Bangkok Blogger|Tales from Thailand

Phnom Penh is the capital city of Cambodia and one of the places I have visited recently on my travels. Whenever I go to a city in South East Asia I always, rightly or wrongly, compare it to Bangkok which has been my home for the last year.

Most of the cities I had been to before Cambodia put Bangkok in the shade but I think Phnom Penh was the first one that made me realise Bangkok isn’t all bad!

I do like Bangkok but it has a lot of bad points, mainly the layout and planning of the city and the lack of outdoor space.

People moan about the state of the pavements in Bangkok but after Phnom Penh they are a relative luxury.  Phnom Penh had a seedy vibe to it that Bangkok doesn’t seem to have despite its infamous red-light areas and dubious massages parlours found all over the city.  Phnom Penh didn’t seem to have anything like the open sex-trade of Bangkok but there was an air of deviance down nearly every street.

The poor parts of Phnom Penh seem to cover the majority of the city but turn a corner and it is not uncommon to find yourself on a street of walled mansions with security guards manning the gates.  When it came to cars and traffic in general most of the population of Phnom Penh made do with old scooters and clapped out cars but there were a significant number of high end Range Rovers and other imported cars on the road which probably cost a few years slaries to the average Phnom Penh citizen.

The main shopping mall in Phnom Penh was a sorry affair that didn’t realy have any western brands in and I didn’t see a a Starbucks or McDonalds on the streets of Phnom Penh.  I guess the poverty levels here makes it not worth investing in for the time being.

So Bangkok wins the day for me.  It might be noisy, smelly and dirty but it is pretty easy a city to live in with many of the creature comforts from home plus with lots of the local culture still intact.

Today I woke  in Bangkok for the first time for a while after about seven weeks of holidaying.  I didn’t bother putting the air-con in the bedroom on last night before bed as I thought the fan would suffice but woke up at about 4am covered in sweat and feeling like I’d been trapped in a green house all night (note to self: always leave the air-con on at night).

When I finally woke up proper I got ready and then went out for some lunch. I’m not sure if it was the jetlag or being back in the humidity of Bangkok or just being in unfamiliar surroundings again but I felt a bit strange walking to the shops.  After being in England for a few weeks, being the only non-Thai person and hearing everyone speaking Thai felt quite strange.  I’m sure I will get used to it again in a couple of days but I did feel quite out of place.  No one was staring at me but I did get a few looks and definitely felt like I was in a strange land.  A bit like how I felt when I first moved out here a year ago.