Saturday, March 27, 2010

Phnom Phen, Cambodia

I'm in Cambodia. Woot.
We got out of the airport and it was immediately completely different from Hanoi, Vietnam. Everything is in dollars, and not nearly as cheap as Vietnam. It's much quieter.
We were sitting in the cab on the way to our hotel, and I was so much more at ease! Then Hailey pointed out how much more room Phnom Phen has compared to Hanoi.
She said Hanoi had an abundance of everything, and that was totally true. Hanoi had too many motorcycles, too many buildings, too much trash, people, bread, flowers, noodles, and lakes.
Phnom Phen is kind of quiet, moderate traffic, and much more space to breathe.

We got here and are living in triples, so it's Hailey, Emily and I. I napped until supper time, and we ate a block away at a French style restaurant. A woman who had no legs, strange arms, and was malnourished rolled to our table and asked us to buy something. And then throughout the rest of the meal, at least 6 kids came to our table to hassle us to buy books about SE Asia (many of which we have already read for class). It was pretty difficult to process. Our hotel is right on a river, and Bob said if we walk along the main strip on the river, we'll see children who are sniffing glue. I haven't seen it yet, but it's only the first day.
There are bugs everywhere at night, which is going to be frustrating. Overall though, I haven't experienced much of Cambodia yet. These are just first impressions.
At this point, there is some catty fighting amongst the group, which is probably to be expected. I'll update again when I have more to say. We start teaching English on Monday.

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