Howie-n-Karen: Asia

Good Bye Phnom Penh

This afternoon we leave town on a big air-conditioned bus. We had not expected to stay this long in Phnom (you do pronounce the ‘p,’ ‘h’ indicates an expulsion of air and is never pronounced unless it stands alone as a consonant, as in the 3^rd word above: howie) Penh but circumstances dictated a change in plans.

We had one more outing: a visit to the National Museum, a short walk away. We never got to the killing fields or the zoo, which were recommended by several friends. There is a possibility we will return, either in April, for another week in the Cardamoms with CI or May, to work with WCS. Also, Howie’s CV is being passed around by a health concern which has offices all over Asia.

Some of the sights in Phnom Penh:

Ubiquitous phone booths: sometimes land lines, sometimes mobile phones are used. The booths are not used—they’re more like advertising signs. The numbers indicate the prefixes served. This is around the corner from our apt. and we also buy our water there.

Tuk-tuk: means of transportation we took for two of our birding outings. Horn is the name of our favorite tuk-tuk driver. Anyone wanting to bird the areas around Phnom Penh can use him, as he now knows where to go. Locals use motos (in the background), rather than tuk-tuks, as they are 1/3^rd the cost. The car is a Gold, made in Korea.

Krama: Cambodian multi-purpose scarf or wrap (see head wrap). Men use it when bathing in public. Mostly, we saw this in the countryside but I saw one fellow standing in front of his house all lathered up with the karma around his waist, keeping him modest.

Markets like this one seem to crop up all over town. One is the Russian, where mostly clothing is sold. The one near us has a lot of beauty-parlor stalls. The central market sells everything. All of them include food. And rats. Good though.

This photo of Howie’s lunch today is for Tom. It’s fresh water fish steamed in a coconut milk sauce with small amounts of hot pepper and other subtle spices. Yum!

This was taken on my birthday. Jake and Anthony (sitting) are friends from CI. Happy birthday to all my fellow Februarians.

Tags: Birding Asia, food, market, Travel, Travel

This entry was posted on Friday, February 24th, 2006 at 9:27 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.