Arrival in Phnom Penh

It's dusty, it's hot, but somehow quite clean
And hard to imagine how bad it had been

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA

June 3 - 4, 2008

So, I've been in Cambodia for just over a week now, but I figured that it was definitely time to catch up on the travelogue. Unfortunately, it's been difficult to get on the internet, but I'll do my best.

We (TH, JC, and I) arrived at PP airport on Tuesday night, quite late, and were sent by Buntheoun to the Okay Guesthouse in the centre of town. Since I had a meeting with the Ministry of Health the following day, and JC's luggage got lost somewhere between Toronto and PP, we were stuck in the city for an extra day, instead of getting out to Kep in the morning.

We were up pretty early, and after breakfast, decided to go out for a walk. We pulled out the Lonely Planets and headed towards central market ("It's only, like, 1 km from here, no problem. We'll be back in an hour and a half"). Did I ever mention how stupid we were? It was midday by then, we didn't have enough water, it was HAWT, and we barely knew where we were going. The Cambodians were staring at us wherever we went though, from their shaded trees, lying down and smartly doing nothing during the day. Stupid foreigners. Needless to say, we never made it, and so, dizzy, dehydrated and tachycardic, we headed back. Since I had a meeting to get to.

When we got back to the guesthouse, I collapsed on the bed in TH and my double room and tried to recover in the 15 minutes I had before I had to go to the MoH. I never did recover in time, but I did get to my meeting on time. It went well. Seems like my MoH contact was on board with my project, provided that I have local Kep co-investigator sign off on it. Okay, fine.

The next few hours were a blur -- and consisted of a nap. Still jet lagging at this point.

JC's friend Tiffany took us out that night to an ex-pat area of town called Wat Lanka, and we had a nice dinner of amok, a traditional Khmer dish. It was all yummy and coconut milky and curry-y. Nothing spectacular, but I remember thinking at the time that if this is day one, then the food's gonna be awesome (and now, a week later...well, I'll get into that later). I can see why people like expat communities -- it's a way of keeping home wherever you are, and while it may have been early for me at the time, it's nice to know where you can find these places.