I disappeared from Hive's radar a few days ago. This was because I went to Cambodia. Six absolutely intense days...
Seven boxers and seven T-shirts to never deal with laundries.
A hoody and jeans to be safe in potential freezing AC buses and dormitories
Plus, 5 kg of devices... 😁
A train trip from Bangkok to the Cambodian border; five hours in a crowded sitting car with old buzzing fans on the ceiling. Only $1.4 (49 baht) for the whole trip from Bangkok right to the border checkpoint!
Crossing the corrupt Cambodian border...
The Cambodian border officers tried to drag some extra money from me but I fought back well and paid only an official 30$ for a tourist visa. 🤠
A walk along a dark broken street in Poi Pet, Cambodia in search of a bus to Phnom Penh... Book in advance, guys!
Ended up taking an 18$ night bus with a double bed only for me, coincidentally. Heaven! And then hell: arriving in Phnom Penh at 4 am... Dozing on a plastic chair for three hours...
A tuk-tuk trip to the booked hotel. Check-in at 2 pm... 😫 "Can I leave my backpack here?" - "Sure" - "Can I use the bathroom as well?"
8 am, with the brushed teeth and the empty bladder, I was ready for a walking photography adventure in the capital of Cambodia! 😎
The first thing that caught my eye - monks having these wonderful umbrellas.
Flocks of them were cruising the area, asking for alms and giving blessings:
The woman is bowing to monks while the security guard is bowing to the mobile. 😃
It was impossible to resist following those monks. However, I tried to remember their faces to be sure that I didn't chase anybody certain for too long. 😁
This is a Wat Langka (វត្តលង្កាព្រះកុសុមារាម), not a top tourist destination but I didn't want any sightseeing this time.
I lived in Phnom Penh in 2019 for a month and even at that time didn't want to engage in any tourist checkboxing. Too old for this shit.
I just want to go anywhere I want. Not to Phnom Penh's genocide museum for sure.
These guys exclaimed something towards me, not sure what:
But I understood them the way I wanted: “Take a picture of us, we are not less orange than those monks you are secretly following.” 😁 Not the most interesting picture but it conveys well how a walk with a camera is full of emotions.
Another character, what a sweet hold:
I reached the Independence Monument and a question arose where to head next.
I chose the Riverside.
Passed the Royal Palace and National Museum of Cambodia, having polite no-thank-you talks to tuk-tuk drivers.
That's the place.
The Riverside is supposed to be a leisure promenade and it works this way partly... but, at the same time, it looks like an untidy embankment of a provincial town and hosts dubious characters. The best place to feed pigeons in the whole Phnom Penh though. 😁
By the way,
Do you know the rule of 10 seconds?
It says, if you dropped food onto the ground, you can quickly collect it within 10 seconds and keep safely eating it. 😁
| Surprised to learn that there are people on the Internet who believe this rule isn't a joke. 😁 |
There is another one in Asia, a less strict, saying:
If you dropped food onto the ground, you can keep eating or selling this food if you are quick enough to collect it before motorbikes will crush it into mash. 😄 And that's the proof:
All the traffic got frozen patiently waiting for the pickles would be saved. 😃
(It would be fair to note that the saleswomen decided not to save the first layer of the pickles lying straight onto the road surface.)
Keep walking!
The central Phnom Penh is a kind of spectacle. There is no polish there, except for individual buildings, the rest is chaos with a large number of dilapidated houses.
That's one of the oldest, obviously, from the French times:
The banner on the window says that the building is for sale or rent.
But most buildings in the center looks rather this way.
Many signs of the previous times.
That creates peculiar vibes of "adventure in Asia", which you can't find in nowadays Thailand or Malaysia, and that's what many foreign visitors like about Phnom Penh.
But Phnom Penh has a modern face too.
This is the young generation of the small but growing Cambodian middle class who has never known the terrors of totalitarianism and lives in the age of the Web although physically located (caged) in the backward corrupt authoritarian country.
And this is a new architecture of Phnom Penh. No matter if this is wild oligarchic capitalism... at least, they don't execute people for wearing glasses in Cambodia nowadays.
I'll end the post on this minor note (simply because the caffeine has worn off from me and that's why I've run out of smiling emojis).
Another story from the capital of Cambodia is coming as well as a reportage from Battambang, a Cambodian city, I visited for the first time.
More images and stories from Southeast Asia are ahead! Check out the previous ones on my personal Pinmapple map.
I took these images with a Nikkor 50mm on a Nikon D750 on February 13-14, 2024, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.