Udong, Noch & Poona

I've been renting a 100cc "Honda Wave" scooter for the last few days. It's surprisingly practical for getting around Phnom Penh and surrounds, even though it only has one wing mirror, the headlight and indicators are broken and I can't get it into first as the gearbox is stuffed. Anyway, I decided to take the beast out on a day-trip to Udong yesterday which is 45km north of Phnom Penh. Udong was the capital of Cambodia in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries (after the decline of the Angkor Empire and before the capital migrated to Phnom Penh). There were around 10,000 people living there in the 1850's. Today, there is a large Buddhist Monastery, a few small villages and a number of crumbling old Stupa's on the hill which contain the ashes of kings and generals.

Riding through Phnom Penh was pretty crazy as usual, but the traffic eased up once I was out in the countryside which really is beautiful. The ride was alongside the Tonle Sap river for most of the way with paddy fields and fish farms on the other side. The people were very friendly, kids waving and practising their English on me as I buzzed past. Here's a short video clip taken in the outer suburbs of Phnom Penh - it's too dangerous to try this either in the city due to crazy traffic or in the countryside due to roaming cows, traffic on the wrong side of the road etc.



Arriving at Udong, a couple of kids on bikes rode up to me for a chat. They both had excellent English and were keen to show me around. I initially turned them down and scooted on to park the bike but they persevered and cycled after me to the parking spot. I figured it would be nice to have someone to chat to as travelling alone isn't much fun so I hired them as tour guides. Their names were Noch & Poona, and they were doing ad-hoc tour guiding in their spare time from school. As well as telling me all about the history which was interesting, we talked about school, jobs etc. It really struck me that these guys are not only bi-lingual at 17, but also have a real entrepeneurial spirit. In Australia, the UK and many other countries i'm sure they would have a great career ahead of them. Noch told me he wants to be a tour guide and they clearly are doing well here compared to a lot of people, but the lack of career opportunities is a real shame for young people. Having said that, there really is a positive spirit here in the kids which is great considering Cambodia's recent history and I think this is very encouraging for the future.

Here are a few more pics from the day, the one on the river is looking back across the Tonle Sap to Phnom Penh CBD - the Foreign Correspondents Club is in the middle I think for those who have been here.

Getting from A to B : Walking

So, getting around Phnom Penh can be pretty challenging. For a first time visitor to SE Asia, the crazy traffic and modes of transport are really remarkable so I thought i'd make a few blog notes on some of the ways we've been getting around town.

I'm starting at the bottom of the food chain and working up, Phnom Penh road rules at first sight are non-existent but there is structure and a simple rule-set here. Basically, if you're bigger than the other guy then you have right of way pretty much in any circumstances ie: a car has right of way over a tuk tuk, and a tuk tuk has right of way over a moto etc. For the pedestrian this unfortunately means that you really are at the bottom of the pile, just below ox carts and cyclists. Locals in Phnom Penh don't seem to walk much at all, catching moto's mostly or riding a scooter. It's only crazy barangs who will try to walk anywhere longer than a couple of blocks.


Pavements here look like they have been made by someone who has heard about the idea from a mate, and maybe seen a photo of one once, but really doesn't get what they are for. As the local businesses spill onto them, and people park cars on them, this means you have to walk in the road most of the time. On the rare occasions you can walk on the pavement you may well find someone driving a scooter along it. The town planners aren't going to win any awards for this beauty which is just outside our apartment...

The other traffic principle is for everyone to keep moving. Phnom Penh traffic doesn't move fast (maybe 30kmh maximum) but also it pretty much never stops. As a pedestrian if you're waiting for everyone to stop before you try to cross the road you'll be waiting a long time, including at pedestrian crossings (the "green man" is a flexible concept here). It's really a case of spotting your gap and moving slowly but confidently out into the traffic without making any sudden / unpredictable moves which could end up in a tangle with a moto. Em & I have been getting much better at this recently and an Irish tourist actually asked us for help crossing the road the other day. The green man here is pretty cool, he does this funky slow-mo run which gets quicker as the clock ticks down. Check out this clip, you can see the 4WD's, motorbikes etc blindly ignoring the crossing signal...



Yikes...you can see why none of the locals walk ;-)

Cooking up a storm

Before we left Australia some friends recommended a Cambodian cooking class to us. As i'm taking my domestic responsibilities seriously I decided to do it yesterday. The main draw was actually a guided tour around one of the local food markets, with the guide pointing out and explaining all the local fruit, vegetables, herbs, spices and fish. The tour was great for me as at first glance the local markets are pretty inaccessible to a barang, and i'm keen not to be just another expat shopping at the well over-priced supermarket, where all the fruit, vege's, meat & fish come shrink wrapped in plastic and don't look very good quality at all. I also found out what I should be paying for some of the key ingredients which will be very useful in future for bargaining purposes. The markets are crazy, a real assault on the senses - colourful, noisy, smelly, crowded, hot - but great fun.

The guide shared a few interesting tidbits of information about food production and markets generally. The meat stalls are probably the least hygienic looking to a westerner, but apparently all the cuts are fresh each day (the animals are slaughtered just on the other side of the Tonle Sap river at a slaughteryard area each morning). We were shown how to spot a fresh (and not so fresh cut), although the way the meat was handled by everyone from stall holders to customers made me nervous about buying any of this due to hygiene.

Chicken and fish were quite different though, although there are some stalls with dead fish covered in flies and smelling rotten, with only a little bit of searching you can find one with live chickens and fish which are slaughered in front of you. We saw a chicken having it's neck cut and bled to death and a tiger-fish getting the pointy end of a cleaver. Also, crabs with their pincers tied up and live squid in large buckets. If you're going to buy this stuff at least you know it's fresh. I think i'll definitely buy both fish and chicken from the markets as soon as I can speak enough khmer to bargain. The fish is mostly fresh-water from both the Mekong / Tonle Sap rivers and increasingly fish farms.

As I mentioned before, there are a lot of familiar fruit and vege's here (potatoes, carrots, peppers etc), and a lot of not so familiar ones. Generally the fruit and veg all looks great, very fresh and colourful. However, the guide told us that until recently farmers used large quantities of pesticides / preservatives which over time made a lot of people sick. He didn't specify exactly how but I don't think it can be good. Supposedly, the government has regulated this recently though, and it's a bit safer now. You definitely have to cook, peel and wash everything though, again for hygiene purposes. Khmer people typically don't have refrigerators so they shop at the local market everyday.

After the market, it was back to a nice rooftop terrace to make some tasty Khmer cuisine. Cooking was very relaxed and great fun, there were around 10 of us in the group, mostly tourists but some expats too. We made (from left to right) Banana flower salad with Chicken, Fish Amok in Banana leaf cup, and Sticky Rice and Mango for dessert. Typically Khmer food isn't very hot, because most of the recipes have their roots in the Ankgor Empire (~800AD - ~1400AD) and the chilli wasn't introduced to Asia until the Portugese arrived in the 16th century. No-one seems to know why the Thai's adopted the chilli so widely but the Cambodian's didn't. As I like hot food though, I added large amounts of small hot chilli's to my dishes. It was all delicious, partly I think because we hand-ground all the herbs & spices in a mortar & pestle.



Overall, i'm not sure how much i'll cook khmer style food at home. The dishes require a large number of ingredients and it's actually way cheaper to buy this out at a nice restaurant than to make it yourself. For example, the Tiger Fish for fish amok alone would cost $7 US / kilogram at the market and you could buy 2 plates of amok at a nice restaurant for $3 US each. I guess, we could do this for guests / dinner parties occasionally though.

If anyone is interested in the recipes for any of the above (i'm looking at you Nerida!), let me know in the comments or by email and i'll send them through. I'd also recommend the cooking class to anyone visiting Phnom Penh - check out http://www.cambodia-cooking-class.com for details.

Mr Potato Head

As most of you already know i'm a sucker for potatoes. It's probably my English upbringing or something. When we decided to move to Cambodia I was a bit apprehensive about a whole year without my favourite food, but was resigned to getting by with Fish Amok and other tasty Khmer dishes. So, I was pretty surprised to find potatoes first in the supermarket, and then on most market stalls in Phnom Penh vege markets. Sure, it's obviously not their biggest seller, but they're not too expensive either ($1 US / kilogram at the supermarket and cheaper at the market).


I consider myself a potato crusader, and frequently bore my friends with "...potato is a super-food" type comments, but I was genuinely surprised that the potato plant could be so versatile as to grow in tropical climates. Anyway, I did some internet research, and it turns out that, yes, potatoes are grown in SE Asia. Apparently, countries like Thailand and Vietnam are increasingly rotating potatoes and rice (rice in the wet season and potatoes in the dry season). I guess this means that potato harvest is right about now, and hopefully doesn't mean I won't be able to buy them any other time of the year. I haven't been able to work out what variety they sell here, there seems to be only one and it's red, a little like desiree. I also haven't been able to work out yet whether they're actually grown in Cambodia or are imports from Thailand / Vietnam, but my gut feeling tells me that if the local market has them they should be local produce.

Regardless, I baked some the other night and they were top. If you've made it this far through the dullest blog entry in the history of the internet, you owe it to yourself to check out these two web-sites - some funny pics and a great ode to Mr Potato Head.

http://lanra.dac.uga.edu/potato/index.html
http://www.potato2008.org/en/index.html

5 things I have learnt today...

1. Avoid angry middle eastern men at the department store who are shouting into their mobile phone, at their wife and at the shop assistants
2. Cambodian cutlery stores don't sell knives...fork & spoon set anyone ?
3. If you drop a box of eggs by accident in a Cambodian supermarket you have to pay for them
4. Cambodian mop handles are designed for people who are 3 feet tall
5. Beer should be made from Barley and not Sugar Palm

Doing the deal

Em has been working hard on her first tender which is due on Monday (and also the reason she hasn't had time to blog). Meanwhile, i've spent a couple of days checking out houses & apartments with some local real estate agents. I approached two agents who both spoke excellent English and drove me round to check places out. I think I maybe looked at 20 in total, some houses, some apartments mainly in the BKK1, Chak Tomuk, Tonle Basak & Russian Market areas. I saw a few houses which had live in maids and were enormous (think high ceilings, ceiling fans, blinds, verandas and dark wood everywhere...very colonial). I soon realised though that as we both only had one bag each with us, an apartment was the right choice.

The very first place I saw was really nice, a brand new 2 bed apartment on the second floor of a small block in Chak Tomuk, close to Em's work. The irony is that after viewing another 20 or so, it's the one I ended up taking.

Doing the deal was a good insight to Khmer culture. I'd already negotiated and agreed the rent with the real estate agent (apparently I paid a bit too much but it's hard to know this stuff when you're straight off the boat) so it was just the formalities to take care of. Cash is king here, so I was picked up by the real estate agent with a wad of $50 notes burning a hole in my pocket. We arrived at the landlady's house at the bottom of the block which was very posh. She only speaks Khmer & French so I made a minor fool of myself attempting some schoolboy french. I removed my shoes (customary when going into someone's house) and went inside. The landlady's sister and her friend also arrived so there were now 5 of us seated around a low table. The landlady brings out water for everyone. The signing of the contracts ensued with every detail being highlighted and discussed (with the real estate agent translating for me). I have to say the whole experience was very open, transparent and business like and the formality lends it an assuring weight. The entourage then proceeded upstairs to check everything in the flat together. So there it is, we have an apartment and we move in on Saturday. Here are a few mugshots from the real estate website to give you an idea :-



For anyone house hunting in Phnom Penh, I can definitely recommend both Zone Real Estate and Bonna Realty Group. English speakers can ask for Rithy or Salen respectively. Bonna also have a great website where you can search for properties http://www.bonnarealty.com. Best advice I can give is negotiate hard !

Phnom Penh Pics

...here's a few random pics from exploring Phnom Penh over the last few days.



1. Kid trying to catch a small bird with a sharp stick
2. Em at the National Museum
3. Monks walking past the Royal Palace
4. Vietnam War Monument
5. Washing in the Tonle Sap River
6. Pete eating eels with morning glory, lemongrass & lots of chilli....yum

Mad Dogs & Englishmen

Day 1 of house-hunting found me pounding the dusty streets of Phnom Penh checking out locales in the hope of finding somewhere just like North Carlton.

...you can stop laughing now. It was a pretty hot day today, but rather than take a tuk-tuk or moto I decided to walk, partly because you can see more of the neighbourhood, but mainly I guess because i'm English and naturally inept when it comes to hot places. There are some pretty nice area's around the NGO offices near where Em works, but we thought we should look further afield as they're a little bit rich. So, I headed off into the neighbouring hood's to see what was happening. Really surprising how quickly you get out of ex-pat land, this was probably the first place in Phnom Penh where I felt even slightly unwelcome although not at all dangerous. After a few hours of sweaty walking i'd pretty much boiled my brain and was about to catch a moto back when I was suddenly surprised from behind by a dog trying to bite my leg. Luckily for me it was a very small dog and it's mouth didn't open wide enough to take a chunk out of my calf. Still, after half jumping in the air, and running down the street pursued by the little mutt I made a good check to make sure it didn't draw blood. It's funny, I distinctly remember sitting in the travel doctor's office in Melbourne saying "no, no, I really don't think I need Rabies shots".

So, here's the lyrics to Noel Cowards famous song which i'm sure includes all kinds of culturally inappropriate references for this day and age, but pretty well sums up my day.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

In tropical climes there are certain times of day
When all the citizens retire,
    to tear their clothes off and perspire.
It's one of those rules that the biggest fools obey,
Because the sun is much too sultry and one must avoid
    its ultry-violet ray --
Papalaka-papalaka-papalaka-boo. (Repeat)
Digariga-digariga-digariga-doo. (Repeat)
The natives grieve when the white men leave their huts,
Because they're obviously, absolutely nuts --

Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.
The Japanese don't care to, the Chinese wouldn't dare to,
Hindus and Argentines sleep firmly from twelve to one,
But Englishmen detest a siesta,
In the Philippines there are lovely screens,
    to protect you from the glare,
In the Malay states there are hats like plates,
    which the Britishers won't wear,
At twelve noon the natives swoon, and
    no further work is done -
But Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.

It's such a surprise for the Eastern eyes to see,
That though the British are effete,
    they're quite impervious to heat,
When the white man rides, every native hides in glee,
Because the simple creatures hope he will
    impale his solar topee on a tree.
Bolyboly-bolyboly-bolyboly-baa. (Repeat)
Habaninny-habaninny-habaninny-haa. (Repeat)
It seems such a shame that when the English claim the earth
That they give rise to such hilarity and mirth -

Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.
The toughest Burmese bandit can never understand it.
In Rangoon the heat of noon is just what the natives shun.
They put their scotch or rye down, and lie down.
In the jungle town where the sun beats down,
    to the rage of man or beast,
The English garb of the English sahib merely gets a bit more creased.
In Bangkok, at twelve o'clock, they foam at the mouth and run,
But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen, go out in the midday sun.
The smallest Malay rabbit deplores this stupid habit.
In Hong Kong, they strike a gong, and fire off a noonday gun.
To reprimand each inmate, who's in late.
In the mangrove swamps where the python romps
    there is peace from twelve till two.
Even caribous lie down and snooze, for there's nothing else to do.
In Bengal, to move at all, is seldom if ever done,
But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.

Cambodge !

Well, we're here. We were met at the airport by a driver from Em's work (which we expected) and Em's boss (which we didn't!). I think Em was a bit surprised but it was really nice of him, we got a whistle stop tour of the city and a security briefing on the way in. We've spent the last 2 days walking around, catching tuk-tuks (which are a bit different to Bangkok - a scooter with a chariot trailer attached) and getting the lay of the land. Phnom Penh is a much smaller city than Bangkok and already we have a pretty good idea of where things are. Last night we visited the FCC (foreign correspondents club) during happy hour, here's a pic of us from the first floor overlooking the confluence of the Mekong & the Tonle Sap river. Note, Em says her dad will love this place...


First impressions of Phnom Penh...crossing the road is quite hard. Basically, pedestrians are the bottom of the food chain. No-one walks apart from westerners. You are constantly propositioned for tuk-tuk's & moto's (in a friendly way). I don't think they understand why you would want to walk. I got even more offers coming back from the shop with 6 bottles of water. Why is the crazy barang walking with all that water when he could catch a ride ? Further to this, the pavements are always used by local industry / shops / scooter parking etc so you have to walk in the road. I guess it's cheaper for them to use the pavement than pay for more real estate. The traffic is pretty crazy but more on that later. There are quite a few beggars here, and amputees presumably from landmines or poor health. People are very friendly, and you can be understood in English nearly all the time, pointing and smiling is good, smiling while negotiating prices seems to get you a long way. Next challenge is Em starting work on Monday, and Pete looking for a house. Anyway, that's probably it for now. We think we're going to like it here.


Ps. as some of you know I really enjoy a good zombie film, before I came I read that the Khmer film industry only consisted of Zombie, Werewolf & Vampire films. Well, here's the evidence, the local cinema is showing "Khmer Zombie 4" or something like that. I'm trying to persuade Em to come along.


Pps. you can buy potatoes in Cambodia and they're really big and cheap :-) We've also seen great bread (french baguettes etc), good coffee, cheese, happy herb pizza's, and even steak (a bit thin and about $1 US but still)... so we don't think food is going to be a problem.

...Goodbye Bangkok

Visiting Pia & Sebi has been great, here are a couple of pics from our last day in Bangkok. This is "IT City", 5 stories of computers, peripherals, cables, dvd's, games & "sexy movies". We were looking for a cable to connect Sebi's laptop to their newly acquired TV, unfortunately the one I recommended didn't work, so we added another useless cable to Sebi's expanding collection. Sorry mate ;-)


This is a pic of my first tuc-tuc ride, this is a great way of getting around and the breeze is very welcome in the heat. Very sad to say goodbye to these guys but hopefully we'll see them soon.

Eels

Just a quick post, we've been enjoying Bangkok. Highlights yesterday were visiting Wat Pho which houses a massive reclining Buddha, getting a Thai massage, walking through Chinatown and visiting the Suan Lum night bazaar where I bought a new hat. Em loves a massage as you probably know but this was my first time. I have to admit to being a bit apprehensive as i'm not at all flexible but it was great, only the calf and shoulders were at all painful. Em's also involved an odd move where the masseur stuck fingers in both her ears and pulled them out suddenly. Someone in the massage room was making a really odd half grunt / half wretch sound every few minutes which caused a lot of hilarity for everyone else in the room.



Pia thought this 200yr old statue of a farang (foreigner) looked like the hitcher character from the Mighty Boosh. Check out the eels episode if you haven't seen it...http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1141115/



We're starting to think about Cambodia now as we're flying out early tomorrow. Very exciting...

Bangkok Daze

We've arrived!

We had possibly the smoothest flight and airport experience ever resulting in arriving at Pia & Sebi's apartment in Bangkok at 6am and getting them out of bed. Anyway, after a few tea's we headed out into town. Em has been here a few times before but this is my first time in SE Asia. Combined with lack of sleep, I found the first few hours quite intense. So much traffic, noise and stifling heat although they tell me it was quite a cool day. Anyway, we checked out a wat (temple) and had lunch at the local village.


The highlight for me was catching the water taxi which flies along the canals at high speed. Customers are required to pull on a rope / pulley system to hold up a tarp to ensure you don't get a face full of Bangkok canal water. The boat is too high to go under some of the bridges, but the guys here have developed a system where the roof is folded down like a parallelogram as the bridge is approached (at full speed) and popped back up afterwards. The guys standing up top who do this all wear motorbike helmets which I guess is borne of experience. Anyway, I think this is my first experience of SE Asian ingenuity, although I can't help thinking it might be better to work out a more permanent solution like raise the bridges or lower the boat, still it works and this is a really fast way to get around.

Here's some weird fruit juice Pia gave us, the one on the right is mushroom & honey (we'll send you some back Kym). And here's a tower of beer bigger then Em. It has a core of ice to keep it cool. Someone should really think about doing this in Australia.


It's been really great to catch up with Pia and Sebi, no idea what we're going to get up to today...hmmm it looks hot outside.

Goodbye Melbs...

Well, it's been a crazy few days, but we've moved out of Curtain St and stacked all our worldly possessions in storage. I couldn't believe how much stuff we've accumulated in 5 years. It's great to shrink down to a backpack again ready for a big adventure. The last couple of days have been spent hanging out with friends and family in Melbourne and we're going to miss you all heaps. Big thanks to Kym, Tobie, Mark, Al, Clare & Bea for helping us so much. We're about to have a final barbie (and a juicy steak for Pete) before jumping on the midnight flight to Bangkok. We're both very excited and a bit nervous now. Anyway, here's the top 5 things we're going to miss about Melbourne :-

1. Friends!
2. Coffee...ah Italian coffee (especially Tre Bicchieri, Benito's, North, Tiamo's, Pellegrini's)
3. Walking the streets of Melbourne
4. Good bars (especially our local Gerald's)
5. Brewing (Pete) & baking (Em)

Anyway, first impressions of Thailand later...ciao