7/2/10 (phnom penh)

Phnom Penh

After two months of traveling around Asia I still hadn’t gotten a full body massage, which was a sin, so Paul booked a two-hour massage for me with his masseuse at 10am. Jon was happy to stay home and have a few hours of alone time while I got my massage. As if by fate, On Prum dropped me off at the same massage shop that caught my attention yesterday when we were driving through town. The place was called Seeing Hands Massage and all of the masseuses are blind. I was intrigued by the concept and long and behold I was there for my massage.

I met Nigah, my masseuse, who was absolutely wonderful. She studied massage therapy for several years and had to go through rigorous exams before becoming a professional masseuse. Nigah was very attentive to areas where my muscles were sore from all the traveling we had done. I felt refreshed and relaxed after two hours. While the place doesn’t have all the frills of an upscale massage spa, Nigah was friendly and I would recommend her to anyone looking for a great massage. And what a bargain for $7/hour!

After my massage I met Jon back at Metro for lunch. I wanted to try Khmer food so Paul arranged for me to have the same meal as the staff. It may sound strange that I wouldn’t order something from the menu but I believe if you really want to try local food eat what the restaurant staff is eating. Today they had sour fish soup with morning glory (type of vegetable). I love soup and morning glory so it was right up my alley.

We were planning on visiting the National Museum but then a huge thunderstorm was passing through so we decided to relax back in our apartment. After a few hours it seemed that the storm had died down so I decided to go back to the Russian market to do a little shopping. I hadn’t bought any new clothes and my shirts were looking raggedy after washing it so many times so I figured a few new tops were needed. There’s a serious flooding problem in the city center so it took us awhile to get to the market. By the time we arrived it was an hour before closing but I was still able to get a tank top and T-shirt.

We met Paul for dinner at Metro and had a great meal outside on the patio. One of my favorite dishes is the wok-fried Chinese spareribs, which they put over a bed of cabbage salad with sprinkles of seasoning remnants from the fryer. It’s debatable on what is tastier, the spareribs or the salad. I might have to order it a few more times to decide.

7/1/10 - (phnom penh)

Phnom Penh

This was our first full day in Phnom Penh and Annie and I had decided to take a tour of the capital city of Cambodia to see some of the highlights. We coordinated with On Prum, Paul’s tuk tuk driver to pick us up in the morning. We got an early start on the day and our first stop was a place called the Happy Club. It was a dodgy shooting range run by what looked like teenage Cambodian kids. We pulled up to see an old decommissioned tank parked out front. This was our first trip out of the capital city and a chance to see the “real Cambodia.” The roads were rough and we were driving through a consistent dust cloud. When we arrived to the range, we were escorted to a table and given a menu much like any restaurant but instead of food I had a choice of many rare and destructive weapons. I had just finished the book called The Futurist, which was a James Cameron bio. Cameron is a big gun guy and I think that is what inspired me to this particular adventure. I quickly decided upon flipping through the menu that this wasn’t my cup of tea. I had the choice of an AK-47, M16, grenade launcher, or even a rocket launcher. At this point I was ready to quickly duck out the back door but decided I had come too far to back out now. Channeling my inner Cameron, I chose the reliable AK-47 and was given a clip of 15 bullets. They escorted me to a range and gave me a brief safety lesson, cocked the gun and I was off and running. The target was roughly a hundred yards down in a concrete garage with a target that looked like a Taliban fighter backed by several hundred rubber tires. I fired my first round and the gun slammed back with a loud crack, followed by a cloud of smoke lingering in the hot air. My first thought was “I don’t want to do this.” I could sense Annie’s apprehension and I decided to power through the round. I fired off the next 14 shots and it looked like I had missed the target all together. Feeling a little deflated with my shooting abilities the teenage boy went to retrieve the paper target. Upon return I realized I had pulverized my fictitious paper rival.  Nearly every shot was a fatal head blow. This helped me feel a small sense of pride in an overall uncomfortable experience. 

Our next stop was the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. If I was feeling any remorse from my AK-47 experience, it was about to be infinitely expanded. During the late 1970’s the Khmer Rouge forcefully took over Cambodia and conducted a genocide n many of the educated Cambodian’s. The killing fields is where 17,000 people were violently executed. Many of the bodies have been exhumed and over 8000 skulls are on display to honor the victims in the memorial stupa. It is a pretty sobering experience and it makes you wonder how people could actually do this to one another. We spent an hour exploring this mass grave site, some of which still has clothing exposed in the soil from past victims. This was a pretty tough visit but helped us put things in perspective and get a better understand of Cambodian history. 

After a quick stop for lunch at a nice little Lebanese restaurant, we were off to the Russian Market. This is where many of the brand name garments made in Cambodia show up at roughly 10% the retail price. Many a bargain can be had within the market for both real and knock off merchandise. After a little shopping and a lot of sweating we were off to the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda. The palace is considered a sacred place so our shoulders and knees had to be covered. A lady wasn't allowed to enter because her shorts were too short. The buildings were beautifully decorated with traditional Khmer architecture. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside any of the buildings.  

When our tour ended we gathered our luggage to stay with Paul. After transferring our bags and settling in above Cafe Metro, we met up with Paul briefly for a snack then got ready for dinner. We went to a Japanese restaurant for dinner. The restaurant was very contemporary and for the first time since we arrived in Asia we almost feel like we are back in the states.

Happy Club from Annie Lin on Vimeo.

6/30/10 (bangkok)

Bangkok - Phnom Penh, Cambodia

It was another early morning flight for us at 7:45am to Phnom Penh or otherwise known as PP. Chef McDang’s driver came at 5am to take us to the airport. We were amazed at the scale of the Bangkok airport. It was one of the biggest we had seen in Asia. It was a very short flight to PP. We were barely at our flight altitude for five minutes before the captain announced that we had to get ready for our descend. The flight attendants quickly served us breakfast and drinks before they came to take it away. All in all it was a smooth flight.

Over the last few weeks we had been in touch with a friend’s uncle, Giang, who was from Cambodia. He had given us good tips on places to visit and invited us to stay at his villa, even though he wasn’t there, but we hadn’t sorted out the details. He gave us the name of one of his assistants who would provide us with directions to the house. When we landed we gave the assistant a call but we couldn’t reach him. We waited a bit at the airport and finally got a hold of someone. The taxi driver pulled up to a huge mansion where we were greeted by a security guard and guard dog. The assistant we spoke with wasn’t at home so there was some confusion about who we were but they still invited us in. We were shown to our room and told to make ourselves at home. I have to admit it was all a bit strange. We were in this huge house with a cook, housekeeper, and a few other guys but the owner of the house was in Vietnam. Everyone was very friendly but only one of them spoke English. 

After a quick nap we decided to grab some lunch. The English-speaking staff helped us get a tuk-tuk and directed the driver to take us to the river where we would find plenty of restaurants. He wrote down the address of the house so we could give it to someone when we were ready to return. Like I said...super helpful.

We arrived to what seemed like the center of PP where all the hotels and restaurants were located. Jon knew the name of Paul’s restaurant and that it was located somewhere along the river. We strolled along the river and luckily found the place, which was called Cafe Metro. It was the swankiest restaurant in town and when we walked in it was as if we were transformed back to San Francisco. It looked like any place you would walk into on Chestnut Street. The restaurant is very modernly decorated and the staff were nicely dressed in their uniform. We asked the staff if Paul was around and that we were friends of his. The girl gave us a skeptical look and I don’t really blame her. We were looking a bit scruffy and should’ve gotten cleaned up. She told one of the managers who immediately came over to greet us. He said Paul mentioned there may be two Americans coming in asking for him. Good of Paul to alert the staff since we might not otherwise have been passed the test. Paul joined us while we were eating and we updated him on what we had been up to since we last saw him in Bangkok.

After lunch Paul showed us his place, which was right above the restaurant. He bought the building when he opened Metro and lives on the third floor. He invited us to stay with him as well since a visiting chef who was staying with him had just left. It was very generous of him and probably more convenient for us since it was centrally located. We would have our own room on the second floor. We decided to stay the night at Giang’s since he had been so nice to offer us a place to stay and didn’t want to leave abruptly.

We walked around the neighborhood which had a bustling food market and tons of tuk-tuks waiting for passengers. He also showed us the location of his second restaurant, which hopefully will open in a few months. Along the way he suggested we get a foot massage, which only costed $6/hour/person. What a bargain! It was Jon’s first foot massage and he loved it. We stopped in at a store to browse the DVDs. Up to this point we resisted buying knock-off DVDs on principle and thought they would be bad quality. But then we saw all these shows that we wanted to watch and before we knew it we walked out of the store with $40 worth of DVDs. And we had a bag full of them. I blame Paul for his bad influence. 

We agreed to meet Paul for dinner and his tuk-tuk driver, On Prum, took us back to the villa to get changed. We quickly showered and got ready since On Prum was waiting for us downstairs. I wondered what Giang’s staff thought of us since we hadn’t spent much time at the house. We met Paul for drinks at Metro. We were having such a good time that we ended ordering a much of appetizers for dinner. We had a great meal and conversation. A good way for us to start our Cambodian adventure.