Stepped off the plane and straight into the Visa queue. Got a visa for $25 and off I went. Outside, you can get a motorbike taxi anywhere for $2. As I only had a rucksack I decided to do that as it sounded more fun than a car or a tuktuk! (there's a cash point in the airport... Phew!)
Got to my hotel and had arranged to meet a guide a few hours later so chilled out for a bit. It's so hot here'. You walk out of air con and you're sweating.
I met my guide at 11. He took me to Tonle Sap lake and sent me off on a boat ride. The guys told me it was $25 for about 2 hours. After paying it I realised I should have haggled. Oh well, you live and learn. The boat trip was awesome. Saw the locals living on their boats and stilt houses. The lake was like the sea. Huge. It's about 55km across in rainy season, which is now.
We passed a floating orphanage school where the kids parents had passed away due to illness from the water or they had left the kids behind and moved on. This was pretty sad to hear.
On the way back they stopped at a community food centre and told me I could buy food and take it to the orphanage. I wanted to do that... Until they tried to make me pay $85 for a sack of rice. I could send it from England cheaper than that! I asked about a bag of sweets instead which was about 10 packets of small crisps. $5 I was told. I'm not paying $5 for a few crisps to take to a load of kids where it's not even going to go around 10 of them... I felt really bad not buying anything but the prices were ridiculous. It's not like I'm a rich westerner who has money to burn. Even if i was, thats just absurd! After that the feeling I got from the guide was that they didn't like it that I hadn't bought anything and I couldn't wait to get off the boat. when getting off talk of tips started and because they went on at me when they'd already made me feel bad I didn't want to leave anything. I didn't know if leaving just a dollar was being offensive but after paying $25 for 2 hours I didn't see the justification anymore. Bearing in mind my tuktuk guide was $15 for most of the day!
I left them feeling guilty but I didn't like that they became rude because I didn't do what they wanted.
After meeting my guide again we drove back towards the city and I went to the Angkor Wat museum to find out what the meaning of all these temples was.
It was interesting but I was shattered from only having slept an hour the night before and working weird hours in Singapore, plus the heat didnt help!
Following this we drive to the killing fields and learnt about Pol Pot. A disgusting dictator. I need to read up more on the goings on of Cambodia. But this man was terrible. More on him later.
In the evening I went to a local restaurant which was a Cambodian buffet with Cambodian dancing. The food was good and I ate as I sat watching the tens of little lizards crawling across the ceiling! the dance show was good, if a little slow! But a good insight into the culture, clothing and dance.
By this point I wanted my bed and I had to be up at 4:45am to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat the next day so I went back and chilled at the hotel pool bar for a little while. It was then I heard thunder... 5 mins later and I thought the trees were going to come flying at me and the hotel staff were rushing around madly trying not to let the hotel flood. A rain storm had begun and it's the craziest rain I've ever seen! it was like someone had opened up the clouds and instantly all the water in the sky decided to drop down!
I sat watching it and listening to the thunder for a while, while skyping home to show them the rain! then decided I better go to bed before I got soaked! The 2 seconds I had to walk outside to get to my room got me drenched!
All in all I found my first day in Cambodia pretty hard. Being on my own and not strong willed enough to brush people off or be rude got to me a bit and I felt a bit worried about the rest of my stay. Hopefully tommorow will be a better day!
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