mustakimrides: February 2013

tuk tuk sir, tuk tuk sir, tuk tuk sir, tuk tuk sir, tuk tuk sir!

ok when in Phnom Penh be prepared to be assaulted by these lines a gajillion trillion times. As soon as you step out of a hotel or restaurant there'll be at least half a dozen of em asking whether you want a tuk tuk. And get this, if you say no to one the other 5 will still ask you. I mean like halloooo....if I said no to your friend what makes you think I'd say yes to you la? But it's A for effort all round. Also, they'll try to cross sell or up sell when you say no. So these are the exact sequence of their salesmanship.

TukTukGuy: You want Tuk tuk?

Us: No

TukYukGuy: You want girl? I bring you to college girl (we're pretty sure she was in college in 1969)

Us: No

TukTukGuy: You want girl massage? (oblivious to the fact that I'm standing in front of a massage place)

Us: No

TukTukGuy: You want weed?

Us: No

And the above would be on repeat with almost every TukTuk driver that you encounter. They'll even shout at you from across a busy street...YOU WANT GIRLLLLLL?!!! Ah yes...that'll make me hop into your TukTuk after you've announced my evil and nefarious intentions to the whole world....haha.

Where's the girl man?

Having said that, the TukTuk is a convenient way to move around in PP. You pay USD3 per trip, I'm pretty sure you can get away with USD2 if you bargained but we didn't really bother. By the way, it's USD3 per trip regardless of where you're going in the city, which is cool. So it's nice to ditch the bike and just have these boys drive you around.

This is where I began to notice something about PP traffic. Now it's a busy city for sure, with lots of cars, bikes. TukTuks sharing the road making it congested and they also have what appears to be little regard for traffic laws, hitting the red, going wrong way on a one way street, going in even when the intersection is clogged up. Behaviors that would generally and definitely get you beaten up in KL, yet you don't see any of that in PP. The level of tolerance they have with regards to traffic is incredible, and you see the guy in the brand new Range Rover chilling when a kapchai is blocking his way even when the kapchai is in the wrong. It's amazing to see this order in chaos playing out in front of your eyes.

We'll show em boys how it's REALLY done!

Since we don't have that long in PP we just managed to checkout Russian Market (which I must say is a disappointment). I was expecting more Russian made stuff like watches, knives and military paraphernalia but saw none of those. And they close bloody early, at 5pm close shop. Huh? what's that all about la. So if anyone is going there do go early.

As usual...I'm taking a picture of those lovely shorts behind the girl

Russian market

We also managed to find a mosque across the famous riverside. Our rationale is simple, if there's a mosque there's bound to be halal food. True enough, the roadside stall was selling this grilled beef in a baguette that was just so tasty that we ordered another helping of it.

Family owned business

Initially they thought we were Khmer as well

Delicious!

The other dish that I discovered was the Amok Fish. Initially with the word amok in the dish I would have thought it's something fierce and spicy but it turns out to be on the contrary. It's a little bit like our otak-otak but smoother in taste and very delicious as well. I'd go back for this dish anytime.

We're off to Siem Reap tomorrow so I'll just leave you with some pics taken around the city.