June 2009
6 posts
I hope never again to look down and wonder: should I grab that mouse by the tail and fling it off, or drive using only my fingers?
And then the mouse ran off the throttle, into the moto and back again and I managed to get home without screaming, crashing or falling. But I did fairly throw myself off the moto once I got home and tried desperately to shake the varmint out. No luck. Fingers crossed...
Easy Rider
A few weeks ago, I bought a motorbike. It was terrifying for a few minutes, and then just really fun. I haven’t got a license or plates, so my biggest fear is the tiny swarms of policeofficers packed on certain corners. The most valuable skill in such situations is not minding alternate routes and planning ahead to use SUVs as cover. But there’s invariably that painful moment when...
May 2009
18 posts
Yes, I Really Eat Every Meal Out
There’s a pretty mind-blowing array of restaurants in this city, but somehow I keep eating at the same 10 or 15—and, since I never cook, it’s turned improbably repetitive. Sigh. Such problems I face. Anyway, to rectify the situation, I’ve been trying to systematically work my way through the best regional restaurants. Singaporean Saturday, Indonesian Sunday, Malaysian Monday,...
WatchMore post-storm photos here.
An Internal Dialogue
Me: Can you please update your f--ing blog?
Me: No
Me: Uh, cause you're so busy these days, right?
Me: Look, I never claimed to *not* be lazy.
Me: Sigh. Can you at least post some photos or something? Sometime? Anytime? You're bleeding readers.
Me: Fine, but it will take a couple week.s.
-apologies to whoever's still reading this-
La Dolce Vita
Evenings in Phnom Penh the parks - more or less empty during the hot or rain-soaked days - throng with people. Food vendors and balloon hawkers line the edges, unmarried couples steal an hour, families take over the lanes with badminton wars and so on. It’s like any park in any city, writ late. Around 5, there’s the inevitable jazzercise class, around 6 kids start blasting music. And...
Watch
BEST DIM SUM ON EARTH
On Thursday, I was still out at 3 am which meant (I realized in a moment of utmost epiphany) the storied early morning dim sum place would only just be opening. This was thrilling stuff. We all know early-morning food is the finest on the planet (I’m looking at you Golden Nugget, and you, Clarks, and even you, Veselka.) So I did the only appropriate thing: I whined like a baby until enough...
April 2009
11 posts
Sorry for the Lack of Posts of Late
Rainy season’s come early to Cambodia this year. On the plus side, the searing heat all but dissipates. On the minus: the city is a lake. How can a place that faces the same flood-like rains every single year still have streets that fill like a bathtub in 10 minutes? Very easily, it turns out.
On Friday it rained two hours and St. 51 was knee-high and Norodom calf-high and 178, apparently,...
Happy Khmer New Year (winners)
(recently-arrived) copy editors who just read an article on the subject vs. freakishly happy (Cambodian) bar girls. round one.
1: So, how do you celebrate Khmer New Year?
2: Oh, we give food and drink to the angel!
1: Like offerings?
2: Offerings, yeah. This year, the angel likes to drink blood so we give blood!
1: Oh, uh, of course, like red juice, right?
2: Yeah, and Coca Cola. That counts, too. But it's not so good the angel wants blood. I think this year there will be a lot of accidents!
3: Yeah, last time there were so many accidents all year long. So many! It was such a bad year!
1: ...
1: Huh. So, uh, we've really got good timing.
Happy Khmer New Year (losers)
It’s Khmer New Year this week which, apparently, means the staff of the Daily are to be the only people in the entire city. Think every summer exodus you’ve encountered combined and you’ll have something starting to approach Phnom Penh during the holiday. To wit: the Ministry of Tourism just announced that every single guest house and hotel around the country is booked....
Things on a Moto
2. Motodop and I are speeding along this morning when I hear a “quack quack quack” behind me and up pulls a woman with a kid on her lap, massive ball of a bag between legs, and, hanging off the back seat, 20 live ducks. Snowy heads bouncing up and down and otherwise calm, pink tongues quack-quacking as they fly down the boulevard.
1. Family of five in what might as well be Sunday...
April=August
April equals August if you threw August into a kiln - as long as you are under the sun, there’s no escape from the utterly searing heat. Riding on a moto is as bad as walking; there’s a breeze, sure, but it’s about as cooling as steam. Remember that episode of the Twilight Zone where the mercury kept rising and rising till all the thermometors broke and slowly baked to death?...
I swam the 850 meters across the Mekong yesterday morning and in addition to the glorious prize of not drowning and a 29 min time,* I also won a sunburn! Now I know that if your big not-drowning plan is to swim on your back three-quarters of the way, you should remember sunscreen. Remind me again, athletic family, what’s fun about physical exertion to the point of exhaustion? Ah, I jest. ...
March 2009
20 posts
Duch Trial Opening Statements, Part I
I spent yesterday morning at the opening statements of the Duch trial. Fun times, I know. The trials are held by the phenomenally-named Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia in a slightly extraordinary courtroom outside of town. The bus there was packed with NGOers, journalists and the likes—a mix of Cambodians and Westerners, and the court itself filled with everyone from school...
KR Trials Begin
After years of planning, and amid endless (and under addressed) allegations of corruption, political pandering and the like, the Khmer Rouge genocide trials begin in earnest today. The first of five* defendants is Duch, chief torturer at Tuol Sleng. I’m not going to write much about it now because I’m not a fraction as informed as this guy or this or these. But I am planning to attend...
Can I Please Rewind the Weekend?
I spent the weekend in Kep, which means for two glorious days we did nothing but swim and eat in grimy seaside joints where the crabs were plucked straight from the water and fried up with Kampot pepper and down beers and wander for miles without being offerered a single moto ride and stare at stars and stumble down pitch black streets without always almost being rundown and, and, and. It really...
From the Desk
There’s been a couple stories of late I’ve been especially enamored of. One is about a report issued by a think tank allied with the Economist contending that Cambodia is the fourth most likely country to face massive “unrest”. The report is so borderline ludicrous, it’s got everyone in a tizzy: the UK is more at risk than Iran, Cambodia’s got Afghanistan beat,...
(Guilt) Tripping and Media Relations
Sorry it’s been so long folks. I kept putting it off and then posting anything seemed far too monumental. So I’m taking the advice of some wise friends and just writing whatever in order to get back in the saddle, on the horse, insert whatever metaphor floats yer boat here. Oh, speaking of boats… Last weekend I went on a news booze cruise for the multitudes of Phnom Penh-based...
Storm Clouds
Remember my rosy-cheeked, wide-eyed freakonomics post of earlier? Chuck it out the window, those numbers were indeed too good to be true. On Friday the International Monetary Fund released a new report about the state of Cambodian’s finances. Somehow, in the course of two months, it changed its mind and decided that a country whose main sources of income come from tourism and the garment industry...
Night and Day
at the Royal Palace (click to blow up)
WatchThis endless column of well-dressed guests were following a band down to the wedding at the end of my block Saturday morning. Not such a bad thing to wake up to, all things considered.
