I arrived in Phnom Penh on Wednesday, June 8th, after a 14 hour flight from NYC-Seoul, and then another 5 1/2 hour flight from Seoul to Phnom Penh. It was the first time I'd ever come through the PP airport, but it was pretty much the same deal. Get in a line, hand over your passport, $20, and a photo, get in another line, and wait for them to call your name and BOOM you have a lovely new green visa taking up an entire page of your passport. It's my 3rd Cambodian visa.
The first thing you notice coming out of the PP airport in the middle of June is that the entire city is apparently located in a SAUNA. God it was hot. But the Center for Khmer Studies (CKS) had arranged a taxi for me. A very nice driver helped me load my two 50 lb suitcases (hey, I'll be here a long time) into the taxi and drove me over to the CKS office. There, one of the CKS employees took me to the house where I would supposedly be staying until the program ends in August. It was literally impossible to find...more on that later. But the house was very very lovely, I had my own room with a bathroom and tv and A/C blah blah.
This is a view looking from a side door to the street.
Anyway, knowing that my two housemates would not be arriving until Sunday and not wanting to be stuck in the big, difficult-to-find house the entire weekend, I packed my bags Thursday morning and hopped on the Mekong Express for a 6 hour bus ride to Siem Reap to visit my friends. Mekong Express costs $11, and you get luxuries ranging from Khmer karaoke music videos, to terrible made for TV Disney movies, to a box of two little pastries. While I'm unsure of the content of the pastries, it was the first thing I'd eaten since my flight to Seoul. Anyway, the bus ride was uneventful, though the monsoon hit as we were nearing Siem Reap. Sans phone, I took a tuk tuk to Viva (THE BEST MEXICAN FOOD IN ASIA..their words, not mine, though I do enjoy it) to meet my friends. I ordered myself the Mexi burger (basically a burger with jalapenos on it) and tried to stay dry.
Eventually, 3 of my lovely friends showed up, and we went to a local bar to meet up with a few others and hang out. I had the honor of being the first person to crash on Phil's couch in his lovely new apartment in the French quarter, where the power goes off almost daily in monsoon season. Great place, though. Lovely.
View from Phil's balcony. Not bad.
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