Expresso Kamuchea

[Cambodian girl]

Hello Tan, here a message just to say hello and to say we still miss you Pim likes the pictures very much, he is impressed how it looks. Good luck with your bananatrees and see you (hopefully) soon

[piqaboo]

Hi Tan. Ouch on losing the dock.

Maybe when you rebuild you can use a floating platform.
Down here at the harbor, they sink tall vertical concrete posts into the bottom, then build the dock around them, loosely, so the dock can float up and down with the tide.
Imagine a donut floating around a pencil, although they usually put the uprights in the corners, to keep em out of the way as much as possible.

[tan]

Finally the internet is functional again; first it was ‘broken’. Then it was fixed and the internet place was closed ‘for holiday’
Now they are back.
Shap of course you were right:
The first fast food enterprise in pp is coming: KFC> oh horrors!
There was not too much happening these days; the weather improves steadily, the vegetable garden grows, and I wait for my customers to come into town if any.
..It has, yes, been one of those ‘perfect tropical days in paradise’.
.. Having said that it was only consequential and eventful, wrought with the typical disasters and some solutions, just tedious. Well it is a bit of a long story.
Manni started as my assistant when i started to build the restaurant. He is married with two little kids. His wife, well jack calls her a Khmer luxury homemaker’ that is putting it nicely. When i needed somebody to clean, she wanted the job. And I did not want her. But then: it seemed like i did luck out. Manni obviously was having somebody ‘on the side’ so to speak- Mrs. Manni came down with ‘something’ took the kids to pp’ – ‘to see doctor’a whole scene. - The usual. While she was away: her sister- sari took the cleaning job. And sari was just the best. - But when Mrs. Manni came back, there wash hell to pay. (of course she wanted the job, still, to keep an eye on old’ Manni if noting else. But then yet there was her sister, whom I refused to fire. (Anyway I never liked Mrs. Manni.)- Next thing happens Manni starts taking four hour lunches. I take revenge by taking three hours walks with the bullies, putting him stuck at the place. thinking he’ll get the point sooner rather than later. But no, I did not count on Mrs. Manni. Next thing I know, ‘ooh, sister kid very sick, has to go Phnom Penh’. (And yes the kid did not look too hot, admittedly so.) Next thing I know, Mrs. Manni is ‘helping out’ till her sister comes back’. of course -you guessed right-, sister never comes back; ‘stay again with her- husband?’ (yes, husband. But he is dead? Yes he is dead, i am assured by people who know the family)- ‘not come back sari’. So now i am struck with Mrs. Manni. Okay- I do happen to know this spiel and there is nothing you can do about it. Or can you? ohh yes, you can: so I do give Mrs. Manni a chance, just to be on the safe and not the mean side… and sure enough, the prices of everything do go up.. They have not. Not really... next thing i know- the place looks clean all right, but as sizeable insects and rat and ant population develops within days. so I do check the kitchen; the cleaning is only cosmetical. So I start cleaning the kitchen. Catch and kill a few rats, get rid of ants and some such And show her when she comes in. (so by now I am not at my most diplomatic- which I should not be anyways or so I do think ;as they are stealing from me, and the job does not get don either. So hysterical she gets. I go to the coffee shop, meet Manni on the way, and tell him friendly but firmly that I will not condone this kind of Slovenes- not at that price anyways, i want sari back.

so when i comeback mrs. has quit. and so has Manni. Fine by me, i do not need that stuff; as in: he will not shop at a shop where he gets no commission- All of sudden there is water only three times the price. Bring it back I say, we go Mr. dim get the water-from his spring that does not go very well of course so he quit too.
Now the neighbor’s kid is cleaning for me and she does a great job. For the time being that is enough staff anyways.
Meanwhile this week and next week the expats are coming back into town. Jack was due yesterday, but the plane broke down, so he was stuck in pp for a day: he did not sound like he minded that terribly.
Just now the plane came in, quite early, left, then a helicopter came, left, another helicopter came and landed and left too’: rush hour on ‘sen Monorom international’ dirt strip it seems. Next week Chris and Ian come back. The tourists still do not dare to brave the roads. Still muddy, still slippery; last week a bad accident happened when a taxi slipped.

..and then the rains closed in again, and we do not need a weatherman to tell us that the internet is not working…
so, we wake up to November like mists, wisps of grey cloud matter drifting around my restaurant, trees dripping with moisture- as well as our hair. Sudden cloud busts that play havoc with my vegetable garden: miniature mudslides bearing away toddling carrots and some such….
The market, ooh the market. Now, after all these years, I still do like markets. And yes, I am used to shopping there. But this one takes the (mud)cake: mud, okay, I am used to that in markets too, but a swamp? So everybody hereabouts does not ‘hustle and bustle about’- as markets are so often (aptly) described in literature-, ooh no, not here; everybody slips and slides, looses flip flops in the quagmire, slips again and hangs onto market stalls that happily collapse with amusing frequency: carrots, onions and some such, vanishing under the red mud and debris … (try retrieving those, a true religious experience..).’the highlight of our day, marketing at six am inna morning inna mud, actually it is quite funny, recounting those market adventures in the coffee shop later: oozing read mud and leaving red marks on the table and around the coffee mugs from hands that have met with the true earth of Cambodia in some unfortunate balancing act… as in.: ‘aww where did you get RED tomatoes!’-(euuh,red?).. ‘Well, had to kick this fat Vietnamese lady, yeah she was angry, lost her footing, and all that-but it was worth it...’ etc etc…
Of course the rains would have come back; as bhp is due to come back this week too, to resume their happy prospecting. After their hasty departure eight weeks ago? we had beautiful sunny weather, and now that they are bound to return? ..yep…(divine and poetic justice one is bound to suspect)
How they are gonna land their ‘statistically safer plane’ in these mists is beyond me. –even though Emil still happily lands his Cessna in town -( and even though the survivors of those landings are a little bit green around the gills for the first coupe a hours... )
As the roads have deteriorated almost back to the status of two month ago, the people living and working here have to literally claw their way back into town after their summer holidays.…but they are coming back, and I for one am happy for it; it was getting quite depressingly lonely here. And of course my budding business was dead also. Now I do get the odd table.
Jack is back from England, we spend today working on the electricity in my restaurant. it was wired ‘the Khmer way’ -don’t ask-, not something recommended safety wise- (never mind the life wire in the bathroom...everybody has one of those!) Thanks to jack, now the place is about as safe as it gets hereabouts. Me? aww, I did know of course that the place was unsafe- but how to remedy it? oh man, I am an electrical illiterate!
THOUGH I DID FIX the toilet that sprung a leak: it was emptying the water tank with the speed o’ lightening, necessitating frequent pumping from my well and sending my already astronomical electric bill into the stratosphere…

[Shapley]

The first fast food enterprise in pp is coming: KFC> oh horrors!

When they get a Popeye's, I'll come and try it.

It was, of course, inevitable that good-ole (?) American fast-food would find it's way in, once the tourist numbers justified it. You'll have a Wal-Mart before you know it.

I remember the toilets in Olongapo City, in the Philippines, at least in those places that actually had them. I don't think I ever saw a working toilet outside of the Navy base. Many of them did not bother to even mount the tank on the bowl, as they all leaked and the flush mechanism never worked. There was a faucet on the bathroom wall (or at least a pipe with some type of shut-off mechanism), beneath which sat a bucket. To flush the toilet, you filled the bucket with water and then dumped it into the toilet bowl.

Not too many years ago, our well pump broke, and we had no water. My son had used the toilet before realizing that it would not flush without water. "What do I do now?" he asked. "Try a Filipino flush," I told him. Of course I had to explain, filling the bucket and giving it to him to pour in the bowl. Sometimes, Americans get arrogant and forget that there is still a lot we can learn from the ingenuity of the 'primitive' world.

V/R
Shapley

[Shapley]

The first fast food enterprise in pp is coming: KFC> oh horrors!

Take heart! Maybe it's actually Kampuchean Fried Cockroaches.

"Do you want spiders with that?"

[tan]

Yeah, so we are gonna get a KfC. We did already have fake burger joints. Such as’ lucky burger’. To be shunned by each and every expat and most of the Khmers, only to be – moderately so - appreciated by missionaries and some such. (Aww they’ll eat anything).
Ooh yeah, Shap; the hoppers of Asia! A joy to behold. Flush? Well here in town still a –frightening- novelty: as in what is this world come to. Most people just go the ‘Philippine way’ the good old’ scoop. The scoops are plastic and come in attractive colors. They are sold by Indian merchants on bicycles. Most of the toilets are squatters. In the guesthouses they have some western toilets where one can sit down- but most of the time it is: walk through the kitchen, close the door- provided there is one, squat, and then: scoop, shake your booty. It works, once you get the general hang of it. Okay, so these are the common toilets. Then there are of course the gems. Anybody who ever ran tourists though this country- called an operator- has their favorites? Any operator will guard those like the state secrets they are. Ooh yeah, i got some too; there was the old one at the dara‘s place -half way up bokor- sure to be mourned still as WWF burnt down the place. Nothing special; just a whole inna ground. The fun part was it was always full. Very full. quite amusing to see one’s tourists- who more likely than not have been pestering the poor operator all day- reel out of the toilet, proclaiming that going in nature would have been better. It would have, indeed and we told them so: all day…
One of the best hoppers in cambo belongs to the ivy guesthouse owned by a friend of mine. It is a sit down, with a historical seat: when pol pot died, Carl the owner went to ahnlong veng and somehow managed to get a hold of pol pot's toilet seat. If you are ever in seam reap, make sure to buy a beer there and use the facility! - For a worthy cause so to speak.
…and then out hopper in sre ambel: A shack, a plank and a hole. Underneath the river. So one goes. Big time: and all the fish would come and have themselves a good meal. Quite visible (one lady actually asked weather the fish would not mind. –‘are you kidding lady; make their day!’)...and then there was that great day when rob was squatting and realized that one of his legs was higher than the other, and getting higher still. By the time he was finished he almost touched water: one of the pillars of the shack had given way….a truly great moment. Never have i seen him angrier than that….
Then that one we visited in the smuggling village when i did the bamboo train: same principle only over the sea. Hilarious at spring tide! My favorite in veal renh was what i want to refer to as a ‘pol pot retro’: the walls looked fine, some blood spatters but nothing major-! But no water. none whatsoever. .paper? There is no paper. (What do you think the banana tree at the entrance was for? You figure that one out).
And then there is the great outdoors. Rule number one: privacy might be a great concept and trees just look fine; but they tend to come with eager leeches. Do not ask. Yes, they are, they will and they do go…yes. There. I leave it to your imagination.
And then there is the ‘side of the road’ when one is on a journey; gentleman to one side, ladies to the other. Just that those roadsides are … eroded from all those pit-stops by now, and tend to crumble, resulting inna huge drop into somebody’s rice paddy- about twenty feet; messy, and a few scrapes are quite common. Not recommended.
..And then there are the wilds of china. Privacy used to be a word that did not exist in the Chinese language. Not in toilets either. Mao used them as a place to have his informers eavesdrop during the Cultural Revolution. So boys and girls are separated. Nothing else. One squats. Over a tiled drain and next to somebody else who squats too? It is rather social, believe it or not. There will be that old lady filling in her betting forms- (try to get some of the paper off her), some ladies rapping and gossiping, some kids playing in the- relatively dry- center of the room.
..And then one gets to Tibet! Yeah. Now Tibetan toilets tend to be on the first floor: the room underneath is the septic tank so to speak. When the room gets full, all the neighbors go on holiday. Then a cart with two yaks appears. They pull out a few stones, - the cart driver not the yaks, of course- the soup flows into the carts and gets carted off to the fields.
Once out of lasha, the toilets are quite scenic. Still squatters. But what a view. They are still on the first floor, but open to the heavens and the panoramas. Once in ronbuk, there I was. Squatting, point of no return, and the mists – not mine- nature’s-lifted, and there was: mt Everest. And there I was squatting, and no camera. Tough luck. ‘T was the only time i ever saw Everest….

[dai bread]

A Long Drop I used once made me very glad I smoked. (It was years ago- I quit smoking 35 years or so ago. If I ever get to rural Asia I might have to resume).

[DavidS]

A Long Drop I used once made me very glad I smoked. (It was years ago- I quit smoking 35 years or so ago. If I ever get to rural Asia I might have to resume).

Absolutely - many years ago when I was about to be called up for military service, an uncle of mine (who had been through the mill in WW2) warned me that I would be tempted to take up smoking. When I got into the forces I understood why...

[piqaboo]

About 10,000 feet up Mt Rainier, there's an outhouse perched on the edge of a snowfield slope, with a superb view of Mt Baker peering thru the clouds. If it werent so &#@(#@ cold, one would be tempted to set awhile.

[tan]

…..the season seems to start. And i do find myself quite busy quite a bit of the time. How people actually do find my place is beyond me .but arrive they do, eat and drink. And come back. Of course I did throw out my first Frenchman already; a quite insufferable piece of cheapness he was indeed. After all these years I do so just know the type. Came with some extremely nice Germans. Just tagged along with them. A beer was too expensive. Then go somewhere else. – (there is no place else). Not quite. But nooo. If I live here- he said-; so i should charge the same prices as the roadside shacks. Me then go there. No I should charge the same prices as them-the Khmers he meant- presumably-, never mind I have a nicer place, warmth- it gets quite cold here- and different- i.e. better food. Just your of the mill cheap chit and nasty about it too- as true cheap chits are wont to be.-especially Frenchmen and Israelis…
Anyways, my former so sad and quiet little place is beginning to get people and good cheer and good music and Some fun: quite different from those more than dreary ngo’s that we have hereabouts; they-the ngo’s that is- feel like a congress of one’s least favorite maiden aunts and quite frankly did bore the crap outta me their forced political correctness makes one want to misbehave quite automatically.. Now i get: nice young people and quite mad older ones that actually do enjoy themselves, atta relief!
The rains are still pounding down at times, jack and two kids from WWF just came in or should I say fell through the door- for a warm drink and a bite. And to tell the latest news: an elephant got stuck in the mud-don’t ask. They spend the better part of the day trying to get the beast out. and everybody who had equipment came and helped, cmac- the de-miners, bhp –the miners-and whoever else was around, even motodopes came… they it used a pulley system and winched the beast out by hand.. And the elephant was out of the mud but too exhausted to even get on its feet….. She is quite weak,

And then the rain came and now it is waiting and sees if the elephant will make it through the night. everybody is muddy and tired tomorrow at five am we will all go and try to righten beast out; all of us, :tourists, cmac and their hardware-), bhp (and their hardware, or so we hope-),and expat’ s and ngo’s- quite a few hatches buried for the occasion- only the Christians will of course go to church instead as to
Morrow is a Sunday! – as if there could be any better way to praise the lord as to get out one of his creatures out o9f a certain depth!. Seems not to wash with them... a bloody l do this country!
Five am is the call, and i hope to get you guys some pictures and i hpope that we will get the poor thing out alive.still the rain is coming down bad, and i will for once close the joint early and get some sleep –and make sure there will be no hangovers tomorrow’- for once-; when we go to work to do.so that will be Our first ‘jungle Sunday’ of the new season indeed. The way the weather is going- it is good I made some soup. It will be necessary because it is cold and rough. Now I will have to pack my jungle bag for tomorrow and lay out my stuff to grab without yet quite waking up at four

..And early we went. In the rain the mud and the darkness, and hoped for the best. The sun came up feebly- and we went; the path deteriorated into first mud, then swamp and then it got quite aquatic, with a few cute holes to fall in; invisible under the floating vegetable matter. And of course we did fall in and the leaches had a field day- somehow we managed to clamber to the other side, wobbly swimming and blundering, but made it. Quite wet.
When we reached the elephant it had died. The mahout had gone away and gotten drunk and was nowhere to be seen. - The elephant did not have to die. It was underfed, and run down. –contrary to popular misconception, elephants need very good care to live. And this elephant belonged to some’ rich people from pp’, who had not paid the mahout for three years! So – as elephants need a lot of food it was underfed- overworked, and in the end, abandoned….and then it died
we did not enjoy this at all as you can imagine; now that is An understatement!-got all the equipment out, dragged winches, ropes flashlights and some such back through the swamps, and went under again in the nasty hole. We were drying our mobile phones on the hood of jack’s truck when the officials arrived:” we take picture. Write report and leave” they said. And left for the swamp. Needless to say, our only comic relief of that morning was when we heard them: a screech a choice Khmer word or the four letter kind and a splash; off into that nasty hole on the aquatic trail they fell. Nice one… nice one.../
Back in town we decided to have coffee; wet dirty and leachy, no mater we do want coffee. Now!
A lady sees us coming in. as western lady. She looks at us and decides maybe it is not a good moment to approach us at that point. We are dirty, muddy. We stink of the jungle and we are quite obviously -not, definitively not in a good mood.
(the lady in question is my friend Beverly, who writes the rough guide on cambo, an old friend who i have not seen for years, - we meet up the next day when we are both on our way to pp.-where we will meet up and have a great time, but as off now, our bunch is too winched for public relations of any kind…
Home i take a cold bath- and get to work. bhp is coming for lunch, and then some other people want dinner and i will have to pack for pp, receive the phnong that will stay in my place and clean up the garden while i am away, pack up the bar so jack can ‘evacuate it’ top his place, and get ready for the flight top pp…. ooh man, even going on r&r is a major effort here. If it even was r&r: I have do Soo much shopping, it will be a perk if I do even get to party!
..And then I went on the plane; as Emil is on vacation we have to contend with his co -pilot. A very slow Aussie. so0: first we went from sen Monorom to Ratanakiri. Where most of the passengers got off, and the plane left to get a missionary from the jungle and i did get very bored in Ratanakiri; all plantations and no more jungle left. And while i waited i got to talk to a helicopter pilot – from new Zealand- extremely clean cut the man is, And he turned out to be the pilot who almost parked his bird into my laundry two weeks ago when he was carrying some French people who are gonna make a10 000 hectare rubber plantation in our’ hood within measurable time… about my laundry and the future plantation the man was quite apologetic: now he is flying for the American army; another mia mission, fine. The army guys arrive and board his heli. Off they go to recover some more bones. Meanwhile my plane comes back. Refuel. A load of missionaries is gonna share the experience of the flight to pp with me. Amen. And a medvac, so by now the plane is overloaded. And the Aussie pilot takes a goon’s age to refuel, and i realize i will be late for the lunch with Lanzi... the missionaries and their- not incredibly urgent medvac take their own sweet time. i feel like I’m in one of those nightmares when one tries to get somewhere… and then finaly we take off - after two hours- and the plane is overloaded and does not quite get up to speed (a Cessna: the 2CV of the skies..) and we lawnmower over the cambo countryside and Lanzi is trying to phone me and i am trying to phone Lanzi. finally, we do arrive on pochentong airport in pp but then they service the plane before we are let outta de airport and Lanzi keeps calling and finally –after suffering a more than inept moto dope on top of it all- who has no idea where he is going- nor supposed to go-but in the end, i do make it to my seat in -the rather upscale-e restaurant, smelling of the jungle- no make up, and ripped clothes and leave muddy tracks on the restaurant’s colonial tile floor -of course. –but: nobody seems to mind or even give pause, except to suggest I should maybe fly first class next time. (There is no such thing here of course).

[Shapley]

I should maybe fly first class next time. (There is no such thing here of course).

Last year I flew to Toronto. As I was in line to receive my boarding pass, I overheard the lady in front of me, as she looked at her boarding pass and saw that she was in row 2, ask the ticket agent "Is this First Class?"

The agent replied: "I'm sorry, Ma'am, there is no First Class on this flight."

I flew recently to Grand Rapids, MI, on a similar plane. A gentleman at the gate asked the same question, "Is this seat in First Class?"

The lady at the gate replied: "Honey, they're all First Class on this flight."

It's all in how you look at it.

V/R
Shapley

P.S. Hate to hear about the elephant. They are magnificent creatures.

[BigJon@Work]

quite frankly did bore the crap outta me their forced political correctness makes one want to misbehave quite automatically.

This quote is priceless! Glad to hear things are looking up for your new venture.

[piqaboo]

But this is the quotable quote and most vivid image of a very vivid post:

we lawnmower over the cambo countryside

in a Cessna.

[tan]

..sorry guys, had a long text, and it got eaten by the memory stick.
will try again tomorrow, now that the internet seems to work more regularly hereabouts: just one thing: stupidity is not merely a snooky thing- as i am finding out|!

[dai bread]

"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."
Friedrich von Schiller
German dramatist & poet (1759 - 1805)

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

And Goddess only knows that every time you think you've made something stupid-proof, the Universe comes up with Stupid, MkII, Improved.

~LawDog

[Cambodian girl]

Good news!!! Rose is back in Snooky. She opened her restaurant at Ochheuteal beach.

[Shapley]

Good news!!! Rose is back in Snooky. She opened her restaurant at Ochheuteal beach.

Glad to hear it! Tell her 'hello' from her friends at Beethoven.com!

I hope she is doing well, and I wish her all the best!

V/R
Shapley

[tan]

..The internet has been outta commission here for more than a week now… ( at least for me, as i tend to take all their customers - at the internet place - whenever i come to post- not exactly rocket science: ahh, atta cool dog!- elvis that is. me :his name is elvis. Costello, not pressly. The future guests: ooh coooool.
Next- them-: you live here? Yes i do. Attaya do. Have a restaurant. You mean you serve food? Yes i do.-(that place don’t) the rest is history. And they come back and back, and they are happy and so am i. then yet, what else is new. Quite a bit as it seems: that this town is more ‘small checkered than a kRama or Payton place for that matter, must be obvious by now: the acerbic so called political correctness of the ngo’s is more than jarring.( claiming one’s political correctness is like claiming that one is a lady- or a gentleman- for that matter: the nouveau riche of the mind, we call them: ian and me that is: fortunately, ian and i can make fun of that, as we do share the same irreverence towards anybody who assumes any pompous airs. Does not make us any more loved in certain circles, but at least it keeps us laughing. And then yet, pickings in the laugh department have been rather lean this week, as Ian is in pp to get some cello lessons from florian- who seems to be the only person in cambo who even knows how to play a cello.. (Chris bought Ian a cello in Malaysia to keep him busy: Ian says if i Can only play ‘Mary had a little lamb’ on that ding, I’ll be happy- hell no! Chris says: I did not spend all that money for’Mary had a little lamb!’
Or have the picking been that bad? Not really: on the ‘typical cambo’ side. the elephant: the one that i still seem to have a’ time share in’ was due yesterday at jack’s project. Predictably so; it did not arrive. leaving me settled with an older American couple, absolutely sweet nice and lovely people, but as jack was doing construction on his guesthouse, i did have to do all the trekking work, and being rusty after the rainy season and all that, fortunately they were old, so i was forced to go very slow, and did, and that was even more tiring than going at my own speed, plus the bullies came with me and elvis has a cold and snotted over everybody -including the poor couple inna truck—and jack got very annoyed indeed- and then the bullies scared a whole phnong village half to death, where we had to go because jack found somebody cutting half the forest illegally and he took away this guy’s chain saw and turned it over to the village elder in that village and now there was the whole powwow as to who and what and so on. Well they will not cut any more jungle anywhere near jack’s project anymore any time soon! Good.
Today, jack called me: the mahout got ‘lost in the jungle’- i.e. drunk with his friend and parked our elephant in somebody’s vegetable patch- presumably- while doing so. Nothing new or unexpected there. But then; it is not our elephant that arrived….!!~ !~it is another… what???? Yeah, there stands not our elephant but another. Ours seems to have been ‘misplaced- how can one misplace an elephant? - beats us-a rather small issue, indeed… it is beyond us- i.e. ours has ‘been bitten by a snake’ and is presumably alive but has a hard time walking’-? - Possible, of course, possible. Anyways on the bright side: we do have an elephant, but actually, we would prefer to have ‘our own…’
We’ll see what will happen there
.. And i did think sheer stupidity was a snookyville thing? Did i? Come again: aww what is it with French people/ what: dim- who is French is doing this big big deal with bhp. I mean we are talking big money. Too much work for him alone or anybody else that is for sure, just to be fair. He will and must and shall get that contract with bhp... ok, so fair enough, he takes on this other Frenchman. This Conradian figure. But then”? He … rents another guesthouse, as if he did not have enough work feeding just about 80 people a day, six days a week. So” after he got his so called friend” to help him, things started to get, well, a bit different- so to speak…so the food is not quite what the bhp was used to. They still did have signed da contract with the man anyways. So… as The contract is signed: bhp buys an espresso machine- one of those expensive ones for Dim’s place to give their people ‘good coffee’... And of course, their people ask for coffee, but: oh no, the machine is broken. After a few days somebody says: did i not see that machine- quite in working order- and there is only one and only one espresso machine in this out post-- at the new guesthouse. And yes, there it was and quite in working order….. so bhp moved the machine Back to Dim’s old place, and the next day, abovementioned coffee machine had moved back to the guesthouse, and bhp gets told it is broken- yet again-etc..) the (no it is not broken etc, and bhp took it back yet again .and that is where things stand as off now. Them playing musical coffee machine so to speak. What can dim be thinking of? Is he mad? Gone Snooky? What? i do wonder/
- Meanwhile, i get that lovely and amusing and amiable bunch every Sunday – and have a blast! we all have a lot of fun and I make quite a bit of money. –- and lay as low as possible when it comes to dim and his venture- until now that I write about it, that is, but as I write in English, they won’t be any the wiser anytime soon, them being French and all that- or so I do sincerely do hope1- bhp to me: you are so cheap- me? Moi? I will not up me prices just because you are bhp, my prices be my prices, okay???- Actually my food is not cheap at all! There will be some showdown or other sooner than later? Possibly…
…. meanwhile the espresso machine wanders and wanders. Why oh why…? –never mind that they- dim and his friend- rented jack’s bar; and in the name of improvement they trashed the place, and then when all was trashed, coldly informed jack- their so called friend that; they did not rent the place anymore from him and gave jack 200 dollars- which even here is surely not enough to rebuild bar, but they happily absconded anyways…to their newly rented guesthouse next door. Ouch, the French, nothing like the French! - If that are friends, it’s better to have them rather as enemies. At least one knows what to expect…

..Just the other day Ian – that was before he went for his cello lessons in pp- came over for a few cold beers. How is cmac doing – Cambodian mine action center- the de miners, I asked. Two detonations last week he said- because Chris- his husband is a medic there he would know of course,; the first: - now that’s a classic- the village chief of one little outpost or another, called them over when they were driving through. Could they help, because he was sick and tired of having that stuff in his house. whaaa? Yes, indeed, he had – still the mines that were given to him by the Khmer rouge- Chinese made thus- in his house; because he did not want to put them down anywhere. (..Nice guy...). So for more than thirty years this poor man had been living with a rather big box of landmines- in his house, the mines were still in their original packages. So cmac detonated those.
…next a call. …. -what do i so have: a guardian angel? - As Shap might say-or- a guardian Buddha? a sixth sense, or just plain dumb luck? A nest of cluster bombs had been found. Now, cluster bombs are just the nastiest meanest, most dangerous unexploded ding one can find hereabouts. Those little fake rockettes have a little propeller inna back. When dropped, the propeller starts to turn. Presumably starting the trigger mechanism. They turn and turn and when the mechanism is not fully turned when they land, they rest. And deteriorate and lay there. So one never knows how far the trigger is gone towards explosion. Whereas one has to step on a mine to get one self killed or maimed-, cluster bombs happily explode, whenever- even when one steps only near to them, and just juggles da ground enough to give that little propeller that single extra partial twist. And yes, cmac exploded them and nobody got hurt. But guess where they were? remember, that big piece of land that i did not buy, when i was looking for my land? the piece of land that was so big and cheap and overgrown and i might even have mentioned that i was too worried about some ordinance or other…:to buy it ..And yes, and sure enough; that was where the cluster bombs were found. Detonated now, and nobody hurt, but still. Not a close shave, but close enough for my taste fo’ sure.-to top it off; they were right under the main power linefor town, making detonating them without pluynging the city into darknesseve- quite hard. They managed, that one, but power outagesare the order of the dayanyways,, even without dretonations…
Meanwhile, as the rains are moving off to wherever rains go after the rainy season, it is getting quite cold: storms are moving over, blowing clouds and if you ask me those ill winds are coming from where: Manchuria, or even Siberia? Everybody goes to the market to buy- second hand-oxfaM? –warm clothes. Many of those come from Russia; the results can be quite funny: imagine a phnong inna Russian fur hat…next to a banana plant…
Anyways, we all start to bundle up. And have colds and so on. When the sun comes out, we all shed our winter clothes…
And then, now that it gets drier, the snakes come out, having been prone while it was cold. The other day there was a big one, right in front of my restaurant... What kind a snake? Yeah, I’d like to know that too’; what is it with those field guides??? So by the looks of it is eighter: a.) a rat snake; perfectly harmless, even useful/. Or: b.) a cobra. As field guides only photograph cobras when they are angry- and their hoods are up, aww. By that time it will be too late, and when cobras rest, they- or some do at least, just look like rat snakes, I for one can not tell the difference. So I decided to scare the snake off. Threw my flip flop at it. And yes, the snake moved: crawled right under my house. The last place where i do want to have it. No I will not crawl underneath just to kill it or maybe get killed me in the process. Sooooo: snakes can't hear... But they hate vibrations, so rather than doing heroics of any kind I do put on a ‘gun’s and roses’ record that somehow made it from Billies’ collection of records into mine when I moved here. Then I call the bullies, and we all dance and jump up and down on the wood floor and make quite a racket and by now it should be gone after half an hour of rather serious vibrations…. and we never did see that particular snake back again… so maybe it worked.
So, it seems like i will be able to finaly post regularly again! Do not ask, please.
But yes, I will.


..now that the rains are abating- in theory that is, as some cyclone or other seems to have hit the Philippines and dumps yet more ‘ second hand rainfall ‘ on us- the bus service has resumed and tourists are- not really flooding the town, but yes, they are around and quite a few of them. And yes some even do find my place, quite a few actually. as i am not on the main road, nor known, I did make a map that looks like a little children’s albeit a quite sarcastic -drawing on the back of my flier, motos colliding, an elephant on the runway a stupid cartoon cow the city’s monument etc- and yes the signs that we had painted work too. So there is a bit of a buzz going….That does not go over quite too well in certain quarters, see a place called nature lodge partly western owned- he Khmer, she Israeli, and in some Khmer quarters not too well either. Still tourists come, and most of them ate extremely nice and a lot of fun. Ever so often, nature lodge does send ‘spies’ easily recognized. Most of their customers are not my cup of tea anyways. Then yet today a delightful English couple arrived, they came for drinks and dinner, being bored with the pseudo ecological stuff of nature lodge. ohh yes, they had met that new Zealand couple, the bored the wits outta me yesterday for quite some time,- two tomato soup, one coke, three hours- they said i was gonna be competition for nature lodge. Nature lodge should be so lucky them/ they can keep their cheap customers- most of them that is. The nice ones show up here anyways, and then a few not so nice ones too.
As it is getting busier by the day, i will need more staff. My cleaning girl is quite okay, - not the sharpest machete in the jungle, but- so be it, but has taken to not showing up. – now that the young lady has mobile and a motorbike... her attendance has gone down and she does try to get away with less and less work. – never mind she earns the fortune that made the bike and phone possible in the first place sp I made perfectly clear that no work no money.. and she seems to get the gist of that one…maybe….and I will need an assistant, but as I quite enjoy cooking myself and if somebody assists he or she will have to adhere to my stile and be willing to learn, I’d say it ain’t gonna happen-not anytime soon.
..Then after quite busy week end, today I did decide to take it quite easy indeed. Things here are moving at an amazing speed for such a backwater. But let’s not move ahead of the developments.
Today the Russian dirt bikers arrived- yet again: a Russian tour. Operator organizes dirt bike trips through cambo. 10-14 bikes at a time; good drivers, great gear, like ‘red’ hell’s angels they drive into town: all the local flowers of young womanhood come out of the woodwork. The bikers stop. Off comes the gear and visible become: sagging bellies, balding heads buckteeth, and ‘four eye glasses.
Nastrowje. Wom!
The Leningrad nerds? The Vladivostok geeks? Some such. Whatever… and the flowers or young mondul Khmer woman hood, merged back into da woodwork- with remarkable speed, at least for hereabouts-, just as fast as they crawled out. Not that the Russians are particularly interested either way: they prefer elvis, who obligingly jumps on their bikes to be photographed, and the end is obvious: loads of vodkas downed in my place.
Fine by me.
Ps: As I was having a beer in the coffee shop this afternoon, being a bit bored, I finaly did get around to reading the coffee e shop’s sign correctly. It said: ‘we frie THE French!!’...
(Fine by me, too. Go right ahead!).

[DavidS]

"It said: ‘we frie THE French!!’"

That would make the French the freiers...(the Russians would appreciate that).

Great stuff Tan - keep it coming! (my smilies don't work, so: <cool>, <LOL> etc, X n)