I arrived in Phnom Penh at around 12noon on Thursday, after 4 hours of flight. It would have been shorter, if the plane did not have to stop over at Siem Reap first. Earlier on before boarding the plane, some American-Cambodian came up to me and started rattling off in Khmer. Now how great! I have another entry in my list of ethnic group which I had been mistaken as before!The moment I stepped out of Phnom Penh international airport, I noticed almost everyone staring at me. It was a very funny feeling, because I had never been stared like this before when I travelled to other places before. “Don’t stare at people, or you’ll invite trouble!” was the advice my colleague gave me before I left. So what now, now that it was the locals who stared at me! My colleague also told me to hold on to my luggage tightly, or else the locals will just “volunteer” to carry it for you (for a fee). However, that did not happen. Now I began to get the picture. They must have thought that I am a Cambodian Chinese and hence couldn’t be bothered with me!
The company which I had to visit had arranged the transportation and accommodation for me, and the driver was already there waiting. I quickly stepped onto his car and off we went to the factory which was located in another province. While travelling, my eyes were busy checking out the sights outside the window. Cambodia is actually very similar to Thailand in terms of culture and way of life. The only difference is perhaps the standard of living. Along the way I saw pagodas and shrines that resembled those in Thailand, and they also have their own versions of “tuk tuk” and “song teow” vehicles too. Now that I had a glimpse of what Cambodia is like, I thought I might be able to get used to life there just like Thailand, but I was wrong. The average Cambodian’s fluency in English is much lower than Thais, and I had a hard time trying to talk to them. If only I had learnt a few simple phrases of Khmer to make my life easier.
My original schedule was to visit 4 factories within the first day, but something cropped up at the first factory and hence I had to reschedule the other two on the following day. After I finished with the first factory, the driver drove me to Phnom Penh Hotel. He left after dropping me off and I proceed with my check-in. The bellboy helping me with the check-in was a very friendly guy. He told me that a typical taxi ride costs US$5 while a motor-taxi (Cambodian “tuk tuk”) costs US$3. Kind of expensive as compared to Singapore! After putting down my luggage, I quickly took a taxi to the second factory. The fare, just as the bellboy said, was US$5. So I believed that this is a standard fixed price for taxi rides (up to a certain distance). That is good, because you don’t have to worry if the driver would purposely make detours just to earn your money (if going by the meter), or quoting you extortive prices.
I did not encounter much problem at this second factory and managed to finish my job within an hour. It was already 7.30pm by the time I walked out of the factory. With no transport now, I had to try my luck to wait for a taxi. After a long wait, a motorcycle taxi finally stopped to offer service. Better than nothing, I thought! So I accepted his offer and got onto his bike. The ride was somewhat uncomfortable as I had to sit sideways so that I could put my heavy bag on my laps. I think I must have looked weird, because from what I observed since I stepped out of the airport, only female pillion riders sit sideways! And indeed I received quite a number of stares from other road commuters, but I didn’t really care much.
We reached the hotel at around 8pm. After a quick shower, I unpacked my stuffs and went for my dinner long overdue. I intended to go out of the hotel for dinner, but later decided to just dine within the hotel premises instead. It was a wrong choice, as the food served in the hotel’s restaurant is rather expensive. One consolation though, was that the servings weren’t too small, so I didn’t really lose out! Anyway the ambience of the restaurant was good, but a bit too quiet. There was only one other diner besides me at that time, and I felt a bit weird having to eat with the waiter always watching me!
After my meal, I decided to take a stroll around the area. There wasn’t anything interesting nearby, so I decided to just go back to my hotel room and watch television instead. There were a lot of channels for me to choose, from Cambodia’s own TV stations to Spanish and German channels. There’s also Singapore’s channel 8 too, but something wasn’t quite right. It was about 9.30pm, and by right it should be airing “A Promise for Tomorrow”, but what I saw was “Beyond the Axis of Truth II”! This show has ended for over a week already, so how come I was still watching it? I kept browsing through the channels but nothing seemed interesting. I fell asleep soon after while watching Cambodian news…
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