so our celebration of vivienne's birthday has finally come to an end. she thanks all you kind people for your birthday wishes, and although she hasn't checked her facebook i''m sure there's lots of nice messages there too. so thanks.
ANYWAY, now we're going to give you a PG-rated version of our fun fun fun weekend in phnom penh to celebrate vivienne's 18th and remind ourselves that the day does not necessarily need begin when the sun comes up.
on saturday we (me + vivienne + our american friend dani) hitched a ride in a share taxi (what fun) into phnom penh, where we set about seeing the really exciting sights, like the silver pagoda that isn't really silver (see attached photo). we had $2 icecream sundaes for lunch (actually we did this both days of the weekend, shh) and visited the royal palace, which we complained had lots of 'no entry' signs, but it turns out that the royal family actually lives there so you can't exactly rampage around as you please.
it was approximately one million degrees, so we visited this museum afterwards that was really boring but had the air-con set at 17C, so we stood right in front of it for about 15 minutes and talked about how clever we were. it also helped that there was nobody else there (it really was a very boring museum).
then we tried to sit on the grass beside the tonle sap river (this massive river that runs through the city) but a man in a uniform blew a whistle at us so we ran away and pretended that he was blowing it at somebody else.
we discovered that the water at our guesthouse didn't work but it cost $4 a room between 3, so we weren't exactly complaining. anyway we borrowed a bathroom and snazzed up for vivienne's grand entrance into adulthood.
the bars of phnom penh are pretty much divided into those for foreigners, those for khmers and those for perverts, and we enjoyed a combination of the three (although it was mostly the first and last).
drinks in cambodia are crazily cheap (they sell smirnoff in the supermarket, $7.50 for 750ml) but you sort of have to know what you're ordering, because apparently there's a type of whisky that's actually cheaper than water but would probably have a similar effect on your insides to that of paint stripper or diesel fuel. so we stuck with the 75c double vodka red bulls (the type of red bull that's now illegal, how naughty are we?) and $2 cocktails (YUM). although we are obviously novices to the whole 'going out' thing, dani knows what's what and as we agreed, how many people can say they bar-hopped in phnom penh for their 18th?
anyway we pretty much saw the best places in town, including this bar with swimming pools in it (see photo) and this other one which is actually a boat moored on the river, where we discovered to our delight that it was 'gay night'. the cambodian gay scene was surprisingly raging and there were lady-boys left right and centre, which also made for great entertainment. the only worrying thing (considering we were on a wooden boat) was the large proportion of people who were smoking, but obviously we're still alive to tell the tale so no harm done.
we hit up the markets the next day and headed back to our province (called kompong spueu, no joke) in another share taxi, where i was in the very back seat with this cute old lady who kept patting my skin and going 'oooh' and showing me photos of a wedding, i'm guessing her daughter's.
ANYWAY, the point is that we had a really fun weekend. so all you people feeling sorry for vivienne being stuck with iona main and no running water, you had nothing to worry about!
i would make vivienne write something below this but considering she has been reading over my shoulder as i write, i think we can agree i've been writing for both of us.
SO, please enjoy the massive effort we went to attaching photos, we hope you like them =)
much love to one and all xxx
PS. special mention to jack. you know who you are.
