Zelma’s Trip

So I eventually arrived in Phnom Penh on the bus in the evening. I headed to the lakeside area of the city on the recommendation of someone at the guesthouse in Siem Reap. When I arrived and checked into the guesthouse the room I was shown seemed very small but I can cope with that kind of thing and arguably this was due to my room being mahusive at the guesthouse in Siem Reap. I then realised that there was no water and when I asked a member of staff he turned a stopcock on at the wall. I thought nothing of this (learn girl learn) and went to have dinner. I decided to opt for the traditionally Cambodian dish of vegetarian pizza which was lovely! While I was eating I asked the waitress where I could buy shampoo (whilst doing the obligatory gestures), she looked slightly confused but suggested I go to the Russian market in the morning. I thought this was a bit strange especially when I asked if there were any shops closer and she said no. Later she asked a friend who came to talk to me. He said, "So you want to buy hair?" I was like, "No, shampoo!". He proceeded to call his friend a stupid idiot and we all burst into fits of giggles.

When I returned to the guesthouse I got cleaned up and went to bed. The bathroom appeared to be making far too many dripping noises and, when it finally got to the stage that I couldn’t stand it any more, I went and asked at reception. Firstly they didn’t really understand and went and played with something downstairs. I asked what they had done and they said that they always needed to do "that" to get the water to the third floor. Then when I repeated that my bathroom was flooding they got annoyed and asked why I didn’t tell them. When the man came upstairs he scratched his head for a while and made annoyed noises. Then he came up with the brilliant solution of turning the main stopcock off and only turning the water on when I wanted to use it. I pointed out that this would not solve the problem of none of the water draining and he scratched his head again. He then suggested that if I did as he had said and only used a small amount of water then this would not fill up enough to leak into the bedroom. I enquired what would happen when I showered the following morning and he again looked puzzled. I eventually negotiated that they move me.

When I was moved I was in a much larger room with an extra bed. I think I was destined to have a rubbish night’s sleep though and tossed and turned all night due to not being able to get cold enough with the badly positioned fan!

In all fairness they did change my room to a far nicer one free of charge and the rooms were fine. I think my irritability may have been slightly hormonal which also often means sleeping is a pain. Anyway, enough of those kind of details!