Say Wat?

Wat was that?  Yes.  We have arrived in Cambodia, and the “wat” puns have begun.   Ultimately our destination is Angkor Wat, but at the moment we are in Phnom Penh dealing with banal travel details – attempting to secure new visas for Vietnam in order to continue our adventure there.  All seemed to go smoothly at the Vietnamese Embassy this afternoon, so hopefully tomorrow we will be rewarded with another six months in Hoi An.  In the meantime we are soaking up the Khmer vibe (and choosing to ignore the language for the sake of our sanity).

Small cooked birds for sale on the ferry

We booked a “tourist” bus from Ho Chi Minh to Phnom Penh and were rewarded with a fairly empty bus complete with purple velvet curtains and televisions blaring what appeared to be a Cambodian love story for the six hour journey.  We made it to the border in a quick two hours, spent a little time securing Cambodian visas, and had a quick break at a border restaurant (?) before continuing to Phnom Penh.  First impressions were that the countryside is similar to Vietnam with lots of wats.  The language looks like a nightmare…with an illegible alphabet influenced by Sanskrit and Russian complete with 34 different vowels.  I will stop complaining (for just this week) about the six tones of Vietnamese that seem so difficult to master.

Cambodian tuk tuk



Our first Cambodian experience in Phnom Penh was a tuk tuk ride to our hotel.  Tuk tuks are giant carriages pulled by scooters. These work a lot better for a family of five than Vietnam’s single rider cyclos.  We all squished into Jambo’s tuk tuk for the ride to our hotel.  The hotel is a nice switch from our usual traveling accommodations, and it has a swimming pool in a little garden.  We enjoyed a quick dip before heading to the Vietnamese Embassy.



Lime juice welcome uder the mosquito nets



The Bobsy Twins plot
our next move.

From there we had Jambo drop us off at the riverside.  We took in the view before heading to the Phnom Wat where the kids determined that wats will be infinitely more entertaining than temples and pagodas, because they have animals!  First we fed Sambo, the beer advertising elephant (capitalism is alive and well here), with a large bunch of bananas.  Then we proceeded up the temple steps to view the shrine to Madame Penh.   However, the intrigue of the psychedelic Buddhas inside paled in comparison to the monkeys outside.  The newborn (we’re talking slimy with umbilical cord intact) monkey was the star of the wat.  As the sun set, we bid the mangy collection of monkeys good bye and set off to find some Khmer cooking to finish off our day.







Sambo!



         

Adorable Monkeys

Boring Buddhas

At a sweet, riverside restaurant, I tried Cambodia’s famous Amoc – a fish steamed in a coconut, lemon grass and chili paste.  I fell in love.  John enjoyed mango chicken, and Foster and Brianna found heaven in the form of chicken wings.  Nolan lay down on the cushy couch/booth and fell asleep (not a good sign).  After a delicious meal, John lifted Nolan off the couch to carry him downstairs and he vomited all over the restaurant floor and all over John.  As I stared at the mess he had made, I thought to myself, “Wat in the world did this child eat today? “ And then I began with the apologies.   “Thank you for this wonderful meal.  We really are enjoying your country.  I’m sorry I can’t say this in Khmer, but my son just yacked all over your floor.  And, yes, that horrible noise coming from your very nice bathroom is him too.  So sorry.”

Once we got everyone cleaned off well enough to slink out of the restaurant, we deposited ourselves into another tuk tuk and wound our way back to the hotel.  With Nolan safely tucked next to our own toilet bowl, we’ll just have to wait and see wat tomorrow brings.