I woke up with the intention of walking and after a couple cups of coffee, and a chat with one of the morning hostel employees, Sophie (everyone is too nice here), that is what I did.
It was hot, I was sweaty, and I tried to walk down the river to the Royal Palace and the National Museum. Somehow I passed them both and was completely lost. I saw what looked like a shopping mall near by, and hopped in to take advantage of the AC and possibly get some information. Little did I know this was actually a casino, and how can I not play a little Black Jack in Cambodia. I got my taste, they have some silly rules here, which made me lose all my money ($10) on one hand when I doubled down against an ace, caught my 21, only to find she had a blackjack. This is definitely not Vegas.
I caught a motorbike to the National Museum (I literally walked right past it a mile ago) and was fairly unimpressed. The museum was mostly Angkorian artifacts, very similar to the ones I had seen two days ago, so I rushed through a bit. Then a search for food.
Near the museum is a restaurant called Friends, which seemed to be situated literally in a playground. I checked it out, and it turns out it is an organization that trains and educated street youth. All the employees had come up through their system, and the food was tapas style. Good food and a good cause, I was in. I had a tasty roasted veggie salad, it was delicious, and the service was great. It did end up being a bit pricey for Cambodia ($8) but thats ok.
I then tried to walk to the Russian Market (the cheap foreigner market started by the Russians). I again got lost, and had to hire a tuk tuk, which is a great thing since I was evidently extremely lost. The market was ok, I bought a few souvineer type things, and haggled quite a bit. One girl called me stingy and said she was losing money on me. I told her not to sell it to me then and started to walk away when she called me back. I then got her to cut another dollar off. Funny system.
Marketed out I walked up to S21 or the Tol Soul Prison. This was the infamous Khmer Rouge prison, where they tortured and killed their "enemies." I found the museum to be quite dull in a way. I appreciate its significants, but it was focused on the shock factor of the gruesome torture methods rather than it's historical importance. I wasn't into it. However, afterwards as I was relaxing with some much needed water, I saw a group of guys playing a game similar to hackey-sack but instead of a ball there was a spring with feather similar to badminton. I was intrigued, and asked to join. It was fun, I was awful, and of course everyone laughed at me. I learned the game was called Sai, and some of the guys had some crazy behind the back moves.
After I was tired out, I caught a motorbike to Wat Phnom, just a block from my hostel. I checked out the Wat, it was cool, the pagoda was a bit more colorful than others with neon ferris wheel lights. There were also monkeys around the surrounding park, which scared me.
After some R&R at the hostel I tried to go back to the night market only to find it was closed. I came back to the hostels street in search of some noodles and found Marco (a man in my dorm) sitting in front of a "convenient store" having a beer. He asked me to join and i indulged.
We weren't sitting on the front steps, the owners of the store set out chairs and tables for their costumers. Our neighboring table was a group of Khmer men (who may have had a few Angkors already) and they were extremely excited to talk with us. Pretty soon we were all talking and laughing, they shared their mangos with us and bought me some peanuts (the peanuts here are not cooked, so they are soft oily and very tasty). After a while I brought up Sai, and after some confusion (I pronounced it completely wrong to them) I found out the store carried Sai. I bought a couple, and we played. I gave the Sai to a kid who played with us, and bought a couple more to replace them (they were $.25).
A note on our hosts. The business' here usually double as stores and home fronts, and the owners were a fantastic family. They were fantastic to us, and work long and hard hours, which is shown in their Lexus SUV parked out front, which they take great pride in.
A fantastic day in Phnom Penh. I feel like I could stay here forever. It has such a revived feeling, and its an enormous point of pride for its inhabitants. Such a fantastic energy.
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