We have survived the journey to Phnom Penh in our tuk-tuk, and the first order of business was to eat at our second favorite restaurant, Sumatra.
Chow-Time At Sumatra 😋
There is nothing like a good meal after a long road-trip, and our first destination in Phnom Penh is always Sumatra, an Indonesian restaurant with somewhat affordable dishes, friendly staff, and a calm atmosphere. Previously our favorite restaurant was Irrawaddy, a Burmese restaurant with the best food in the capital, but it shuttered during the economic hardship of the pandemic.
Sumatra managed to survived the pandemic, I suspect because they also have a small Khmer customer base that kept them alive when international tourism dwindled and many foreign residents began leaving Cambodia. Also, Indonesian foods are not extremely different than Khmer cuisine, other than perhaps tempeh which most Khmers find bizarre, especially when explained how it's made. Apologies for not taking any food pics, I was far too hungry and ate everything up before thinking about my Hive readers.
Killin 'Time ⌛
After Sumatra the goal was to find a non-sketchy affordable dentist that could arrange some braces for my wife. She has a milk-tooth that she never removed, and years of crowding have given an uneven bite with occasional lockjaw. With a wee bit of research, we arranged teeth cleanings for the 4 of us and and also Pov's tooth removal and braces procedure.
We had approximately 45 minutes to kill before the dentist, and we though this would be enough time to relax at the riverside. Well, it is so chaotic there that I couldn't even get a parking spot good enough to ensure our loaded tuk-tuk wouldn't be robbed of all items, so I abandoned the riverside and went to a burning hot public park with very few trees and shade. It's okay though, by the time we negotiated traffic to get there, we had already wasted the 45 minutes. We should've just gone to the dentist's office and parked in front to wait.
Tooth Time 🦷
After arriving at the dentist, they made quick work of our teeth cleanings, perhaps a little too quick. It was the fastest cleaning I've ever had, and after it was done the dentist left the room without telling me it was over. I had to remove the disposable apron myself, fold it, and place it on the table for someone to hopefully collect. Also, I mentioned to the dentist that my front tooth had a weak vaneer with a small crack, but as long as things didn't get aggressive it wouldn't be a problem.
Other dentists have already told me to leave it alone because the crack hasn't grown, plus there is so little tooth left that an implant may be needed if it breaks. Well, at the end of the cleaning the dentist began grinding away at my cracked tooth, and I couldn't stop because I couldn't speak or see, I should've grabbed her arm and told her and pulled it away.
She didn't ask to do this, and all she did was make my already sketchy tooth thinner, weaker, and more sensitive. She also exposed the bigger crack inside which was previously being protected by a bonding agent. I now suspect I've got around three months left with my front tooth, and if she hadn't f*cked with it without asking, I could've lived with it until death provided I never bit a rock. This is Cambodia though, and one of the biggest problems here is that very few people take pride in their work or business.
Hotel Mishap 🤷♂️
Pov got a cleaning just like the rest of us, but her big procedure was schedule for the next day, so stay tuned for that. After the dentist we were invited to stay at Pov's sister's spare house to save some hotel money. It is actually outside the capital, and it took an hour and a half of battling traffic to get there, but the place was left in ruins by the previous tenants and wasn't prepped for our stay. There was no running water or a bed to sleep in, and the place looked as though it hadn't been cleaned in years.
After driving all day I still have hours of Hive work to do, so I really need a place where I can work and rest well, so we realized this place wouldn't work. We spent another hour or two driving around the area to find a suitable guesthouse, but only found an affair hotel, a common business here. Basically these are hotel rooms with a place to pull your car inside and close a privacy curtain behind it, denying your wife the chance to see if your car is parked at the affair hotel.
Visitors not paying to stay are not permitted at these places, and this prevents nosy spouses from wandering inside to scan the cars for a cheating partner. We didn't want to stay at this place, and plus we obviously weren't welcome nor the type of guests that typically frequent these places. After that my sister-in-law brought us to a suitable place, but I had already missed out on hours of work, so my sleepless life continues, and here I am at 8am doing online work when we should be eating breakfast in the capital.
Oh almost forgot about the thumbnail. That is a picture of the painting hanging from a broken electrical wire in our hotel room. I wasn't interested in it until Monkey-B made me aware that the elephant p*nis looked more like a hand than a banana. She felt it was in appropriate and an unneeded addition to an otherwise quality elephant painting.
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