Stocking up on 4G
There was hardly any natural light in our dorm, so it was hard to wake up. Instead, we had a nice and chilled out lie in, I’m not complaining mind you! Once we had got up, we went down to the café area. (If you’ve been reading my previous posts) I’ll give you one guess as to what I had for breakfast. You (probably) guessed it! I had a nice portion of muesli, fresh fruit, and yoghurt on top! No regrets. As I sat there, munching my favourite breakfast, I wondered where the day would take us. It hadn’t crossed my mind at all, but little did I know, I’d be watching a movie in Phnom Penh later. A simple, yet unexpected, surprise.
Once I was dressed and ready to roll, we headed out onto the mean streets of Phnom Penh. They’re not actually mean, it just sounded good in my head. We tracked down a nearby Metfone shop, as we needed to get our mobile data sorted. It had stopped working on Koh Rong Samloem. When it hadn’t started working on the mainland, we knew something was amiss. Even though we had previously paid for 3-4 week’s worth of data, apparently it had run out after 2. No matter how we protested (which wasn’t very vigorous), we just had to pay for another week of data. Annoying, but nothing we could do!
Our city hobby
After the rage in our blood had settled (exaggeration), we nipped round the corner to the shopping centre. This time it was daytime, so everywhere was open. Just like normal, we had a good search through all of the shops, not intending to actually buy anything. We saw a shop that we describe as the holy grail of browsing. That shop is known as Mr. DIY. It has pretty much everything known to mankind in that shop. So if you’re up for browsing and seeing what random crap a shop has, this is the place for you.
For our first shopping centre experience, check it out here.
I invested in some new pens for my journal, as my biros from home were running out. I’m left-handed, which means with an ink pen, my hand smudges the writing on the page. Some of my socks from home were also wearing thin, so I had to invest in some of those too. I took a while to decide on what to get, but I took the plunge and got some. After our browsing session, we had a cheap meal in the centre.
If you’re familiar with shopping centres, you know that good stuff is usually on the top floor. This almost always includes a cinema; it’d be rude not to see what was on. We saw that Jumanji: Next Level was on, so we thought, what’s wrong with watching a movie in Phnom Penh? The pair of us dished out for a ticket, $2 each, and left. The movie was showing later this evening.
Catch up
We headed back to the hostel and chilled for a bit whilst we waited for the movie. I called my parents to have a good catch up and tell them that we’re seeing a movie whilst in Phnom Penh, later today. It’s good to touch base every now and again. This is especially true if you’re homesick, but I’ve not felt homesick so far. I definitely miss my parents and family, but UK life as a whole has nothing on travelling. After we had a good chat, I had to sneak in a bit of anime and YouTube in the mix. They’re always winners for passing time.
Mat and I returned to the cinema and entered the screen, armed with popcorn and coke. We sat in our seats at the back, the only 2 Westerners in the room. Mind you, we were thankful that the movie was in English and had Khmer subtitles (selfish I know). Everyone found parts of the movie funny, but that was an understatement for me and Mat. We were absolutely howling, the whole way through the movie, it was so damned funny. I loved every minute of it.
After the movie had finished, we headed to the hostel for one final time. We chilled for the night, but we also got talking to some folks from Plymouth (city in the UK). It was refreshing to hear people with similar stories to us; fed up of working in the UK so decided to leave and go travelling for an amount of time. Big respect to them.
