Yesterday we arrived in Sisophon, which is also catchily known as Svay, Svay Sisophon, Srei Sophon or Banteay Meanchey, and on Google maps it comes under Serie Saophoan.... It's north west of the country, about an hour from the Thai border. Most Cambodians have spent some dead time here changing buses, as it sits on the main junction between motorways. So maybe it's a bit like the Preston of Cambodia. (Which I have recently discovered has the second largest bus station in Western Europe! Who would have thought??!)
Anyway, a big change from Phomn Pehn - for starters you can cross the road easily, without relying on the blind faith that a million tuktuks, motos and SUVs will part for you. In fact there seem to be only two tuktuk drivers in town, both of whom we have now met. One has the most pimped out tuktuk seen to date, with neon lights, a speaker and even a TV. Wowz.
Another different is we didn't we didn't see a single barang (white person) in a two hour walk. So we probably made quite a sight for the locals - too sweaty white people of drastically different heights wandering the dusty, shadeless roads under the very strong heat.
(I should explain here to say that by 'we', I mean me and Sue Guiney, who started up the Writing Through Cambodia programme that I'll be working on here.)
We passed a quite eerie deserted fairground
which was surrounded by dozens of these beautiful guys in a godly tug-of-war
In the evening we went to an amazing Cambodian barbeque restaurant. You barbequed your own meat (pork in our case) on the top of the grill and then in the rim below you cooked noodles, green beans, lemon grass and spinach in a stock. It was DELICIOUS.
So, overall my first impressions of Sisophon is that it's slightly run down, but quite peaceful and compact. I think I could grow to like it - or at least I will try to do as I'll be returning three times! It's as close to a home as I'll have here.
Next time, they'll be more teaching, less Trip Advisor, promise. Now off for some noodles.
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