The Arrival

Hi there y'all! I've finally arrive to Cambodia after that fun and wonderful vacation to Vietnam. I actually arrived here on September 25th at the city of Phnom Penh. The air and humidity in Cambodia resembles that of Vietnam so I'm thankful that I actually got a week to get climatized in Vietnam. I came to Cambodia during its rainy season, which will last until November. It was surprising to see that much of the countryside was flooded. It was so flooded that to get around you actually need a boat. Here's a picture that I took on the plane to the right hand side.

Also, when I came to Cambodia, it was during a national holiday called Pchombend Day (which last about a week). All of Phnom Penh was pretty much deserted because most of the Khmai people went home to the countryside to visit their families and visit Pagodas (which are Buddhist temples). During this time, it is believed that the spirits of their ancestors journeyed back to earth from the spirit realm. The Khmer people need to visit at least 7 temples to offer sacrifices to their ancestors in form of food and fruits. If they failed to make these sacrifices to their ancestors, it is believed that their ancestors will stick around for the rest of the year and give them troubles or bad luck. Here's some of the pagodas that was around Phnom Penh.

It was quite an interesting experience because when I arrived at Phnom Penh, my first impression is that it was quite a small city… Since Pchombend Day has just finished, the city changed over night. What was once a small and deserted city is now flooded with people. It is so crowded that I thought that I was in Saigon again. Here's a picture of the typical traffic that you would find in Phnom Penh.

When I arrived, I stayed at CAMA guest house (which was the official Alliance guest house in Phnom Penh). I had to stay there for a week until the holiday was over so that I can move into the guy dorm (which is where I'll be staying for the next 8-12 months). It was quite nice to be in the guest house while I get climatized because it had Air Condition and such. It was very comfortable and it was a good time for me to get used to the city. Here's a picture of the guest house that I stayed at.

While I was there, I really didn't do much. It was like another vacation (woohoo!). Bill and Ilana took my mom and I out quite a bit to show us around the city and of course, to eat. I visited some saw some interesting place (like a former Khmer Rouge prison) and a lot of pagodas. We also got to visit some of the malls (shopping for my stay here in Cambodia) and markets. It was quite surprising to see that malls in Cambodia are quite nice. There's two malls in Phnom Penh that was very nice and very Western. They're call Savana and Sorya and they have the BEST ICECREAM! And we also visited markets, which are really like many little shacks put together and quite, well undeveloped. It was awesome though because it was totally what I wanted to experience. It was super cheap to shop at those place and the food is SUPER GOOD. I always joke around back in Canada that if you want good Asian food, you need to go to a dirty restaurant. Now I can confirm it all with you. =) Here's a place that we ate at in the market.

What's really interesting is that Khmer have two currency that they officially use. The preferred currency (in the Phnom Penh at least) here is actually USD (which is the US dollar). The second official currency is the Khmer Reil (which is about 4000 Reil to 1 USD). Just a bit of information that I thought was really interesting.

And after all that, my mommy left and now I'm here by myself. I guess fun times over and it's time to get SEWIOUS. Anyways, move update later. That's it for now. Thanks for tuning in you noisy people. =)