10:58pm 8th July 2012. Location: Garden Bar, Phnom Penh.
Today we spent most of our time exploring the city. Overall nothing much to look at besides the busy people minding their own business. There’s two market nearby and we decided to explore a bit.. and we also found a blind massage so we gave it a try.
Let’s start from our breakfast.
Pork noodle soup for breakfast!
Dummylicious beef stew noodle for Shannon. He almost cried eating this because it’s so delicious. “Hey can we come back here again?” he keep asking.
Our Breakfast
We keep nodding our head while eating because it’s that good. Cambodia food are really awesome. Simple yet full of flavour.
The owner of the restaurant happens to be a Cambodian Chinese (1% of population).. he gave us name cards even though he knew we are not coming back. That’s how Chinese people do business!
Growing up in Sabah, I thought our restaurant table are cluttered with many condiments – soy sauce, chilli paste, pepper and toothpick. Here in Cambodia? They took almost half of the table real estate. Double to triple items more than in Sabah. WTF man!
Body Massage from the Blind (they’re good!)
This is easily highlight of the day. All the tight muscles and knots gained from our trip so far is killing us slowly. Then, magically solved by the profession masseur, within an hour!
That’s magic trick from the blind – they “feel” your muscle instead of judging by eyes. Damn they’re good! It’s $7 per hour.. and it’s worth every cent.
After massage, we feel reborn. Shannon says “whoa I feel like a hindu cow”
“Why hindu cow?”
“Calm and steady mah”
I also like this massage where no skin contact is involved.
The place is a bit dodgy though because no decorations involved.
Central Market
Situated just walking distance in the city, this is first market place that hosts different types of market. Wet, dry, electronic good, jewellery, clothing… makai-lin also got.
We get there by tuk-tuk although it’s within walking distance. The sun today is scorching hot.
Russian Market
After refraining ourselves from buying any item (hey, every thing is so cheap compared to Malaysia!), we explored another market called Russian market.
By reading a guide book, it used to be trading place with the Russians, where most of the goods are textiles and silverware (go Google!).
It’s smaller compared to Central market so it took us less than 20 minute to explore the entire place.
Postcards!
We decided to send out our post cards today. It’s really convenient to have a personal tuk tuk to send us around the city. We are being treated LIKE A BOSS.
‘Like a boss’ – we used this phrase so many times. In many cases, we say it when motorist cross the junctions without looking left and right.
Oh, about postcards. We send out 10 post cards, stamps costs $USD5 in total. We will be sending more post cards along the way so submit your address if you want one! (I’ll randomly choose address)
XXX Market
We noticed a small street market around post office, so we decided to go explore. This market is not included in the local guide so we figure out it’s not a tourist area. The area is so small that we have to tilt our head so we don’t hit the roof.
We don’t know the name of the market, it’s hidden behind a street.
Our main intention is to look for street food and hoping to find exotic food like tarantula and snake but to no avail. We found 杂菜饭, which didn’t appeal to us as all. Also, we have yet to develop strong stomach to hold those food yet.
What can you find in the market?
Rather than explaining what’s inside the market, I’ll show you photos instead. Fast and easy.
You can easily find Lonely Planet Guide books for $1 dollar here. These books are EVERY WHERE.
Normally these books cost $25 if you purchase from Lonely Planet’s official bookstore.
Buddha statues every where! I’d like to buy these for souvenirs but unfortunately I’m on a backpack trip and I am unable to bring these around for remaining 22+ days. It’ll be a quite a hassle if I do get one.
However I know where to get these the next time I return for weekend trip /wink wink
Cheap trick for getting better price
Silk textiles every whereeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. “Hello sir you want some scarf? They are good”
Also, “hello sir this is 4 dollar”
You pretend to shake head and walk away
“OK sir how much you want to pay?”
“$1”
“OK”
That’s how you haggle, bitch!
Lots and lots and lots and lots of silverware and jewelleries in market! If I were a woman I’d love this place.
So, guys, listen – don’t bring your mum or girlfriend to this place at all cost.
Price? I don’t know, didn’t bother to ask cause it’s not our cup of tea hahha.
What I discover in Cambodia
- More cars than Vietnam
- Finally spot Cambodian leng lui! You smile at her, she will smile back instead of roll eyes, lol.
- Shops are mostly group together. Seems like the market is separated into sections – weird thing is, all of them are selling similar items too.
- Fruits, lots of fruits!
- Less food stalls by street side, more restaurants with tables and chairs
- Sell petrol at road side.
More Photos lalallalaa
Fried glass noodle with mince pork. Yummy!
Shannon’s favourite dish – beef lok lac (lok lak).
You see, Cambodians prefer to fill their motorcycle with petrol filled in cola bottles. By doing this, they don’t have to visit the petrol station (which is limited around the city by the way) and they can fill up ANYTIME.
I’ve seen many cases where they fill up petrol at traffic light. Epic!
Plenty of these motor workshop around… I’d say almost every corner at every street. And if you notice, most of them do not wear uniforms. Cambodia school student wear slippers to school too.
Where Am I Today?
Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Well, we are leaving Cambodia tomorrow morning and head back to Ho Chi Minh (hello girls, daddy’s back!). We will be travelling via air instead of land because of the travelling time involved (4 days by bus if we travel from Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi).
By returning to Ho Chi Minh, we cut down our travel expenses from $249 to $90. Also, we are missing Bahn Mi so badly!
Will definitely miss Cambodian beer, but hey, AirAsia flight here is cheap what!
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Remember to bargain hard when you get those statues, I’ve gotten a very nice statue of Zhu Ge Liang, to be honest I have not seen them anywhere else. Everyone carves Guan Yu only.
@hantu I find it very easy to bargain here because of their stiff competition. I’d like to get those statues back some time in near future, sun bian drink a few dozen of beer before going back Malaysia.
@hantu Alamak I signed in as wrong account. The reply above is me, Bing
Well I don’t know about the others, but one of the statue seller told us they have a base price also, but they won’t tell you. They rather don’t sell if they can’t earn a bit.
thank you for supporting AirAsia!
now ahbing and friends can fly too~! ^^
@Nicholas Low CONFIRM. Hahah.