I have been here over a week now, I already have some stories, but this is all still very much like a vacation. I have moved into the top apartment of a building in a Khmer(Cambodian) neighborhood, I have a room upstairs to myself, but share the apartment with Melissa who I have known a long time, and Dan who is an Australian English teacher. We got a fairly nice place and things are coming together well so far. I haven't done much of the tourist stuff that people do when they get here, but I've been shown around and I have had some free time to wander. This city isn't what I expected, but it's a trip, and I like that. Phnom Penh is the noisiest place I have ever been to, during the daytime its bustling. really it feels alive, a giant creature with motorcycles for blood. Its organic, which feels interesting, everything flows, some of the best advice I got since my arrival is "just go with things". You really gotta, it's how everything works, you can't even cross the street if you don't just feel it and go with it. The view from my balcony:
I stopped to write this in my room during the day time, and its amazing from here how vibrant the sounds of this place are, there's always sounds of metal, and cars and so many peoples shouts you cant escape it. The sights and experiences are impressive as well. My first day here I saw a guy drive a motorcycle down the sidewalk and later we took a Tuk-tuk ride the wrong way down the street. That first day this city was very frightening, my first impression was that It was Thailand but everything had fallen apart.Cambodia is about to develop a lot, I suggest you see it while its still a bit unique. The roads need a lot of work and the mass of people you find here can make the place overwhelming, especially with jet lag. The second or third day the menacing aspect of the city wore away and it really started becoming something else. Taking a Tuk-tuk ride through Phnom Penh at night almost feels like time travel, the whole place just feels like its out of time.
I have started hanging out and going to a gym with this Irish guy named Kim, and over the weekend he Melissa and I went to Siem Reap to visit Melissa's dad, it was a long trip, six hours on a bus can feel like ages. I got sick up there and nothing from that weekend worked out the way it was planned, but sometimes everything going wrong is a way to bond with new friends.
Now I'm back in Phnom Penh and starting to get more of my life in line. I'm set up at home, I got a bed and and a bunch of basics squared away, still the real struggle has been technology. On my third day here I killed the power to our whole building by plugging my x-box360 in with the wrong power adapter. There wasn't enough power to run my hard drive and i had to get a different plug for that as well as my speakers. Anyways I got my x-box fixed and now finally got everything up and running.The Internet is a bit slower here, only like it was in the early 2000s so its not bad, but its always gonna cost me money to get online and I gotta walk to wherever i can get the Internet. it does feel a bit weird to not have information at my fingertips pretty much all the time.
I got a phone, super easy and cheap out here, phones that would be hundreds at home are like 50 60 bucks. This weekend I'm going to Sihanoukville to the beach for my birthday, then after this weekend I start with work and the fun is gonna get cut down a lot. So far I'm looking on this place positively, and I'd love to share more with you but, its honestly difficult for me to write about this place because I'm still so overwhelmed by it, there are so many things to say. So let me know if there is anything you want to know about, or any questions you got.
Peace.
-WL
Pub Street in Angkor
Some of what I have learned:
There are mostly misconceptions about Cambodia
Cambodia uses American dollars as currency.
There are no coins in this country just paper Riel with the similar value.
Slapstick humor is the popular form of comedy
there are no real traffic laws
more than 4 dollars is an expensive meal here
a pack of Cigarettes will cost ya 20 cents
Everything drys in a minute or two but nothing ever really drys
motorcycles are fun in an addicting way.
