Phnom Penh, Cambodia Day 2 (Sunday, November 6th, 2016)

I awoke in the night to the sound of pounding rain and water running off the roof.  I strolled to the window to see how hard it was raining, but there wasn't enough light to really see, so I made my way back to bed and let the sound of the falling rain lull me back to sleep.

It was still raining when we woke up this morning, but it didn't seem as hard as it was over night.  So we took our time getting ready for breakfast.  

Halleluia!  We have hot water this morning!  I realize I am a spoiled American, but I LOVE a hot shower.  I think the moral of this story is "The early bird gets the worm".  We're going to start getting up earlier.

We're starting to feel human again.  We feel rested and ready for the day.  We think we are starting to get over the jet lag and are adjusting to Cambodia time.  Life is good!

As I was catching up the blog this morning, Steve did some research on things to do, and he discovered a Cambodian cooking school within about 4 blocks of our hotel.  So we walked over to get some more information.  We were too late to have a cooking lesson today, but they scheduled one for us tomorrow.  We paid them our $29 per person, and they wrote us our receipt and told us to meet back there tomorrow at 8:45 am.  They also said they could pick us up at our hotel, but we said we were staying close by and would just walk over.  It is called the Feel Good Cafe and Cooking School.  We'll be back there tomorrow morning.  When we left the cooking school, we walked back through the market.  

We brought a comb with us on the trip, but somewhere along the way we lost it.  It's not a big deal, but we thought it would be a fun challenge to try and find a new one in the Kandal Market.  Just like the town, the market is also divided up into districts.  We knew that if we could find the "personal heigiene" district that we could probably find what we were looking for.

We found the personal heigiene district pretty quickly, and ducked into one of the stores looking for a comb.  We showed them the motion of combing our hair, and the girl happily pulled out some combs.  None of them were quite right, as I needed a comb with wide teeth that I could get through my thick hair.  She didn't have one like that, but asked the girl in the next stall if she had one and she pulled out a large bag of combs.  We looked through it and instantly found what we were looking for.  We successfully bought the exact comb we were looking for.  It was $.40.....Happy Day!


Today would have been a great day for cooking school since it appears that it is going to rain all day, but the weather is warm and so is the rain, so it's not a big deal.

We're getting used the the crowds and the traffic and are even starting to enjoy the vibrance of the city.  And when it rains, nothing really changes.  People just pull out their rain panchos and continue on with their daily activities on their motor bikes.

A pedi-cab with a passenger.  They work hard to keep their passengers warm and dry

As we were making our way through the streets, we noticed a sign for Pocari Sweat on the side of a warehouse type building and decided to see what it was.



It was a huge gym.  In Thailand we saw people working out in the park in the evening, but we had never seen a gym, so this was kind of fun.

As we continued a little further down the street, there was a large white tent set up in the middle of the street.  We peeked in to see what it was, and it was a wedding venue.  I guess traffic will just have to go another direction for today.

A pedi-cab delivering bananas to Kandal Marke

Duck, chicken and quail eggs, and refrigeration isn't a thing

Even without rain, the market can be hard for tall people to navigate.  The umbrellas and tarps are quite low and require a lot of crouching to keep from hanging ourselves.  But once they start filling up with rain, it becomes even more challenging.

As we continued walking, we found an area of the market that had a permanent roof and soon realized that it was the food court.

Cambodia is hot and humid all the time, so having the wood burning stoves running in this crowded foodcourt made it even more uncomfortable.

They had tables set up for their customers to eat at once they had purchased their food.  This is the only area of the market where the floors were dry.

We were quite intrigued by every aspect of this market.  We have never seen anything like it before.  We have never seen such of selection fruits and vegetables, meats, housewares

The electricity in Cambodia seems to be very consistent, but we really not sure how.

In the afternoon our friends Chris and Helen (from our Thailand trip last November) arrived at the hotel.  They had just flown in via Taipei, Taiwan from San Francisco.

They were tired from their long flight, and since we have been here for awhile, they asked us to show them around.  So we headed out again into the rainy streets of Phnom Penh.

As we were walking down the street, we noticed something cooking on an open fire pit.  At first we thought it was a pig, but when we asked the man he said it was a young cow.  He was very attentive to it, basting it often to keep it moist.  It looked really good, but we had promised ourselves not to eat street food, so we continued on our way.

Then back to the hotel pool to relax and dry out for awhile and let Chris and Helen recover from the culture shock. The pool bar at our hotel had some very interesting martinis that we decided to try.  Chris had lychee fruit and Steve and I had expresso.  They were tasty!

Then back out into the rainy streets of Phnom Penh for some more exploring.  We found the central market, a more permanent market that we wanted to explore.  As we passed by a corner shoe shop, we saw this cute little guy taking a nap in his mom's store.

Then we stumbled into the salon area of the market.

Helen decided that she wanted to get a white flower added to her toe nails, so we sat down and tried to tell the girl what she wanted.

The girl told her that it would be $1, so Helen said great and sat down in the "salon chair".

She didn't exactly end up with a white flower, but sychodelic 60's LOVE is just about as good, and remember, it was only a dollar.  

As we made our way out of the central market, we came across some fabulous looking fruit stands, so Chris and Helen bought some fruit to try. 

Then off to the night market.  Night markets, like the Kandall Market are set up and taken down each day.  They bring their merchandise in in big bags and set up huge displays.  It really quite amazing!  Most night markets are set up right in the middle of the street, or on the sidewalks, but this one actually has it's own spot. 



This woman is making sugar cane juice on an old press.

There are also food vendors, clothes vendors, house wares and more.

Steve ducking under the sagging plastic again

After the night market, Chris and Helen headed back to the hotel to catch up on their sleep after their long flight and Steve and I headed to grab some dinner.  We went to the Mekong River Restaurant and had some traditional Khmer (Cambodian) food.  It's very similar to Thai food, except that it's not spicy at all.  We found a nice table out in front of the restaurant where we could watch the world go by as we enjoyed our dinner.

And last but not least, we stopped in for a massage before calling it a night.  Massages are more expensive here than in Thailand, but still quite reasonable at $15 per person for an hour.  This place was very clean and professional and gave us both a really nice massage.

We have learned that everyone in Cambodia accepts the US dollars, but not US coins.  If you have change coming back they return US dollars and then give Riel for the change portion as they don't use US coins.  

We had a great day of exploring Phnom Penh!