Open Air Taxi

Once through the arrivals and equipped with my 3.5G SIM, I needed to make my way to the hotel: I'd already been approached by a multitude of people trying to get me to use their transport and I haggled for a taxi between competing firms and managed to get one for $7, which seemed reasonable.

My driver led me out to the car park, and at first, I thought my car was a rather lovely limo-looking car that he slowed down in front of when he got near it and I hovered round the boot… only to realise that my transport was the tuk-tuk parked next to it! No wonder the price was so good, and now I realise what the losing firm meant when they muttered “it may be cheaper, but you don’t understand cars in Cambodia”.

Oh well, I didn’t have very much luggage so rather than go back to the taxi queue, I hopped on board and I shouted at the driver about how long the journey was, and he said about 20 minutes, so I held on tight and soaked in the smells, dirt, sights and noise and off we went, hurtling through the streets of Phnom Pehn!

The journey was actually about 40 minutes, which was fine: any more and I think I would have been sick. Or had heart failure – the roads are not particularly well built and there don’t appear to be many rules so cars, tuk-tuks, motorbikes, bicycles, people etc all come at you from all directions.