My log entry for this trip leaves the reader in no doubt as to how I felt:
Rose unspeakably early to catch ferry boat to Phnom Penh. Ghastly boat – cramped and uncomfortable in every way. The journey takes five hours. Get off feeling giddy and odd. Met by guide Weng who takes us to hotel.
Daisy’s main memory of this trip, apart from my deteriorating mood, is the chaos on arrival at Phnom Penh. We struggled to find our guide in the crowds. I insisted that we should find him to get help with our voluminous baggage, not least because the plank we had to walk to get off the boat was precarious to say the least – see the image at the top of the page, where said plank can be seen at the bottom of the photo.
Meanwhile, Daisy observed some of the locals stacking several bags on their heads to get them to dry land/relative safety and decided to emulate that method while I went off to find Weng. Or did Daisy “depend on the kindness of strangers” to help her with the baggage?
Neither of us can remember those details. Still, somehow, all of us and all of our baggage came out of the experience dry, united and in one piece.
We have a light lunch of soup full of stuff, then go off touring Phnom Penh…
…First stop, The National Museum, then back to the hotel to sort out problem over airline tickets. Then Monument Books for great cookbooks. Then Central Market (not so interesting). Then to Tuol Sleng Museum (harrowing).
…you wouldn’t catch us taking on such a crazy itinerary these days. Nor doing such a transfer by boat again…although there was a fairly recent incident in Nicaragua…