Without Doctor Who there would be no Daleks, therefore Dalek Thay wouldn't be sat there in my wallet as we drank Angkor beer and watched the boats racing on the river, from a pub balcony in Phnom Penh town centre.
It's annual water festival time and an estimated four million people have descended on the town for a massive celebration.Even the King shows his face for this one.
We could see the Khmer people preparing for the big one a day earlier when we visited Diamond Island. This quickly became a fave of Stash and Oskar who threw darts at balloons to win rubbish prizes on stalls which filled the streets and they screamed on miniature but suprisingly very nippy roller coaster rides, big wheels and merry go rounds, loving every minute of it. Everywhere we went they seemed to have an audience of smiling, beautiful Cambodians!
After a visit to Lucky Burger, Cambodia's Mucky D, we made our way back to ' the other side' via the golden bridge that links the island to main town and that's when we hit the full beautiful chaos of the festival traffic like we'd never seen before. There was a brilliant buzz about town and we were all so excited we actually messed ourselves right there in the street.
Anyway, back to the big day, also the Doctor's big day, forty seven, Christ...as the darkness fell upon the festivities, we were treated to a magnificent fireworks display, right opposite a little place we'd chosen to eat. With the full moon as it's backdrop, the sky was bombarded with a million colourful stars, bangs and flashes for a full half an hour. Ah! You lot, I bloody love you!
Sunday, up at six to get ready to leave Golden gate hotel where we've lived for eight nights now. We say goodbye to Mr. Lady (tee hee)the splendid chap on the front desk who is on cloud nine from having recently wed his love. They were married November 7th just gone and he brought their amazing wedding album in to show us. His wife had twelve dress changes that day! He also had several. We gave him some Angkor beers that were left over in our fridge and took a tuk tuk, took a tuk tuk, took a tuk tuk.
Here begins ten hours to Mondolkiri...
Arrival Mondolkiri, now to our lovely hotel...
"Welcome to Mondolkiri, where are you staying, have you made a reservation coz everything is booked up," asks a handsome young man who later introduces himself as Tina. Everything had been sorted the day before. I'd asked Mr.Lady to phone and reserve a room for us lot and it was all arranged, fifteen dollars a night, Television, Jacuzzi, French maids. Unfortunately there are no tuk tuks here. Mondolkiri is sort of up in the mountains and the whole vibe is a lot more villagey than anywhere else we've been in our entire lives. I'm looking at all these motorbikes and there are no helmets worn either and the answer to my next question is no. There are no taxi's here. Oh bollocks. Now here's a bloody compromise Haj! On we get, three's up, me and Osk on one, Liz and Stash on the other.
Of course, the kids absolutely loved it, while I explained to our driver what shitting it meant in England.
The girl at the guest house hadn't reserved us a room at all. She didn't speak any English so Tina acted as go between for us.
"Who phoned and booked the room here for you?"
"Well, Mr Lady, the receptionist at our hotel in Phnom Penh did it for us yesterday"
"Mr Lady? ( pisses himself laughing. Yea, alright 'Tina') Mr. Ladyboy!!"
The girl was having none of it. No, she had told Mr. Lady we could see what was available when we turned up. Well thankyou very much honey.
Tina came up with a solution that saved the day. We could stay at his place for the night and sort out something tomorrow. There was no electricity, in fact there wasn't much of anything, but he put down a couple of mattresses and we stayed up with him chatting under the full moon.
I slept very little, convinced there was something in that house with us! There were probably lots of things in there with us. In the morning, I looked out of a back window to see Tina in the garden pulling up some sweet potatoes for our breakfast.
By 7am we were on motorbikes he'd arranged to take us to a hotel he'd sorted for us. What a star.
That night we went to check out a restaurant called Bananas, run by a Dutch lady called Tanya who was truly a bit bananas. We were greeted by her two Bulldogs, Elvis and Dita. Tanya, a chef by trade, cooked us the best food we'd eaten in a month. WC arrangements; " ladies over there, men piss in the garden".
Oh I like this place. A Restaurant where you can piss in the garden. Home from home.
Next day, whilst on an elephant trail, we learned that three hundred plus people had been crushed to death on the bridge to Diamond Island in Phnom Penh, during the final night of the boat festival celebrations.
Location:C A M B O D I A
SOOOOO GOOD to hear from you finally! Just a bit worried about your whereabouts. Sending our love to you all, and please can you check in a little more frequently after major incidents.
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