02-03.12 - Days 322-3 - Phnom Penh, KHM
Monday 2nd and Tuesday 3rd December - Phnom Penh (Day 322 & 323)
Perhaps unexpectedly, Residence 105 has two bikes available to borrow, so I take one out at 7am onto the busy streets of Phnom Penh. Confidence required. The roads might seem manic, but there is a method to the madness - growing volume of built up traffic eventually earns unofficial right of way.
I head east to the river then north, both stretches marked as green on google maps but in fact mostly concrete with some narrow manicured garden beds and grass.
Scooters still win the vehicle count, but there are more cars here, especially Lexus and I spot 3 Bentleys, 1 Lamborghini and 1 Tesla Cybertruck - all of which are in stark contrast to the still evident ma & pa shop fronts / food carts.
2.5 weeks of term to go and we are trying to cram 3 days into 2 to free up Wednesday for a waterpark visit.
We walk slowly to a market, finding lunch on it’s outer edge before diving into the maze of stalls over 3 levels all very tightly packed together. Sienna and Seb have a lot of eyeballs and smiles following them around and we emerge with hair clips for Sienna and friends.
The rest of the afternoon is spent doing more schoolwork or hopping in and out of the rooftop pool with a late dinner downstairs.
Tuesday morning Kate heads out for a bike ride following roughly the same route as I yesterday.
Because we’re in an apartment rather than our usual South East Asia Homestay there is crockery, cooking utensils and a fridge, which has Sienna and Seb requesting normal cereal for breakfast rather than noodles / rice. Cornflakes it is.
After a decent dose of school work (in part incentivised by the kids desire to using the walking machine in the 7th floor gym) we Grab a tuk tuk to take us a couple of kms south to The Factory; an old jeans factory repurposed into a co-working and social space. I’d seen a photo exhibition there which actually didn’t yet exist, but I’d also found a small cinema with an English showing of Moana 2 at midday.
That gave us time to explore, play a few games of table football and chat to a French metalworker creating large scale steel installations.
The cinema’s small popcorn offering is overshadowed by its noodle corner. A wall of packet noodles. Avoiding any spicy ones we made a few bowls to take into the screening - of course we're the only people there like our only other cinema visit this year in Vietnam.
Just when this place couldn’t get any better on the way out we found a library reading room. Sienna and Seb quickly sit down, book in hand. Some final table football before a tuk tuk delivers us home, a passion fruit soda and pork with rice for dinner next door downstairs.
