So we woke up bright and early at 6am to catch the sunrise, only to realise that the sun had woken up before us. And we also realised that our guesthouse faced the lake on the west, so we could not hae caught the sun rising in the east. A brilliant start to our day. Also, the lake looked nothing like the fantasy we imagined it to be. It was blanketed with various aquatic plants and dilapidated looking structures around the lake fed their sewage into it. Things tend to look better in the dark.
We mourned the demise of the last train in Cambodia, after reaching the Phnom Penh train station and finding it defunct. Dashed were our great hopes of riding on top a WW2 relic train, enjoying the scenic countryside view and idling 18 hours away on an interminably slow train ride. To commemorate the occasion, we took many pictures.
We had breakfast at the Central Market. A bustling marketplace cum bazaar had sprung up where we alighted from the tuk-tuk that we took from the airport the previous night. Light makes a great difference indeed. Chinese is a great language. With it, we ordered flavourful noodles, iced tea without milk and youtiao at the Central Market.
You can find almost anything at the central market, including, it seems, mini death star lasers.
After lunch, we went around to the National Museum, the Grand Palace and the Silver Pagoda.
It is now 5.42pm. Tonight, we will be lodging at this quaint riverside guesthouse called Indochine 1. Should our bodies and minds permit, we will drink and catch the Euro semi-finals. I can’t wait.
Note: More photos forthcoming. Uploading them here’s a bitch.
–Roger
