Trip to Phnom Penh for Pchum Ben!

I say, those seats are "capitol" old chap!

Cambodia just celebrated "Pchum Ben", a holiday to honor and praise ancestors. One Cambodian lady told Emily that the holiday is really just a chance for everyone to feed the monks (to make up for letting them starve the rest of the year). Apparently dry humour floats around Cambodia too! :)

Since the three days we get off of work fall right after the weekend, it seemed like a good opportunity to go visit Phnom Penh, and get a chance to explore the capital city. Unfortunately, the closer we got to last-weekend, more we heard about flooding everywhere! There's been lots of flooding around the country, and warnings issued for Phnom Penh as well, but my dad was there, and he seemed alive, so we went for it. I'm glad we did too! This blog post'll cover the journey down, and Em's first interactions with the ins-and-outs of Cambodian transit, and the next post'll cover some of the finer points of chillin'-like-a-villain in da 'Penh.

We didn't stage this, it was just that cheesy-delish

We set our alarms for 6:00 A.M. on Saturday morning. We got up at about 7:00 A.M. on Saturday morning. Carefully anticipating this eventuality, Em and I (read Emily) packed our stuff the night before. We decided we'd pick up breakfast somewhere on the way, and spent out time checking, and double-checking to make sure we had everything we needed before heading off. We were offered many tuk-tuk rides on the way, but were convinced we didn't need one, and that we'd make it just fine, thanks. It's not that we had heavy or excessive baggage per se, just that the bags were awkward, and we didn't feel the pressures of time keenly. This combo of factors found us ordering our breakfast to go at the Sunrise Cafe on the way to the Capitol bus stop. We ordered a "Battambang Omelette", which was delicious (made more delicious on the bus by our lack of cutlery, and excess of cheese). We also got coffee to go in plastics cups. Normally this is ok, but we ordered hot coffees. I have a greater appreciation for styrofoam's ability to protect hands from heat.

Isn't this a wicked photo? I like it.

I don't have a picture of it, but the hustle to get your bags on the bus is a great scene to see. Battambang has lots of limes and oranges at this time of year, and it seemed like some people were using Captiol Tours as their official logistics solutions for their small-time export businesses. Everyone's pushing to get their bags on the bus first, which is ridiculous, because then they get their bags back last when they get off. Still, they seem to do it with a kind of fear that if they don't then they might not get their bags on. This kind of frenzy grips you, and makes you begin to question if there's some kind of local logic to it - like maybe you actually won't get your bag on the bus! As it turns out, this isn't true, it's the same-old same-old: everyone wants to be first. I just kind of wait at the side until one of the workers loading the bus looks over, show him my ticket, hand him my bag, say the number, point to the tape and his marker, speak a few words in khmer, make firm eye-contact, look at my bag, look at my ticket, look at him, and then smile. It's worked twice so far. I like it more than yelling at the dudes.

Sticky-riz avec sweet iced-coffee

When em and I finish eating, we realize that we haven't said our prayers yet, so we thought about it, looked around, and realizing that we're in a small private room provided by the language barrier - went ahead and said our morning prayers. Em discovered that Battabang is larger than the five square blocks that encompass our lives, as the bus wound its way through the city on our way out. The countryside is generally flat in this area, so our view on the way is pretty constant: rice fields and tiny fish farms. In fact, it is pretty, and constant. And the fish farms are both tiny, and they farm tiny fish. What an odd accumulation of sentence. We were bright enough to bring our own water with us, so we could stay hydrated, and enjoy the ride. We were stupid enough to drink a lot of the water we brought after drinking our coffees, not being sure of when the bus would stop for bathroom breaks, etc. We were saved from exploding bladders at around 11:30 or so, when we pulled into a little bus stop. It has a small canteen, some washrooms in the back (with entrepreneurial beggar-boys suggesting that you have to pay them for the privilege....lemma: as a follow-up to the mendicancy post I had no cash when I went to the washroom, but I don't think I would have given them money in this case either. since they were kids of the people that lived there, and seemed to be doing just fine without cash, and it didn't seem like you actually had to pay anyway).  It also has a few small shops with ladies selling fresh fruits, chips, nuts, and BAMBOO STICKY-RICE! It's not really all that good, but it's a fun experience to eat bean-filled sticky rice out of a piece of bamboo.

We discovered the secrets of using these
all-too-small cup-holders.

We're trying, as Baha'is to expand the learning mode of "consultation, action, and reflection" to as many new fields of thought and action as possible. Unfortunately, we failed to expand it to "bus rides in Cambodia" as we blatantly repeet our mistake of coffee+water+no control of stop time. Undeterred, Emily used a small stop when the bus driver only meant to drop one person off (like unplanned stop) to go find a bathroom. she stopped and talked to the bus driver on her way out, and then left, so I assumed that it was all good. Then the bus driver gets back on the bus, and Em's still not back. He looks at me imploringly, I look at him, shrug my shoulders, and hold my hands up - it's the international sign of "hey, whatchya gonna do about it, eh?" I would have given him the "hands-tied" tied sign, but I'm not sure if that's an offensive sign here. Either way, the real comedy begins when other women, their bladders spotting an opportunity, try to exit the bus. The driver had to speak quickly, and deal with some disgruntled mamas! Finally, I got up and went towards the toilets, just to let Em know that everyone was getting "pissed-off" (aha!). She returned to the bus quickly. she got some glares, but I don't think she noticed. Tres drole.

Did I mention pineapple on a stick?

Beauteous!

the rest of the trip was not nearly as exciting, we got some reading done, listened to tunes, etc. Phnom Penh was also anti-climactic: no floods! We found our way to our guest-house, once again avoiding having to take a tuk-tuk with their terribly high rates for foreigners.