Weekend Three - Staying Put in Phnom Penh

I spent the weekend getting used to living in Phnom Penh and trying to banish the remnants of new-in-town shock and awe from my system. I'm starting to feel more at home and more comfortable walking around the parts of the city I've come to know well. I really enjoy my living arrangements in the colonial mansion. You might assume that to be an ironic nickname for my admittedly quite nice current abode, but in fact, it really is named the Colonial Mansion. And it comes complete with a pool, 24-hour wait staff, and an extra bedroom, just waiting for guests, gentle readers. (Easy enough to say when my readership is probably in the single digits and all related to me, but you guys are all invited.)

I'm really enjoying the night life here in the Pehn (yeah, that's what they call it, that stands for Phnom Penh.) Lots of chill lounges, nice people, and extremely cheap drinks. As for my days away from the office, they were quite full too. Since I've admitted that I live in the colonial mansion, I may as well admit to the world over the internet how much spa treatments have become a daily routine for me. I don't even wash my own hair anymore. It's true. (And it's absolutely fantastic, but don't think for a minute I'm not aware of the global inequalities driving the price of head massage and shampoo to such low and affordable levels. I'm only one woman, people, I can't change the availability of luxury at my fingertips... )

Anyway, it's not all idyllic, and it's not all massage and swimming in my luxury pool. I swear. I'm also going to transgender fashion shows for work and today I found an amazing vintage clothing shop and spent twenty dollars on five new vintage Korean and Japanese shirts and tops.

I'm painting a really rosy picture here, which is not totally accurate. I think I said before I felt the poverty was a sharp contrast to the catered-to-Westerners luxury treatment. I would revise that statement. The poverty is inescapable. With naked babies on the busy tourist streets and children begging from me as I ate ice cream near the riverfront; I may have had the developed world's niceties, but I'm enjoying them right alongside those who clearly are not. I'm trying not to sound sanctimonious about my pedicures and tapas (i.e. I can't even enjooooy all this fabulous food and drink, knowing there are hungry children out there...) but I do want to know the Phnom Penh outside of the cute storefronts and eclectic bar scene. It will be good to live here even longer and start to do just that.