Phnom Penh 1/18

We got up early in the morning and had breakfast at 7 am so we can meet Chenna and his wife at 8 am to go shopping for school supplies for kids in Phnom Da. There are 30 school-age children there so we decided to make 30 packets with pens, pencils, pencil sharpeners, erasers, rulers, notebooks and some toiletries. They suggested we shop in the Orussey market for best prices. Chenna’s wife turned out to be a pro-shopper. She negotiated great prices and we got everything done pretty efficiently. Then back to the hotel to assemble the packages. Once everything was ready, we said goodbye to them and decided to walk to the Mekong riverbank, have lunch at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club and then shop in the area. It was a really nice afternoon. Great lunch overlooking the Mekong, and then browsing through many beautiful shops/galleries with local handicrafts. I think that when we were here 5 years ago, there were very few stores with high quality crafts, but now there are lots of them and they have very nice stuff in well-designed interiors. Prices went up considerably too, but they are still a bargain. We bought quite a few things and happily took a tuk tuk back to the hotel. Another thing I really like about Phnom Penh is the greenery and the flowers. It must be lotus flower season now because there are lotus flowers everywhere – in the hotel in bowls and vases, in restaurants, in temples, in the streets – bunches sold by street vendors. They are beautiful, mostly white or pink….