The bus trip from Saigon to Phnom Penh is really easy, taking only about 6 hours including almost an hour spent at the border. I'm still surprised at how inexpensive bus travel is in and around Vietnam. The trip from Saigon to Phnom Penh set me back a total of $11 US! The return trip beat that at $10. And the buses are comfortable and air conditioned. If you're hard up you can travel like the locals for even less on a crowded bus without air conditioning.
On the way to Phnom Penh I could tell that I wasn't feeling 100%, but was hoping I would return to normal in a day or 2 but unfortunately it went the other way. On my second day in Phnom Penh I went down hard with what I thought was a bad cold. Looking back, it might have even been some strain of flu because it pretty much incapacitated me for 4 days. I spent 2 days just lying in bed not even wanting to read or watch TV.
I did get out and about for a couple of days around Phnom Penh and it's changed a lot since I was there last. Like almost everywhere in southeast Asia it's opening up more and economic changes are happening fast. Even the last holdout, Myanmar, is now beginning to embrace a more modern economy. In Phnom Penh I ran across Spinelli's and Gloria Jean's coffee shops which weren't there 2 1/2 years ago. There are also new malls and restaurants. But the poverty is still there and probably will be for a long time. New buildings and businesses provide a nice veneer but don't do much to change the decades of economic stagnation, loss of skilled people, and lack of education brought about by the years of 'utopia' under the Khmer Rouge. I think if you ever hear anyone in power utter that word, the best thing you can do for yourself is run like hell.
At the entrances to night clubs there are signs designating prohibited items and one of them is hand guns. There's still a wild element to Cambodia though I've never felt in danger in my 2 trips there.
I stayed along the riverside area which is where many hotels and restaurants and bars are located. The Foreign Correspondent's Club was running a special rate on rooms so I spent 3 days there, those when I was most sick. It was a nice place to lie in bed.
There are many hostess bars along the riverside which are bars with a staff of young women whose job it is to entertain mostly male patrons. I decided to go into one of them one night just to explore, for purely research purposes of course. It was still early so I was the only customer. What happened is similar to what's happened to me the few times I've ventured into this type of bar around Saigon. I sat at the bar and ordered a beer and was almost immediately surrounded by about 4 members of the staff, but they were the oldest and least attractive ones! At least in my mind that's how it was. I noticed some other younger prettier girls sitting at tables who had no inclination to come over and entertain me. If someone is interested in these more desirable girls I assume there's some procedure that's followed to engage them, likely involving finding the mamasan (there's always a mamasan, the usually older lady who runs the operations of the place) and placing your request with her. Or perhaps just being more direct and aggressive or younger and better looking or making a display of having money and being ready to spend it does the trick. It's also no secret that entertainment means pretty much anything a customer is willing to pay for. Anyway, I was only there on a research project so I satisfied myself with chatting, playing 4 -square, and getting unwanted neck and shoulder massages from my little group of bottom shelf girls. 4-square is like tic-tac-toe (or noughts and crosses for the Brits) played with a vertical plastic board and colored pieces and it's common in hostess bars in Thailand also. The girls are very good and it's difficult to beat them but I'm sure the fact that they usually drop the first piece gives them a distinct advantage. Back in 2000 on my first trip to Thailand I beat a hostess at 4-square because she got distracted and she was really dismayed as if she had failed at her job! Anyway I finished my beer (75 cents) and left the hostesses to their own devices.
I have the feeling that Cambodia is a great place for the more adventurous traveler who's willing to get a dirt bike and venture out into the countryside. There are many temples to be seen besides the ones at Angkor and a lot of jungle and wilderness, though caution would definitely have to be exercised.
The more I had read about Sihanoukville the less appealing it sounded to me and that along with my illness and the general roughness of Cambodia prompted me to head back to Vietnam after 6 days.
When I needed a ride to the bus station I walked over to one of the many tuk-tuk drivers who patrol the riverside looking for customers and showed him the business card of the bus company I wanted to be taken to. In Cambodia the tuk-tuks are usually a motorbike fitted with a hitch that pulls a covered passenger cart with bench seats that can hold about 4 people.
The driver looked at the card, which mentioned service to Saigon, and said something about Saigon and I just nodded. He quoted $2 for the fare which I knew was way too low. I should have known what he was up to. He started off in the right direction but then turned into a crowded market area that was not the best route to the bus station and pulled up to a shop and stopped. I looked up and saw that he was trying to dump me off at some random bus company that offered service to Saigon. Well, random to me, but that no doubt pays a commission to tuk-tuk drivers to deliver customers. I already had my ticket for the other company but that didn't matter as I wouldn't have accepted this no matter what. I informed the driver to take me to where I wanted to go and not to stop again and he agreed but said it would cost $1 more. Fair enough, but it was an annoying note to end my trip to Cambodia on.
I got back to Saigon and spent one night there before going to Nha Trang, my favorite place to waste time in Vietnam in.
In the past I had a profile on a Vietnam dating site and had been contacted by a woman who lives in Nha Trang. She had continued to periodically email me so I thought why not meet her while I was there? Over time she had let me know that she was divorced with 2 children and that she lived with her mother and daughter and her son lived with her ex-husband. We agreed to meet at the Sailing Club, a popular restaurant/bar on the Nha Trang beach.
As I was waiting there, she texted me that she was bringing her girl. I thought maybe she meant a friend, but no, she meant her daughter. That was ok with me but I felt a little strange sitting there with this much younger woman and her 2-year old daughter and I knew everyone in the place was looking at us and trying to decide if the kid was mine or not. I say much younger because I found out that she's only 22 years old. An age difference means less in Asia than it does in the west, but when the difference is almost 30 years I feel a little strange about it. In addition she wasn't my type for other reasons so I knew I wouldn't be pursuing this.
After a drink she suggested we go to eat at a Vietnamese place she likes. I had walked to the Sailing Club from my hotel but she and her daughter had come there by motorbike. We decided we would go to my hotel and borrow a helmet (a common hotel service in Vietnam) and I would drive the 3 of us to the restaurant. Now I was really feeling strange driving her motorbike with her riding behind me and her daughter standing on the floorboard in front of me as we cruised along in a non-tourist area of Nha Trang. After eating and enduring many more stares, I was happy to drive back to my hotel and extricate myself from my new family. The girl had thrown a temper tantrum as we were leaving the restaurant which only added to my desire to get back to the serenity of my hotel.
I spent the rest of the week doing my usual activities of sitting by the ocean and bike riding. Nha Trang and Mui Ne have seen a large increase in Russian tourists over the past 2 years and many of the businesses now have signage in Russian. I have to say that many of the Russians you see in Nha Trang are quite slim and attractive as I imagine they're probably from the more affluent sector of Russian society. I found myself admiring quite a few bikini-clad Russian women walking and lounging on the beach. I like the fact that they're there as I feel like they buffer me from the Vietnamese looking to engage tourists in commerce. Many of the Russians speak little English so I can also pretend not to speak it and feel better about ignoring hawkers and street merchants. Not that it ever bothered me all that much.
Nha Trang is developing a lot more and the character of the place has changed since my first trip there 3 years ago. The police have really cracked down on the local vendors who used to ply the beach and parks selling everything from cold drinks to lobster prepared on the spot. In a way I miss the old festive atmosphere and I'm sure the locals who were able to earn a little money by selling miss it a lot more. There's a quiet battle going on over who owns and has access to the beach areas. Or perhaps that battle is already over, having ended as it always does.
Many new high-rises are going up and there's a new mall filled with upscale retail outlets. For now the smaller businesses and mini-hotels seem to be peacefully co-existing with the intrusion of large new businesses, but I fear the day may come when I look for Mr. Hòa who rents good quality mountain bikes for $1.45 / day and find that he's no longer there or the Kim Ngân Hotel where one can rent clean 2-star accommodation for $8 / day has been replaced by a Marriot. Progress, love and hate it.
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| My room at the Foreign Correspondent's Club. |
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| Looking out from the back of the FCC one sees the colonial past being neglected while the spiritual past is alive and well. |
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| A park in Phnom Penh that suffers the same problem as most of Phnom Penh and that's a lack of trees and shade. The large golden bird I'm not sure about but is part of Cambodian culture or lore as I saw it in many places. |
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| Some businesses in Cambodia want no part of an activity Cambodia is infamous for. |
