Tuesday, March 12, 2013

RTW Trip: Day 16 (3/11) - Siem Reap & Phnom Penh



Day 16 – The Final Stop

I’m only ‘alone’ on this trip for these first 18 days, then maybe a week or so total at the end. The rest of the time I am with my Mom, or with family in India/Australia. This 18 day stretch along three countries in two continents is the longest stretch where I’m alone on the trip, and somehow, someway it is close to over. When I was sick, the days couldn’t go quick enough, the clock mockingly ticking slowly through the day. Yet, the time still seems like it has flown by. Admittedly, 18 days isn’t that long, but still it should have felt longer than it was. I’m glad to be nearing the end of this portion of the trip, in no small part because I’m not the one paying for everything starting in two days. One part sickness and one part of paying closer attention has led to the Vietnam/Cambodia legs of the trip being quite economical, but the after effects of my gorging in South Africa will be felt. Anyway, this morning I got up nice and early, as I should have yesterday, to get to the bus station for my final bus ride, a 6-hour haul from Siem Reap back to Phnom Penh. 

The bus-ride back was pretty uneventful. In lieu of describing the bus-ride in detail that it doesn’t merit, I’m going to run a piece I forgot to on the blog today detailing my overall takeaways from Cape Town. I wrote it but never posted it, as by the time I exited my final flight on the day I left South Africa, I was sick. As far as the bus goes, it was more comfortable than the bus there, and I got some good reading done, both finishing up ‘Catch-22’ and also doing some more research on Thailand and Malaysia, which I will be leaving for on Wednesday. Add in to that about two more hours of sleep, and I was in Phnom Penh before I knew it.

The tuk-tuk ride from the bus station to my hostel, The Mad Monkey, was my first good look at Phnom Penh, and I have to say it seems better and more modernized than I initially had thought from the brief views I got from the bus on the way to Siem Reap. There are few tall buildings, but it seems very much like Bombay, with large streets, good roads, nice sights and gardens, but a little dirty. I will venture near the waterfront in the next coming days, so let’s see if the comparison holds to that part as well. It was also noticeably cooler here than in Siem Reap, but I have no real explanation for why that is. The Mad Monkey is a nice backpacker, that seems more than any place I’ve stayed on this part of the trip, to emulate just what a backpacker hostel should be. It has a lively young staff, two bars (one on the ground floor and one on the roof), two restaurants, and a good location. There were a few backpackers at the restaurant when I got there, but the kitchen is closed for renovation. They told me that they would be hosting a Barbeque on the rooftop at 7 for all guests, and I was welcome to join. Since I realized that this was my final night where I could go out late (my flight Wednesday morning is early), I took them up on their offer. I couldn’t wait till 7 to eat, though, so I decided to go out for a late lunch.

I chose Khmer Surin, a restaurant that is quite known in the area and in the guide-book (I didn’t come across it during my research), and is also quite close to The Mad Monkey (just 250m), which was perfect for a quick bite. Like every restaurant I’ve been to in Cambodia, it has outdoor seating. It actually has three levels, with the bottom and top being normal restaurant seating (but Cambodian style, so low to the ground around nice tables) where you are surrounded by plants, fountains and fans. The middle floor is party-seating only. The food was in that standard price-range of everything being between $6-8 dollars. I’m interested in knowing why food is so discounted, but beer is not. The beer here is about $2, which also seems pretty standard. I guess the 1:3 ratio is kind of the same, but I’m surprised, if not a bit saddened, that beer isn’t less.

I ordered the Laab Squid in an appetizer portion. Laab is essentially a spicy salad with some spices that I don’t know and mint leaves. I’ve had in with beef in Siem Reap, so I was curious to see how it worked with seafood. I also ordered Chi Goureng Beef as my entrée. That is a Cambodian Paste made from peanut and pepper, available with any meat. Both dishes were about the same portion size, despite one being an appetizer and the other an entrée. The beef was more of a curry than I expected, so I ordered a rice later, but that filled me up so much that I couldn’t finish the squid. The squide was cooked well, but the spices added made it extremely crunchy, in a good way. The mint was strong, but sparse, so it added a nice kick. The Chi Goureng had a heavy peanut flavor and a heavy chili flavor, which really was the best of both worlds. The beef itself wasn’t cut all that well, but I’ve found that in Asia, beef rarely is. Overall, it was a good meal, and with its proximity to the restaurant, I may eat here again, and I most certainly would have had I had more than two days in Phnom Penh.

I went back to the Mad Monkey and rested up in preparation for the Barbeque at 7. I went up around 7:05 – never wanting to be the first to a party – and was the third person there. In the end, it was 10 of us. There were two other singles, so I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know anyone. To my surprise, everyone spoke English, though three of them were from Colombia. The food was decent, and the drinks were readily flowing, which made it a pretty enjoyable time. A group of them were meeting up later to head to the City Center and then go pub-hopping, which sounded like my type of evening.

We met up around 9:30 downstairs, and took two Tuk-Tuks to the city center. Phnom Penh central is far better than the outskirts of the city, which I guess is no real surprise. What was a surprise was just how lit up the city was. The pubs we went to were all near the waterfront, which resembles Marine Drive in Bombay, for better or for worse. It was a good time, and many of the pubs had happy hours that extended well into the night. For my last real night alone, it was a home run. We got back to the hotel around 1:30, and I was asleep by 2:00, ready for tomorrow, my last day of solo sightseeing for 8 weeks, until Cairns comes a knocking.

About Me

I am a man who will go by the moniker dmstorm22, or StormyD, but not really StormyD. I'll talk about sports, mainly football, sometimes TV, sometimes other random things, sometimes even bring out some lists (a lot, lot, lot of lists). Enjoy.