Kia ora Everyone!
We arrived in Cambodia yesterday afternoon (Friday) and were greeted at the airport by a staff member from our guest house. Walked out to the roadside and while our driver brought the tuktuk over to us ( I will take a photo of a tuktuk for those who dont know what one looks like) a man approached me and asked for a smoke, I gave him one and he looked at my tattoos and pointed to my Koi fish and said very good! Glad i got his approval on that one! In many asian countries tattoos are associated with gangs but i believe in Cambodia The Khmer people believe tattoos are magic and can protect you from bullets and knifes and many locals get tattoos for this reason. I am unsure is this is only specific to traditional Khmer tattoos, I will have to look into it to see if we are covered for protection!
Well we can say safely say our drive from the airport would have to rate right up there with our scariest driving experience! There are basically no road rules or none that they actually strick to so you have people driving on the wrong side of the road, pulling out from side streets in front of you and just general mayhem! I am going to try take a video today for you all to see for yourself! It wasn't until this moment that it sunk in we were away from home!
On arrival to Happy Guesthouse we are welcomed by the owner and when a staff member learns we are from NZ he replies "sup bro" haha which we thought was really cool!
The owner showed us to our room and on the way we noticed a sign saying if you take drugs you will lose your life, to our surprise as soon as we reached our room the owner sat down and asked if we smoke weed and would we like some! We laughed and said no thanks we don't want to go to jail and he laughed and said jail ok, its good! I guess the friendly staff are not the only reason the place is called happy guesthouse!
We spent the rest of the late afternoon sitting under a little hut over the water( the guesthouse is on the lake) drinking a cold cambodian beer (costs $1) and watching a beautiful sunset while locals fish in there tiny wooden Canoes. It was a very surreal feeling and we are very excited to see what lies ahead!
