Where we buy our veggies, couple blocks from home. This street comes alive at night with people selling and buying vegetables, fruit, meat, and live seafood - mostly laid out on the ground. The atmosphere, and this nightly errand, is one of the things I missed most while home in the U.S. for the holidays. If only they would block the road to motos.
Some shots from yesterday’s protest in remembrance of the hundreds evicted from this location in Phnom Penh 3 years ago. Their former homes are still an empty lot.
UPDATE: Land disputes, forced evictions, and the concomitant violence are on the rise.
In theory, arriving at 5:45 am in Seoul, South Korea for a 12 hour layover until my flight to Phnom Penh at 6:30 pm, would have been an excellent opportunity to see the city — a place I had never been.
In reality, below zero is extremely cold weather for walking around a city in your Cambodia wardrobe. Especially after a 12.5 hour flight.
I arrived downtown just as the sky began lightening, and by 10:30 am I was frozen and hungry, and in no condition to resist the warm embrace of one of the many Starbucks I was passing. Once I had devoured an egg bagel, the cold was somehow even more unbearable. I barely made it through another hour of wandering before I headed for Seoul Station and the train back to the Incheon Airport. I did enjoy my walk though, and hope to be back soon to do some real sight seeing and eating.
Final note: public transportation options in Seoul are absolutely fantastic. Starting from the comfortable and well-designed airport, to the multiple fast and affordable means for getting into the city, through to the insanely comprehensive subway and bus system, it might be the most impressive urban infrastructure I’ve seen yet.
I didn’t even know how wonderful real American hamburgers are, or how much I like them, or how they do not exist elsewhere, until I was out of the country for over a year. If you’ve never been to the U.S., please trust me that you have never had a real burger. This statement emphatically applies to Australia, where the burgers may be good, but are far from a real hamburger in the States!
So, until next year, you wonderful hunk of delicious ground beef cooked medium rare on a slightly toasted bun. I’ma gettin ona jet plane.
Resist the appeal of a storybook life, or else narrative patterns will become personal myths that poison your future.
You’ll break your life into chapters and set goals with three act structure and make friends and enemies according to archetype, all in a ridiculous attempt to trace your own character arc across the coming decades.
You’ll call this exercise dreaming, or worse, dreaming big, and your life will become a preamble to some distant happily ever after.
That would be a shame, because a storybook life is overrated. It is boring and safe and artificial as a teacup ride.
And so, I head back to Phnom Penh …
Penetrating Observations
As I prepare to return to Phnom Penh in two days (yay!), I have the following critically important thoughts to share:
- The U.S. might be the only country in the world that refrigerates eggs.
- Also maybe the only country where clothes dryers are the norm rather than a very rare exception.
- Craigslist officially sucks now.
Now you know. You’re welcome!
Los Angeles in December.
Scene from a dinner
- The Setting: Fade in to a small, very popular Japanese restaurant in Los Angeles. All the tables and the sushi bar are full of patrons, enjoying some of the best Japanese food in the area. Several Japanese families are there, as are your typical well-heeled So Cal rich hippies. The lights dim slightly.
- Waitress, carrying plate of ice cream with one candle: Everyone we have a birthday! Let's all wish a warm happy birthday to Lulu who is here with her kids and their partners and her husband celebrating! (Starts singing. Lovely elderly woman Lulu is smiling at her family.)
- Fat drunk man at sushi bar wearing fluorescent swim trunks with elastic band and a sweater: Lulu's a ho! (Slams beer on counter and looks up, apparently surprised by his own outburst.)
- And scene.
The Spot for cocktails in San Pedro, California.
Oh, LA.
My brother’s request that I hang out on Rodeo Drive for an hour waiting for him to run an errand, on my first day back in the US from Cambodia and backpacking for a year, resulted in rather unpleasant culture shock.
nybg:
For Treehugger.com, traveling on a budget doesn’t mean settling for less! In its latest article, it discusses the concept of energy efficient “boutique hostels” which are gaining traction in difficult economic times. Read how this innovative design provides a relaxing experience for a diverse group of travelers.
And sometimes traveling on a budget does mean “settling for less,” but it’s still so worth it. In fact, that’s kind of the point. (These hostels are really cool anyway though!)
The gate and yard in the new pad.
Yes, we have a door bell! An actual bell, over the door. Can’t quite explain how much we are loving this place.
Thra Ka Band - Chan Penh Boromey
I know very few details about the Khmer music I listen to, but some of my favourite music came out of this scene. All I can tell you about this song, is that it features the vocals of Keo Sokha (definitely one of the less recorded singers of this era).
Blogs tend to post a cliche blurb on the Khmer Rouge or if you’re lucky, the largely ignored American carpet bombing, but I would prefer to see this era of Khmer culture remembered as a great period in music and not associated with later political events. To me, this is some of the most beautiful and hypnotic groove music that the 70’s had to offer!
“Chan Penh Boromey” has the heavy head nod Khmer soul beat that first attracted me to this music, call and answer vocals and some really stylish guitar work reminiscent of classics like “Blue Basket”. You cant go wrong here. Enjoy!
Cool cover art too.
