This city is by far the most chaotic and grungiest place I've ever been to. Most of the buildings are pretty dilapidated--although it does give it a sense of charm. This is quite the place to take photos! And I'm a bit curious as to what the city used to look like before the French left and before the Khmer Rouge took over. I believe Cambodia used to be called "the pearl of Asia." The roads (and sidewalks) are packed with tuk tuks, bikes, cars and rickshaws. The area we're staying in is called Boang Kek (don't know if i spelled that correctly). It's a bit similar to Kho San Rd. and it's very popular with backpackers. There are tons of western restaraunts and docks to hang out on, overlooking the "green lake" (very polluted). We spent most of our time on an adventure for a "liveable" guesthouse because most of them were quiet nasty. The one previous to where we're staying now (called Same Same but Different) was probably the grungiest place so far. It had a great source of ventilation (which is very important considering how hot it has been), but the room itself resembled a small closet with plastic taped to the floor and the toliet didnt have a lid or handle to flush it..you had to use a string. A cockroach decided to leave me a gift by shedding its exoskeleton on me in the middle of the night. That was the last straw..I couldn't stay there any longer. Luckily, for the last 2 days we've been staying at a pretty nice place called Sister Number 9 that has hammocks and a pool table on the dock.
Although Phnom Penh hasn't been my favorite, it's been a great place to meet other backpackers because you have to be quite a character to come here. I was also able to use my sign language abilities and hang out with a deaf Cambodian girl named Tia. At night the bar scene is pretty popular..our favorite so far has been "Moskito" (the name was derived from the bar owner's names of his pets----a dog named Moss and a cat named Kito!!) Besides yummie fruit cocktails that were only 75 cents, the bar also had Wii!! we've been playing bowling almost every night and I'm getting surprisingly good at it! Yesterday we visited the National Museum which displayed many artifacts from Angkor Wat along with tons and tons of Buddha statues. The garden in the middle of the museum was pretty impressive although you had to pay to take pictures, so I wasn't able to get any (still on a budget ya know!) We're heading to Kampot and Kep tomorrow and then returning to Phnom Penh to see the Killing Fields and than the next day I head back to Bangkok to go back to Seoul and than home again in Chicago!!
