Phnom Penh, Cambodia

The reason I went to Chau Doc, Vietnam was to take a boat up the Mekong River into Cambodia and, with the assisstance of a bus, to get to the country's capital, Phnom Penh. The boat ride was OK; not as scenic as I had expecpted and hoped but nothing bad either. A boarder crossing on a river was kind of cool. The boat pulled to the shore, I had my passport inspected then sat in a room for about 1.5 hours, got back on the boat and continued north. There was some confusion over the whereabouts of my (and other travelers') passport. We had been told to give it to the operator of the boat, but then he, and presumably our passports, were nowhere to be found. I still do not know what happened or how I got my passport back, really, but I did and that is what mattered to me. All in all, it was a pretty decent trip with nothing really to complain about and nothing really too exciting to mention either.

Phnom Penh is an OK city. It is pretty compact which lends itself nicely to walking around except that it is crazy hot. The heat is really discouraging from doing much. I find myself trying to do stuff early before the sun is too strong and in the late afternoon and evening in an attempt to avoid being outside when the sun is at its apex. That said, I am still usually outside and doing something during those hours. There is not too much here. I went to two highly regarded museums which were good but small and too expensive.

I think my favorite part of Phnom Penh is the food. This is probably more of something I like about Cambodia and not specifically the city but I cannot speak to that yet. Everything I eat here is at least good and I find myself eating more than I need. The first dish I had in Cambodia was the local special, called amok, which is a curry with a subtle coconut flavor, generally with fish but sometimes chicken, and rice. It was outstanding. I have had it several more times since.

[Warning: Especially boring paragraph.] After months of needing to do so I finally got around to having my camera cleaned. It needed a cleaning badly. If you look at some of the pictures I have posted, particularly the ones that are zoomed in, there are spots all over the right side. Just a couple blocks from my hostel I noticed a small shop that had a sign for camera repair. I inquired if they do cleaning as well and of course they do. I told the guy that I wanted to watch him do the cleaning out of interest. The real reason was that I wanted to make sure that none of the parts of my camera were replaced with inferior parts of another camera or spare parts. Two and a half hours later I have a clean camera and a new fascination of cameras.

The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek is a must-see when in Phnom Penh and this is the only reason I went there. I knew I my stomach would be turning the entire time I was there and I was right. I do not want to talk about it.