No Fixed Abode: Fever pitch

Tue 08 Mar 2016 - Wat Phnom, The River and Imperial Museum, Phnom Penh

With Yvonne now coming down with a cold and fever, Glenn gleefully declared he didn’t have Malaria after all having secretly monitored his symptoms since becoming ill a few days ago. This confirmation was based on the fact that as Yvonne is now ill too we had an infectious viral infection and not a disease transmitted by a female mosquito. That is unless Yvonne has malaria too. To cheer ourselves up we’ve booked a 5 day spell in a beach resort so we can take a rest from all this travelling LOL.

Straight after breakfast Glenn picked up the Vietnamese visas from the Embassy and returned back to the hotel pleased that the whole process had gone exceedingly well. We had read so many travellers horror stories.

As we were feeling a little fragile we opted for a tuk tuk ride (bartered from $5 to $4!) into the centre of town to visit Wat Phnom, meaning Hill Temple, more like a mound really. The locals flock here to pray for good luck. It was a busy place with plenty of lotus flower buds, candles and incense helping prayers. There were several vendors in the grounds with small bird cages holding several dozens of swallows, all flapping to get some space. These are purchased and released as a way to make merit on your progress to nirvana. Not sure how that works for the people catching them though, attracting them with food in trees and glueing the boughs so they get stuck there until captured. As normal, shoes are taken off as you enter the temple and when we came out we couldn’t find ours. Then we noticed a small girl beckoning us and we spotted them in neat rows of shoes by the entrance steps. In the four strides it took us to get to her she’d promptly picked ours out and placed them for us to slip on and then scurried over to the temple entrance to collect more shoes recently taken off. Of course we gave her a bit of money, although foreigners are discouraged in doing this as kids abandon school to beg. But we admired her cheeky enterprise.

Seeking some shade we sat on the edge of the park pavement (joining the locals now!) and watched a group of young boys playing footie along the pavement. Goal posts weren’t the normal jumpers (too hot!) but flip flops, far more in keeping with the temperatures. They ran around in the heat in bare feet with incredible pace, jumping for headers and having to contend with pedestrians cutting through their pitch. Glenn was talent spotting and picking out holes in their game.

Moving on and to catch what little breeze is around we headed down to the Tonle Sap river just as it flows in the mighty Mekong. This being the same river we had cycled along back in Siem Reap and the violently obnoxious fish market. We plodded in the heat watching the fishing boats throwing their nets and heavily laden barges appearing to only be a couple of inches from sinking. Along one small stretch of the embankment several allotments were showing promising signs of green shoots emerging through the plastic bottle and bag dumping ground and watching an elderly man water his patch with a yoke bearing heavy handmade watering cans over his bent shoulders struck our hearts. We plonked our weary selves down on the embankment wall under the shade of a tree where a young man was sitting. He looked up and said hello, where are you from. From there we spent at least an hour as this guy was not going to shut up practising his English. And what incredible english he spoke to. He gave us an insight to his farming family background and how the rest of the family had made sacrifices in order to ensure he went to University with a scholarship which meant they had to pay $12 a month. He explained this was a huge amount so to help his sister gave up her schooling to help earn money off the farm and they also borrowed money. Unable to read or write Khmer, she will probably never marry and has forfeited her future to ensure his. Nobly he understood his role in providing for her and the rest of the family and was in Phnom Penh for a job interview with better money and prospects. With a background in hotel and leisure management we discussed the differences in our cultures and cooking, laughing at how westerners ate sugary cereal and milk in the morning and how asians eat rice and noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We took a photo of him for this blog and he was thrilled so in turn requested a selfie with him. The young people of this country appear very motivated to improve their lifestyles and work hard towards this.

Parched from all our talking we stopped by Daughters cafe, a local charity to enable young girls to get out of the sex trafficking trade and learn new skills to help them with regular employment.

Refreshed we visited the National Museum of Cambodia exhibiting centuries of sculptures from both Hindu and Buddhist religions many of which were removed from the Angkor sites in Siem Reap during the early 1900s. All housed in a graceful, traditional designed terracotta structure built around 1917 with four pavilions facing a beautiful central courtyard. Unfortunately no photographs allowed, an increasing annoyance in Cambodia.

We hopped in a tuk tuk for the drive home (bartered from $4 to $3), Glenn stating we had walked slightly further back to the hotel than this mornings drop off, and in the throng of the rush hour we noticed a passing moped with a dog wearing sunglasses, paws on the handlebars, standing on his hind legs between the driver’s legs. Eventually the rush hour traffic got so bad that the driver made a u turn and took a shortcut through a monastery.

For dinner we enjoyed a traditional dish of Beef Lok Lak in a nearby restaurant.