17.12 - Day 337 - Phnom Penh, KHM
Tuesday 17th December - Phnom Penh (Day 337)
As ever on my early walk, the roads are busy with school children heading to school for a 7am start - though we also see plenty of children during the day not at school but working to help in their mum and dad’s shop.
At the Central Market my attention is grabbed by the ice preparation going on. Slabs one foot deep and wide and six foot long are chainsawed in half, then pick-axed into quarters, each quarter then dropped between spinning metal wheels and crushed into flakes and fed into large rice bags.
Breakfast in our Saravoan Royal Palace Hotel, not extravagant, but more than enough to please and satisfy us. Seb has his last one-on-one zoom lesson with Miss Sophie whilst Sienna works on her profit and loss lines for her Amazon themed theme park down in the atrium whilst I sit with her trying to catch up and keep up with this journal.
It's clearly too hot for play parks outdoors, but a 20 minute walk away we find Kids Land or some such on the top floor of the small Exchange Mall. The kids head on in, Seb running around wildly, Sienna building with the foam blocks.
Eventually Seb realises there is one other customer / child in the area, a boy of 7 with whom he plays with for the next hour and a half. Even the staff get involved with the boys’ games of tag on the trampolines and hide and seek.
Sienna larks in the ball pit, but returns to the building blocks again and again for tower building or stone-stepping or just burying me. Despite the aircon, Seb has worked up a good sweat playing with Emiliano (born in Namibia, briefly living in France, in Phnom Penh for 5 years now, brought by his nanny on his school holidays) by the time we drag everyone away at 2 pm. Lunch nearby at Moyes Srok restaurant, a Beef Lok Lak for Kate, Fish Amok for me.
Back at the hotel there is a brief bit of down time - enough time for a cane juice for me - before it’s back to the waterfront to do a Sunset Cruise. There are two storey boats leaving every 15 minutes from 5 pm and as soon as you’re within 200 metres of the docking area, ticket sellers keep approaching us (and every other tourist), and having parted with $10 - “bebes free” much to Seb’s disapproval - we select our free drink from an esky and board.
On the upper deck with 20 other passengers, the boat departs almost immediately and we push out into the fast moving current of the Mekong River.
The sun dips gracefully behind the main part of the city skyline and we chug past tiny fishing boats, other tourist boats and low lying car / moped ferries. As it turns dark all the tourist boats are lit up along with decorations on the river bank - a most pleasant way to spend an hour.
Hopping off, there's a couple of souvenirs to buy from the Night Market followed by a repeat of last night - heading to the public gym equipment to swing or rotate on. In the middle of this Sienna also gives away some of her stationary to a couple of groups of young children. It’s nice to see them using the short while later when we walk back past to the other repeat of last night - a trip to Mixue for ice-cream.
And with that, Cambodia is almost done.