Cambodia: Phnom Penh

Cambodia is probably not the first place on most people's travel wish list, but it should be.  It's an incredible place, with lovely people and a vibrant expat culture.  It's a country in flux recovering from it's terrible recent history. There's a feeling of newness and possibility while remembering a great ancient past.  We saw some really impressive things, but what really made the trip were the people that we met.  We were lucky to meet up with a group of expats living in Phnom Penh who were extremely generous, helpful, and simply cool.  Here's a shout out to Tim, Jessica, Mandy, Paul, Deborah, Steve, David, Laura and everyone else we had the honor of meeting- thanks for the hospitality!

Here are the pics:

Wat Phnom 

The food was delicious everywhere!  There is a huge variety of western food thanks to the expat community.  We even had fantastic Mexican...in Cambodia!

Tony in Tim and Jessica's apartment

The "Old Market" a maze of tin and fabric stalls.  It would be easy to get lost in here for hours!

We got to visit a NGO that our friend Tim works with called "Justees" that prints T-shirts.  Their workshop is in the slums along the riverfront & employees young Khmer men in order to keep them in school and off drugs while still helping their families.  This year, Cambodia is experiencing heavy flooding and the alleys along the river were full of black, putrid water. We had to walk through water that was ankle deep, down from the knee deep water the week before. You can check out what Justees is about at www.justees.org

The Justees shop is little more than a shack.  The shirts are printed using the same techniques I used in college.  I have never seen this rough technique used in production before- pretty neat. 

Printing station

River (from the opposite side)

View looking into the alley behind our friends' apartments

View of Phnom Penh from a Tuk Tuk

More food- sorry it's blurry- traditional Khmer food is like mild Thai or Vietnamese.  We did discover one delicious, distinctive dish- Amok.  It's like a mild, creamy curry.

Our favorite hangout- the Blue Pumpkin coffee shop.  That face says, hands off of my camphir lime and mango sundae!

Mexican coffee- espresso + sweetened condensed milk + cinnamon. :)

Fishing in a flooded rice paddy

Remember....no flushing the TP!

Our locked down street- we stayed at a hotel right behind the Prime Minister's house

Look what we found between our hotel and the PM's house- that's right, the North Korean Embassy.  They had a display of Kim Jong Il's visits but I didn't want to hang out to take pics. 

More big houses- Cambodia is extremely poor but there is a lot of corruption and pockets of tremendous wealth.  I have never seen such big houses or so many Lexus SUV's and Land Cruisers.