Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, is so often overlooked by travelers who beeline to Siem Reap for Angkor Wat and move quickly onto Thailand or Vietnam. I arrived in the evening at the Aquarius Hotel. Once I checked in to my room, I did my cursory room review, including checking for any bugs in the bed, and unfortunately found a handful of dead bugs. They were too large for bed bugs and were above and below the covers. The reception staff was incredibly nice about the situation and offered to move me to another room. They also said that there had been an influx in flying bugs lately, so they probably came in through the window, but I wasn’t sure how they would have also gotten under the covers, unless the bugs had gotten chilly or fell asleep there after their bedtime story. Either way, I had the heebie-jeebies, so I booked another hotel.
While in Phnom Penh, I booked my first motorbike tour ever, through Vespa Adventures. After the Vespa driver dropped me off at a cafe to meet up with the guide and other attendees, I saw that there was only one other rider besides me. We started going through the normal go-to conversation starters: when did you arrive, how long are you staying, yadda yadda. When I asked how long he had been in Phnom Penh, he said “Six.” I asked, "Six days?" He said, "No, six years." I gave him this perplexed look as if to say, "Errr ... why are you doing a city tour after having lived here for six years?" But when he said he was the branch manager of Vespa Adventures, the lightbulb went off. Ooooh, he was just joining to check in on the tour. As we chatted, we realized that we had lived and worked close to each other in Michigan back in the U.S. Small world! He’s one of those people you meet along the way where it feels like you’ve been friends for years and can just pick up conversation.
The whole Vespa Adventures team was super friendly, and one of the drivers also takes pictures throughout the tour to send you later, which I love as it’s hard to get candid shots as a solo traveler. We drove around the city taking in the crazy traffic and hodgepodge of electric and internet cables hanging above the streets like a spider web. We stopped at a variety of locations, including a street art area by the old "Lakeside" that sadly has zero remnants of being a lake due to new city plans. We also stopped by a local market where we saw every type of meat and seafood either dried or beheaded. Toward the exit of the market, we stopped at a stall to snack on delicious sticky banana rice cakes wrapped in banana leaves ... that said, I’m confident mine was filled with banana, but I swear the one the branch manager was handed had a very gray-looking fish stuffed in it. The guide kept saying it was definitely banana, but I am still not convinced, because when is banana gray? Mine wasn’t. Oh well, I didn’t eat that one.
Both the tour guide and branch manager kept telling me that their night foodie tour was actually "the" tour to do. Although the day tours are nice, the night tours were more hair-down, food-and-drinks focused. I didn’t have plans that evening, so I figured heck, sign me up!
Before the evening festivities, one of the key things I wanted to do while in Phnom Penh was visit the S-21 prison and killing fields. Although definitely not an upper on the list of attractions, going was important to me. For me, it’s about paying respect. Traveling is about seeing things with your own eyes. You can read about places in a book and see pictures, but the feeling you get on-site is completely different. Put the phone away, open your eyes, be present. The Khmer Rouge spearheaded atrocities with such similarity to Nazi Germany, yet the Cambodian genocide is far more under the radar in history lessons and textbooks.
As I was leaving the S-21 prison, I saw a book table set up near the exit. One of the few survivors of the prison, Chum Mey, had written a book of his experience, “Survivor,” and was there signing the books. Although I never buy anything on my trips, I couldn’t leave without that purchase and shaking his hand. I have that book in my suitcase, and it is the next book on my list to read.
After a heavy afternoon, a relaxing food and drink tour was a good way to rebound. The same lovely driver from my morning tour picked me up on a Vespa, and we met up with seven other travelers ready for some fun. We zipped around different restaurants and bars trying various drinks and food. The seafood was plentiful - oysters, octopus, squid ... oh my! One of my favorites was actually the frog legs. They taste just like chicken except a bit drier as there isn’t much fat on frog legs, but that’s what dipping sauce is for.
One of the specialty drink stops was at the Raffles Hotel, where we were able to partake in the "Femme Fatale Cocktail" made for Jackie Kennedy on a visit, and the hotel even has her cocktail glass with a lipstick smudge on display. Whether or not I really believe that was “the” glass, I don’t know, but it’s a nice to think it is.
