14th April - After a short plane ride from Vientiane, here we are in a new country and a capital city to boot! Welcome to Phnom Penh capital city of Cambodia! Did I mention something in the last blog about 'out of the frying pan and into the fire'? Unfortunately, the first thing that strikes you about PP is it smells quite bad and there's a major rubbish problem too (Alan Richardson aka Didge, there's a load of work for you here). As soon as you move away from the main streets the cleanliness declines and the smell ascends. The secret here was to keep to the main drags and hold your breath when you walk back to the guest house! It also didn't help that it was the New Year celebrations and a lot of the smaller restaurants etc were closed and quite possibly the bin men were off work.
Having said that though, you have to eek out the good bits and we managed to do that. We met a lovely couple on the first night and ended up having cocktails (happy hour of course) and dinner together for two nights and had a really good time. The river front area was particularly nice too, like in these first two pictures.
This picture was taken in the grounds of the museum and the picture below shows again the French influence in this area - lots of French buildings and wide avenues - some of the restaurants even had French cheese on their menus! Bonjower.
This is the main park and on this day it was like Blackpool on a bank holiday Monday (but without the drunks!). The place was packed with families out celebrating the new year
This young girl was selling bread, which was nice but we were more intrigued at how she transported it! She never used her hands to steady the basket once!
I didn't quite get the camera out quick enough to capture the entire passenger list on the bike, the dog sitting in the basket at the front is just out of sight. We have seen as many as six on a bike and we've also seen enough fruit and vegetables being carried that we thought we saw a green house coming towards us! In England the arresting officer would make so much money from fines that he could retire shortly afterwards!
This is the royal palace at sunset, we visited the palace through the day and also visited the 'silver pagoda', so named after the silver floor of the main room. It would never have lasted two minutes in England, people used to pinch the lead off roofs so a silver floor would have been too much of an attraction.
I think this might make a nice black and white picture - any paint shop experts can give it a go if you want - just remember the copyright please!
Inside the lush gardens of the Royal Palace. Some of the gardens are sectioned off as this is the actual residence of the King. As in a lot of these countries squalor and poverty are never far away from pomp and grandeur!
The King and Queen (yes the Queen's on the left of the picture before you get cheeky!) at the royal palace.
If you're a farmer in Cambodia, you'll probably live in something like this. Not exactly your English farmhouse eh? The idea been that in the wet season your house is safe from the water, although we haven't quite worked out yet how they get in and out.
A free cup of tea to...... well we don't know because unbelievably the first guess at the cost of hiring a bike was spot on by Mr/Mrs A. Nonymous, despite Didge showing us his age by blinding everyone with science and his knowledge of the good old days of pounds, shillings and pence! The right answer was 50 pence! I guess I'm asking for it with this question - but who was the anonymous comment from? (..... I'm Spartacus).
Cambodia as you may know has a torrid history and the next visit we made from Phnom Penh was an horrific reminder of a country gone mad. For a free cup of tea guess what the subject of the next blog is and the name of the leader during this torrid time. For a bonus scone with jam and clotted cream you can name a film that was made about those times if you like! All will be revealed in the next blog.
A big Happy Birthday to Jenny Schmenny for the 2nd May - hope you both enjoy Ibiza.
A big Happy Birthday to Jenny Schmenny for the 2nd May - hope you both enjoy Ibiza.
7 comments:
I've talked to yer ma about where you are and her response? "Ugh, bloody savages! What do they want to go there for?" Then, not wanting to stir the pot lank, I said that they're eager to get amongst the Khmer Rouge which ruled Cambodia from 1975-79 where millions were killed under Communist Rule. That mader her feel better. I'll do anything for a cup of tea!
PS Is the leader's name Pol Pot? Nee relation to our Poll lank!
sissy j's outsource will accept the scone with jam and cream for the answer " The Killing Fields" as the film title.
PS sissy j's outsource has found no evidence that any Blue Wildebeest were killed in the making of the film "The Killing Fields"!
All right Outsourcer!! I get the tea, you get the scones..between us we've got a canny afternoon teatime set up! It's like competing against amateurs...taking candy from a baby!
l loved the offical photo of the regal couple,you do look proper posh. love queen mam.
"...handsome husband"?.......
Should have gone to Spec Savers!!
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