for hilary... mostly

Hilary,
i thought you would appreciate this photo of me looking very corporate... please note the corporate scarf (made by a women's income generation group) and the orange bike...
the helmet is also exciting...

x x x

traffic

Sometimes when I am cycling along the roads here in Phnom Penh I get really annoyed with the traffic, in particular the way people are constantly trying to kill me (or so it seems). Road rage on a bike is not a good thing… ultimately I will always loose out.

A couple of weeks ago I devised a way to quell my annoyance… it is absolutely perfect… I realised the reason I was annoyed was because I was taking the moral high ground, obviously I was a model cyclist obeying all traffic regulations… I came to the conclusion that the only solution was for me to break every single traffic rule and then I would have no grounds to be annoyed by other people… now I cant say I do this everyday as it might be marginally more unsafe than normal cycling… however every time I start to get annoyed I make sure I:

• Run a red light,
• Cycle on the wrong side of the road
• Cycle the wrong way down a one way street
• Cut up people on mopeds (it is actually possible to cut up a moped on a one gear grannie bike, I can be quite speedy)…
• If im making a right hand turn at a traffic lights and there is a petrol station on the corner, I just cut through it instead of staying on the road and waiting for the lights to change…All in all I am finding this method saves time… and significantly reduces annoyance with cambodgian driving… excellent…

I shall probably get into much trouble with the traffic police when I get home!

Rain and Carmen Electra

The other evening there was another huge storm. Fortunately this time it wasn’t when I was trying to sleep. All afternoon it was dark and windy and there was lightning, but no thunder or rain… I new it was going to rain, but I really wanted to get a swim in, so I went to the pool. After about 20min it started to rain. It was amazing amazing. The pool is outside, and the rain was so so so soooo heavy, it was churning up the pool, and then it got dark, it was almost as if I was in a storm in the sea. In the end I realised the rain wasn’t going to stop and I would have to cycle home in the rain… now I only live about 10 blocks from the pool, but my skirt was cream and my t-shirt was white, and it was raining hard… Marionanon will recall berating me in Vietnam for getting soaked and see-through on the back of a motorbike in a village, and I didn’t really want to repeat the experience, but there was no choice! However Marion I did manage to use my sarong as another layer, which significantly reduced see-throughness, and overall I don’t think I humiliated/exposed myself at all really… cycling home was fun… right down the middle of the road as all but the middle was flooded… I also noticed a couple of people washing their children in the run off from gutters. The rain was so heavy and warm… and yet I felt cooler than I had in days…

I’m sitting writing this at home, and the TV is on… most exciting it appears to be a show presented by Carmen Electra. Its called Manhunt: The search for Americas most gorgeous male model. Excellent. To be honest it is not as exciting as it sounds… but there are lots of topless men prancing around and taking themselves far too seriously…

Thoughts on massage

Last night I was feeling board and so I decided to go for a massage… there are several massage parlours in my street (I dislike the use of the parlour word as it springs to mind all sorts of dodgy things… however what other word can I use??)… in fact a new one opened only last week. It advertises ‘back scrabs’… tempting as a back scrab sounds I decided to go round the corner to a different ‘parlour’… here I was given a menu with all sorts of interesting massages… I went for the standard full body massage thinking it would be safer than a) chest massage b) skin peel c) full body wax (ouch)… as I am not at all wise in the ways of massage it was fairly entertaining, quite relaxing, and I emerged relatively unscathed… although to be honest the stomach part of the massage was very odd… I am now only 9 massages away from a free massage as I was presented with a loyalty type card… its so cheap I think I may go back… but I am starting to think that reacclimatizing to UK will be hard… here I am soooooooooo lazy… someone cleans my rooms, makes my bed, does my washing up, washes and irons my clothes… I never cook anything more than porridge or a fruit smoothie (although I did once boil some asparagus)… and now I am going to become a spa junkie or something… all that remains is for me to get some executive outfits and start having manicures and then I will be totally unrecognisable… actually I did notice on the massage menu you can pay $1 to have your hair washed and dried – includes free scalp massage (!!) perhaps I will go for that next time… hee hee hee
It is a hard life here in the Cambodge to be sure to be sure… in saying that I have just returned from 3 days working in the provinces, eating rice 3 times a day and sleeping in what seemed like a prison cell… the part of Phnom Penh that I live in isn’t real Cambodia that’s for sure…

fact of the day

the average cambodian man eats 18kg of rice per month... apparently
that seems like an awful lot of rice to me

Things to do or carry on a moto or cyclio in Cambodge

The following list are all things I have seen people doing or carrying on a motobike or cyclo rickshaw in Phnom Penh… sometimes the mind boggles…

• Carry an air-conditioning unit
• Carry 40 odd half alive chickens upside down hanging off the back
• Breast feed a small child
• Carry 4 or 5 members of your family all on one bike
• Wear a helmet… possibly… actually mostly not
• Carry a large TV, 50kg bag of rice and a sack of fruit whilst still managing to steer
• Sit side saddle (ladies only on that one)
• Carry a large slab of (ever melting) ice
• Carry several live pigs on the back (I am sure they must get sunburn)

Home Thoughts From Abroad

I remember my Dad sent me this poem when i was in Mongolia. I really like it and i guess it is now April so I can think about English spring and compare and contrast to the dusty humid heat here... a heat which impossibly keeps getting hotter and hotter... thank goodness for ice and gin and tonic and swimming pools... thats all i can say...

Home Thoughts From Abroad
Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England--now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops--at the bent spray's edge--
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
--Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Robert Browning

Thursday... it would appear

Just a very quick blog… from my desk in Phnom Penh… I am feeling very rotund at this instant after eating a huge Chinese meal with my colleagues in a surreal restaurant… surreal in the sense it is very small (8 tables) and yet we were jumped on by 7 staff all dressed in luminous green and pink t-shirts with ‘my love’ written over the chest in gold sequins…

The last few weeks have been a bit of a social whirl with Marionanon, Sue and Anton all being around at various points. Next week I am working in one of the provinces and I’m sure there will be nout to do in the evening so I’ll try and write more then. Needless to say Angkor Wat was incredible, as was Preah Vihear… although in different ways… Angkor wat in the ‘lets marvel at ancient architecture and luxury swimming pools’ way and Preah Vihear in the ‘lets get depressed about deforestation and landmines’ way… Tbang Meanchey is the main town in PV province and it was bizzarly like Dalanzadgad, Mongolia… especially the bally powercuts…

I thought it might all seem a bit dull once people went back to UK, but we have been scooping the next few months work out and seems like I shall hardly be in PP at all in April with trips (work and holidays) all over the country…

Ok enough for now… Sunday I’m off to the zoo… oh the excitements…

PS Sally: latest smoothie favourite: Yoghurt, lots of crushed ice and Cadburys cream eggs… mmmmmm

PS2 many photos will be uploaded to FlickR soon... i hope x x x

holidays

thought i should write a quick blog from my holidays in siem reip with anton...we are having a lovely jublee time... eating much food, cycling (should perhaps read sweating) round angkor watywat, flying in a baloon (fortunately attached to a long piece of thick wire), drinking amazing frozen cocktails in a swimming pool, eating squid off a bbq etc etc it is all very lovely... photos and more details will follow next week.. for now im off for a massage and then some diner in a twinkle star garden and then perhaps some sleep.. very sleepie
tomorrow may involve elephant rides and sunsets and a move to an exceedingly swanky hotel.. with infinity black marble pool... and spearsy there is a room called 'jack fruit' hopfully it has my name on it!
ta ra for now
love and cocktails
telfy x x

Cockroach

Today I spied and killed my first cockroach. It was absolutely huge and it kept scuttling around my room… I tried to kill it several times… but failed… at last I finished it off with a piece of paper. I am now wondering if it was actually more than one roach… and am hoping not the start of a small plague.

landmines

I was thinking to write something about how annoying (dangerous?) it was trying to cycle around Phnom Phen when people drive on the wrong side of the roads, dont use lights when its dark, ignore traffic lights etc... but then I was watching a programme on the national geographic channel about temples in Cambodia and I thought I would write about that instead. The programme was showing how de-mining teams were removing the land mines from around some of Cambodia’s ancient temples, it was very interesting to see how the teams go about this process. Cambodia was one of the most mined countries in the world a few years ago... now I am not so sure, but you can see the impact of land mines every day in the large numbers of people missing legs or arms... for example the other day I was cycling along and I saw a man riding a bicycle – he only had one leg... it was pretty amazing how he was managing to balance! Anyway I thought I would write about one of the stories they told on the programme.
Three brothers went into the forest to collect wood for the fire. They knew it was dangerous to go off the marked paths, but they had to get wood for their mother to cook the rice, and wood from the accessible areas had all been collected. All of a sudden there was a loud bang – one of the boys had stood on a land mine. His brothers rushed to help him... however in doing so they pulled a tripwire to a ‘pineapple’ mine... I think this was several mines all linked together. They both died... the 1st boy lived, but lost a foot... war is something evil.

Weather

I think it’s a very British thing to write about the weather… and as I am mostly British then my blog would not be complete without at least one entry dedicated to the weather in the cambodge.

Since the last weekend it has been getting distinctly hotter… people kept saying it would get hotter as we move towards April (the hottest driest month), but I didn’t really think that it was possible… however apparently it is. Monday was so so soooo hot… I cycled home at 5.30pm and it was still ridiculously hot. I went for a swim and even that wasn’t particularly cooling. I think the daily temperature is now well above 35 degrees.

Far too early for my liking Tuesday morning the reason for the heat became apparent… we had been building up for an epic storm. Just before 2am I woke up realising that living under a tin roof during a seriously heavy rainstorm would not be conducive to sleep, even with ear plugs firmly in my ears… (think millions of the hugest raindrops ever pounding down on my metal roof). For lack of anything better to do I blithely ambled onto my balcony to watch the rain… I was instantly soaked to the skin… oops. Then the thunder and lightening started. I have never experienced anything like it… rolls and rolls of the loudest thunder and lightening strafing across the whole sky, lighting up the street with a florescent glow… it reminded me of the ‘Blitz experience’ at the Imperial war museum in London… without Vera Lynne… the storm kept going for over an hour and a half… I seemed to flit between awe and amazement at the weather… and a real fear that I would be a) electrocuted b) buried under the house c) exceedingly sleep deprived the next day… Fortunately I woke Tuesday sleep deprived rather than frazzled… with a mild sense of regret that I hadn’t remembered Julie Andrews’ attitude to thunder storms… ‘these are a few of my favourite things… schnitzel with noodles… raindrops on roses… tr la la la’ me thinks it would have been excellent to sing Sound of Music songs during a real thunder storm…

We are in mango season now, and apparently there is usually one storm mid mango season to ‘take the flowers off the trees’… I really hope there aren’t too many more like that or I will have to build an air raid shelter and order some heavy duty ear defenders…

Preludes

The other day i spent some time enjoying a small second hand bookshop near my house... i love the fact that you never quite know what book you will find, and that all sorts of random people have read the books before me... perhaps surprisingly i managed to find exactly what i wanted 'the number one ladies detective agancy' - sadie ive read - it super fast for me... ready to compare and contrast? or find the next book in the series... might be more of an issue... and then the 2nd thing on my list was a TS Elliot book of poems... i wasnt particular about which one, but i just fancied getting hold of a copy... i found a 1970 edition of 'Wastelands and other poems'... here is my favourite... i can almost imagine the cold.... or not... it is soooooooooooooo hot here...
enjoy

Preludes

I
The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o'clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.

II
The morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust-trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.
With the other masquerades
That time resumes,
One thinks of all the hands
That are raising dingy shades
In a thousand furnished rooms.

III
You tossed a blanket from the bed,
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.
And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters,
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands;
Sitting along the bed's edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands.

IV
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o'clock
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.

I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.

Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.

my house is not orange

hils... of midget asian fame... i do not live in an orange house... it is peach - of that i am sure marionanon will verify... perhaps i could chip off some of the wall for her to bring back to proove it?

btw do you intend to make a blog?
i think it could be random...

Deoderant

Today was a public holiday (international women’s day of course)
I decided to investigate a different supermarket from the one near my house. I arrived and spent considerable time wandering around the isles looking at all the things that possibly I could buy… cambodge supermarkets are reasonably well stocked, but are not really that big… they are primarily stocked with lots of Chinese produced items – China is the commerce king over here…

Anyways after I had indulged in imported items such as apples and camembert cheese, I set out to find some deodorant, which was really why I went to the supermarket in the first place… I passed rows of ‘whitening cream’ (what is it with Asians wanting to bleach themselves and Europeans wanting to tan themselves?) and hair gels and toothpaste and soap and all the usual toiletries… but no deodorant. Now in my usual supermarket this is where you find deodorant, so I was pretty confused. I couldn’t believe there would be no deodorant, after all temperature is well above 30 degrees outside… I really needed some deodorant so I kept going back and forth thinking id missed it… eventually I found myself at the end of the shop, staring at a counter manned by little Cambodian ladies in smart suits, behind which was a wall of deodorant. Now please imagine this to be a make up or perfume counter – that was what it was like, but no the shelves were just stocked with deodorant. So I asked one of the ladies to get me some from the shelf and I went to put it in my basket.. but no it was snatched off me… the lady had to take the deodorant (it cost less than the cheese) with me to the cashier and then, and only then, was I left alone with it… and free to pay…

Perplexing?
Very… you would have thought I was buying something very valuable or precious…

Hash... no not that sort

The last 2 Sunday afternoons I have spent running (or perhaps that should say ‘attempting to run’) around the Cambodian countryside with a bizarre bunch of expats, Cambodians and children, in what is known as Phnom Penh Hash House Harriers (P2H3). The ‘hash’ is an international running club, I’m pretty sure there was one in UB, and apparently there are several in London… it seems to me to be a weird combination of a family trip to the countryside and a men’s drinking club - at the end there are various songs and downings of your choice of water or beer for crimes such as wearing new shoes or getting lost on the run or anything else deserving of a drink… the run (or walk if you prefer) follows a trail of paint or flour set by a ‘hare’ (I told you it was weird) and there are false trails and sometimes you cant see the trail at all… generally that is the case for me and I just try and follow people and not get lost or abandoned in a rice field… I really don’t know what the Cambodian villagers think of all these people in shorts running through their village/temple/rice field, possibly they think we are absolutely mad… something I would probably agree with them given temperatures of over 30degrees C… anyways its pretty fun, and its good to meet some different people and actually leave the city and do some exercise in beautiful lovely (hot) Cambodge… next week I might take my camera…

Thoughts on introducing ASBOs to the Cambodge

I was reading in the weekend newspaper a while back about ASBOs (Anti Social Behaviour Orders) in the UK. I would like to use my blog to recommend that the people in my street who decided to get married today be issued with one… I’m very happy for people to get married… but why do they need to use a very loud, loud speaker to blast the affair to the whole street (and beyond)… and why do they need to start at 5am and continue all day? And why do they need to walk up and down the street clashing tin cymbals when I am trying to sleep???? Even my trusty ear plugs could not drown the sound… I suppose the answer is a cultural difference, I don’t think people would tolerate it back home, but here everyone was happily out watching… attached should be a photo of the procession of the grooms family bringing gifts of food etc for the bride… (un)fortunately the photo doesn’t give any idea of the racket they were creating. grr grr and much gnashing of teeth...


Wedding procession... taken from my lovely balcony

New home

Well this weekend I moved across the road to a different apartment… I now live at the Golden Star guest house/apartments, as opposed to the Golden Comfort - everything in this street is golden… golden gate, golden sun, golden bridge etc etc… where I used to live was actually pretty nice, but in comparison this place is a million times nicer. The primary reason being a most lovely balcony, which catches a breeze, and the lighter more airy rooms… oh yes and it has a different selection of cable channels including the BBC… horah hooray. I’m going to attempt to attach some photos so you can see what it’s like…

This week we have another public holiday to celebrate women’s day so I’m going to go to the market to find a hammock for my balcony… excellent excellent…





My rooms are top left hand side of the peachy pink building




















views from the balcony. The brown pineapple shapped building is independence monument, to its right is a large temple...



my bedroom... in addtion i have a bathroom, kitchen and living area... the choice of bed linen isnt mine :o)

Lunch

Its lunchtime and so I thought I would make a change from blogging in the internet café from under my house, and write from my desk… this week I have been seeing a lot of my desk, however it appears to be a temporary blip amidst a busy training schedule.

Lunchtime is an hour and a half; we usually go outside to a small stall to eat. Outside is hot, inside is deceptively cool with the aircon. We have had a bit of rain the last few days, but on the whole the weather is clear and hot everyday.
Today’s menu was the usual plate of rice, a fish dish and liver and cabbage soup with pork fat to flavour. Basically you spoon a bit of what you want to eat onto the rice... today I have to say wasn’t the most appetising of lunches, normally there are more greens and less pork fat. Before I came here Lonely Planet gave me the impression that eating would involve lots of chopstick action, however mostly people use spoons and forks (not knives) and only occasionally do they get out the chopsticks!
After eating we go to another stall and get some freshly pressed sugar cane juice on ice mmmmm and then some mango from another seller. The mango is amazing, today we had green mango, its sort of unripe, but tastes great, you dip the mango in a small bag of salt and chili they give you… interesting tingling taste sensation.
After eating I tend to feel very very sleeeepie (perhaps because we start work at 7.30????) there is a ‘sleeping’ room at work but I’m not convinced…

Anyways enough mundane information… I shall get back to watching the over by over cricket update courtesy of the guardian…

this 'flaming lips' song is going round my head

Do You Realise - that you have the most beautiful face

Do You Realise - we're floating in space

Do You Realise - that happiness makes you cry

Do You Realise - that everyone you know someday will die

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes -

let them knowYou realise that life goes fast

It's hard to make the good things last

You realise the sun doesn't go down

It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

you should listen to it... its cool