My weekend in Phnom Penh

Thursday Night:
Well I guess it’s possible to have a more fun weekend, but so far I haven’t found out how. Last Friday was another Chinese holiday. So I got out of town Thursday evening, Arrived at Billabong around 7:30 and by 9:00 that night I was bellied up to a rustic Cambodian bar shedding the Hong Kong blues. By that time I had already been out shopping for the things I can only get in Phnom Penh. Namely smokes, I had run out of cloves three days before I left Hong Kong, so I was happily supplied, and enjoying the low low prices. Even if I was to drink the most exotic expensive imported beer, (like Budweiser) I can’t spend half of what a local beer in Hong Kong costs. Not to mention the fact that everyone is so laid back, and the atmosphere is just a lot friendlier.

My first stop was the California2 hotel. There is usually a pre-party gathering of the folks I know at Cal2, So I stopped in to have a beer. That went on til 10:30, so by the time I was done there, the other bars were beginning to get going. Since I was last in town, Martini, a really fun club was shut down. Luckily for me by the time I got back they had relocated to their new location. So off I went to Martini 3. There new place is an improvement in terms of atmosphere. They went from a larger space, to a still fairly large, but more natural space. The courtyard is dominated by a huge tree that canopies most of the area where they show movies, or videos. Past that is an elevated area with a bar in the center, and a pool table on each side. Just to the side of that area is another pool table , and the door to the disco. The disco is a little smaller than before, but it’s still bumpin. Well, I was there for more than one reason, Not only is this a cool club, it’s also where I met Bohpa. I hung out and played pool for a while, and after a while I ran into one of Bohpa’s friends. She told me that she was with one of her old boyfriends…..Heartbreak……not really….I had asked one of my friends in town to let her know I was coming, and I think he purposely didn’t tell her, to make it a surprise, or whatever. Anyway, so now I’m single again. As soon as I left Hong Kong I was noticing the flirty Thai, Cambodian and Viet girls, but I was really on a mission, so I wasn’t paying much attention. I began to pay attention…..

Next stop was the Walkabout. It’s as close to a bar from the old West, as you can imagine. Kinda grungy with a very long serpentine bar dominating the center of the room, with a pool table over to one side. After I got a beer I noticed a few of the guys I know drinking at a table with the night manager. I moseyed on over, and hung out with them for a while. I found from them AGAIN that Bohpa was out with someone else, and even got to know his name. OK enough already, at this point I realized that I really need a distraction……..oh there she is a lovely Cambodian girl playing pool, and taking the time to look over at me and smile regularly. Being a friendly kind of guy I introduced myself on the way back from getting my next beer. She seemed like a very sweet girl, and she asked me if I would play teams with her (pool remember). Her name is Sahn, and she turned out to be a really good pool player. She and I kept the table for nine games straight. The only reason we stopped, was that it was nearly 5 AM, and I really didn’t wanna see sunrise from Walkabout……


Friday Night:

I say Friday night, because there wasn’t much of a Friday day. I did get out long enough to get some cash and a return airline ticket to Bangkok (I had to connect in Bangkok to get back to Hong Kong). The very long Thursday night combined with starting my day in Hong Kong at 6 AM had me pretty tired, so I slept a lot. Room service kept me fed, and by 9 PM I was starting to feel like doing it again. Friday night at Walkabout they play a game called Joker. It’s a sort of a raffle, where you buy tickets for $1.00 each, and if your ticket is drawn you get a chance to go to a glass case where a deck of cards is pinned to the wall. If you turn over the Joker you win the pot. It was up to $2700 so I gave up $20 for tickets and took my chances. Well, I lost, but at least you can use your tickets to buy drinks after you lose, so I began drinking my way through my tickets. While I was at Walkabout I found out about the Cyclo tour. [A cyclo is a three wheeled bicycle driven form of transportation in Asian countries. The rider is in back, the passenger in front.] The ticket for the tour cost 15 dollars, and you get a beer at each of seven bars that you visit with a group of other drinkers all on cyclos. Sign me up!

After hanging out at Walkabout for a while I passed out my remaining Joker tickets to deserving young ladies, and headed out to Martini with a few other guys. The owner of Martini is a Chinese guy named Charlie. Every night Charlie and his Chinese buddies all sit around a table and play Chinese drinking games. When you drink with Chinese guys you can’t just take a drink from your glass. They toast whenever they drink. Drinking alone is considered rude. Except when you have lost at one of their games. Honestly sometimes you lose just cuz you want a drink, but most of the time it’s just cuz ya screwed up and ya gotta drink. Well, that went on for a while, but I’ve learned to excuse myself from my host's table before anything bad happens. I’ve seen people just stay there til they couldn’t possibly leave even if they wanted to. Usually I just go and get myself into a pool game, and that’s what I did. I met this Kiwi guy who at first I thought was insane, until he admitted to me that he had some foreign substance in him that was making him that way. The funny part was that he really wanted to play pool, but he really couldn’t stay still long enough to shoot well. It was rather entertaining watching him try though. I played with him for a while, then I ran into Bohpa’s sister. I asked if she was around, and she said she didn’t know…..Whatever! Well it wasn’t true, cuz soon I felt a girl jump on my back, and it was a familiar feeling. It was Bohpa. Her sister had seen me, and got Bohpa to come to Martini…yea! We played pool for a while, but the girls were less amused than me by my new temporarily insane Kiwi friend. By then the bar was closing down, and either we were going to have to go to one of the all night bars or back to the hotel……guess how that decision went…..

Saturday Night:

Well, again I didn’t really get out of my hotel room til night. It was so cool hanging out with Bohpa. Ya know I really miss all the girls back home. I used to spend a lot of my time in the company of women, so now the only way I get anything close to that is spending time with Bohpa, or Paew. It’s really not the same with girls who I’ve just met, cuz they just don’t know me…..You girls are a tough act to follow, I really do miss you. I think some of the guys I’ve met here don’t really understand. They’re like “why would you want to spend more than a couple hours with them?”……whatever… I talked to someone about the Cyclo tour, and if I should get Bohpa a ticket, and he said it’s kind of a “guy thing”, so I told her I would meet up with her later at Martini ( the last bar on the tour). Ya know sometimes ya just gotta do what ya want, cuz later I found a couple of guys had brought their girls….oh well bad on me.

The first stop on the cyclo tour was Sharky’s it’s a pretty big bar with a patio that looks down on the street, about five pool tables, and pretty good food. We had our first drinks there, and after a thirty minute blackout( Phnom Penh has a fairly unreliable power system) we jumped on our assigned cyclo’s and headed out. The only other time I rode on a cyclo was in Saigon. That was in heavy traffic with motorcycles jamming the road all around me. This was a nice easy ride through very light traffic. The cool part was that I had a really fast driver. The next stop was a bar called DV8. It’s a rather small bar, but there are some very friendly ladies there. They also have an upstairs with a pool table and a balcony. Anyway we had our beer, and headed for the next bar. As I was leaving
DV8 someone handed me a J for the road. I asked if it was cool, and he said it always has been in the past, so off I went with my new accoutrement. Well ya know I liked the cyclo ride before, now I was starting to love it. I’m cruising along passing most of the other cyclos ( like I said my driver was fast) smoking as I go by. It was so cool. Eventually I realized I was passing the presidential palace, so I put it out, and just enjoyed the ride. It was a really beautiful ride. Nighttime going through some of the tree lined streets in a cyclo with a bunch of other people ( there were 39 people) was really cool. The J worked really good too, cuz I can’t even remember the name of the next club. It was a nice club though…..well it was OK…anyway a couple more beers, and off we went to Walkabout. Well I’ve told you about this bar already, but they took us upstairs to their new bar, and I was really surprised. It’s a really nice bar upstairs. Brand new very nicely designed open air bar. A nice contrast with the gritty bar downstairs. Well, a couple more beers, and we were off to Soho2. This bar had some seriously dangerous steps leading up to it. It’s on the second floor, and if you’re not careful you could easily eat it. As I walked up I heard stories of who has fallen down them. Soho2 is a fairly cool bar…couple more beers, the off to Howie’s bar. Howie actually met us at the door, and the air conditioning was a really nice change. Well, as I got inside I was met by Charlie the owner of Martini. He was sitting at a table full of glasses with Ice in them offering Johnny Walker Black label. Soooooo I had a whiskey and coke, and played some pool at Howie’s Then….Howie had a chugging contest which for some reason I felt compelled to join in……Is anyone counting? So then we went to Shanghai it’s a pretty nice bar it was a good stop cuz they served sandwiches as well as beer. So we stopped and had a sandwich and a beer then off to Martini. I got to Martini, and started drinking Coke. The tour had me well liquored up, and I was to meet the very likely sober Bohpa. Well just after I arrived it started raining really hard, so she didn’t get there for an hour or so. That was a good thing cuz it gave me some time to sober up a little. Well that was the Cyclo crawl….I’d do it again, and maybe stick to the beer a bar thing two beers per bar is a little more than I need.

That’s my trip to Phenom Penh…..well that’s all I’ll tell you about. Oh yeah I had a great flight home. I had forgotten that when I booked this trip there were no economy seats on the flight I wanted back to Hong Kong, so I had to buy business class. That was sooooooo nice. Great food, all this special treatment. A great end to a really fun weekend.