Today was a marathon of sorts. Lauren and I were up early, trying to get some exercise time in and finishing our journals. We headed to the internet café around the corner to browse the web for about an hour, then went back to our place.
I got a chance to talk to Hayley Heath over Facebook chat while I was at the café. She's currently doing an internship in Thailand. She said she's having a great time so far, but said that it gets a little lonely here and there. The closest other person to where she's living is about twenty minutes away, and today will be the first time that she'll get to see her entire group together. Talking to her made me really grateful for the setup that we have going on here in Cambodia. Tuni lives just across the street, and Mike is only one street over. Not only do we live really close to each other, but we're going to be working at the same NGO together. I think it's safe to say that we're going to be pretty great friends by the time the program ends.
Anyway, back to my story. The four of us left Om Lon's house at 10:45 AM to make it to Spencer's by 11 AM for a Khmer lesson. It was our first time riding our bikes, so navigating traffic was a little scary. We were probably fifteen minutes into our ride when we stopped and took a look at the map. The area we were in was a little more ghetto than I remembered, and after some searching on the map we came to the conclusion that we were in the complete opposite direction of where we were supposed to be. We had almost made it to the bridge that crosses over the Tonle Sap River and out of the city.
Finally we found our bearings and got back on track. We stumbled into Spencer's apartment around noon, sopping with sweat. Mike looked like he had fallen back first into the coy pond. Although we got lost, I absolutely loved it. I mean, how many people can say they got lost on their bikes in Phnom Penh? I wasn't ever really scared about the traffic; it was actually pretty easy to navigate. Though it looks absolutely chaotic, the people here are all very defensive drivers and know what they're doing.
We left Spencer's around 2 PM and made our way to one of the only Mexican restaurants in town, Cantina. I was surprised at how good it was, actually. I got a chicken burrito that didn't fill me up one bit, but it was something to hold me over for a while. We sat at the front of the small restaurant, watching the river walk outside. We were at the point where the Mekong and Tonle Sap Rivers converge into one giant river. I had read about this area in a few of my books, and to finally see it was beautiful. Monks, children, and even an elephant made their way along the street, reminding me once again of the majesty of this country. Rain poured and lightning struck overhead, making for a surreal feeling that I loved.
Our next stop was the National Museum. A giant red, Oriental-looking building situated near the Royal Palace, we had no problems finding it. The vast majority of what was inside the museum came from the Angkor period and even before that, including stone statues of Buddha and other various Hindi gods. I wish I could have had more time in there, but they were closing down as rounded the corner for our last leg of the museum.
After the museum, we made our way once again to the river walk. It was fun to just sit around and people watch. Mike wanted something fruity and creamy, so our tuk tuk driver took us to a place where we could get shakes for really cheap. It turned out to just be a vendor selling street food, so I was a little nervous to see what the food would do to me. So good, so far! Anyway, we all got some sort of fruit shakes, all of which were infused with durian. I got mango. It was pretty good, actually. I'm not sure if I'd go back necessarily, but it was really good. At one point, a woman in a large Lexus SUV drove up and got some food. The vendor and her employees became a little more active as they got the food for the woman. It wasn't until a few minutes later, once the woman had left, that our tuk tuk driver came up to us and informed us that the woman had been the sister of the Prime Minister.
That little adventure ended our night, for the most part. We had to go back to Spencer's so that we could ride our bikes back to our homes. We were able to make all the right turns this time and made it home in about 15 minutes. Hopefully we won't make the same mistake twice.
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