Penny and Fred

We are not bad bloggers

Loving Phnom Penh so far and done quite a bit of exploring but we haven’t published much… we are not bad bloggers, we can improve.  Although its still the “honeymoon period” and we’ve only been here days, I can already seen why friends who have been here loved it.  We are still currently in the 8 room guest house, its like a giant tree house with a great open common area upstairs with lots of wicker chairs, little tables and cushions + free wireless internet.  A great introduction to Cambodia for anyone I think.  We connected to their network connection on day 2 however we could not access the web… lucky we got in contact with our favourite IT guru Bronny on Skype  and she talked us through it.

So to get everyone up to speed, over the last week we have:

• Met up with Penny’s new boss and friends who had just completed a 750km bike ride across Cambodia for charity
• We visited Toul Sleng Genocide Museum (S-21).  Once a high school made into a prison and used by the Khmer Rouge to torture and killed around 17,000 Kmers between 1975-79.   I heard much about it but  had to see it with my own eyes…. shocking to think this happened only 30 years ago, truely horrific what these people must have gone through
• Found a couple of cheap local restaurants which be both love… including Chinese Noodle which Andrew and Eider will remember on their last trip here, was the one that had the staff making the awesome noodles out the front.  We both had a terrific duck noodle soup and shared 12 steamed dumplings….mmm.. yes we will be coming back.  The cost of duck noodle soup is $1.20 + 12x dumplings is $1.20, however its in US dollars and the current conversion rate is killing us!!! 
• Yesterday we attended a Childrens Festival which was held for children from a displaced village outside the city.  This was arranged with the help of the organisation Penny’s now working for and another well known Non Government Organisation (NGO).  We were welcomed with a beautiful lunch of BBQ meats, fish, spicy mango salads, rice, vegetables and watermelon, one thing this trip is not lacking is awesome asian food.  The festival included traditional Khmer dancing, a play, music and lots of fun games.  Later in the arvo we took a walk through this village and discovered how bad the living conditions were… very 3rd world and indeed of development         
• Made a new friend, a British woman who works in healthcare and lives in Cambodia.  She showed us a nice local restaurant which offers tradition Khmer food at a cheap price and came out to the childrens festival with us.  We have exchanged contact details and will definitely be intouch
• Penny has started her new role and has been flat out since, shes lovin it and will tell you all about it soon

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