June 23, 2010

If I can make it there I can make it anywhere!


If I can make it there I can make it anywhere! There, being New York… As much as I love Frank, Mr Sinatra, I will have to contradict him on this one… I guess he never went to a developing country … it’s too early to tell I know, but for me at least, the first few days had a huge impact, and not necessarily in a good sense… I guess it depends on how strong a person you are. I thought of myself as being strong; well, I guess I was wrong! It is tough to see such contrasts on one street (you can see the pics on fb). You have a huge villa, and then next to it you have a wooden hut, with a bunch of kiosks on the street; all kinds of vendors and all kinds of smells. Oh, the smells…that’s probably the worst thing…

Full of motos, tuk tuks and Lexuses. Yes, Lexus is like a national car here, and it is owned by the rich Khmer.

Sunday, I had my first tour of PP- lonely planet’s suggested tour was very good actually and I could figure out where I live and where are the places to go out to..

I had my first tuk tuk ride :-) and my first tuk tuk negotiation!! And even the worst negotiatior knows that you cannot negotiate again after you already agreed on a price.. well, the tuk tuk driver, he thought he could do that, so what he did is after we agreed on 3 dollars, when we arrived he asked for 5… :-) well, he didn’t get it! Muahahaaa (cheap Romanian leaving on 300 $/month)

The riverside is the nicest with most bars, and where you can see most of the expats, so I felt a bit more like home… after 3 days of Khmer culture, I needed to see some ‘white’ people J when you are away in a different civilization, you feel the need to find your own people from time to time. After my tour, where I was again shocked to see all the contrasts, I went into a nice bar where journalists usually go, it’s called the foreign correspondents club and it looks very colonial, and you can imagine how the old times used to be, when French used to be the colonial power..interesting, sad..don’t know… there you go…contrasts..

The American embassy is one of the biggest buildings in PP, and very pompous…I will refrain from further comments… in the park in front of the embassy you can see a woman breastfeeding her newborn…no comment…

And then the ‘funniest thing’- the disabled ramp- looking as you could see…


it is a bit shocking ...or not?


leave me comments also pls ;-)

1 comment: