Easing into SE Asia

After two travel days, we arrived in Phnom Penh at midnight, local time.  It has taken longer to learn to spell PP.  I just looked it up.  Again.  Deb and Ed, our thoughtful friends, had a fruit plate waiting in our hotel room, knowing we'd be confused and need refreshment.  Surprisingly, we both slept well.  Forty eight hours in planes and airports and one hotel helped get us over jet lag in record time.  Our PP hotel, the Tea House, is run by an Aussie.  I'm convinced no one is ever home in Australia.  They are always traveling.  This, y'all, is the prettiest hotel we've ever stayed in!  Open air lobby, ceiling fans and  big, comfy couches flanked by greenery.  I barely know we are in a Big City.  And, a tile pool, with chairs and towels and waiters to bring me a drink!  The staff all young, beautiful, smiling, appear to be just waiting for me to need something.

After a delicious breakfast, we walked, to recover our land legs.   There are, in some
places in PP, very wide sidewalks, which are used as parking lots for the thousands and thousands of tuktuks and motos.  No one walks, apparently, in PP.  So, because the sidewalks are either full of parked motos and tuktuks, or, there are no sidewalks, we walked in the streets, stoppping to speak to about every tuktuk driver in this part of town.  "Hello, how are you?  Where you go?"  Unbelievably friendly, and eager  to talk to us, even if we're not going to give them our business.  And, they really want our business.  I'll write more later about the economy here, but people want to work.

Crossing a street is a dance.  Every driver, no matter the vehicle, just eases into where they want to go, crossing at any angle at an intersection. After watching, it reminds me of  weaving.  Larger vehicles  and smaller vehicles work well together, just by weaving their way.   The goal is to never come to a complete stop.  There are  almost no traffic lights in this city.  Really!  They would serve no purpose.  The Cambodians can teach the rest of the world a lot about being nice.  You hear very few honking horns, and see no impatience on the faces of either the drivers or the pasengers.

The Royal Palace is overly-gawdy to our westerneyes, but we recognize it's importance.  We'll see it later.   I get my first glimpse of the Tonle Sap and Mekong rivers on our walking tour.  Deb and Ed arrive in PP at noon, and we are delighted to see them.  Because they live in a tiny village in Kampot province, without any conveniences such as hot water, air conditioning, or a bakery for 100 miles, they are going to get their Big City fix in the next few days.  We had a great lunch, and hit the streets for a bit of orientation.

We had tickets for a sunset cruise on the Mekong river.  It was a perfectly delightful night, with a  bit of a breeze.  Drinks, laughter and a beautiful sunset.  What more can we ask?  How about dinner at the Foreign Correspondents Club?  Happy hour when we arrive, dinner of fish stew. Yummm!

The next day, we toured The Royal Palace.  It sits on the riverbank where the Tonle Sap and the Mekong rivers merge, and is lush behind the walls, with many  buildings and many Buddha statues.  We see the Emerald Buddha, and the golden footprint.  I hope my Buddhist friends will forgive my comments about Big Foot. We tour the Silver Pagoda, which is constructed of 5000 silver tiles, weighing one kilo each. Of course, the tile floor covered with carpet, so we have to imagine the silver.

This is a stupa.  Wats are filled with them, sort of like a family shrine.  Very ornate, always.  While the exposure here is not great, this stupa is more elegant than ornate.  

Deb's co-worker, a teacher, moonlights as a tuktuk driver, and Chondra picked us up early for our Silk Island trip.  But, that's another blog post!  I promise the posts will get better, I'm figuring out the  photo system with limited gear.