I arrived about a week ago, but killed my laptop by corrupting some system files by not shutting down properly. There's a lesson for you all, shutdown your computer gracefully no matter how much of a rush you are in... it'll cost you more time when it breaks! Luckily the locals had a spare laptop I could borrow.
Phnom Penh is a small city, with a population of around 1 million. It's possible to drive the entire length of the city in 40 minutes - and that's not going any faster than 50km/h! The city is build at the point where the Mekong river meets the Tonlé Sap river. The designers of the city made the most of the location by having a nice riverfront area. Flags of many nations (100 at least!) are flown along the river bank. Somehow the Australian flag has prime position next to Cambodia's. The royal palace over looks the area, and there are plenty of good restaurants too.
Cambodia is slightly less developed than Vietnam. For instance, there are no metered taxi's here, in-fact there are no taxi's at all! Want to go somewhere? Hire a tuk-tuk or motorbike (and driver). The US dollar is still the most used currency here, with the local currency used to give small change. ATM's dispense 10,000 Cambodian riel notes (approx US$2.50), or US$20's and $50's. I don't know if large denomination riel notes even exist! Annoyingly the Internet connections here are pretty flaky.
Amusing English translations are very common in Cambodia. My favorite so far is the fire safety notice in my hotel room: "In case of fire, please don't worry. Our hotel is equipped with advanced scattering facilities to ensure you transmitted safely." I reckon they got that from a sci-fi film! I'm glad that in case of fire I'll be transmitted safely!
It's pretty common in Australia pub's to see "No shirt, no service". In one place here, I saw the Cambodian equivalent:
That's right - if you don't have a gun, you can't get any drugs!
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