smokingboot

I didn't know what to expect from Cambodia; there was no feel for it in my imagination beyond a pity for the history I had read and an interest in Ankhor Wat; I had been nearly as ignorant about Vietnam, with any mental picture of the place being based on little more than The Deer Hunter, Good Morning Vietnam, and Al Stewart's The Year of the Cat.

The reality of Cambodia smacked us straight off the bus with furnace style heat. In Hanoi the weather started as cloudy/temperate but never cold, and ramped up degree by degree as we travelled down the coast. According to our Vietnamese guide this was just acclimatising us to Cambodia, which he joked has only two seasons; hot and f*cking hot.

The next real thing - which turned out to be unreal on this occasion - regarded Cambodian visas. These are sorted on the day at the border. Our guide told us all to bring passport style photos because one potential issue entails a demand for these as necessary for the visas. If you just didn't think to bring a couple, what do you do when a lot more money is asked to cover that lack? You're in No Man's Land unable to go forwards into Cambodia or back into Vietnam. We had the photos; turned out they weren't needed at all, so maybe it's just a nervy travellers tale. But our guide knew his stuff so I would always take the photos just in case.

Other things we learned fast:
Endless deet to be sprayed several times a day ('whenever you leave your hotel room.')
Endless slap to be applied several times a day.
Bottle refilled with water every thirty minutes or so.
Cambodian ATMs love dollars. They love dollars so much they may only give out £100 dollar bills. But don't try to do business with scrunched up/ crumpled/messy notes. People will often refuse these for fear that they're forged, so it's important, when getting money out, to check that Mr Franklin's still facing the right way etc.
We were told many times to guard our bags in Pnom Penh, at the same time as being reassured that it was as safe as any other capital city so we were thoroughly confused and a bit paranoid. But we got over it.

Phnom Penh felt odd. The sun set with breathtaking if ominous poetry:

There's a lot of construction going on, but for whom? A lake has recently been filled in to provide a foundation for new dwellings, doesn't seem sound. Investment is needed and Chinese investors are making their mark here, which implies the presence of the Chinese government. This would make me a little nervous; reports from Vietnam do not attribute particularly benign principles to the great neighbour. Much is made of China's intentions towards Taiwan, but that might be too bold and stupid given how important Taiwan is to the West. Cambodia though? It would give even greater control over the Mekong, and catch Vietnam in a pincer. Why bother? Oil off the coast of the Nam is but one potential lure.

Phnom Penh means the Hill of Lady Penh, legendary founder of the city, who in 1372 found four statues of the buddha on the river bank and built a pagoda on a hill to house them. This became the centre of the settlement, one day to grow... and later shrink again, to become known as The City of Ghosts. But that can wait for another post. For now, the bad days are done, and she has her own little shrine next to the one of Buddha. Many people visit her there. Clearly they care for her very much.

Here's a young entrepeneur trying to sell peonies for the lady's shrine.

I don't know whether he had actually fished his wares out from the bins beneath him but he was having no luck and decided on a new venture quickly. When gentlemen took their shoes off to go into the temple, he and a friend would hide the shoes saying they were looking after them, then ask for a dollar to bring them back. Unable to stop laughing, R said no deal and with sheepish expressions they brought the shoes back anyway. Later he went back and gave them a dollar, just because... what can you do? We're tourists, we're meant to explode in showers of gold if we can. We can but assume Buddha would approve.