Life as a Local in Syros, Greece

We spent 5 nights in Phnom Pehn after leaving the Cambodian coast.   Our time started off kind of bad, both Jeanette and I got sick (diarrhea, nausea, and vomitting) the night in Sihanoukville before heading to Phnom Pehn.  It was our first real experience of stomach issues during our trip.  I blame it on a pear that we split for a snack – we ate it without peeling it.  Jeanette claimed to have rinsed it, but even the water around here is questionable.  I think Cambodia is, generally speaking, a dirtier place than Thailand.

The car ride to the city was pretty miserable due to our illness, but we survived it.  Driving into the city, it looked kinda like a war zone.  The roads may have been under construction but the workers and equipment were well hidden if they were there.  

What I liked in the city – the genocide museum (Everyone should read about what the Khmer Rouge did to Cambodia.  2 million of the 8 million Cambodians died during their 4 year reign), meeting Jeanette’s friends Karen and Joe who have lived here since August, the rooftop pool of our hotel, playing spades with Monica and Sith in the hotel, and the Mexican restaurant that Karen took us to.

The negatives – no public transportation besides taxis and tuk tuks, the lack of sidewalks (we had to walk on the edge of the street with scooters buzzing by), the pushy tuk tuk drivers and market vendors, the lack of parks (the closest thing to a park that we found in the city was more of a road median), the poverty, and the smells and uncleanliness seemed to be above and beyond anything that we had experienced previously.   Oh yeah… and, getting sick a second time with a sore throat and fever.  

We head to Mondulkiri for an elephant trek next.  

Edits from Jeanette: Jason getting sick definitely impacted his post here negatively. My experience in Phnom Penh was not nearly as dreary.Yes the city was shockingly less developed than say Bangkok but it still has its charm. There is so much recent history of suffering in this country that you really feel for the people everywhere you go. Through Sith, Wikipedia and the museums we’ve visited we have learned so much about Cambodia. I highly recommend the book Beautiful Hero- How We Survived the Khmer Rouge by Jennifer Lau and the Netflix documentary Finding Home. Both of these are insightful tales of life in Cambodia history and present.