Very good driver in Phnom Penh
A few weeks ago I travalled around in Phom Penh.
I used as driver Mr.Sam Nieng. He speaks very good English and is a good and nice driver for all your wishes.
You can find him on: [url]www.phnompenhtaxi.biz[/url] or phone him on his GSM nr. 012 556476.
My Phnom Penh round-up (aka "5 days last October").
Health. Recommended vaccinations for Cambodia: [url]www.mdtravelhealth.com/destinations/asia/Cambodia.html[/url]
In a nutshell. Hep A, Hep B, Typhoid, make sure your Tetanus is up to date, and you might get/need a Yellow Fever shot depending on where else you've been. I didn't bother with Jap Encephalitis or Malaria meds (even when I went to Siem Reap) and already had a Yellow Fever shot recently. My GP recommended I take the Encephalitis shot if I'd gone to Vietnam too, but decided a two-night flying visit wasn't worth it if I had to pay an extra £50 ($100) for a needle.
Hotels:
When you get to Phnom Penh, negotiate a moto-dup ride (motorcycle) into town. It should be about $3, although it's no big deal to even pay double for that one journey, and tell your driver to take you to the central market, and from there to the river (about two blocks on). There are bars & restaurants and decent guesthouses all along the riverfront. Almost all bars & guesthouses also carry a small (3"x4") English tourist guide magazine which is full of maps, shopping, hotels, bars, restaurants, and it's very handy for getting around the next few days.
I made the mistake of just staying each night in a different (cheap) hotel recommended by my moto-dup driver, and although there was no problem finding $20 rooms, most were barely worth $5 a night. Clean, but incredibly basic and annoying. Changed hotels a few times and wasn't ever very satisfied, until I found one myself: a small studio room (en-suite toilet / shower-head) at Bogie & Bacall (#20, St. 136). A very GF guesthouse (the owners are UK expats with Cambodian girlfriends), next door to Nordic House: another nice cafe/guesthouse with decent Wi-Fi.
Problems:
The in-your-face hardship and poverty. Landmine victims on every street, and incredibly sweet (but relentless, and hard-to-ignore) kindergarten-age kids hawking a really heavy box of books & tourist guides. You are torn between wanting to help these victims/young kids, and getting really annoyed with them. Just try being nice to one and see how many others come running! Then you have the added problem of endless attention from motodup & tuk-tuk drivers who will literally follow you down the street for blocks until they get the message. If you consider yourself a polite person, as I do, it becomes genuinely wearing, difficult and frustrating to get rid of every driver/beggar you come across.
I fell into the tourist trap of being nice to the motodup guy who gave me a lift from the airport, and he took me around for the next two days recommending the crappiest hotels and having no idea where to find girls. Do NOT pay for a driver to stay with you or take you around all day. They will try and get $20-30/day, when almost any journey in town can be had for $1-2 max (perhaps even less), and drivers are literally on every corner. If one of them thinks you are 'his customer' he will basically stalk you, and get the other drivers to leave you alone. By day 3 I had to practically shout at the guy (not fun, because he was otherwise quiet & friendly) just to get him to leave me alone. Try going for a stroll around town on foot and see how long you last.
Where to go:
Pick up a free 'Out & About' pocket tourist guide in any bar, which is full of all the usual maps & lists of shops/massage places/hotels and bars. Unlike some other countries I could mention, be aware that most massage parlours / spas are quite legitimate (and therefore good), but do not provide 'adult services'.
Sorya Mall (near the Central Market) has lots of chains I've never seen before. To a jaded Westerner it's not the 'incredibly huge mall' it pretends to be, but it is cramped with shops and gets absolutely rammed with locals at times. PP actually has quite a number of upmarket clothes/books/music stores but they seem to be quite spaced out all over the place, so the guide is invaluable. I never did get to the big Central or Russian Markets. They looked good, but the traffic around them is insane. Be aware that the difference in prices between 'tourist shops/cafes' and 'local shops/cafes' is quite stark. I would often be marvelling at how cheap everything is, only to get well-and-truly stung on a panini and latte (London prices! ) at a posh riverside cafe. And do try the national dish Amok which is a fragrant bowl of steamed meat or fish with coconut milk; quite delicious.
Also, you must see Tuol Sleng (Phnom Penh's Genocide Musem). About $12 for entry and a personal guide, which doesn't last long but you won't get as much out of the tour otherwise. I had scant knowledge of the Khmer Rouge at best but I was almost crying by the end of the tour, until I got grumpy again when you have to go back through the handful of beggers and touts just to get out of the gate.
I ignored all attempts to get me to pay for a 'Killing Fields' tour once I learnt that the fields are numerous and all over the place, and that the journey can be 2 or 3 hours away from Phnom Penh (on a pretty uncomfortable tuk-tuk or. God forbid. Motodup). There's also not much to see when you get there (and little or no shade).
Girls:
For girls, best thing is to go to one of the pool/music bars (Sharky's is probably the best. 1 block north and 3 blocks west of Bogie & Bacall, a 5 min stroll if that) and find a freelancer there (I paid $15 ST for a very limber hippie-chick who was being very sexy & cheeky at the bar).
But the finest freelancer I got was a very cute 19-year old called Rani from a music/pool bar near the waterfront ($50 LT. A lot I know, but she was so damn cute and I figure part of that price was to stop somebody else taking her first). A very fun couple of evenings drinking and playing pool with around 20 apparently very young girls (16/17+) and cool music too, until I found out the next day it was on a loop. It was very quiet when I was there. Maybe 8 girls per customer!
Ignore driver recommendations. One night I asked my motodup driver to take me somewhere for a massage (wink wink). Only about 3 blocks from my hotel he got lost, and eventually found a place in a neighbourhood of what looked like embassies and posh houses that looked like it was already closed up for the night. Went inside, paid about $15 and was led to a room. No choice of girls (it was late, but before midnight). The girl who came in looked okay so I showered and lay down, but after 5 mins of scratchy massage with her fake nails while she texted her friends with her other hand AND was watching TV, I thought "screw this", got dressed and stormed out looking like thunder. It was a good five minutes on the journey before I realised I should have screamed at somebody to get my money back, but I had already terrified my driver and was in no mood to do anything but go back to a bar and chill.
A day or two later (having fired the first driver), a super-friendly tuk-tuk driver eventually wore me down while I was having a beer, and I agreed to let him take me to find a girl. He drove into the backstreets between Sihanouk and Monivong to what looked like a building site but was in fact a Vietnamese sauna/brothel. I've never been anywhere like it before or since, which makes me think it was somewhere that only usually sees locals. It was really weird inside, more like being in a tiger cage at the zoo (all concrete & tiles & corrugated roofing and breeze-blocks). I went into a small room where the 15-or-so girls lined up, almost all looking like they'd rather be somewhere else, and picked the only one who smiled at me. Small, plain, brunette, and totally un-ethnic looking (she could have been Russian by looks alone). Not one of them spoke a word of English, and didn't seem to understand Khmer either. Went into a small room (bed, bare lightbulb, small trolley with a towel) and then into an adjoining cell with a hosepipe and water bucket for a wash. Took all my clothes in a bundle with me. I'm naive, not completely stupid. I forget why but I wasn't in the mood for FS so had asked for just a $10 massage and (you may think I'm an idiot) but I'd agreed to shout the driver a screw as well (locals pay $10, or probably less actually). The girl was sweet enough but had no idea what was going on, and I remember getting increasingly mad that she seemed to have no clue how to massage, and nobody (the girl, driver or Chinese punk-looking young guy running the place) had any comprehension of what massage oil was, or was for. At one point my driver offered his tube of hair gel to use! One thing led to another and I ended up sitting on the bed stark-bollock naked. All of us in the room. Shouting at my driver, him shouting at the papasan guy, and he and the driver shouting at the girl. In the end I could see I wasn't getting anything near an acceptable massage out of this and would have an equally hard time getting any money back, so I demanded FS. For which they managed to get another $10 out of me on the condition that I would kill my driver if I didn't enjoy myself. Luckily it was the one thing the girl was quite good at. Showered and left, virtually dragging my driver out by collar (I'm not even sure if he bothered to take his trousers off). Fortunately by the time we got outside, my driver (a total BS artist) had made peace and we were friends again (he really was quite a funny & charming guy) and my mood was much improved because there was a fresh/chilled green coconut stand outside charging local prices (about 5p per coconut). You have to laugh. But after we got back to my hotel I did refuse to pay for any of the tuk-tuk fare, which he couldn't help but agree to.
Massage:
Unlike some other countries in the region, Cambodia (and Phnom Penh) are packed with legitimate spa/massage places. Be aware that most do NOT provide anything resembling adult services, but you will instead find the quality of the massage far superior to any happy-finish parlour you might have been to. On the riverside, I particularly recommend "U & Me Spa" (Star Royal Building, 383 Sisowath Road). Lovely girls offering truly excellent massage, and believe me when I say I've had enough massages to know which is which. They also offer manicure, waxing, sauna and other treatments. After various perfunctory and badly-trained massages (and varying levels of naughtiness) in Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok, the difference is like night and day. The blind massage place a bit further along the riverside is also highly esteemed.
In summary:
Phnom Penh can be a great stop-over if you get up late, relax by the riverside, get a massage, go and see Tuol Sleng, and spend a few nights with a cadre of cuties in one of the pool bars. But there's not much else I found to do, and the locals might drive you bat-shit crazy.
Bluegreen
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