Travel to Phnom PenhOct 13, 2009
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Outside the hotel, a main street along the Mekong River
The hotel restaurant
Fresh flowers at breakfast
I fly today to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It's a short flight, just an hour and a half. I feel like I'm getting a head cold, so at the airport, I ordered one of my favorite Thai dishes, papaya salad with extra spice. When I took my first bite, the spice thoroughly cleared my sinuses! I finished the meal off with a mango with coconut rice, another of my favorite Thai dishes. I browsed some of the stores and now am waiting at the gate for my flight. The Bangkok airport opened just a few days before I left Asia 3 years ago. They have signs up celebrating their 3rd anniversary. It is an architectural marvel. There are multiple floors with shops and restaurants and everywhere you look, there is glass or steel.
I just read this on the hotel's website, "All the rooms, beddings, furniture, floors and bathrooms are disinfected everyday with Anios products. The Hotel is microbes, virus, HIV and tuberculoses free." Good to know :)
A quick note about my taxi driver last night...He wanted to practice his English, so we talked all the way to the hotel. He told me that last month, he only made $40. He is the primary breadwinner for his wife, their 6 month old son, and his father and mother. Last month, he said that his family subsided on rice and water so that they could pay for his son's formula. He told me about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime and showed me his scars, one on his neck and one on his forearm. He is part Chinese with Chinese relatives so on his dashboard, he had what he described as the Cambodian Buddha and the Chinese Buddha. The Chinese Buddha was much fatter and laughing. Symbolic?
Time to head out.
