We were rushed into a van & taken to another bus company's station outside of town where we got on the 1/2 full bus. I could at least read that it said Phuong Tran Cambodia. There wasn't a whole lot of explaining. We got to keep our shoes on and just placed our bags at the back of the bus. We were off & on our way to Cambodia!!!
The bus assistant came by & collected our passports & money for visas. My passport was out of my sight-and I had no explanation as to what was going on. Rule of traveling #1: keep your passport in your sight at all times. Everyone else gave up their passport, so in the sake of peer pressure we complied and off went our $70 & two passports.
I promptly fell asleep for about 2 hours & woke up at the border where the entire bus unloaded and entered passport control-without our passports. I felt naked. I wanted my passport even if it took longer.
We were stamped out of Vietnam, given our passports & we got back on the bus. We drove 5 minutes, handed over our passports again. We got off the bus, walked through the Cambodian border (no one stopped us or asked us anything) and got back on the bus, without passports & drove away. Again-me & my passport were not together. Now I am in a new country without my passport and we're driving down the road.....
A French guy across the aisle explained that his friends crossed the border yesterday & the bus goes to a cafe to wait until our visas are all processed. I didn't like it, but at least I knew what was going on.
The wait was just enough for Chris' and I to have a cheese & cracker breakfasts and back on the bus. I was joyfully reunited with my passport-and now it has a new visa!
We continued on our journey into Cambodia. Chris watched the movie, I looked out the window.
We noticed several mini temples-at residences and structures. We later discovered these are places of worship. We still need to do some more research on them.
Chris soon discovered that although he could not download the maps for Cambodia, the tracking aspect still worked. We had no idea where this new bus company would stop & we didn't want another Saigon disaster. When we let a couple locals off, Chris determined our location & asked the bus assistant to let us off. Good thing our bags were stashed in the back of the bus! We got let off on a street corner 10 blocks from our hostel. We were in flip flops & opted to take a tuk-tuk.
In Cambodia a tuk-tuk is a motorbike with a carriage attached. Being in traffic, we hopped in without taking decent photos. We tried to negotiate, but failed miserably as we were standing on the side of the road with backpacks. For $3 we took a ride to our hostel.
We booked online via the Hostelworld app and accidentally got a room without air con-no wonder it was only $10 a night!! We promptly added air con for $4 and got settled in-to our room in the 4th floor.
I find Phnom Penh cooler than Vietnam. Could be our "late in the day" arrival or the impending rain that our hostel warned us about.
The hostel had a restaurant with decent prices and we had lunch. I had chicken curry & Chris had fried rice with egg. Mine was really good & for the first time I was uncomfortably full. Being female, I needed my knees covered for our next site-the Royal Palace.
I cheated & looked at photos online before we went to the Royal Palace. Some of the advice we gleaned at "family dinner" in Da Lat was that it wasn't worth going inside. I wanted to know-and after looking at online photos, decided I wanted to see these buildings with gold roofs for myself. Online reviews said to pay for a guide, but by the time we arrived at the Royal palace we only had 90 minutes and thought the $6.50 entrance fee per person was enough expenditure.
Our first visit was the "throne room." This structure was simply beautiful from the outside-I've never seen such opulence on the outside of a building. Photos are not allowed inside-nor were we. We simply looked inside via the open doors on either side. Let's just say I wish I was born a princess.
Being tight on time, we made our way to the Silver Pagoda, the Temple of the Emerald Buddah. We were allowed to go inside after removing our shoes. Now this place has opulence inside. There was a 91kg gold Godess statue with ~10,000 diamonds. The highlight was obviously an emerald Buddah on top of 13 layers of gold. The temple was thick with incense.
The other distinctive feature of this temple was the silver floor. Yes, floor tiles made of silver. Although much of it was carpeted, we could hear the metal tink as we walked across the floor. I stepped off the carpet so I could stand on a silver floor!!
The complex consisted of several tall concrete structures called stupas. Stupas are structures that contain the remains of loved ones.
We saw a model of Angkor Wat which is the whole reason we're in Cambodia. I pretended I was a giant dinosaur, come to attack the ruins.
Must be my new pose, as I also pretended to be a dinosaur on the miniature temples.
Chris spotted a monkey, just roaming around the grounds. Then there were two!! And I thought monkeys were my spirit animal.
At the end of the Royal Palace grounds were several exhibits. The king still makes appearances on palanquins and elephants.
Across the street from the Royal Palace is a park where locals were gathering. We sat down on some steps & people watched. When our tummies started to growl we walked South along the Tunle Sap River (photo where it meets the Mekong river) to dinner at Sovanna, for some Cambodian BBQ.
Dinner, was as always, an experience. We didn't know if we should order, sit down, how it all worked. Thankfully they had an English menu and we each had a $3 steak, $1 Coca-Colas, and a side of French fries & green beans. Once again, a local showed us how to eat. You take a pinch of pepper & squeeze in the lime juice. You can add raw garlic or chilis if you like. BEST stake. I'll be taking this #whole30 recipe home with us!! They also gave us free dessert. You'll note the "gel" again. This time it was cold & included a sweet cornbread sphere in the middle and wrapped in banana leaves. Much more palatable cold.
Our observations about Cambodia this far:
1. Monks-they're a regular citing. Most of who we've seen are young teenagers. They horse-around like all teenage boys. (They also take in the sites like tourists.)
2. There are A LOT of tourists. We've seen families, young adult groups, and quite a few older tourists.
3. I can't read a thing. Nothing-not even letters. Cambodian letters looks like this from our dinner receipt:
4. Cambodians are not afraid of the sun. We've seen face masks & foot stockings, but there are a lot more forearms exposed to the sun.
5. Money-USD and Cambodian Riel are used interchangeably. We paid for our hostel with USD & got a combination of change back. Cambodian only used paper money, so if your change is less than a dollar, you'll get riel. Exchange rate is 1:4000
5. We compare prices in Cambodia to Vietnam dong. "That's like 11,000 dong-that's a decent price for water."
Our room has one window, to the central staircase. I've noticed that our double en suite rooms are quite often the first room off the stairs, which is quite noisy. Let's hope we sleep well!
I'll leave you with Chris' fun photo.
And a foreshadowing of what's to come.
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