Cambodia...enough already!?

Ok, so the excitement about Cambodia is waning.  On the chart of "culture shock," I should be getting past the "isolation" phase and into the "assimilation and acceptance" phase by now, right?  While not an exact science, I feel like it has been a pretty reliable chart.  Apologies in advance for the bit of whining.

So, I just don't like living in Cambodia that much.  Well, parts I like: most of the people, most of my colleagues, the restaurants, the spas, our cat.  However, the every day grind of fighting over a price and driver for my tuk tuk (because for me the traffic is too frenetic to walk or drive and there is no public transportation) and every other thing is really wearing me down.   It's especially annoying to have to call a driver, arrange a price, in order to be driven somewhere I can walk around.

In our apartment, I feel weird when the doorman carries my groceries and bows as I enter the elevator.  I guess it's something to get used to, but I wasn't really raised to accept a lot of help.  The class system is very much in place here.  In general, the rich do not even look the poor in the eye.

The view is pretty good, though, since I can see the sunrise and the sunset. 

There are Christmas decorations everywhere, so that's kind of nice.  (Cambodia has a lot of American style, over-the-top inflatable Santas and plastic trees, it's kind of funny.)

And the drumming. Argh the drumming!  We have a Chinese School nearby (called the Chong Cheng school... no joke) and every night, even weekends, the kids practice the drumming and dragon dance... for three hours.  That comes after the hours of aerobics (called Haat Praam!) from the stadium (I can count in Khmer up to 12, thanks to the instructors shouting the same numbers every sunrise and sunset.)  The ladies at my gym walk 1 mile an hour on the treadmill and talk at the same rate.  It's pretty funny. They might get more benefit from the aerobics classes, but they are the creme de la creme of Cambodia and it would be beneath them.

It's nearly time for the egg man to come around with his cart of eggs that not even our favorite driver, David, likes.  They are called "pregnant eggs" because there is a chicken embryo and some black powder on top.  He drives around on a moto. On his moto, there is a grill complete with wood burning kind of like a side car.

Around 10pm some guy comes around hitting a stick in a rhythm.  I have no idea what he is selling.
Then the dog barking starts. Then, the howling. Then the roosters.  Finally, our cat has an internal clock and starts meowing at 5am, even on Sunday. 


Well, I will try to focus on the things I like...and the hunt for a new apartment. We are halfway through our first year already.   I'll see how I like Vietnam.  My hopes of living in Asia are be quickly being replaced by a plan to move home...

Rain, Rain Go Away...

 This photo is a bit deceiving... it is on the river, so we don't know how much it is normally.

Tuk tuk driver workin' hard for the money. 

When I heard the words "rainy season" before moving abroad, I thought, "Oh, so it rains every day, that's ok."  Living in Mexico for 3 years gave me an introduction to what rainy season can be: streets becoming fast-moving river (especially dangerous if you are at a bottom of a hill,) soaked clothes in less than 2 seconds, the need to wear rubber shoes and a plastic coating of some kind, and that almost no umbrella can handle this kind of rain. Then, after late September, it hardly ever rains.  It usually rains once in January, so the farmers know when to plant the corn.  It is called Cabañuelas. 

I thought moving to Cambodia would be more like it was in Mexico... Rainy season in Cambodia lives up to the name "monsoon season" but there needs to be a more extreme term for it:  "river season?"  Within minutes, roads are flooded.  Somehow the moto-taxis (called tuk tuks) plow through.  One guy had a plastic covering for some innard of his motorcycle engine to prevent stalling.  It was pretty ironic driving by a kilometer of un-installed drainage pipes.

However, when the water is up to your knees  all you can do is walk (trying not to think about what's in the water,) or, if you're strong enough, bicycle, through it. 

The day before leaving for Siem Reap for the week-long holiday of Pchum Ben (a time to honor your ancestors according to the Buddhist calendar), I got a travel advisory about the flooding from the US Embassy.  We were taking a boat, and the warning would be a few days old by the time we got there... no worries. Well, I were kind of right.   I am pretty surprised the boat even let us leave Phnom Penh, as most of the flights that day were cancelled.

The tuk tuk driver earned every riel (the currency in Cambodia along with the US dollar) for his 15 kilometer drive to town.  The hotel we booked, thankfully, was on the non-flooded side of town. We saw the 3 major sites of Angkor (Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, and Ta Prohm) and a few of the smaller sites.  Many were inaccessible... they were not crowded, which was great.    We had a fun time despite most of the restaurants being closed either for the holiday or due to flooding.  

Well, it is still raining nearly everyday buckets and buckets.  Hope people are managing ok in the provinces (aka countryside.) Luckily, I am staying dry with my 2000 riel (50 cent) thin, plastic covering, 100% rubber shoes,  and hoping the "river season" will end soon... It will, and there is a holiday for it.  I will celebrate. 

Yam = Yum

Whenever I move to a new place, I am easily amused by trips to the market.  Here in Phnom Penh I sometimes feel like an alien on another planet.   Dragonfruit is a subtle tasting fruit with tiny black seeds.  Probably you can get this in the US, but here, it is very common.  It would be great with Tajin from Mexico...if only I brought some in my suitcase.  Also, there are millions of types of everything.  Uncle Barns' (instead of Uncle Ben's) is a type of panko bread crumbs.  Deva picked out Yam Flavored Ice Cream and I thought, um, eww. However, it's great!  I think it is taro root flavor.  The color is really yummy, too.  Sometimes this type of food-tasting/risk taking backfires such as in the moon cakes that Deva described as sawdust with fish paste filling. 

Remember kids, brush your teeth!

If this illustration doesn't make you more aware of your dental hygiene, I don't know what will.