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Em & I are flying out of the Penh tomorrow bound for England. We'll be spending time in Dorset & Cornwall where our good friends Brad & Kristen are getting married, visiting friends in Devon, and spending time with my family in Kent & Lancashire. I'll also be staying on a bit longer than Em and i'm hoping to explore Suffolk, for no better reason than i've never been there. I'm really looking forward to going back this time, it's been two years since my last trip and I can't wait to catch up with everyone - especially my young neice & nephew. I've been an expat for over six years now, and the longer I stay away, the more romantic and misty eyed I get when I think about my homeland...you know...country pubs, red phone boxes, rolling green countryside etc. I'm sure this is a common expat complaint, and one quickly cured by the inevitable rain, traffic jams, townies and bad coffee when we arrive. Deep down I think we will still be able to find and enjoy a small slice of little England though, it really is a special place. I've bought the 2009 Good Beer Guide so at the very least we will be able to find a decent pint wherever we end up. Mmmm...warm flat English Bitter...
One of the domestic challenges of life in the tropics is ants. These tiny red buggers get everywhere, literally. It's not uncommon to find them crawling up your arm while watching TV, over the computer keyboard whilst you're typing, or floating in your cup of tea or glass of water. They're very small (about 1mm long) and pretty harmless but constant vigilance is required unless you want to wake up in the morning to find a column of thousands of ants coming in the front door, marching across the floor and into the kitchen bin in pursuit of some tasty morsel.
As domestic leader, it's my responsibility to take the fight to them. Unfortunately, ultimate victory is really out of my grasp - it's more like trench warfare. Every day the ants advance (over the top lads), I try to remove any potential food sources (especially by emptying the kitchen bin), sweep them all up and we start over again. I dread to think how many i've killed, it's lucky I don't believe in Karma. Mostly, we've gotten used to living with them now, just occasionally it really gets to me, like when I bought a nice french stick for our drinks party, left it on the table, and came back to it 30 minutes later to find it swarming with a hundred of the little blighters. Grrr...
Em's work colleague who lived in the Pacific was telling us that he used to put the kitchen table legs in 4 bowls of water and keep all the food on the table. It seems easier to keep everything in the fridge though, regardless of whether it needs to be refrigerated or not, and this is what most people here do. The three or four squished ants on the refrigerator seal are a testament to their determination...quick lads, now, it's open...
Em & I continue to explore the local eating establishments, and this week we found a right cracker. Tipped off by a fellow Phnom Penh blogger, we went to check out Mt Everest Indian & Nepalese curry house which is just across Sihanouk Boulevard from us. We've been to a few curry houses here and always passed this one by, it's pretty incongrous looking nestled in between an upmarket clothes shop and a Starbucks rip-off. So, I was pretty suprised to find that the food is cheap and delicious, the service is great and the decor (like all decent curry houses) includes a fish tank. OK, so the lager comes in cans and not pints, but the spicy Chicken Jenjaloo is definitely the best Ruby Murray i've had since leaving Melbourne.
I've been keeping up my training schedule pretty well the last few weeks, running 10km's around the local park a couple of times a week. Training here is really pretty hard - I run at 5pm in the evening, but it's still 30 degrees and 70% humidity. When I get back i'm literally soaked with sweat, and it's desperately hard to cool down. Even with the aircon cranked and standing under a cold shower, your body continues to pump out heat like a radiator. Anyway, the theory is that training in this heat should mean i'm super fit when the cool season (and the race !) come along in December. I've been managing 10km in a pretty consistent 46mins - when I was 18 I used to do 40mins (in a cold climate) so it's not too bad as I haven't run seriously for years. I just need to keep up the running, and up the distance to 15km over the next few months and I should be good for the race round the temples.
On a tenuously related note, I was out buying a yoga mat from Emma this morning. She'd had a tip-off from a work colleague that the local stationary shop sold them upstairs. This is the way so much shopping works here...expats swapping tips and secret locations as it's so hard to find many things and they usually aren't where you'd expect. Anyway, I was very surprised in between the yoga mats and table-tennis bats to find nunchuk's for sale. They really looked like they'd do some damage.
Last night I took Emma out to celebrate her birthday. The plan was to hit up a few places we hadn't been to before, and it was a suprise except she always found out the next venue before we arrived as I had to explain to the tuk tuk driver where to go.
We started at the Elephant Bar at Raffles Hotel, a taste of colonial hedonism. Beer aside, the drinks list here is incredibly comprehensive, so we started the evening with a Harvey Wallbanger, Manhattan, Long Island Iced Tea, and a Femme Fatale (a champagne cocktail which Jaquie Kennedy apparently ordered in 1967 on her visit to Cambodia). The service, drinks and decor really are great at this place, and it's good value in happy hour. Next stop, probably the best Italian Restaurant in the Penh - Le Duo on street 228 - which is just around the corner from us. I've no idea why we haven't been here before, we had some wonderful starters, a fine home made pasta and a good steak (for Cambodia) all washed down with a nice bottle of Chianti. The service was great, although the decor is a little crazy with a fake "Juliet's balcony" stuck on the wall. By this point we were both feeling sloshed and full, so it was kind of lucky that our last stop turned out to be closed - Swenson's ice cream. Oh well, we can check it out another time.
I'm feeling pretty sorry for myself this morning with a shocking hangover, although Em seems fine. Anyway, Em had a great night which is the main thing.
http://www.raffles.com/EN_RA/Property/RLR/Restaurants_Bars/Elephant_Bar.htm
http://www.phnom-penh.biz/cambodia-guide/phnom-penh/Restaurant/le-duo-restaurant-pizzeria
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