Jan 20th 2012, Phnom Penh, Peltsi

Oh a lot has happened during the past days. Some people are complaining why we update the blog so rarely but believe it or not there simply isn't enough time for writing. Our schedules are often quite hectic and planned. Too hectic. And the planning isn't so essential, plans fail often anyway.

But let's continue from where last blog left us. The following day after Russian market we did travel to Battambang (fun name to try to pronounce by the way). We could've just taken a direct bus to Siem Reap which was our real destination but we had some spare days so decided to make a detour. It turned out that there is almost nothing in Battambang except one silly bamboo-train-tourist-thingy, You get on a bamboo raft on small railroad and go 7km one way and the same back. There's only one pair or rails so if (when) you encounter another 'train' the one with the least cargo is disassembled and waits until the other one passes. Strange thing. Besides that we didn't do anything in the city. Maybe some food,



Following early morning we took a boat to Siem Reap and left the girls to spend one more day in Battambang., From the boat we saw quite some nice places along the river – floating villages, poverty, sunshine, fishing and beautiful sceneries. Me and Olli managed to steal places from the roof of the boat which was an excellent choice (as long as we exclude the sunburns). Will attach some pictures hopefully.



Well we got to Siem Reap with the boat, eventually. The main reason the city exists is its temple area. Everyone has heard of Angkor Wat but there's tons of other temples aswell. We spent the first day exploring Angkor Wat and an ancient village next to it. Angkor Wat is the main temple in the area and it is surrounded by some 100-meter wide moat. Personally the Angkor Wat was a bit of a disappointment – I expected something spectacular similar to the Pyramids, but somehow this seemed to be almost just a huge pile of rocks resembling something. Maybe someone else has more things to say about the area – Sampo spent the following day alone exploring the other temples and claims he found nicer things. Beats me. The ancient village next to the Angkor Wat used to include even a million inhabitants which was quite puzzling to think of.



In my case the most exciting thing that happened in Siem Reap was visiting a holy place in the town. This holy place is of course the brand new boutique hotel Pippeli Pensione. Let me tell you the story.

A few months ago for some strange reason (believe me or not, I do not remember why!) I googled word pippeli which in Finnish is a cute word for dick. Either the first or second hit was this boutique hotel in Siem Reap called Pippeli Pensione. I shared the link with some friends and it started spreading and a few weeks later I even saw a newspaper article of it. And at some point I realized that god damn – we are actually going to Siem Reap during this Asia trip! So I made a promise to myself to make a pilgrimage to the place.

It took me a few hours to find the place even if they had an almost-exact location provided in google maps. The reason why I almost didn't find it is twofold: 1) the place is not officially open yet 2) according to local traditions if you don't want bad luck to the place you can't reveal the place's name before the place is fully ready.

But I did find it. I went in and a really nice couple greeted me at the entrance and asked if they could help me. I told them I'm just looking around and that I'm from Finland – at that moment they immediately understood why I was there. They were obviously aware of their name's reputation. In reality the name comes from the couple's children's names Pip and Eli (if I remember right). They started smiling a lot and showed me around a bit and offered some beer. In exchange for the beers they demanded that as the first Finnish person (they obviously now have an obsession for the strange Finnish people) I sign their bardesk. So I did. They promised to post the pictures to their facebook site but I'll see if I can post one here aswell. What a proud moment for a Finn!



Now we came back to Phnom Penh but without Olli. Olli took a bus from Siem Reap to Bangkok and his flight back to Finland leaves from there this Saturday. What a sad moment to lose our lottery minister! We have already been lost as we don't know who should do the lottery for bus seats for us, any of us three doing it just doesn't seem right. I hope we can manage somehow. Currently we are having some breakfast in Phnom Penh and in half an hour we continue to Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) in Vietnam by another bus. Some 10 days of Vietnam ahead of us three – wheeeeee. Let's see :)