If you enjoyed the read, please feel free to share it Pik 1: A work stool made from re-cycled polyethelyne Pik 2: Watch your hands! Let’s not have anymore accidents Pik 3: Got...
Read MoreIf you enjoyed the read, please feel free to share it My only arm amp on the day. He’s gittin’...
Read MoreIf you enjoyed the read, please feel free to share itHere in Cambodia the Khmers generally call each other ‘brother’ and ‘sister’, unless they are actually brothers and sisters in which case they probably just shout: ’Hey you!’ Anyhow, it’s charming and a whole lot better than ‘comrade’, which must have been the reluctant vogue for a grim long while. So by now I have a few Khmer friends and they call me Bong Steve, only it comes out more like ‘Bong Stayeu’, which I like. Now, man, I’m Bong Battambang. I arrived here just yesterday afternoon and already I like it very much, which is handy, cuz it’s going to be my new crib for a small handful of weeks. In the near vicinity and within easy day-rides I can access many places to the NW, towards the Thai border and the NE towards Lao. These are areas where decades of militarism have left behind thousands of tonnes of unexploded ordnance, where the de-mining outfits of all sizes are most active, and where, sadly, amputees can be found in appalling abundance. These are the ‘Maiming Fields’. It’s a 3 day ride up from Phnom Penh; roughly 100 K a day. You gotta get started early cuz by 10h30 the heat’s on. There’s 20 K of pretty ugly sprawl getting out of Phnom Penh and from there all the way it’s kinda hit and miss. Some of the longest straightest hottest stretches of unabashedly demoralizing road, full of marauding lorries and buses gnashing by like Great Whites late for a feeding frenzy. Happily, that shit is well-interspersed with landscapes that make you hold your breath and village scenes that make you want to round everyone up for a group hug. The same river that lends so much grace to Phnom Penh, the Tonle Sap, comes in and out of view all the way to Kampong Chinang: whole floating villages and the most unlikely vessels, countless fishermen and fisherfamilies, bathing livestock, and frolicking kids. The humble stilted house has become my all-time favorite abode. There are many variants, from fancy-pants ones with terracotta roofs and stuccoed walls, to the down-market huts with frond roofs and woven reed sides. The middle-tiered ones are...
Read MoreIf you enjoyed the read, please feel free to share it Here’s a map of Cambodia. The areas in blue are where the highest concentrations of landmines, cluster bombs and other unexploded munitions (UXO) are to be found. In the far NW you’ll see the town of Pailin, which was the Khmer Rouge’s last stronghold til they were ousted by the Vietnamese in ‘79. They make new amps up there everyday…...
Read MoreIf you enjoyed the read, please feel free to share itChristmas in Cambodia. There is one; at least there has been for me. Lots of good things on the boil and even tho Ol’ Santa would positively expire in this heat in his uni, never mind his beard, I get the feeling he did do a drive by (late at night when it was a little cooler). I got an early present in the form of the Mighty Mekong itself. Billy and I took pedicabs (called ‘ciclos’ here) down to the river. He jumped out on the way and picked up a 6pak of Corona and a brick of ice the size of a building block. Corona is a lot pricier and, I would say, shittier than the local beer, but there’s no accounting for taste, or Christmas, when you think about it. Billy and his pedi-dude were on a first-name basis and the guy was totally toothless (the other guy, not Billy. Billy’s still 13 or 14 teeth left) and both he and his ciclo were so skewed that, tho his pedal-stroke was cool on the starboard side (I’m a cyclist, remember), he was showing 2 inches of daylight between his foot and the pedal at bottom-dead-center on the port side. He just kinda nursed it around with his right leg. That all takes some doing as those pedicabs weigh, like, 200 lbs. There are no fat ciclo drivers. No rich ones either; they not only only rent them, they bunk down in them at night. Sometimes their pimps give them a douche and dinner (tarantula, perhaps, or something a little less hairy on weekdays) before nighty-nights. It all puts the tough-titty back in tough. The river is majestic, and its pace is something north of stately. The whiff on the bank alternates between primordial ooze mixed with human faeces (the only thing gnarlier, I think, is feline faeces), and something almost saline and fresh and bracing. The wind blows allthetime, so it’s never nasty for long. Our boat we had to ourselves and it would have fit in nicely on the Mississippi circa 1890. It was great, charming and shitty. Our skipper’s voice hadn’t changed yet, yet...
Read MoreIf you enjoyed the read, please feel free to share itJust over a week now in Phnom Penh. First couple of days I sure wasn’t good for much as this place really drops a bomb on your senses. I’m settling now and seeing more charm in this city every day. The river accounts for a lot of the charm; it’s big and broad with a powerful current and actually two rivers cuz the Mekong is joined by a big tributary, the Tonle Sap, right smack in front of town. There’s a big and well-done promenade for miles down there and it seems every day most locals head down there at some point over the day. At 5 on the nose all 4 lanes of the road that runs parallel get jammed; some of it’s the after-work crowd but lots or most is just peeps getting out for a look-see. After dark a cool wind mercifully blows from upstream and hundreds of folks gather there to do a funky kind of low-impact jazzercise, to kick around a ball or to eat gawd knows whatall from a million carts. Actually I do know one thing they’re eatin’ and it’s bugs. Big ass bugs; and a variety of them too. I had me a little sample, I mean a teeny one. I had no choice whatsoever; it was a peer-pressure thing. I chose a cricket leg (a rear one, so I’m not totally feeble). It was tasty. They actually deep-fry mofo Tarantulas, if you can believe that. I was in a canteen when an ex-pat Kiwi took one out of a bag and ate it, bit by bit; the whole thang. There was no way he coulda eaten it, like, shooter-style – it was 5 inches long anyhow and all, of course, hairy. When he broke a leg off the thorax or whatever you call the giant round part that’s filled with venom and shit, well, you could see actual meat inside the leg, lots of it, and it was kind of creamy white. If you could get over the fact that it was hairy on the outside … and arachnoid … it would probably be both filling and succulent. I mean,...
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