Best Things About Phnom Penh

The best thing about Phnom Penh is the number of different restaurants to choose from.  That may sound trivial, but in much of the developing world, restaurant options can be pretty slim.  We can never even hope to sample all of the restaurants in Phnom Penh in our remaining 18 months here.  Just in walking distance from our house we can eat Peruvian, Indian, Italian, Burmese, French, Australian, American, Lebanese, Sushi, and Cambodian.

But if we're too lazy to walk outside, we can take advantage of the next best thing in Phnom Penh.  Door 2 Door is a pocket booklet with menus of more than 50 restaurants that deliver right to our home or office.  All of the cuisines I mentioned above, and more, are no more than a phone call away.  And if all we're craving is a latte...no problem.  The local coffee shops will deliver as small an order as a single beverage.

After all this eating, sometimes we just need to sit in a comfy chair with our feet up, which brings us to the final great thing about Phnom Penh.  Just half a block from our house, we can get a one-hour foot massage for only $10.  Our favorite spa charges a mere $8, but it's a whole 6 blocks away.  I usually let the weather decide for me...if the sky is clear, I walk the six blocks; if it looks like rain, I stay close by.  Here I am looking relaxed and refreshed outside the spa after a recent massage.  Three cheers to Phnom Penh!

Krolan and Dolphins in Kratie

My trip to Kratie to observe the elections was my first overnight trip to "the provinces" - which is what Cambodians call everywhere in the country except Phnom Penh, Angkor Wat, and the southern beach towns.  It was a bumpy five-hour drive with multiple Mekong river crossings along the way.

One of the culinary specialities of Kratie is called krolan.  Krolan is a concoction of sticky rice, coconut milk, and a few black-eyed peas steamed inside a bamboo tube.  Vendors sold it by the kilo all along the road.

To get to the sweet insides, you peel the bamboo down like a banana and break off a chunk with your fingers.  Eating a whole tube felt like a full meal!

When our election observing duties were finished, we had time for the principal tourist activity in Kratie: seeing the rare freshwater Irrawaddy dolphin.  The dolphin boat dock was marked by this Leaning Statue of Dolphin.

The dolphins were actually incredibly hard to see!  They slid in and out of the water without a sound, so if I wasn't already looking in the right direction, I totally missed them.  I tried and tried and the best photo I could get was this dorsal fin before the dolphin disappeared under the water again.

I Voted

Last weekend, I traveled to Kratie Province as part of a team of diplomatic site visitors observing the Cambodian National Elections.  As observers, our role was simply to watch and report on what we saw happening on election day.  We could ask questions, but we were not there to act as enforcers of proper polling practices...although we would closely watch the polling officials and note if they failed to follow correct procedures.

On election day, we were on the road at 6:30 am to arrive at our first polling station before voting officially opened at 7:00 am.  We watched as polling officials prepared the polling station and then opened the doors to the first voters.  Even this early in the morning, many Cambodians had already arrived to vote. 

The first step of the voting process was to review the posted list outside the polling station to ensure you had come to the polling station where you were registered.  Then staff reviewed your photo ID and gave you a paper ballot.  You took the paper ballot behind a small screen to mark your vote, and then dropped it into the ballot box.  The final step was to dip your finger into a jar of ink.

Watching this whole process made me realize that the last time I physically went to the polls was almost 10 years ago.  In my state of Oregon, we have voting by mail.  About 6 weeks before election day, my ballot would arrive in the mail.  I usually filled out my ballot in front of my computer, pulling up candidate web pages and reading the pros and cons of ballot initiatives as I marked down my choices.  Then I could either mail my ballot back to the voting division, or drop it in one of numerous drop boxes around the city.

This process led to more informed voting, because I could research my options as I voted.  

But by filling my ballot out in solitude, I missed out on the active sense of carrying out my civic duty in community with my neighbors.  The voters I witnessed in Kratie were clearly happy and proud to perform this duty.  As the polls closed, I couldn't resist joining in.  I dipped my finger into the ink jar, pulling out a purple finger as a statement of fellowship with the voters of Cambodia.