Journal: Wednesday 1 July 2009

Today started out as any other around here. Breakfast at Soup Dragon then off to Common Grounds for internet. However, today would be slightly different as I was meeting Rachel (ACE teacher) for lunch and then later that afternoon a Couch Surfer would be coming up from Phnom Penh and I wanted to meet her at the bus and get her set up in a guesthouse.

Lunch with Rachel was great. It was good to see her again and be filled in all the goings on at ACE and elsewhere. She’s getting ready to head back to England for a month with her Cambodian husband. That will be really exciting for both of them. We chatted until nearly 2pm then it was time for her to get back to the hospital and I needed to head out to the bus station to meet the CSer.

To find out more about being part of Couch Surfing, go here

Da arranged the tuk-tuk and we zoomed off towards the bus station in the east part of town. However, once we arrived a group of tuk-tuk drivers hanging said that the bus didn’t arrive there, but in town at the Center Market. Ugh! Back to town again to wait. It was about a half hour wait, then the bus arrived and Magda found me without a problem. I was also holding a hastily drawn welcome sign, too.

We headed off to the guesthouse to set her stuff in the room then it was back to Common Grounds to have a coffee and chat. As the evening approached we decided to walk back to the guesthouse so she could have a shower and we would meet later for dinner. There would also be another CSer from San Francisco meeting us, too, at Khmer Kitchen at 7pm.

There was about an hour between dropping her off and meeting back again for dinner. In the meantime it had started to rain, but not so heavily yet. On the way, we picked up a sim card for her so she could use it while she’s here in Cambodia for the month.

Photo Courtesy of Asia Explorers

Khmer Kitchen is always a great place to meet and have dinner. The food’s reliably delicious and there’s enough choices to offer every taste, including the vegetarian. We stayed there until 11pm (the latest I’ve been out so far), just talking about all sorts of things. It’s fun to have new people to talk to and encounter new ideas.

Bed time!