Hair, Dancing and Christmas Dinner (Dec. 11, 12, 2014)

Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014

Today Laure-Elie and I went to see the Royal Palace. It was a lovely grounds and set of buildings, but you couldn’t take any photos inside the buildings and you weren’t even allowed to go into many buildings. You had to look from the roped off doorway. The buildings all looked very new and updated so I’m not sure if they are historic or not, but some of the articles inside were definitely historic royal items. They were very cool but no photos.

Great shot rounding the corner

Royal Palace

Royal Palace

Royal Palace

Wall fresco at Royal Palace

Me at Royal Palace

Royal Palace

Laure-Elie and me at Palace

Palace garden flower on tree

Gorgeous tree at Palace

Full view of the tree

After the Royal Palace, we walked back to our hostel so that I could kill some time before my hair appointment for a colour and cut at the Space Hair Salon and Bar, that I told you about yesterday. Finally it was time so I took my colour formula and set off to see what could be. I got there and Sopheap the only stylist, was alone without the swamp of customers he had last night, when I arrived for my 2 pm appointment. He is super nice and has only been doing hair for four years, I learned. He was trained by the L’Oreal instructor, and I imagine has done thousands of clients in his short, four years. It is his own shop and bar, and from the looks of it, they do extremely well and are very popular. It is a very nice place to go.

I showed him the formula that Julia sent with me, he located the colours that went into it, and applied the colour to my hair. Although a little apprehensive, I felt pretty comfortable with him, as he is so warm, asked me lots of questions about how my friend does my hair, and kept checking to ensure I was ok with whatever he was doing. I was, and he ended up doing a great job overall. Then he cut it once finished with the colour, and that went well too. It’s certainly not my dear Julia’s caliber of work, but as you say Bunnai, ‘It’s just hair.’ As well, it does look fine and I'm really happy with it. 

Sopheap, my Cambodian stylist and colourist

Me after the colour and cut

I sat at a table on the deck afterward for a while, to have a coffee with Sopheap, but just as we sat down, some other clients came in and he was off to work again. I had a really interesting chat at that point, with a guy from Belgium who was a psychologist, now living in Phnom Penh. He was super interesting and we spent at least two haircuts, talking about lofty topics and mind bending matter, until he promptly got up and said that he had to go as his partner was expecting him. He still works with clients for psychological tune-ups over FaceTime, and the internet, so can work anywhere. Cool guy.

While I was at the Salon, Sopheap said that he and some friends were going for dinner to another friend’s restaurant close by and invited me and Laure-Elie to come if we wanted. He said that they would go dancing afterward, which I thought would be really fun. L-E and I went to the shop around 8 pm to meet up with them. They had already gone over to the restaurant but Javier, Sopheap’s partner, had someone waiting to take us over to meet them. 

We got to the restaurant and met Sopheap, Farouk (a Singaporian guy), Melanie (a Swiss girl) and Niles, the English guy who owned the restaurant. All of them now living in Phnom Penh and sweeter than ever. We sat down, ordered and had a fantastic dinner. I had eggplant mixed with pork, on rice. It was delicious, but it was really dark in the restaurant so photos were terrible. 

After we finished eating, we walked the block or two back over to the Hair Salon, and stayed there the rest of the night, dancing, chatting and having a ball. It was so nice to meet great people who just like being who they are....no more, and no less.

Left to Right: Sopheap, me, Laure-Elie, Javier, Melanie, Farouk and Veronica

Sopheap and Melanie

Sopheap has a lot of great outfits
and wigs!

After our dancing night, we went back to the hostel and crashed. A great day and evening I must say.

Friday, December 12, 2014

Today was a great day too. Since I got in so late yesterday, I didn’t get a chance to send out the blog, so I’m doing two today. Before setting out for our day, L-E and I went to a place suggested to us by the people who live here, to have breakfast. It ended up being a bar and restaurant, but had a great breakfast. Check it out.

Free Bird Restaurant

Inside view

Waiting for our breakfast

Mine.....cheese, eggs and bacon on toast
and beans. Really good too.

L-E, breakfast burrito's and refried beans

Pineapple and ice in urinal

Though weird, I had to take a picture of this urinal, in the bathroom. I wasn't sure if they just dumped the ice and pineapple into it because it was big, or if it was intentional. Upon looking at the carefully placed pineapple slices, I believe it is used as a natural deodorizer, and works beautifully. I guess the ice assists with this too? Anyway, I had to show it to you. So different than anything we'd see in a restaurant or bar bathroom.

Laure-Elie and I went to the Russian Market today, by Tuk Tuk. She bought some shorts and a speaker for her IPod. I didn’t find anything but liked looking around the market. I’m not sure why they call it the Russian Market, but I know it talks about the ‘why’ on the internet. After that, we went to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum that is an old high school turned torture centre during the Khmer Rouge Regime. Pol Pot was in charge and tortured a lot of his own high ranking officials as well as other intellects within the existing government, that he and his cronies were overthrowing and revolting against. It was disgusting that this took place so very recently and in such a horrible form. In any case, it was an interesting experience and piece of history, to learn. We spent about 2 hours going through the rooms, looking at the small chambers that housed prisoners, and read all about what went on in that place. There was a definite feeling there, that some awful suffering took place. I can’t imagine that I was a happy go lucky kid at the time this was taking place across the world. I think going to S-21, which was the high school, I am better prepared and understand more about what happened at the Killing Fields. I will try to go there tomorrow to see it. I am trying to find some other travellers to go with, as it’s much cheaper for the Tuk Tuk if you have more.

Russian Market

Russian Market

Russian Market

Guess what this is Liviah?

Russian Market

Russian Market

Russian Market

Food area of Russian Market

Food area of market

Food area of market

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum

Prisoner bed

Prisoner bed and interogation room

Rules for prisoners

Confinement block

Long view through several
rooms of cells

Interogation techniques for prisoners

Real gallows and water buckets used for interrogations 

We came back to the hostel after that, showered and got ready to go out for dinner and meet up with Sopheap and his friends. We were kind of late so by the time we got there, no one else was having dinner. Sopheap walked us a block over from the salon, to an amazing French restaurant, where Laure-Elie and I had our Christmas dinner. It was ‘real’ French cuisine according to her, and it was fantastic. We started with Frois Gras 1/2 Cuit and French bread. This Frois Gras was so smooth and creamy and tasted nothing like any other I’ve tried. It was truly heavenly……mmmmm. Then our main courses came. I had duck, potatoes au gratin and green beans. Laure-Elie had two thick pieces of beef, slightly seared and then turned over to be slightly seared. Mike, you would have loved it……lots of blood and cooked to perfection. She also had the potatoes au gratin and beans. They served the dinners with a home made sauce, mine a pepper sauce with Kampot pepper corns, and hers a blue cheese sauce of some sort. Both were so incredibly tasty and something out of this world……especially in Cambodia.

Frois Gras

Very rare beef dinner

My duck dinner

Cheese and torte for dessert

We had camembert cheese, unpasteuried, and a torte for dessert. A most exquisite Christmas dinner to be sure. After dinner we walked over to Sopheap’s salon, joined the people there, danced for a while and then came back to the hostel. I will go with L-E to her bus in the morning. She is going to the south of Cambodia, where the beaches are, a place called Sihanoukville. I will be going down there as well, but don’t go until Thursday. I want to see some more of Phnom Penh before going down there. Then I will stay in that area, more or less, until my flight out of Cambodia on Dec. 29th.

A great day to say the least. Sorry for the late posts, but sometimes I’m having just way too much fun, and it doesn’t work time wise to write the blog that day. Hope you understand, and yes, I am fine……lol. Didn’t mean to worry anyone. More tomorrow.