March 11, 2006
March 11, 2006
Hello from Penhom Pen. This morning Jodi and I left Siem Reap (aka Siamese Defeat) for the Capital City, Phnom Penh and were surprised that we were assigned the front seats. I sat white knuckled for 6 hours watching the world go bye rather quickly and without regard for the other vehicles on the road. The next time I ride my bike in Cambodia I will get off as far off the roadway as possible when I hear a bus horn seeing things from this angle.
In Phnom Penh we were dropped at the worst location to date. It was a small fenced in area complete with razor wire that contained tourists and taxi drivers. It kind of reminded me of the old saying "fish from a barrel" with the tourists being the fish. Jodi and I scrambled to get our things and placed them in the back corner of the pen (that smelled like piss) in the mean time the security guard thought things were getting out of hand and began beating the taxi drivers with his baton. Jodi looked at me and said "get us out of here fast." I hurriedly reassembled our bikes and we made haste for the nearest exit.
Outside I found the city to be nothing like what I was expecting. It was cleaner and unlike many of the other cities in Cambodia the roads had a kind of parkway feel. We made our way to the Mekong river front and checked into a hotel for a couple of days. After a shower and a change of clothes we re-emerged from our hotel and because we no longer were on bikes my sense of things changed drastically. Everywhere we went we heard calls "hey you, transport," "tuk tuk," "hello, give me money" even the monks chimed in with more calls for money. At first I could tolerate it but a person can only take so much and at dinner I reached my limit. It seemed every two or three minutes a child or adult would come to our table trying to sound as pathetic as possible all the time holding out his hands for money and some times they were kind enough to tell me exactly how much they wanted. It was too much for me to handle emotionally. Riddled with guilt and loathing for my fortunate life I went and hid in our hotel the remainder of the evening.
Hello from Penhom Pen. This morning Jodi and I left Siem Reap (aka Siamese Defeat) for the Capital City, Phnom Penh and were surprised that we were assigned the front seats. I sat white knuckled for 6 hours watching the world go bye rather quickly and without regard for the other vehicles on the road. The next time I ride my bike in Cambodia I will get off as far off the roadway as possible when I hear a bus horn seeing things from this angle.
In Phnom Penh we were dropped at the worst location to date. It was a small fenced in area complete with razor wire that contained tourists and taxi drivers. It kind of reminded me of the old saying "fish from a barrel" with the tourists being the fish. Jodi and I scrambled to get our things and placed them in the back corner of the pen (that smelled like piss) in the mean time the security guard thought things were getting out of hand and began beating the taxi drivers with his baton. Jodi looked at me and said "get us out of here fast." I hurriedly reassembled our bikes and we made haste for the nearest exit.
Outside I found the city to be nothing like what I was expecting. It was cleaner and unlike many of the other cities in Cambodia the roads had a kind of parkway feel. We made our way to the Mekong river front and checked into a hotel for a couple of days. After a shower and a change of clothes we re-emerged from our hotel and because we no longer were on bikes my sense of things changed drastically. Everywhere we went we heard calls "hey you, transport," "tuk tuk," "hello, give me money" even the monks chimed in with more calls for money. At first I could tolerate it but a person can only take so much and at dinner I reached my limit. It seemed every two or three minutes a child or adult would come to our table trying to sound as pathetic as possible all the time holding out his hands for money and some times they were kind enough to tell me exactly how much they wanted. It was too much for me to handle emotionally. Riddled with guilt and loathing for my fortunate life I went and hid in our hotel the remainder of the evening.
posted by Kirk & Jodi Roberts at 7:19 AM
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