16.12 - Day 336 - Kampot to Phnom Penh, KHM

Monday 16th December - Kampot - Phnom Penh (Day 336)

Pushing it slightly, today is the start of the journey back to Sydney. We leave Kampot today for two nights in Phnom Penh, a flight to Bangkok with three nights there and then onto Sydney. 

There’s a concerted push with school work, sat in the common area of Onederz Hostel before we pack up to leave - each time looking for any Lego pieces that have continued to be a success all year but inevitably ending up spread around the room. 

We continue to be a disappointment to hopeful tuk tuk drivers across South East Asia and walk the 10 minutes to catch the bus at 11am. Almost full the bus departs on time, this driver almost conservative in his overtaking as we whizz past skinny cows - only ever in 1’s or 2’s, never a field of them, past probably 20 consecutive coconut sellers. 

This type of grouping of sellers is another consistent occurrence, from coconuts to bike shops to kitchenware to ladders to a possible record in Phnom Penh of 13 Chemists next door to one another. Another feature on the roads are the musical-Wicked-inspired Defying Gravity trucks, utes, mopeds and bicycles. If you think it can't balance, you're not trying hard enough. 

Once at the bus depot in Phnom Penh we Grab a car to Saravoan Royal Palace Hotel, where our large room overlooks the green atrium. In the late afternoon we walk to the riverfront where Sienna and Seb are keen to play on the gym equipment that seems popular with locals. 

Along the Mekong River we walk, opting against the sunset cruises being spruiked, hoping for fewer clouds tomorrow. Seb’s and my interest is piqued by a few groups of guys playing keepy-uppy with something similar to what we’d found in Vietnam. They generously get Seb involved and are quick to disparage and separate the game and equipment from Vietnam. 

Into the Night Market we plunge, Sienna emerging triumphantly with a dress, capping off this success with ice-cream-cones from Mixue - which we’d first discovered in Thailand all those months ago (and we now know there are half a dozen in Sydney). With a surgery skip in our step it’s back to the hotel for bed.