With four weeks of constant
touring on a not too comfortable (the polite version) motorbike under our belts
(or bums!) we were quite enjoying playing the simple tourists. So after our day
at the museum and fantastic night at the Traditional Dance Show, we opted for
something a little less mentally taxing but rather more energetic the next day
and set off on a walk to the Russian market some 3 miles from our hotel. We had
been told that it was a good place to look for presents and souvenirs, although
some haggling had to be the order of the day as starting prices were always
“tourist” prices. With our time in
Cambodia rapidly coming to an end we
had yet to pick up anything much due to the limitations of what we could carry
on the already overloaded little bike. Of course, haggling was nothing new to
me having spent so much time in
North Africa,
where it is also very much expected and necessary if you don’t want to pay way
over the odds for everything.
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Family Transport Asian Style
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How many can you get on a Scoot?
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It was quite a long walk in the
heat of the day, but still enjoyable as it took us through a part of the city
that that we had not previously seen. The market itself was interesting but
probably due to the Chinese New Year, many stall weren’t open, however that
didn’t stop us picking up a few silk items at around 1/3 less than the first
asking price and under a quarter of what we would have paid in the smarter
tourist shops! Most of the stalls, as at
all the other markets we had seen were selling fresh produce; varieties of
fruit and vegetables we had never seen, and much less would know what to do
with them! Fish, crabs, lobsters and other seafood still flapping and flopping
around in big bowls of fresh water that the vendors changed regularly. Our
supermarkets may have high-tech refrigeration facilities, but their produce
will never ever be as fresh as that you can buy at markets over here. After a nice cold drink it was time to head
back. We talked about getting a tuk-tuk but eventually decided to take a slow amble
back; we were now in the hottest part of the day.
Using my new free map app,
maps.me (which I would heartily recommend to all travellers), I headed us down
towards the river with a view to then just walking along the bank towards the
Royal Palace
and our hotel. It was a good route as once more it took us through yet another
entirely different part of the city, past huge hotels and casinos; office and
apartment blocks. This was not an area which your average Cambodian would even recognise!
This was where so much of the billions of dollars of UN aid had ended up,
lining the pockets of the politicians, generals and their cadres! Money that
was destined to improve the lot of the people as a whole but which had been
spirited away by the very people that were supposed to be helping them!
I had been recommended to read a
book by a lady we had met at our beach cabin in Kep; Hun Sen’s Cambodia, which
I managed to pick up for just $5 from a Phnom Penh bookstore; it’s £24.95 on
Amazon! In many ways I wish I had read it before we set off, but in another way,
it is better read having seen so much of the country. One thing is sure, my
naïve view of politics and particularly the UN will never be the same again.
Nor will I be quite as critical of our political system; whilst it may well be
corrupt and imperfect, at least our politicians (to say nothing of our monarch)
don’t go around slaughtering their opponents with AK 47s and rocket propelled
grenades. Written by a well respected, prominent journalist, it makes most
works of fiction seem very tame. Whilst most in the West know at least
something of the genocide perpetrated by Pol Pot’s Kymer Rouge, that isn't even
half the story! If you like a good read of political skulduggery and intrigue I
would urge you by buy the book or borrow it from you local library, believe me
you won’t be disappointed, and I speak as one not generally into politics or
such writings; it makes compulsive reading!
Development in the city is pushing on at a
huge rate on knots, funded it appears by principally by
Japan and
China (as well of course, as the
misappropriated funds), although just who is going to patronise the fantastical
developments God (or perhaps Buddha) only knows. Most of the gigantic hotels
appear to have only a handful of guests and since the withdrawal of the UNs
huge contingent, one wonders just who is going to replace their spending
power!
Phnom Penh
even has, against all odds, a theme park called
Dream Land,
although like so many other things out here it appears to be abandoned and very
run down. Perhaps that too is a victim of
the UN withdrawal
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The Silver Pagoda
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Next morning it was back to the
culture theme with a visit to the
Royal
Palace and the Silver
Pagoda. We had been staying within a stones throw of them on all three visits
to the city, but whilst we had viewed and photographed them from the outside
we’d never got around to the tour! Now it was probably just case of us being
“templed out” but I must confess that neither of us found it as interesting as
we expected. No parts of the actual palace were open to the public so it was just
case of wandering around the grounds and visiting, yes, you guessed it, the
various pagodas. Even the silver pagoda was a bit of a let down.
I had read that the
entire floor was paved with 5000 solid silver tiles, which I had read
somewhere, each weighed about 5kg. Although only a small proportion was on view
with the rest being covered by carpet, I think someone is telling porkies!
Firstly, I cant see anyone sticking down real solid silver tiles with 2 inch
wide clear sticky tape (and badly at that!). Secondly, if even just the ones
under the carpet were solid silver, I don’t think they would give a hollow
rattle when you tap then lightly with your toe !!! No, sorry your Royal
Highness, I think that dastardly Hun Sen, has legged it with them and replaced
them with cheap Chinese stainless steel ones!!!
We had taken the sunset cruise
whilst passing through
Phnom Penh on our way
north to Koh Kong and had thoroughly enjoyed it, so had promised ourselves that
when we got back to the city we would take the longer,
Silk Island
cruise. At a little under $30 each, it included lunch, drinks and a tour of the
Silk Island and Silk farm; a total of 4 ½
hours, so didn’t seem bad value for money. I booked on line with Viator as it
was a little less than from the Hotel and included a buffet lunch rather than
just a snack. Again, we weren't disappointed. From the welcome cocktail to the
cruise itself, the crew couldn’t have been more pleasant or helpful. The
tuk-tuk tour of the island, whilst a bit dusty, was very interesting, with the
driver pointing out all the different crops from the ubiquitous banana trees,
to aubergines and ginger; we also saw the biggest bull I've ever seen in my
life.
At the silk farm itself we had the entire process explained to us, from
the laying of the eggs, through the pupae stage to the actual weaving of the
cloth on traditional hand looms. The experienced weavers manage just 10cm of
finished fabric per day; no wonder it’s so expensive, even given the stupidly
low salaries in
Cambodia.
Speaking of which; going back to my earlier comments about the UN, it seems
that on top of their already high salaries, the UN staff were paid $130 per DAY
living allowance whilst in
Cambodia,
which equates to the ANNUAL wage for the average Cambodian. No wonder that
inflation ran riot whilst they were in the country…
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The French Colonial Central Market in Phnom Penh
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And so we arrived at our final
day in
Cambodia.
The bike had been taken back, most of our kit was packed and there seemed to be
just one place of note that we hadn’t visited; The Central Market! Yes, yet
another market, although this one was more famous for its French Colonial
architecture than for its contents! We didn’t mind another long walk as the
following two days would see us sat on our backsides on a variety of planes for
hours on end, so a walk would be good. It wasn’t as far as the Russian Market
and through an area we had visited before, just a couple of blocks further on.
Again, possibly due to Chinese New Year, only the perimeter stalls were open,
but I did manage to buy a replacement for my very scruffy and torn little
Deuter rucksack for $10 as against about £50 in the
UK; I know it’s probably a Chinese
copy but that’s where the genuine ones are probably made anyway. We had planned
for an early nigh as we had to be at about 4.30am, but as is often the case it
didn’t quite turn out as planned. At a little bar/restaurant just along from
our hotel where we took our eveing meal, we discovered that whilst they didn’t
have any Scotch, they had Bacardi! We returned to base a little worse for wear for
the first time on the entire trip… and somewhat later than intended.
Flight Day!
Our alarm was set for 5am as the
taxi was due to collect us at 6am for our 8am flight. We needn’t have bother as
we were both wide awake by 4.30, albeit a little hungover! With most of the
packing already done it was just a case of showering and sorting the few bits
to go in our cabin bags; toting the lot down to hotel lobby and waiting. But
not for long; our cab arrived 10 minutes early and off we went to the airport
which was about a 20 minute ride away. Traffic at that hour of the morning was
fairly light; certainly the lightest we had seen in the city so we arrived with
plenty of time to spare. I can’t say either of us was particularly looking
forward to the long flight, particularly as we had discovered on the way out,
we would have three rather than the expected two, stops. On the return we also
had a much longer layover in Beijing; nearly 15 hours but then China Southern
would give us a free hotel and transport for the night as it was over 8 hours,
wouldn’t they… Well, no actually, on arrival we searched high and low
(literally!) over the three floors of terminal two for the Transit desk. We
asked at countless “information” desks, none of whom could give us any
information! So finally we bit the proverbial bullet and went to the hotel
reservations desks and coughed up for our nights accommodation. In truth it
wasn’t too bad at $38 including breakfast and free transfers, but I had been
assured when I spoke to China Southern Airways after booking that hotel would
be provided.
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Now THATS what you call a canoe - it holds 60 paddlers!
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We dined in the hotels almost
deserted Chinese (there’s a surprise!) restaurant at a very reasonably 100
Yuan, about £10, which even included a couple of rather warm beers and toddled
off to bed. Breakfast, which was taken in the same restaurant, was aimed fairly
and squarely at their indigenous guests with no concession to western tastes,
so was more than adequate but “interesting”. So back to terminal two for our
long 9 ½ hour haul across to Amsterdam; well that was the plan but somehow we
along with a local lad heading back to Uni in Cambridge, manged to get off at
terminal Three; Doh! Fortunately our new friend, whom we had met at breakfast,
managed to sort us all out and we still got to check in with plenty of time to
spare. Which is more than could be said for the final transfer! We only had
just over an hour for the transfer at
Amsterdam
and by the time our KLM flight left the tarmac at
Beijing we were already running half an hour
behind schedule… this was looking tight. As on the outward flight, we read and
slept and eat and read and eat and… It all gets a bit monotonous after the
first couple of hours. Usually when we land we take our time and let the rush
go before we even try to get our bags from the overhead bins, but this time I
was like an athlete out of the starting blocks; no sooner had the seatbelt
light gone off than I was up, bags down, coats on and we were ready to move.
Once out of the plane it was a mad dash through the airport and short transfer
channels, along the moving walkways (which Allie hates!) and we arrived at the
gate just as boarding commenced ! We were even more please when from our little
window we saw that our bags had arrived from the
Beijing flight and were being loaded.
A little over an hour later we
were back in Birmingham,
Airparks meet and greet service brought our little Wagon R across to us and off
we went into the maelstrom that was the Birmingham Rush hour… Hmm, not sure
quite what had happened to the usual Friday night mayhem on the M5, but it was
clean and green all the way home, which made for a very pleasant surprise
ending to an amazing trip. The house, watched over by my good friend, Paul
Evans, in our absence was still in one piece, although due to the stupid heating
system (which had just been repaired) eating over half a ton of pellets whilst
on “frost watch” it was, shall we say, a little chilly.
The body is an amazing thing, I
awoke this morning, fresh as a daisy, without a hint of jetlag at my usual
stupid waking hour of 6am as though nothing out of the ordinary had ever
happened. Off to collect our little Staffy in a bit and then a nice quiet
Valentines day tomorrow; our first together for
few year. Then it’s just a case of Let the Planning Begin!!!!