If you haven’t heard of Couchsurfing.com, you should check it out. It is by far my favorite website, ever. When I moved to Cambodia 3 months ago, I really wanted to get involved with the CS scene here, but I found it was quite dormant. Living at the volunteer house I have been unable to host CSers, but I have met up quite a few travelers passing through Phnom Penh.
Last night we had the first Phnom Penh CS meeting/event and it was a lot of fun. We decided to meet up at Coffee Korner (my choice) for food and drinks. I was really surprised by the great turnout. I was the first one there and for a while I was wondering if anyone would show up. Then within 30 minutes 30 people showed up. We took over the entire upstairs section of the restaurant. If I had anticipated such a strong showing I would have warned the staff before hand. They ran out of chairs, not to mention a few beers and food items on the menu while we were there. I was really only able to talk to about half of the people there, but everyone was super cool. It seemed like most the people were travelers passing through, but I did meet some other ex-pats living in PP. It is kind of a bummer that I am meeting them all now, because I will spend most of the next 2 months away from Phnom Penh. I was able to find someone who could host me here when I am doing new student testing for CWF after I move out of the volunteer house. I also met a man from Malaysia who gave me some tips for my upcoming trip that I have been planning.
All in all, it was a great success. I think everyone had fun. I hope this is just what Phnom Penh needed to kick start the CS scene. We should definitely have a get together like this at least once a month.
