Chon, Chon

Thinking it better to get breakfast before Chon picks us up, we went to the Dead Fish Guesthouse and Restaurant. There is such an obvious glaring reality between those businesses that have embraced commercialism and those who have not had the funding to do it yet, but they are side by side. Dead Fish is tremendously large with different levels seemingly floating in the air making it look like a 3 dimensional chessboard. One level juts out to the right, but there are stairs to the left going to the next level where everyone on any level is visible to the whole establishment. It is definitely designed for the younger crowd, which grabs your attention when you see all of the very youthful employees organized like bees in a hive completing their morning tasks without any authority figure giving them directions. One twenty-something was carrying loads of 10 large bricks up three levels to construct something, while another young man carried an armload of pipes.

We met Chon in front of our hotel; he was not as chipper today as yesterday. His mood further deteriorated when he told us his idea for the day, but Ron interceded and told him which temples we wanted to see (rather Ron wanted to see, I was just along for the ride). The places on Ron’s agenda were farther out than what Chon had anticipated, so they renegotiated for $40.00 for today. There was a definite lack of conversation and explanation while riding around in the car.

Without a tour guide license, Chon could not go into the temples with us. He said that guides within the temples cost an additional $25.00 a day. Quite a number of people had them making it interesting to hear these different guides speaking English, Japanese, Korean, French, Italian, and Spanish. Personally, I think a guide would have been sensory overload.

At the end of the day that ended at 2:00, Chon tried yet again to get us to go to the dinner show, but we refused once again. He asked about us using him again tomorrow, but we said we had made other plans and he did not push it. He seemed to know he milked the cow try.

With the holiday fast approaching, we decided it wisest to stay here two additional nights, so cleared it with the desk. We will leave here on January 1^st and go to Phnom Penh then. There is a double-decker bus with snacks and a bathroom for $10.00 for the five hour journey. The idea does not send me doing cartwheels, but is should be fine. We have to come back to book it.

At last we had to try the ATM machine again with Ron’s card. The moment I had been dreading fearing they cut off his card also. It worked and it spit out American dollars, not Cambodian Rieals. We went to get a snack, but it turned out to be so hearty, we just skipped dinner altogether.

We found the Blue Pumpkin a café with fantastic looking desserts has free WiFi, so we will check it out tomorrow.

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