December 2005 in Cambodia

Thursday the 1st
Dark, Hot and Tired
It is now 11:30 in the morning and we have had no electricity in the office all morning.
According to local wisdom, this should have stopped by now. As December and January are the ‘cold months’ when the temperature drop to a ‘freezing’ 25C.
Thus their should be much less demand for air-conditioners and fans, thus reducing the city’s electricity consumption, thus meaning we should have enough to go around.
Seems that is not the case this year, ho hum.


Friday the 2nd
A half day for me.
I have some external reports that I really need to finish for a meeting on Monday, if I am in the office for the afternoon I will probably not get them done – interruptions, power cuts, et cetera. So I decide to work from home for the afternoon, thus freeing up my weekend for weekend things rather than work J

Arrive home at lunch and am happy to see that somehow Heng has scrounged up enough cash to buy a new Calor gas bottle for the oven, we can cook again !
Now all I need to do is buy a fridge (and some food to put in it)

Oh, and a television, and a wardrobe, and something to sit and watch TV on…

Damn I need a REAL job REAL soon !?!?!!


Saturday the 3rd
First weekend in my new flat!
Decided to try and get to know my new neighbourhood a little better. Strolled around the streets nearby, stopped at one café for an iced coffee, stopped at another for breakfast.
Eventually arrived at P’sar Olympic (the Olympic market) which is now my nearest Khmer market, it is one of the larger ones, selling not only food but clothes and assorted household stuff. Might come in handy.

The local motodop’s that have been ferrying me around all week to work and back seemed most surprised that I was strolling around and kept asking where I was going and obviously were confused by my walking around


Tuesday the 6th
Locksmith to the rescue
Somewhere between taking my bike into the shop, moving out of my old flat, moving into my new flat and picking my bike up from the shop I managed to lose my keys.
Now, initially this was not a problem, the bike shop had the ignition key to the bike, my office keys were replaced the following morning I found them missing, but the problem remained about the key to the petrol tank on the bike.
In the UK this would have been easy enough to deal with – if somewhat costly. Here I was starting to worry a little about what I was going to do (especially as I was getting low on petrol!

So after Heng and I had turned the flat upside-down for the fourth time she said that she would take me to a key shop (which was news to me that Cambodia even had such a thing)

So it turns out that ‘shop’ was not quite the right word in this case. Just after lunch today we were sitting at the side of the road on the junction of streets 360 and 63 with a one-eyed Khmer guy who had a set of lock-picks, a selection of key blanks and a diesel powered hand-grinder. It took him around 20 minutes to pick the lock on the tank, dismantle the insides and then he started to eye up the tumblers with his one good eye and start grinding notches in a blank key. A further 10 minutes later he has furnished a working key, and had also cut me a spare ignition key and charged me the princely sum of 5,000 riel (US$1.25, or just under £1)

As they say, necessity is the mother of innovation !


Sunday the 11th
Movie Premier and Heng’s Screen Debut
The day started very early, about 06:30. For some reason the invite-only grand opening was taking place at 08:30 on a Sunday morning. Of course, the fact that I had been out the night before handing out free VIP invitations to the opening to various friends of mine in various bars did not help the fact that my head felt like there was Khmer wedding marquee being erected within it.

Arriving around 8 we hung around outside the cinema waiting for the red ribbon cutting ceremony for nearly an hour – yes, we were on Khmer time.

All the while the TV cameras were rolling and the young freshie girl presenter from TVK was interviewing people in the crowd, as well as the actors and actresses, who were just hanging around in the crowd with us. Somewhat more relaxed than their Hollywood counterparts would be at an LA opening of their new movie.

Eventually we had the ribbon cutting and we all filtered into the cinema, as we started to enter the auditorium we were handed fruit and water by the ushers.

Thankfully inside was well air-conditioned and a blessed relief from the sun that we had been standing in for so long.

As the last few people were taking their seats an announcer gets up on stage and introduces:

The stuntmen and martial arts crew; who after taking a bow launch into a quick enactment of a fight. After this the actresses get up on stage and take a bow and a round of applause. Then the director, producers, technical crew and assorted odds and ends get up to take theirs.

Finally with curtain up around 09:30 we were besieged with adverts for beer, phones and makeup taking us up to about 10:00 for the grand premier of…

The Divided Heart
A teenage love story and rights of passage movie set mostly in Phnom Penh. It tells the story of a beautiful girl who goes off to school and has two boys fall in love with her. One a nice guy from a rich urban family, the other an equally nice, but poor, kid from the provinces with his oddball sidekick acting as a scaramouch. Neither of them is really the villain of the piece, that role falls to the rich kids highly jealous, psycho, ex-girlfriend; who between causing a scene in a burger bar, trying to bribe Miss Beautiful to leave town and arranging for her to be kidnapped (along with telling the kidnappers to rape her) fulfils the obligatory ‘baddie’ position quite enough for a Sunday morning family movie.

Although the movie is all in Khmer, I could easily manage to follow it with my modest language skills and the fact that such a narrative is almost universal in storytelling around the world gives the viewer a sense of ease with the plot.

At this point I would like to give a special thanks to my western, non-Khmer speaking friends who turned up, slight warily, to support us all, they also found it reasonably easy to follow and enjoyed the morning greatly.

One of the refreshing things about this Khmer movie was the fact that it was just a simple love story, or love triangle, set against life in modern Phnom Penh, with pretty much only the obstacles that you face in everyday life. The fact that it did not contain; men with snakes for hair, or giant super snakes, or bouncing zombie vampire monsters with white squares of paper on their foreheads was also very much a bonus for us non Khmers and does, I feel, give a sense of hope that the industry here is not just going to keep churning out schlock horror gore laden B movies forever.

I will not give away too much of the ending, but it will suffice to say that, as one would suspect, all turns out well in the end, the guys survive, the girl escapes with her honour and virtue intact and the wicked get ‘a right royal arse kicking’, to quote a friend of mine. Having watched them film various scenes from the movie over the last six months and seeing the finished project, I would have to say that the stuntmen and martial arts crew certainly earned their money in the final showdown, especially as I know that they used no protective clothing and were working for peanuts, when they filmed that ‘right royal arse kicking’.

At some point I the New Year VCD’s will be available for sale; I will post a few back to the UK !


Week of the 12th to the 16th
My New Khmer Street; Same as the Old Khmer Street ?
Snapshots from my new window

Having recently moved into my new home, I have spent several early evenings sat on my new, large, L-shaped balcony. Just watching the world go by and musing on my new location and new neighbours. (I really, really, have to buy a television soon!)

Diagonally opposite is a small building site where a small office with flats above is being built, a bright, shiny, new blue building of seriously geometric design. Last weekend a surly looking Frenchman turned up to survey his new office building and flat, his Khmer wife was decked head to toe in western clothing and was glinting even in the distance with expensive looking gold and jewellery.

To the left is a small wooden house with a lean-to wooden shop at the front, which sells the usual assortment of shampoo, toilet roll, cigarettes, soft drinks, mangos and blocks of ice. At any given time there are usually half a dozen people milling around outside or pulling up on moto’s to buy things.

To the right is another large house which seems to have a constant stream of expensive looking cars and 4x4’s coming and going, some with NGO license plates, some with military police license plates. Yesterday lunchtime I came home to find a shiny new Jaguar S-Type parked outside my side door and one very smug looking Khmer guy leaning against it grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

At the end of my short road, on the corner is a small wooden shack restaurant serving plates of rice and noodles, outside which one usually finds several motodop’s hanging around should one need transport anywhere.

Opposite my door is a small Khmer concrete town house, in the evening around a dozen small children, 8 to 12 years of age, usually gather in the front room to learn English, from my balcony I can hear them reciting:

A is for apple; apple ply_pomm;
B is for book; book seal_pow
C is for car; car laan
D is for door; door t’weaa

And so on…

Underneath on the ground floor, with a completely separate set of entrances and stairwells is my paranoid, highly security conscious, landlord and his family. They have a shop a few road up in P’sar Olympic selling gold and jewellery

During the course of the day, up until the early evening a stead procession of street vendors’ cycle along touting their wares buy shouting out the name of the goods or service they offer; fresh bread, shoe repairs, key cutting and knife sharpening. Early in the morning there is often an old woman who pushes a large wooden barrow along the street full of vegetables and salad for sale.

As well as these cycling vendors there are the usual assortment of people selling food from wooden or steel handcarts that they push around; Chinese dumplings, papaya salad bok la’hong, rice pork bai suh_ch’rook, or whatever the current seasons fruits are.

Towards the end of the day, as traffic grows light, but before daylight totally abandons us, it is quite common to see several kids playing badminton, without a net, in the middle of the road, just batting the shuttlecock back and forth for fun. Elsewhere, street children are sifting through the rubbish outside peoples houses looking for empty cans or bottles that can be sold for recycling – two empty drinks cans (coke, beer, et cetera) sell for 100r, that is 2.5cents or just over 1 shiny new British penny.

These are scenes that anyone living in Cambodia, especially Phnom Penh, will be familiar with. After all the stress and hassle of moving house, I find that they are strangely reassuring.


Friday the 16th
Emerging Markets Consultants
At 11:00 this morning I have a semi-interview with a group of management consultants based here in Phnom Penh. They do not need extra staff just yet, but if they get all of the big contracts that they have been chasing this year – that are scheduled to start work next year, then they might have a position available for me…

The hour may or may not have been a waste of time, the partner I was meeting spent more time playing with his new PDA than talking to me… hmm
We are going to meet again mid January when they know more about next years work position.


Monday the 19th
A Proper Interview
This afternoon I have an actual interview for an actual job. Strangely enough I did not apply for the job, I just happened to send a speculative CV into this company at the right time !
I know that they are interviewing quite a few people so I guess we will just have to see…
Interview went okay, in fact, I have been invited back for a second one tomorrow ?!


Tuesday the 20th
Round 2
Second interview/test went okay, but they still have 3 or 4 more people to see so it is going to be a few more weeks before a decision is made…
Ho hum, I know patience is a virtue, but …


Friday the 23rd
Christmas build up
Spent the morning running around; going up to the VSO Office, going to the bank – damned expensive this Christmas lark.

Also managed to pick up my bike from the shop at long last, where it has had a new battery fitted and some wiring replaced. The new battery was difficult to find apparently, so the whole thing ended up costing me US$30 – ouch, there goes Christmas lunch!


Saturday the 24th
‘twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a gecko
Dave at the Peace Café is having an ‘open mike’ cabaret night, might be a laugh, plus he was talking about having some free beer !

Unfortunately, on the ride up there I met with a small accident. As I was just pulling out on to the Independence Monument roundabout, a huge, dark green, Landcruiser Prado 4x4 decided that it did not need to slowdown for the roundabout, or indeed change lanes or even look; fortunately I managed to swerve the bike out of the way of the two tons of metal screaming along at around 120kph, but in doing so I clipped the kerb (8 inches high here) which sent me and the bike spinning off onto the pavement. Thankfully, although god knows how, Heng came away without a scratch, hardly even a hair out of place(?!?!?) whereas I on the other hand have cuts and bruises all down my right arm and leg and also have a couple of painfully cracked ribs.

As I lay on the pavement with the (heavy 750) bike on me, wondering what the *&<£ had happened, Heng immediately started rounding up a couple of nearby security guards to help lift the bike and pick me up. After I had rested for a few moments, and checked again that she was actually unscathed, she managed to convince one of the guards to load my bike up into his pickup and take it home.

The Landcruiser Prado that caused all this? He did not even slow down, let alone stopped to see if anyone was hurt – B*&$>/& !

Have had the bike back from the shop about 6 hours, huhmph.


Sunday the 25th
So here it is Merry Christmas, everybody’s having fun
Arranged to have Christmas lunch at the Tell Restaurant with Chris and Ayat.
Due to last nights little mishap I was not feeling all that Christmassy, but I was feeling hungry so I limped out of the house complaining – closing my eyes and muttering a few unprintable words as I saw the mess down the right-hand side of the bike – big dent in the tank, front and back indicators snapped off, block and side panels all scratched up, rectangular headlight now without a right angle on it… oh well, worry about getting it repaired in the New Year when I get paid.

Arriving at the restaurant about 11:30AM we were only the second table in there, but we were all so hungry it did not matter that it was so quiet.

Splurging totally recklessly [financially] Chris and I both opt for the full 9 course Christmas banquet – with an all you can eat buffet as the main course US$22:50 a head
(actually, if truth be told my lunch was funded by mum and dads’ Christmas money – thanks!)

The food was fantastic. The roast smoked turkey, the honey glazed ham, the beef béarnaise, mmm, I feel hungry again just looking at the menu and typing that !

We finally admitted dining defeat at around 3 o’clock. After which we all went back to Chris and Ayat’s new house to slump in front of the TV with a couple of new DVD’s.

After about an hour Chris vanished off into a back room somewhere and reappeared 5 minutes later with a cheese plate (Camembert, Danish Blue, Mature Cheddar) , crackers and several bags of Walkers crisps – along with yet another bottle of red wine… aggghh.

Got home around 10 and was ready for an early night.


Monday the 26th
Boxing Day
Stayed at home all morning unable to move due to the huge excess of Christmas foods :-)

Only went out for 5 minutes in the afternoon because I had run out of painkillers for my ribs (thirty second walk –waddle- round the corner)

In the evening, we went up to the Peace Café for a couple of hours as Dave was showing the new King Kong movie on his big screen. However, due to technical difficulties we ended up watching it in black and white!?!


Tuesday the 27th
For some strange reason (nagging pain in the ribs maybe) I was awake about 6. So I figured that I would pop into work for a couple of hours, check my Email and then return home. Halfway driving into the office I happened to spot a friend of mine having breakfast at a new restaurant down a side street I cut through on my way to work. So I stopped and had some excellent Vietnamese coffee with him for an hour !

I like the fact that Phnom Penh is such a small Capital City you can so easily run into people like that – plus with it being so relaxed, you can just turn up an hour late for work because you stopped for coffee!?!?


Friday the 30th
Another big dinner !
The Ministry of Fish, never one to miss an opportunity, is having an ‘International New Years’ Dinner this evening. Kicking off at 6:30PM at a Chinese hotel / restaurant, I have no doubt that it will all be over and done with by 8:00PM

It was held at the same place as we went last year; although I remember the food being better last year – (the chicken was rubbery: ah fank you velly much)

By 8:00PM half of the people had left already and they were starting to warm up the karaoke, time for me to make a swift exit! As my friend Pete is down from Battambang town for the weekend we headed up to a newish bar called the Red Fox to meet up with him and catch up for an bit. He had had an awful ride down on his new bike – a 250cc dirt bike TTR – halfway down in the middle of nowhere the clutch cable had snapped, so he had to limp along in second gear for a couple of hours before he got to a town and was able to find a bike shop to get it replaced, he was then worried about making it to Phnom Penh before it got dark – you do not want to be stuck out on a provincial road late at night in the dark, where there are no lights and cattle, pigs, chickens and people just stroll across, or sleep on, the road !


Saturday the 31st
New Years Eve
Due to having no transport, no cash and a painful set of ribs; New Years Eve is cancelled.

Will have to see how things are in a couple of months when we have Chinese New Year, or the month after that when we have Khmer New Year…

Ho Hum said Pooh.

Cheers everyone and all the best, hope that you all had a merry Christmas and a happy new year – ‘health, wealth and happiness’ (as my Khmer friends say)

Darren