Expresso Kamuchea

[tan]

Hi, will keep posting, the rains are on big time, and we do need it, it had been so dry that even the crocks in the reservoir started complaining...
life is getiing not any easier, we dig our way through water and mud.....
our poor guests are not prepared for this, they get sick, bitten by unknown insects, fall off bikes, medical and mental help tie up most of our working hours...
anyway, we were watching the bats in the national museum...

my next stop will be the other bars along sisowath quay, there is of course hurley' s cantina, great guy, does all the casting and wrangling for movies shot in cambo.. (highly likely resposible for my friends hangover shock, would we just like hurley) quite a lot, and runs his bar. next to hurely' s there is happy herb' s pizza- ganja= or weed is a spice like say, oregano in khmer cooking, until the un AND THE dea got cambo to make marijhuana illgal. now after cooking with this stuff for a couple of thousand years, this we find quite funny, annyway, nobody gives a....
the khmers though think the westerner hillarious for smoking that stuff.. like a khmer smoking oregano in the western world...anyway, ol' herb' s pizza's can be orderd normal, happy or very happy or exctatic.bon. you get the geral idaea..
next is the pink elephant.. richard the american-viet vet owner- died a few years ago, he loved cambo, and allways said he wanted to live and die here, got a stroke.. left the place to his khmer boyfriend of many years.. sien, his boyfriend keeps the place going as richard would have wanted it. sien had a bit of a problem when some western lawyer decided to talk his mum(80 years old- richard' s that is)to contest the will.sien won.
ok. let's say the gang is sitting at the pink tonight, big bikes standing out front, d' s security working overtime, there has been a sad increase in violent crime lately, everybody will sit with their face to the street, we all have our experiences there, we like to see when we have to ht the deck...
when you have to go to the bathroom you'll have to pass through the bar: on the wall a big PINK stuffed elephant and a big photo of ritchad,as we all knew him,underneath a collage of many, many western people, all drinking a beer , having a good time, when an expat passes this picture we will bow,ever so slightly..
no, it's not what you think, the elephant wall as it is called are our friends, the ones that died, a fun picture to touristes, a memorial to us...
to die here is called joining the elephant wall...
in what i call expatois, my friend chicago joe and me are trying to comiple an expatois dictionary,will keep us busy till we join..
sorry guys, will try to keep you laughing, one needs a sense of humor to live here, but, not it is not a third world disney land, more the true asia of the books you read as a child..
thanks tan

[BigJon@Work]

Originally posted by tan:
...somebody i know thinks he can get pictures on this site .Would you be interested??? if so we' ll give it a try.
thanks, tan

I'd be interested, but your words paint such a wonderful picture, I'm guessing the pics might be superfluous.

BigJon

[RC]

WAHOOO! I have my computer back! I had a loaner computer and I could read but not respond. Talk about holding your tongue!

Anyway...

Tan - I'm torn. I am absolutely mesmerized by your tales. I want to see the pictures but what you paint with your words is so intriguing; What if the pictures don't live up?
You decide and I promise not to be disapointed either way.

[tan]

ok, let' s do it this way: will start taking pictures and see what i can come up with, and then decide. today the first patchettes of blue sky in more than a week: we can shed those dreary khaki rainponchos. we've been flapping around town on motorbikes loking like depressione era vampires, and still got wet. my dop and me fell into a puddle yesterday with predictably muddy result.
A dop, or better motodop- from the french motodouble- is a motorcycle taxi, there are also the cyclo, a bycicle taxi,( taking those makes even us expats feel so guity that we grossly overpay them) or a tucktuck a moto on three wheels with a roof.
most of us take motos. fast and inexpensive(at least in theory). the drivers, recognizable by their baseball hats can be a pest: if you decide to walk- oh horrors!' they will follow you an keep asking you if you want a ride. Once on the bike the weary tourist will be asked about their preferred vice. Just don' t listen and keep saying no, i advise my bewildered guests.
it is amaizing what can be transported on a moto: 50 chickens, bound by their feet hanging from the handle bars, the shopping for the whole- extended- family,one or two babys on top, and up to five adults on the back...(that one i will prove with a photo).
in snookyville motos go fearfully fast, in phnom penh they go slower, due to traffic congestion. i preffer to work only with dops i know, but ever so often chicago joe will be faster than me and take off with the driver of my choice. so, i stand by the side of the street and yell MOTO!, if nobody has spotted me yet, -highly unlikely, but it has happened. Now i find myself on the back of the bike of a total stranger... Fccc i say, sisowath quay, and the driver will take off, - in the wrong direction... so i will tell him which way to go,
.. a few weeks ago i had a true and utter dumbo, finally i asked, in kmer- Do you acctually know where you' re going?.back came a respectfull : no maa'm... unfortunately i decided to keep the driver, the smart thing is bang him about the equivalent of a quarter and take another one..
abovemetioned driver managed only a few minutes later to get into a fender bender with an suv, that spilled driver, elvis( my bulldog) and me all over monivong blvd.. left me with a stretched ligament and elvis in a truly foul mood. then the driver tried to make me pay for the damage.One look at elvis, and he canned that idea really fast, just in case you wondered why a bulldog might come in handy in pp...
so, i'll try to make use of the dry spell to run some errands..
bye tan

[tan]

ok, one more little offender 9multiple mil- exsorsided...

<small>[ 07-06-2005, 07:59 PM: Message edited by: tan ]</small>

[tan]

o

<small>[ 07-06-2005, 08:04 PM: Message edited by: tan ]</small>

[tan]

ok,

<small>[ 07-06-2005, 07:54 PM: Message edited by: tan ]</small>

[tan]

Sorry guys, something went wrong in serverland, multiple posting...my excuses tan

[tan]

well,
still feel embarrassed about multiple postings.. just did not want to lose the story..
semi dry working day: the owner/ wrier editor/main advertiment publisher in town today. an old friend from the old days. find i got a mention, combined wiht the innevitable slag in his mag...
not too bad as the old bayon pearnik- the mag -goes.
got tired of waiting for adam,-that' s his name ,so went for breakfast, lunch / dinner to the french place next door, the food is great, the place stricty expat.
the french outraged about another piece cited from the internet, printed in the mag. (as in how stupid can people be, the piece i mentioned in another post earlier...)read it in context i tried to tell the french, no go. they just do not catch english insinuations or humor, neigther do the germans bye the way, so i do find myself in the not enviable postion to explain everybody to ebeybody else. it does not work....
at some point adam slid to a seat across the table from me. the french do not know adam from adam, litteraly so, so we are strangely ingognito in a country where everybody knows- or at least pretends to know everybody else's business...
we speak english, the french do not understand us, we try to be polite, well not a really strong effort on our pART AND SPEAK KHMER, WHEN WE FIND OUT THE FRENCH ARE LOST IN KHMER AS WELL AS IN ENGLISH, WE MOVE BACK TO ENGLISH.. SO WE trade information ,enjoy our lunch and nobody's the wiser, as they do not know who he is, and we' re not about to tell them...
a big bike cometh to a stop before the reataurant,well kinda, well, it' s zz top, his actual name is garry and we love him dearly, but he' s just a dead ringer for zz... so...
anyway, ol' zz had his roadbike adapted for dirt bike- a looker , even though not to my taste... looks like a brewery horse on race horse legs, any roadbiker amogest you will get the drift...
still she is a sleek one, but: a roadbike, here at least ist steel, while a dirtbike is usually made of fiberglass. so zz's lady is quite a heavy one... Zz parks the bike, now it has been raining and our street is nowhere near paved, zz puts down the krikstand, and each and all hear the sickening sukking sound that we all know to well, next we hear is zz sliding backwards on the ground,from behind the bike, zz remarks, quite cooly i must admit, I"AM SINKING!
the whole restaurant, well anybody who' s brains are not totally fried by now, a PROUD 90 PERCENT i may report- MAKES A FLYING TACKLE, MOST FOR THE BIKE, THE REsT PULLes ZZ FROM BEHIND IT, LEST THE BIKE TOPLE OVER ANYWAY..
moved the bike inside the restaurant, and zz to a chair, elvis frouwned and eyed the bike, before nonchalantly lifing his leg against bike. out off breath zz says thanks all, pets elvis, and says thanks for the war effort you british- rest of sentence pg if not worse.
anyway, that cut the tension, and a good time was had by all...
see ya' tan

[Shapley]

Tan,

Not to worry. I think everyone here has done a multi-post at one time or another. If you want, you can click on the "Edit/Delete Post" icon at the top of the post. You can't delete it, but you can cut all the text out, leaving a blank post. (Actually it will say "message edited by tan" but the rest will be blank).

V/R
Shapley

[OperaTenor]

What?! Double post?!!

Never!

[OperaTenor]

What?! Double post?!!

Never!

[Shapley]

It's a great way to boost your post count.

Not that anyone here would ever do that!

[Shapley]

It's a great way to boost your post count.

Not that anyone here would ever do that!

[tan]

Thanks Shapley!
got rid of the little offenders as good as possible.
take care,
tan

[tan]

hi, got temporarily flattened by one of those tropical bugs,no big deal aspirine and sleep does the job.
as the rains continue we battle all kinds of wildlife looking for a dry spot. What is permissible in a guesthouse, and what is not: rats, definitely not, kaiser wilhelm the big tomcat,model dutch tea cosy- will take care of those. unforunately, he never learned how to be discreet about it: a screaming monster rat will run for its life sraight through the place, wilhelm in hot pursuit, no heed is paid to anybody, in the end wilhelm will prevail, usually in full view of everybody, and bob will make a flying tackle to get rid of cat and prey, unappreciated by wilhelm.
bats, well they don' t hurt anybody, but i do not like them to be arround food, so - it does not happen often, but should a bat be inside we chase it out with tennis rackets,they get the message fast.( guests enjoy helping here often)
scorpions and giant centipedes, not deadly but very painfull should they sting, my job, over the years i devellopped a deadly aim with a flip flop,
they are suprisingly easy to flatten.
well, snakes, that has not happend in years up on the hill, but they are a definite no! Once i found a king cobra curled around my toiletbowl, not a nice way to start the day, we had to kill it, toilet bowl also took a direct hit, had be to replaced. (little max once opened his kitchen clostet and had a cobra fall staight out in front of his feet, cobra was not happy to see him, max killed it with an iron rod, had to do quite a dance to get it.)in general cobra' s are not very aggressive but inside, they feel trapped an will attack.
ants, red ants in particular, have a painful sting, but not long term painful, here we spray and hope they do not get into the towels. each and every one of us hade the unpleasant experience of coming out of the shower, grabbing a towel and beeing attackd by acouple of thousand of them...
ghekkos: a definite yes, they are considered lucky
should one decide to reside in your place.
we have borris,blue and red dotted, a three foot monster with a voice to match, he has been with us for the last five years. we all love borris, but our guests have to get used to him, most of the time he does his vocal pratice unseen, but at times he might take a peek at you around the corner of the mirror where one is shaving or dooing the make up. to alleviate missunderstandings,we made a poster of borris, to ' explain ' him to our guests.
Ivan is our ' part time' ghekko, after borris he impresses nobody very much.
then we have tcheck-tchoks, or tokkehs. little collorless, ghekkolike fellows, they eat mosquitos, run over the ceilings, and are reknown for their amusing antics. every body likes them. once in a while one will fall down on you, considered lucky, so we carefully pick up the little fellow and put him back on the wall.
about a year aGO, WE NOTICED THAT EVERY COCKTAIL HAPPY HOUR THERE WOULD BE A THOKKEh ON THE BAR. WHENEVER A DROP of baily's would fall on the bar he' d have a drink, so bob called him big baily's.
At the end of the happy hour baily's would be smashed. we did not think that suitable for a thokkeh, so we started pouring really carefull, but baily's was not to be deterred, he'd try to get into the cocktail glass,and we had to fish him out ever so often. Then he discovered the beer tap and started to bring his friends around,and we gave up. so now we have about five overindulging thokkeh's dead drunk on the bar every night. luckily our guests like to take pictures of them, so ok...
sorry, by now your skin must be crawling,but acctually one gets easyly used to the critters...
se ya, tan

without beeing bitten.

[Shapley]

I had to Google "tokkeh" to see what they looked like. I still have a hard time imagining an alchoholic lizard. That's rather a comical thought.

I don't like the idea of a cobra in the bathroom! The only cobras around here were built for speed by Mr. Shelby.

We have copperheads in the woods near my home, fortunately none have found the way up to the house lately. Occasionally we'll find a dead one dragged up by the cats, who eat all but the head. One of my old tomcats died a couple years ago from what appeard to be a snake bite, but we weren't sure. Shortly after moving out there, one got up near the house, where two of our females had gathered their litters inside the frame of a hot-tub. when I moved the frame to get at the snake, I found all of the kittens freshly dead. I'm not sure if it was from snake-bite or abandonment by the mothers. I killed the snake and buried the kittens. pretty sad. I try to keep the surroundings around the house clear ro discourage any other unwanted visitors.

I also have guinea-hens which kill or repel snakes, as well as keeping the tick population at bay. Noisy beasts, and messy, but better than ticks and snakes. Unfortunately, their hard to keep alive, as the four legged animals, domesticated and wild, find them quite tasty.

V/R
Shapley

[BigJon@Work]

Originally posted by tan:
Then he discovered the beer tap and started to bring his friends around,and we gave up. so now we have about five overindulging thokkeh's dead drunk on the bar every night.

Now for that you must learn to post pictures. My office mates probably think I'm a loon for laughing out loud over this image in my mind.

BigJon

[DavidS]

Originally posted by Shapley:
Occasionally we'll find a dead one dragged up by the cats, One of my old tomcats died a couple years ago from what appeard to be a snake bite, but we weren't sure. V/R
Shapley

Aren't cats reputed to be able to get the better of snakes, in general, like mongooses?

[Shapley]

Yes,

I've seen them kill snakes a couple of times. I'm not sure if it was a snake that killed our tomcat, but he had a pair of marks on him resembling fang marks. He had very little blood on him. He walked past us, and went into the dog house to lie down, and died.

I saw three of the guinea hens get after a snake once, while mowing. The gang up on it, tormenting it and yelling loudly. The snake will either leave, or the guineas will kill it.