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Arriving in Cambodia's capital, Phnom PenhApr 28, 2005
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Workers biking to work in Siem Reap
Cambodian women on a motorbike
David doing his writing for the day before getting on the plane
April 28th - Phnom Penh
Dave
Today we arrived in the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. What is most surprising is in spite of the poverty and years of civil war here, it actually seems a bit cleaner and even perhaps feels a bit safer than Bangkok. We really thought travelling in Cambodia would be difficult but have been quite surprised. Crossing the country this morning we came on an inexpensive flight on a brand new and comfortable plane, arrived in a new and clean airport, and our staying at a great mid range hotel with a pool, spa and business centre. We also had no idea what to expect from Cambodian food, so have been very surprised to find restaurants that are as affordable as in Thailand, but with some of the best and freshest food we had had so far. The people here are also incredibly friendly, with the country really only fairly recently opening to tourism. Maybe it is because our expectations were low coming here, but it has really been one of the best stops on the trip so far, and I am glad we didn't miss it. We have a day and a half more here and then are off to Hanoi.
Dave
April 28 - Phnom Penh
Natalya
Tonight's dinner was probably the most exciting and adventurous culinary experience of our journey so far. Although we intended to play it safe by going with Lonely Planet's recommendation of a Khmer (Cambodian) restaurant called Dararamsey we were in for a great and truly unique meal. We were the only Caucasian people in this great casual restaurant. We dined al fresco and the entire meal was a hearty soup that was cooked on our table with many ingredients that we placed into a steaming hot broth. Prior to adding each ingredient to the broth we carefully questioned the waiters and they explained everything in quite good English. And yes, pig brain was one of the ingredients. I tried it and it was actually quite nice with a soft melt-in-your-mouth texture very similar to soft tofu. The flavour was quite mild. Also the broth was flavoured by a number of other strange ingredients, one of which looked like squid, but more curly. It tasted really good too.
After consuming 2 or 3 bowls of soup Dave (he was not adventurous enough to try the pig brain) decided to entertain fellow diners with a few magic tricks. After doing one magic trick for a Cambodian couple sitting next to us other diners encouraged Dave to do the trick again for them. They seemed amazed and very pleased with the free entertainment we provided. I think it was pretty entertaining for them to watch us eat the soup meal and the magic trick just topped it all off.
Tomorrow we plan to visit some history museums and tour around the city in a tuk tuk we hired. We received our Vietnam visas today and will be leaving for Vietnam the day after tomorrow. We look forward to updating you soon. You are welcome to post us messages, we really enjoy reading them.
Natalya
