After some excellent days on the countryside and by (and in) the sea, we returned to Phnom Penh to experience its lesser sad parts. The cyclo tours were cheap and could be arranged to avoid the more touristy places. Although we did request to go to the dodgier parts of town, no ghettos were visited, no drive-bys or street corner cockfights were witnessed.
For those with haggling powers and the feel for quality where it's not expected, the russian market can be a gold-mine. Counterfeit (and on rare occasions, the real deal) brand name products can be acquired for a small penny, and they do have all sorts of trinkets and whatnots. A pair of "Converse" found their way in my shopping bag, whereas Chez focused on expanding her already vast collection of Abercrombie & Fitch items. Although housing roughly 1,5 million inhabitants, Phnom Penh is apparently a rather small town, as we randomly ran in to some other members of our Intrepid group, and could therefore overload (six of us) a tuk-tuk back to the hotel.
At nighttime, the Cambodian capitol awakens. And they all seem to gather at the park by the royal palace, in order to do their typical Cambodian aerobics. Gathered together in groups, the half excercise, half dancing goes on for roughly three hours, and anyone can join in and exit as they please.
Perusing the Sisowath Quay area, the sightings included the Royal Palace, the Silver Pagoda and the Independence Monument.
After dinner we went for a drink in what most probably was the red light district, and I tried one of Chez' many odd combinations: Menthol fag and White Russian. It works, mate, it works!
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