Since getting back to Phnom Penh a lot has happened. The biggest thing was that I bought a one way plane ticket to LA. I decided that I would go home for the holidays. I will be leaving Phnom Penh in less than a month and I am already bummed that I will be leaving. I came to Cambodia because it was my favorite country I ever visited. I wasn’t sure if staying in Cambodia for a longer period of time would reinforce this belief or shatter it. It was definitely the former. I am excited to go home and see my friends and family, but I am already sentimental about leaving Cambodia. When I came here I didn’t know how long I would stay, but I figured it would have been longer. I know I will be back someday, but I’m not sure when. I’m still trying to figure out where I will go will go after the holidays.
Since getting back I have been really busy with my TEFL class. My daily schedule is class in the morning from 9-4:00 with about an hour for lunch. From 4:00-6:00pm I have a break and then I teach or observe other teachers in the evening from 6-8:00. I’m really glad that I decided to take the course, I’m only about half way through with it and I have learned so much already. I can’t wait to get my next teaching job and apply some of the knowledge that I have learned.
Last week was the water festival which is a pretty big deal in Cambodia, I had a one week break from my class. The festival is to celebrate the end of the rainy season, at this time the Tonle Sap River also changes the direction it flows. In the river in front of the royal palace dragon boat races are held. I had never been here for the festival and it was pretty interesting. The boats were beautiful, the racers costumes were nice, and the whole city was chaotic. About 1 million people from the rural Cambodia come into Phnom Penh for the festival. The whole area around riverside is a mess of human traffic. Everyone I know that has lived in PP for a while, says that the water festival is great to see, one time. I would have to agree, if I were sticking around for another year I would probably leave the city during the festival.
Another big thing that happened was that Davey, Ray, Ben and John came out to visit. Their trip is kind of a crazy one. They are traveling for about 2 weeks and visiting 5 countries. I was really glad to have them visit. It is weird seeing some of my best friends in Phnom Penh. They were only here for a couple of days, but we had a lot of fun. They arrived on Thursday the last day of the water festival, so after meeting them at the airport we went down to the riverside and checked out the madness. After a while we hit up happy hour at FCC where we could see the fireworks and the lighted boats from the balcony. After a couple drink at FCC we decided to head to Revolution Bar. the human traffic was intense. Street 51 was so backed up it took us about 30 minutes to walk 50 meters. Thursday is live music night at Revolution we got to the bar and watched Charlie jam. Charlie was awesome.
On Friday I had class so the guys hit up all the tourist spots in the city. We met up after class grabbed some street food from the night market and went up to my pad to eat and drink a few beers. We met up with some past and present CWF volunteers at Equinox and had a couple more drinks. I had to call it an early night because I was meeting up with Blah Blah in the morning to set the trail for the Hash.
At 6:00am on Saturday I met up with Blah Blah and we set my first hash trail in a village about 30 minutes outside of Phnom Penh. It was a lot of fun walking through the village. You can tell that not too many white faces walk through their village because almost everyone we saw said ‘hello’ to us. A lot of people were curious because we had spray paint and were making some marks on their land. They might have feared that we were developers who were going to evict them from their land (land grabbing is one of the biggest problems in Corrupt Cambodia) fortunately Blah Blah’s Khmer is much better than mine and he was able to tell the locals that we were just marking a trail for a run.
After I finished marking the trail, I went over the Intercontinental Hotel where the guys were staying. We went out to the army base where Ben and John shot a few fully automatic guns, including a belt fed machine gun like the one Rambo uses. We went back into the city, had some cheap Indian food on the Lakeside, then went to Wat Phnom and the Russian Market. Ben and Ray got some fake luxury watches Davey and John bought some bootleg DVDs. We dropped off their purchases at my place and grabbed a couple brews for the tuk tuk ride to Olympic Stadium. We watched the crazy Khmer Aerobic classes at the staduim and were hoping to see a kick boxing match but there wasn’t one so we decided to get massages instead. I haven’t had a massage in a while and this was one of the best ones I’ve had. After the massage we went to the only Lebanese restaurant in Phnom Penh Le Cedre. The food was great but the service was terrible.
It was the guys last night in PP so I wanted to show them a good night out. We started at the Rock. One of the biggest Cambodian clubs in Phnom Penh. It was pretty dead and we weren’t really digging the scene that much so we went to the other popular Cambodia night club Spark. There were more people at Spark. I had been to Spark before it is pretty weird they have live performers, and dance groups that switch after each song. For some reason people only dance during certain songs. It is funny watching everyone go on the dance floor for certain songs and rush of when they are over. We had a few tigers and quickly got sick of Spark so we took off.
I wanted to take the guys to Heart of Darkness, the most popular expat club in Phnom Penh, but it was only about 11:00pm and I heard that the Heart isn’t very good before midnight. So I took the guys to one of the many hostess karaoke bars for a few cheap beers before going the Heart. I had only been to one of these places one other time, and we didn’t have any hostesses sit with us when I went before. This time a few young Khmer girls sat with us. They didn’t speak much English, so the conversation wasn’t all that great as I‘m sure you could imagine. We got bored quickly and took our tuk-tuk deep into the belly of the beast the legendary Heart of Darkness. I had been to the Heart on my first visit to Cambodia back in 2005, but we went early and it was dead we ended up staying about 30 minutes. This time the place was packed. I saw a bunch of the current CWF volunteers there, they are regulars there. It’s a weird scene at the Heart, I could never become a regular there. The heart is popular with dodgy expats, Vietnam vets, Khmer gangsters, working Khmer girls, lady boys, Khmer girls looking for a Western boyfriend and old overweight Western men looking for young Khmer girlfriends. We stayed for a little over an hour and I actually had fun, but I don’t see myself going back anytime soon.
After the Heart we went back to our respective residences. The next morning I went back to the guys hotel to see them off to the airport. It was great to see my friends, even though I will be back in OC in about a month I was glad that I had some of my friends come and visit me before leaving. It’s hard too explain but it was also a little weird seeing some of my best friends in PP. It was like two worlds meeting, PP is my city and my life here is a lot different than my life in OC. Seeing my friends here was great. Hope you enjoyed Phnom Penh guys, and thanks for coming out.
