegal things aren’t allowed to bring in our hotel.
3. Please don’t leave your valuable thing in the room; also we aren’t responsible for any lost item.
4. Please contact our receptionist for storing your valuable thing.
5. For your health concern, our management will visit you daily at 4pm.
6. Found items after check out are not later than 01 month.
7. Check in time at 2.00pm, Check out time at 12.00 noon.
Thank you.
The rest of the afternoon was given over to writing, looking at pictures and thinking about what sights we might like to see while in Phnom Penh. Our little 10-language 10-city guidebook doesn’t list all that many alternatives. For dinner we went all the way back to the Thai Restaurant next door to the hotel, but this time we remembered to take mosquito repellent.
Greg
