Phom Pen: the miracle of being old

A fun exercise when traveling: compare the preconceived notion you had the place to get with the reality that you are. Normally it happens that you take what you have read, or what you have told, make a ball with it and you drop it down the drain while you shower. This has been the first contact with Phon Pen, Cambodia's capital, where we arrived by plane and from where we have been directly tuc find where to throw the bags and where to sit for dinner.

Find Accommodation is another specialty of a backpacker. Generally, the guarantee of success is patience, but you can always save a windfall. And while it's true that if you get away from the main arteries cleanest places you find a better price, sometimes it happens that you start walking, a girar, to corners and just five kilometers from the above artery, rather lost in the veins of the feet of the city, fed up and pissed backpack with your friends because it suits them anywhere. My friend Ro is well: not for to find the best balance between price and charm. And although it always ends up giving to El Dorado, I never get tired of atosigarla and tell: ¿In'll never stop?

Certainly, useful information that comes to mind as I write: Here beds, and this here includes Thailand, are glorious. The hotel, sheets or blankets can be more or dirty menso, and should avoid more guarretes, but the mattresses are hard and resistant, and they never sound docks. And the offer usually includes accommodations with air conditioning, fan, If anything ... the came here, Appoint at least the fan, or I coceréis overnight.

Find Accommodation is another specialty of a backpacker. Generally, the guarantee of success is patience, but you can always save a windfall

According to country, second boundary. Second time the heart is coming to the throat. The first thing is the traffic Cambodia. Infernal, chaotic, funny. The second is the design of the streets. There is not a corner, all buildings are round, what gives you a tremendous feeling of warmth. When you escape from the places that send bikes and cars, happy you can walk between shops of all kinds of food, clothing, parts, houses internet, etc.. The third is parks. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, young and not so young crowd with huge speakers in Madrid only find in a nightclub and delivered to the pleasure of aerobic. Fuck, I have so rehearsed that sometimes seem castings for a video of Michael Jackson, whom, certainly, worldwide reverence here.

The fourth, dogs. Everywhere, avoid the heat, looking at the same face of curiosity as their masters. And fifth street vendors. Sometimes I wonder how they will make a bike in a supermarket. I tried to order different things: or have, or get in ten seconds. If need scissors, un Mango, a lighter, sunglasses, just ask them. I smile and sell.

It's hot. Wet and sticky. As on the beaches of Thailand, but beach. While Ro and Christian bought shirts, I've sat back and watched people play chess here, for now it seems even the Thai Smiling. It's a different version. The pawns out of the third line, and they can go back, and eating in front ... I've been offered to sit to play. It seemed a Madrid-Atletico in the last twenty years: I was the atleti, clear.

Phom Pen is crossed by the Mekong, further down that leads, after the beauty of the delta, in the Vietnamese city of Saigon, another of our possible destinations. Cambodians But this does not mean anything, because they have no way to harness the waters of the mythical river, unless you call to look away seize turbulence obscured by uncontrolled discharges from factories.

We encountered, from the first minute, with the influence of the French domination in the first half of the twentieth century. Everywhere there baguettes posts, and bakerys with delicious croissants and coffee that tastes like coffee. The shopping streets are plagued with French restaurants are called Eiffel Maxim'so, and although most people-ie, almost no- English speaking longer, there are still hundreds of signs written in the language of Jules Verne.

This first night was a sad: Christian leaves back to Spain, has received an offer to go to work the Congo, and you want to turn down too Africa. We lose one member of the triumvirate, and we went to a pizza place with good beer and goodbye. Tomorrow morning, the two survivors will visit the museum of horror, and take the pulse of a country that learns to rearm the most tragic of genocide without the help of the wisdom of his old, who died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. Today I tried to raise the issue with the hotel manager and owner of a coffee shop we stopped walking on the road: I was told that the weather is very good at this time of year ...

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Comments (3)

  • Pussy

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    It will deplete your adjectives with chronic. I have wanted to see you and to talk… Besos

    Answer

  • Quique

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    Look you've taken, look you've gone around before you go (recalls the ironic bets of those who say they are your friends…) but now that I've done you're getting all the juice, so dog… Great that Juancho!!! Your unemployment is well, thanks. Enjoy

    Answer

  • Ann

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    I can only describe your report in a way: «qué asco te tengo»

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