Travels with Hayley

I was up and out by ten to seven today, I wanted to get a bit of a walk in before our three hour journey to Kampong Cham. I walked up the road for half an hour or so, weaving around cars that park directly across the pavement – when there is a pavement that is…

Dozens and dozens of food stalls and carts lined the pavements selling everything from white bread, crustless, clingfilmed sandwiches through to whole barbequed fish and everything you can possibly think of in between.

I stopped at a tiny cafe to get a drink – which was horrible so I left it, but it was very much worth the 80p investment to sit down and people watch for 20 minutes. The stall next door was grilling chicken and the fragrant smoke was billowing off it and floating across the street. It was a super busy road and cars and mopeds were just pulling in, blocking the lane and jumping out to get their chickeny breakfast. The traffic just flowed around them like water, you have to really have your wits about you to drive over here.

There was a toddler at the stall next door, I assume mum and dad owned the chicken stand and she was just left to her own devices to wander about. More than once she almost meandered out into the road – I was poised to leap up at any moment but mum and dad seemed spectacularly unconcerned so maybe they’ve trained her well…😳

Talking of kids, it’s so weird seeing them on mopeds – 2 adults and 2 kids on a standard moped is totally normal and that includes babes in arms. Often they drive with one hand and hold a baby or a child with the other. Occasionally they are wearing helmets (including one I saw today with little teddy bear ears on the top) but mainly they are just in shorts and t shirts and that’s it. Health and safety is very literally a foreign concept here.

Carrying on my stroll I walked past a group of people sitting outside on the pavement with very much an ‘end of night’ rather than start of the day vibe, I’m certain they hadn’t been to bed and had gone straight out for breakfast. They were playing music on their phones and the girls still had their skimpy party dresses on!

I stopped at another cafe and had an iced chocolate which is just chocolate milkshake over ice and wrote some of yesterday’s diary and did some more people watching. I tried to order some breakfast but was told “no” – I don’t know if that particular dish was off the menu or if I just wasn’t allowed to eat it! I’ve attached some pictures of the menu to show you some of the breakfast options available – fancy any of them? Martin I had you down for the steak sandwich but would you like some sweet gruel to go along with it? Or some chicken cartilage?

On the walk back to the hotel I saw monks out collecting food from the stall holders and distributing blessings. Interestingly, almost all the monks I’ve seen are carrying orange umbrellas. Now there’s no rain forecast for the next 10 days – do they know something we don’t (they do have a direct line to the one that controls the weather after all…) or are the umbrellas for something else? So many unanswered questions!

I walked back to the hotel via random sights like a guy asleep in his hammock that he had strung up inside his tuk tuk (I’m going to start doing a photo series of people asleep in public here!) and grabbed some pastries from a roadside stand by putting up 3 fingers and making a sweeping motion – I think she understood as she gave me a selection and threw one in extra for free!

I cut them all into 4 when I got back to the hotel and handed them around – thank goodness I only had a quarter of one as they were dreadful, so dense and dry! Kom loved them though so the rest of the box was soon hoovered up by him! Such a useful man to have around 😂

Back on the bus and heading toward our next destination. We stopped a couple of hours in at a rest stop very much geared towards tourists for a quick bathroom break which Kom informed us cost 500 riel (they run dual currencies here, the riel at about 5,000 to £1 and the US dollar. You very often pay in one and get change in another which is pretty confusing – mum you’d be in bits 😳) The place was full of wily kids trying to con you! My first insisted the loo was 1000 riel – I fixed her with ‘the look’ and handed over the 500 and surprise surprise, was let straight in!

Dozens of stalls all selling the same snacks were dotted around – how do they make money all selling the same thing? Kerry and I bought a few for people to try – I paid my $1 price with a $5 bill and felt obliged to point out via sign language when I got my change that $2 bills don’t actually exist so could I have some non fake money please! So cheeky!

Dozens more kids were running around with their hands closed, coming up to you to open them up to reveal huge live tarantulas! They put them on you for a photo for money – fortunately this didn’t happen to me, some of the group were suffering from shock I think! Other kids were trying to sell you bags of snacks and bunches of bananas – sales tactics varied from declaring ‘beautiful, beautiful’ while pointing at you and then thrusting the fruit in your complimented face, to one child who followed me around poking my midriff shouting ‘meep meep’ like the roadrunner! If this was to tell me I was too squishy and should eat more fruit it was a good strategic move but me and my squish held firm (or wobbly I guess!) and resisted all advances.

Talking of spiders though, this particular area is famous for eating fried insects and there were a lot on sale so Kom bought them for us to try. Never one to turn down an opportunity for a disgusting story I got stuck in! I had a cricket, about 2 inches long, fried in some kind of sugar and salt mix. You know, it wasn’t bad at all – tasted very similar to a prawn if you were to eat it with the shell on. If you could get over the look of it I could see why you’d eat them. I also had a tarantula leg (just snapped it straight off the body!) which didn’t taste of much, just fried, and a silkworm which I didn’t love, very rich and fatty. I’ve tried steamed silkworm before in Vietnam and wasn’t a fan then either, at least I know now that it’s not for me – if deep frying it doesn’t make it delicious, nothing will!

Back on the bus I had some fresh jackfruit in my bag to wash down the insect buffet and we handed all of the snacks around – the fresh mango was of course delicious as always, the round thing that looked like it was made of Rice Krispies less so – no taste and a very cardboardy texture. The ones that were covered in powdered sugar were some kind of fried rice flour and were ok – until Kom told us their Cambodian nickname is ‘cat poo’ – that put us all off a bit! The rest of the snack bag ended up with the driver to finish off.

Off we set again speeding down the dual carriageway, even here there were sights to behold all along the way. Great swathes of verge absolutely filled with hammocks under strung up shades with no one in sight. Who owns them? Who sleeps in them? And why? Enormous government owned factories sprawling out into the horizon apparently manufacturing clothes and sports equipment. Dozens upon dozens of tiny, run down stalls selling drinks, crisps and old Pepsi bottles refilled with petrol for moped top ups, often half a dozen in a row selling identical things. A huge temple set back from the road with a dozen life size warrior statues spaced evenly at the front – but all laying down like they’d been knocked over. Had it been done on purpose, does a laying warrior mean something significant? Or was it the wind? Or the Gods playing dominoes? So very many unanswered questions yet again…

The further towards the countryside we got, the younger and younger the moped riders seemed to get. We asked Kom what the legal age to ride a scooter is here. Apparently in the city it’s 15, in the country “eh, maybe like 10, 11?” 😳

Another fascinating thing about children – Cambodia, until July of this year, had had the same Prime Minister since 1985 (pretty interesting in itself). He’s big into fortune telling apparently and a fortune teller at one point told him how triplets are lucky or auspicious or the like, so every set of triplets born in Cambodia since then (394 sets apparently) have received 5 million riels (1,250usd) per family, 50 kilograms of rice, 2 large boxes of milk, 5 kilograms of sugar, 2 sarongs, and 2 scarves (I’m really not sure what the sarongs and scarves are about and why they only get 2, seems slightly counter intuitive for triplets…) Direct from the PM and his wife, not paid for by the country. He considers them all his grandchildren apparently. Bearing in mind the minimum wage for a factory worker is just over 22-0 USD a month this is quite the gift. Can you imagine it at home…?!

We arrived at our hotel which in Kom’s words is ‘bloody fancy’ – blingy is what I’d call it, the sofas in reception would not look out of place in Liberace’s living room!

It’s all a bit papering over the cracks though, so far I’ve had to bin a fake flower in a vase by the bathroom sink as it was literally furry with mould, and when I unplugged my phone charger the socket plate came off the wall with it! It has an excellent line in signage though – particular favourites are the ‘11st’ floor directions and the UK bathroom etiquette poster stuck to the inside of the toilet door…

The others headed straight to lunch but Sarah and I headed out for a walk around town. It was so quiet, barely anyone around. It’s had a slightly shanty town feel the further in you got, it’s all quite broken down and dusty, hundreds of tiny shops spilling out the most enormous amounts of stock onto the pavements – but seemingly no one around to buy it.

We stopped to buy a SIM card for Sarah – the little boy of about 9 that was chilling behind the counter with I assume his mum serving was the only one that spoke English so he took care of the transaction and set up the card for her – so all kids are better at technology it turns out, no matter what country!

We browsed around an indoor market, we were very much the only tourists and got some odd looks but we did lots of smiling and saying hello and on the whole people seemed happy to see us. So many stall holders were asleep in hammocks strung up across their stalls – I think the concept of a siesta is strong here!

We tried in vain for a long time to find somewhere to get a fresh juice or the like but after an hour or so gave up and went to the cafe next to the hotel which seems to be the Cambodian equivalent of Starbucks where we got 2 horrendously sweet iced drinks which we binned after a few sips and a bag of salted egg flavour crisps which were surprisingly excellent and I finished the lot!

Got back to the hotel with 20 minutes to spare before the next trip so had a lovely face time call with mum and dad from the Liberace sofa and then waved the rest of the group off on their bikes while Luigi, Kate and I got into our tuk tuk! Luigi has a bad back and so doesn’t want to ride and Kate is “just lazy” 😂 Sounds fair enough to me. I had a felt a bit guilty for not doing the ride but I actually think it was a far better choice, not only was I not in pain, we got to see so much more as we weren’t having to concentrate on the road and even stopped to look around a temple just out in the middle of nowhere and take photos.

As we drove through villages literally dozens and dozens of children ran out and shouted “hello hello” and waved frantically, it was so lovely. They were even high fiving some of the bike riders, it was gorgeous. Based on this as we went past 2 boys of about 9 on their bikes we shouted out them “hello hello!” and waved. In perfect and absolute unison they turned as one and gave us the middle finger! It was hilarious, I almost fell out of the tuk tuk I was laughing so much 😂

We had a brief stop to look at the edge of a farm (how each farm is demarcated I don’t know, we just wandered straight into what felt like forest straight from the road) and looked at some crops: ivy cucumber – good with pork apparently, bananas, papaya and chilli’s.

Final stop was to a temple that housed monks right in the middle of deep countryside, ploughed fields and horses on one side of the road with a shed with 2 beautifully painted long boats that seat 80, and a huge temple on the other.

Just as Juliet tried to dismount her bike she got caught up somehow and what looked like in slow motion she crashed to the ground under the bike. Heroic Kom tried to get to her to save her but he was a step too late and just ended up getting caught too and crashing down with her. Poor woman it looked so painful. She grazed her arm which Luigi who is a nurse leapt in and cleaned and dressed (useful otherwise we’d probably have had to use Kate the vet 😂) but I think there will be some serious bruises later. We lashed the bike to the back of the tuk tuk and against the conventual wisdom of ‘get straight back on the bike’ she very wisely came home in that with us.

All of the child monks were out, playing and gathering litter – as we were leaving, some of them were sitting at a picnic table and kept looking shyly at me – to make them laugh I started making funny faces – they absolutely cracked up, it was so funny. Even the head monk standing at the side was smiling so I didn’t get anyone in any trouble!

We drove back through tiny villages including one called the Muslim village which had the most enormous and beautiful white and gold mosque – I really wanted to stop and have a look and take pictures but we were running a bit late so I’ll just have to use my brain pictures for that one!

When we got back to the hotel I had 45 minutes to kill and the sun was beginning to set so I went for a walk through the dusky town. Well. All the people that had been conspicuous by their absence earlier were out in force, it was heaving! First I came across a ladies exercise class with dozens of ladies leaping up and down to pumping music, Jane Fonda 1980’s style. Not only was this crazy enough but 200 yards up the promenade I found another identical one!

Men were playing a game called Sey (I asked Kom for the name afterwards, obviously I didn’t know!) which is a painted circle on the ground split into segments like a pie. People stand in each slice and kick what i think was basically a spring loaded shuttlecock between them with backwards kicks like a donkey. Apparently it’s just for exercise not for betting or anything and you learn it by using your hands first.

Kids flew kites, some beautiful colourful ones with long tails ones and some just made from discarded plastic bags, played games and in one memorable case a kid with the skinniest arms I’ve ever seen attempted some shirtless press-ups! Tiny kids ran around shouting at each other, beaming with joy and then dashing up to me to shout “hi hi!” and high fiving me, at points I had at least half a dozen dancing around my feet!

I bought some chopped up spring rolls and wontons from a vendor who was very sweet but when I tried them they were cold and super oily which was a shame as the flavour was lovely. By this time the sun was fully set and still hundreds and hundreds and people were out, eating praying and living to bastardise a phrase! It was one of the most joyous 45 minutes I can remember, I couldn’t stop smiling.

I slightly reluctantly headed back to the hotel, bumping into another local Intrepid tour guide, Tony, who was doing the ‘young person’ tour – age 18-29 – there but for the grace of God, I don’t want to live through all that again 😂 Lovely guy and a fan of spring rolls and wontons so that got rid of those 😂 I then met a few of the others at the roof top bar on the ‘11st’ floor to check out the view where I had an amazing passion fruit soda drink after which we made our way out to a street food tour.

This was only a brief activity with Kom and after we tried some marinated steak (nice) and some jerky (not nice) I headed off for another wander back towards the hotel, picking up a sugarcane juice on the way (got to make the most of this being available while I can!).

I came across a birthday cake shop and was just thinking how funny I didn’t notice it on the way there – which led me to realise that of course I hadn’t as I’d missed my turning! Fortunately our hotel was by far the highest building in town and brightly lit so I just had to turn around 360 to spot it and head back there. I’d lose my head if it wasn’t screwed on 😂

By now it had cooled down enough for me to fancy eating dinner so I went to a restaurant that Kom had recommended just around the corner from the hotel. I had the stir fried noodles (I actually think these might have been wheat noodles rather than rice, if so that’s the first time I’ve seen that here) with lots of vegetables, squid and prawns. It was really, really good and with a big bottle of water cost less than £6. I sat there for a couple of hours editing pictures, diary writing and watching the world go by, it was bliss.

Back at the hotel to chat for an hour with Kerry and compare our days, we’re both loving it and it’s so nice to have someone to gossip with, this is why you share a room!

We leave here at 9.30 tomorrow to head for our homestay in the country, can’t wait 🤩

Love you millions always xxx