Trip to Phnom Penh

On Sunday, I took a bus from Kampong Cham to Phnom Penh.

My landlord took me to the bus station on my moto, then rode it home and parked it in the living room. I didn't realize until later that I had forgotten-- EAR PLUGS. The last two buses I have been on, the entertainment systems have been broken (thank god). All of the buses have space for a TV above the rear view mirror in the front and speakers in the ceiling, spaced every two rows. When the systems work, the driver plays DVDs at full volume!



I had brought podcasts on my iPod Nano, but it was no competition for the monster sound system.

On the road, we saw the usual sights. Here are a few of them.



Figure 1 Yes, the moto is carrying the wooden frame for a double bed.





Figure 2 Juxtaposition of old and new is common in Cambodia



Figure 3 This is not a really big load.

About half way to Phnom Penh there is a rest stop, at a large building with a roof and no walls. Around 20 fruit and drink vendors work from small tables.

There are many options for lunch.



Figure 4 Kabob sandwiches



Figure 5 Small chickens

 
Figure 6 Spiders

Back on the road.



Figure 7 Riding on top of vehicles is common here.



The boy below was riding with his grandmother. Both of them were in one seat, with four large sacks on the floor in front of them.

It was nice to get off of the buss and into the clamor of the crowd, it was quieter than on the bus. In the middle of the night, I could have used my ear plugs again, there were two large dogs fighting not far away.

Next trip to Phnom Penh I will take my ear plugs.

New market – waffle lady

For the past two weeks, I have not gone to the new market close to my house and the bamboo bridge. Today I wanted eggs, though and decided to go shopping.

My first time at the new market, there were very few vendors. Today the market is more active, people packed in everywhere. While looking for eggs, I ran across the waffle lady from the old market. I was surprised to see her, and happy to find that her price is still the same and the waffles are as good as ever.

There are two types of eggs here, chicken eggs and duck eggs. Chicken eggs are brown and duck eggs are white. A month ago, I went to the old market to purchase eggs. I bought 10 duck eggs, "I thought I would try them". When I got them home, I was very disappointed, of the 10 eggs only two were fit to eat. The other eight were bad, very old.

I remembered that this morning and almost did not get duck eggs. But there were no chicken eggs, so it was duck eggs or nothing. I looked all over the market for chicken eggs. As I was leaving the market I passed a women selling duck eggs. OK Tom, go ahead. I purchased four. They were much cheaper than in the other market.

At home I hard-boiled them for egg salad. They were fine. When I chopped them up, they did seem a little tough, but that could have been my cooking time.

Good eggs and finding the waffle lady's new location made my day.

Rice planting begins

Rice is the staple diet in Cambodia, and an important commodity. Planting rice paddies begins after the rainy season starts. Farmers have been planting rice near Kampong Cham for the last three weeks.

I have made three trips into the fields to photograph preparation, planting and planting of rice shoots.



Rice is a labor-intensive crop. After a small area is prepared, rice seed is sown, and after about three months is ready for harvest. The seedlings are pulled by hand; dirt and water knocked off against the farmer's leg, and then placed in bundles. 




Both traditional and modern plowing methods are quite physical, requiring a farmer to push his plow through muddy fields. The traditional method uses animals and a wooden plow with a metal blade. In the last photo, both men are exerting a lot of effort to keep the plow making a furrow.


The boy is working hard to keep the tractor going straight, he has to run to keep up when he turns the tractor at the end of the field.



When the paddy is ready, the bundles of seedlings are planted by hand, with shoots peeled from the bundle and placed in the mud by hand. The process looks back-breaking.

The seedlings are quite yellow just before planting and after planting for several days. I think this is because they are pulled from the mud and the water and soil is removed from the roots. In addition the top of the seedling is trimmed off; all of this must be a bit of a shock to the seedling.

$7.42 a day

A survey conducted by Royal Government of Cambodia, UNDP, UNICEF and the International Monetary Fund in 2000 found that 77% of Cambodians lived on less than US $2.00 a day at that time. WOW that's not much.

I had been feeling sorry for myself because I receive money to pay for my housing and $7.42 a day to live on. That $7.42 is after taking out fixed expenses for, water, electric and gas for the moto.

On $7.42 a day, I can go to the expatriate restaurant once a week, other than that I do my standard breakfasts that cost about $0.50 and my normal lunch which costs $1.75. When I go to Phnom Penh and stock up on things that I cannot find here, I go over budget but as I use the items, it evens out.

So far this month, I am ahead $38.00. I am sure I will spend that when I go to Phnom Penh.

You may wonder how I know that I am $38.00 ahead. As a professed geek, I keep a spreadsheet of everything I spend so I know if I am over spending. When I arrived in Kampong Cham I had no idea what the cost of living would be. The only way to find out was to track everything I spent. I have done this for three months and find that in Kampong Cham I spend about $40 less than I am reimbursed. Since my purchases in Phnom Penh usually level this out, I am just living on what I receive.

I guess I'm quite lucky.

Bamboo Bridge is gone for this year

This morning I went to take a photo of the bamboo bridge with the water just about up to the road bed. As I came down the hill to the bridge, I felt almost sick, the bridge was gone. It washed away yesterday, and is now floating along the shore. This happens every year; when the water goes down it will be rebuilt. Still, I have been there to photograph it many times, and it felt like losing a friend.

In its place is a new ferry system. On its first morning, business was brisk.





While I was there, one ferry loaded and another arrived. A moto horn beeped while the moto was 100 meters from the dock. The driver was asking the ferry to wait. The moto came down the hill, splashed onto the dock and quickly loaded.



These Mekong ferries are open, catamaran style, made of two small wooden boats joined together with a deck. I would not want to be on one in a storm.

The bamboo bridge will be back when the water goes down in about 8 months.

Cleanup crew was a little too eager

I have been extolling the virtues of my cleanup crew. Last evening they outdid themselves.

I was munching a little local chocolate while working at the computer. I sat the chocolate wrapped in its aluminum foil wrapper on a small box near the computer. I assumed this would signal to the ants that this is mine and they do not need to clean it up.

Just a few words about chocolate. Having lived in Belgium and Switzerland I know and appreciate really good chocolate. In Cambodia I have found two places that sell Belgian chocolate but it's too pricey for me. I have been settling for local knock-off chocolate, which is more like greased plastic than the real thing, but still serves to remind me of the real thing.



In Switzerland and Belgium chocolate comes wrapped in aluminum foil with the edges of the foil sealed. In Cambodia the edges do not quite meet, and the freshness is questionable.



After a time, I thought I should put the chocolate in the refrigerator where it would be safe from me and the ants. When I picked it up I spotted two ants on the outside. Oh NO! They are already trying to clean it up. I opened the wrapper and yes, they were hard at work.

Rats, I was too slow. I rinsed the ants off the chocolate bar, wrapped it up and put it in the refrigerator.

My cleanup crew is way too efficient.

Life stories

I took a seat in front of the class room for the Khmer language class. I knew that my hearing would make learning a new language hard so I wanted to be close to the instructor. Because I sat directly in front of the instructor, I got to know the instructor a little more than most of the students.



Our language teacher Dara was about 10 years old when the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia. During class, he told little bits and pieces of his life under the regime. One Saturday afternoon, I interviewed him about his life during that terrible time. I condensed my eight pages of transcribed notes down to a three-page article for the VSO newsletter.

After having learned what I have about Dara, as I meet people here I can't help but wonder what their stories are.

Rice without added protein

When I moved into my house in Kampong Cham, I was quite grateful that the landlord had stocked the shelves with Cambodian necessities: rice, Cambodia-style ketchup, multi-purpose sauce and cooking oil.. He had also provided an industrial strength rice cooker. I was all set.

The first time I used the rice cooker I spotted a bug in the rice. Oh well, this is Cambodia. No problem, I picked it out. It took me about a month and a half to use up the rice. But by the time I reached the last inch or so of rice in the container there were quite a few bugs there. I carefully picked them out thinking that they were not eating much. And the last time I used rice from the first batch, I had to rinse away a large number of bugs, not exactly a pleasant thing to do.

I asked around, "where can I purchase rice without bugs?" the answer was "America". Hmmm.

I went to the market and asked for rice without insects, pointing to the word insect in my English-Khmer dictionary. That did not work as I'd intended, the vendor pointed toward a stall where they sell crickets (insects).

Still wondering what to do, I purchased two kilos of rice and a large plastic jar with a lid. What if I keep the rice in here? When I got home I wondered if the plastic jar fit into the refrigerator. It did. I put the rice in the jar, tightened down the lid and stored it in the refrigerator.

I have been very happy with the results--I have not seen any bugs in the rice. They may be there in a dormant larval state, but what I don't see I don't worry about.

I am headed out to the market to purchase another two kilos of rice without added protein.

Corn on the cob

Growing up in south eastern Minnesota in a small town surrounded by corn fields, I ate a lot of corn on the cob. I love it slathered with butter and a sprinkling of salt. GREAT!

In Europe it's hard to find good sweet corn and I've never seen it in Morocco.

Last week when I drove out to work in the countryside on the other side of the Mekong, I saw what looked to be stands selling sweet corn alongside the road. I asked and yes it is corn.

On Sunday I took an excursion across the Mekong and purchased five ears of corn. They were quite small. I couldn't wait to boil them up for dinner.

I was disappointed, they didn't have much flavor. But I will try again, corn has only been showing up on the side of the road for the past week. Hopefully it will be more flavorful by next weekend.

Stiff leg

As I started my jog this morning, I noticed that my right leg seemed quite stiff. Shortly after that I saw a young man pushing an air compressor down the street. His father, the fellow who pumps up my moto tires, does not have a right leg.

The sight also reminded me of a man I spotted recently, riding his bicycle with only one leg and no prosthesis. He carries his crutch across the handlebars. I cannot imagine how he peddles with just one foot.

How lucky am I to just have a stiff leg.

Haircut

Haircuts are simple, right? Not so fast.

About a month after moving to Belgium several years ago, I went for a haircut down the block from my house. When I walked into the shop, I asked if anyone spoke English. Neither of the two women cutting hair did. I was about to leave when a guy sitting there said he did. Ok I can do this.

One of the customers left and I was next. I sat down and the girl put the wrap around me. Then the guy that spoke English got up, kissed the girl about to cut my hair, and walked out. I felt it was too late for me to leave. How bad can it be? Well, the girl said something during the haircut and I agreed. I had a bad hair day for the next two weeks.

Sometime later, in Morocco I asked around where to get a haircut. There is a barber about 100 meters from Dar Borj Dahab, my house in Fez. The barbershop is basic, with a huge TV playing all the time at top volume. The haircuts are good. In the summer most Moroccans get a very short cuts, almost a shave. Luckily I just get a trim. My cut in Morocco was always about $2.00.

When I arrived in Kampong Cham, I asked where to get a haircut, and was directed to a place just a block away from the main market in the front room of an old house. The rest of the house is marginally blocked off with old sheets draped over the windows. There are four chairs. Three of them have cement bases and a chair that swivels but doesn't go up or down. The fourth chair has a metal base. All of the chairs have seen more than a half century of hard living. The seats are red plastic, patched with black tape; the armrests are taped onto rusted metal rails. The foot supports look ready to fall off at any time. Someone had welded on a bar on the bottom of the foot rest that almost reaches the floor so that when a patron puts his weight on it, the bar supports the weight.

The hair-washing area is unique. Water comes through a garden hose running from a barrel supported by a rickety metal stand. You lie back into a green tray that catches the water, which drains into a bucket on the floor.

The counter in front of the mirror holds the barber's tools, everything a bit old and well used. In all my years of having a haircut, this is the only place I've been where the barber uses old-fashioned hand-squeeze clippers.

The haircut is good and only cost me $1.00.

My cleanup crew – model of efficiency

I was writing at my table in the living room. I must have dropped a crumb of something on the floor. I looked down to see the cleanup crew was on duty. There was a line of ants from the wall to the crumb and a large number of ants surrounding the crumb.

A bit later, I walked to the kitchen. I must have dropped a little something on the way to the kitchen, there was another cleanup squad working there. 10 minutes later, there were no crumbs and no ants.

Love that crew, they are so efficient.

Amazing

I am in my house in Kampong Cham, Cambodia with two laptops connected to the internet. On one I am listening to Classic Rock and Roll from a station in California. On the other I am looking up information on Switzerland.

All of this is coming to me in fractions of a second. Wow!!!

It's truly amazing.

And, I will post this to a site somewhere in the USA and you will read it wherever you are.

Amazing.

Warehouse buying, Cambodian style

In Europe, Morocco and Cambodia for the most part, people shop frequently and do not purchase in BULK like in the USA. There are very few Costco like stores in Europe and Morocco. There are none in Cambodia.

From time to time, being an American, I need to go to the store and really stock up on something; it may be food, Kleenex, post-it notes but I just need to be a bulk consumer. Just going to the market and purchasing two kilos of rice doesn't really fulfill this need. I have been using multi-use sauce-oil and Cambodian ketchup up rather quickly. Last week I was just about out of multi-use sauce-oil and went to a Cambodia wholesaler near my former language school. I rummaged through the stacks of dusty dirty boxes and found what I was looking for and Cambodian ketchup ready for bulk sale.

The bottles are not in a box, they are tied together



They are tied so tightly there is no clinking of glass.



After I purchased 12 bottles of sauce and, two other bottles of fish sauce, I realized I was on a moto and not in a car. Oh well, if Cambodians can transport a family of five on a moto, a few bottles is no big deal.



My moto looked like a small version of a James Bond, rocket-powered cycle.

I should have enough sauce to last me the 10 months I have left here.

Family News - hatching announcement

Mom Gecko has hatched twins. I just spotted two wee geckos running along the ceiling. They are the smallest gecko I have seen. Now the family has five large geckos, three medium sized ones and three wee ones.

For some time, mom had been hanging out behind the wall calendar in the living room. I just about stuck myself to the ceiling one day when I turned the page to next month and she came running out from behind the calendar. A few days later I wanted to look back at last month and moved the page and out she came again. After interrupting her twice, she moved to the shroud where the fan is connected to the ceiling. From time to time I would see just her tail sticking out of the shroud.

Geckos are unique among lizards in their vocalizations, making chirping sounds in social interactions with other geckos. Every now and then I hear a bit of gecko conversation. If there was a special announcement for the hatching, though, I missed it; of course it could have happened while I was at work.

I was reading about their ability to climb. WOW, their toes have millions of special little hairs that allow them to climb (even better than Urs, my Swiss mountain guide) up smooth vertical walls and hang upside down on the ceiling.

Congratulations Gecko family.

Small guest

Last week, before the screens were installed, covering the slits high in the wall of my ground-floor living room, a sparrow landed on the entrance to the front door, walked in, then flew around checking for things to eat. When she/he was ready to leave, it was up and out through the slits in the wall.

Today a sparrow (the same one?) entered through the partially open front door and surveyed the place. When she/he was ready to leave, there was a little problem: screens on the usual exit. The bird flew around trying different slits in the wall, but all were blocked. She/he sat on the ceiling fan, hopping from blade to blade trying to work this problem out.

I went to the front door, pulled the curtain back and opened it all the way. It took my little guest about a minute to see that there was an Exit. She/he dive-bombed out the door.

Dog got the bread

First thing this morning, I went to the bamboo bridge to try and get a better photo. After the bridge I stopped at a small bakery and purchased two small baguettes, they have a soft crust and are a little sweet. On the way home I thought I needed to try a different breakfast spot and I stopped in at a place across the street from the school I had my language lessons in. You can see the language school behind the tree on the right hand side of the photo.



I knew breakfast would be expensive, prices here were always high and I was right, breakfast was $1.00. It was a larger breakfast than most, rice, chicken (with just a few bones), a meat soup, salad and tea. The chicken was quit tender with a very nice oriental (imagine that) glaze. The salad was cucumber, ginger, onions and a touch of hot peppers with vinegar and oil. The soup was beef and had two bones in it that the restaurant cleaning crew (the dog) really liked.



While I was eating I noticed that someone was pointing at my moto. I thought they wanted me to move my moto because I had parked behind a bicycle and I was blocking the way. I got up and walked toward my moto. The lady who runs the place told me that a dog had stolen the plastic bag of bread I left on my moto. I said no problem. This gets me back for the other day chasing a dog (not the same one) away from my muffins.

In almost all Cambodian restaurants the top of the tea pot is tied to the tea pot. I don't know if it's because people steal the tops or they don't want them to fall off.

Morning jog

I awoke again at 04:30 but happily this morning I was able to go back to sleep. The alarm got me up at 05:45, I dressed for a jog. I have a short circuit I use trying to get back into shape after the hot dry season when it was too HOT to run.

As I started out, I pass a neighbor standing in front of his house in what looked like work-out cloths. I motioned for him to go with me, he shook his head no.

I came to the main road in Kampong Cham and turned right to run along it for about 30 meters. That's all the distance I want to try on that road. I saw the garbage men (three of them) all dressed in matching green coveralls and green plastic bags.

In the photos below, you can see them with white plastic bags for gloves. It was quite a sight to see three little green men with funny hats and green plastic bags on their hands. I laughed and almost tripped.




 


After turning off the main road, I passed Grandmother's breakfast spot, waved and kept going.

Sorry, for not getting a photo of the three little green men, but I don't carry a camera when running.

Monday morning started early

I awoke at 04:30 and could not get back to sleep. Yesterday a friend told me that the current blog header photo does not say Cambodia or even Asia. "That bridge could be from anywhere, across the Rhine or across the Mississippi" she said. I was thinking "the best sun on the bamboo bridge (which says all of the things that the current bridge does not) will be about 05:30 to 05:45" I should drag myself out and see what it looks like.

I dragged myself into the kitchen to find my cleanest dirty shirt for the outing. Then shuffled back into the bedroom to pick up the Nikon D200 with the big lens. That camera has gotten quite heavy overnight. The bed was calling to me "you don't need to go out at this hour, come back to sleep". I was so close to giving in, but I shuffled out to the living room, pushed the moto outside. Now that I am out of the house I cannot hear the bed calling me.

I road past the breakfast stall near the market and then to the overlook for the bamboo bridge. I thought, "what's the best angle that will work as a header for the blog?" The blog header photo is much wider than high. I looked at how to move closer, I had to walk through the trash pile and down the hill a little. The angle was still a little too straight on.

I climbed back up the hill and hopped on my moto to go to this end of the bridge. Three are two or three spots that almost work for a vantage point but there's garbage and bushes that I cannot get out of the photo. Moving even closer I thought I had the right spot. I just missed two horse (OK pony) drawn carts full of tobacco crossing the bridge. I took several shots and I was lucky another two pony drawn carts crossed the bridge.



I walked out onto the bridge about 50 meters and was greeted with a surprise, there was a fishing boat not far from me and the man in the bow was about to throw his net.




 


After 30 minutes of shooting, it was time for breakfast. Back to the breakfast stand near the market. I was greeted with a warm smile and a great breakfast.

My morning

I arrived at work at 07:30 to find out if there were any items that I had missed in my testing of the new internet connection Sunday. After starting the server, I asked Ali another x-pat if she could test e-mail and the internet connection.

In about 15 minutes she was at my desk, telling me that neither worked. That's not good. I had expected a little problem but not that both the internet and e-mail were not working. After some research I found one problem, which meant that I had to change a setting on everyone's computer.

I changed the setting on several computers and things had gone well, then I went to change it on my computer. I still have not determined what the problem is but my computer will not accept the change.

Having awoke at 04:30 and worked hard, by 11:00 I was tired, at 11:30 I went home to take a nap. Lunch time is from 12:00 to 13:30 (just changed from 14:00). That gives me enough time to catch up on a little sleep.

I arrived home and saw the house open. My landlord was looking at the new screens that had been put up. Great new screen to keep the bugs out.



Not so great, I will not get my nap.

The man putting up the screens had a drill, something that most Cambodians do not have. We could use his to put up the mirror I purchased on Sunday. For the past three months, I have been shaving and combing my hair in a 3 ½" by 2 ½" mirror out of my toiletry kit.

The man putting up the screens had two drills, one was a hammer drill that had a cement bit. This will drill the holes in the bathroom tiles but you must be very careful the hammer can be hard to control. The other drill was a smaller easier to handle drill but he did not have a bit for it.

We started to position the mirror, looking back it was like the three stooges.



My landlord is a great buy and has good ideas but he has not had much of a chance to use power tools. He drilled two of the holes for the mirror and when he drilled the third, he was a little trigger happy and the tile he was drilling did not have cement behind most of it (the was a large hollow spot behind the tile). He pulled the trigger a little too much and the hammer ticked in and cracked the tile in half. Luckily the tile stayed on the wall. Most of the crack is behind the mirror.

We put up the mirror, soap dish, a shelf and towel bar. Another post on why I purchased a pinkish mirror set.

Breakfast at Grandmother’s

This morning I went to a new breakfast location about 200 meters from my house. I have ridden by it several times and today I wanted a quick bite so I stopped in.



Figure 1 Restaurant in the off hours

The restaurant (term used loosely) is in front of a house, as you can see, not much to look at when it is not in business.




Figure 2 Grandmother serving up breakfast

The menu is short, only one item rice soup. You do have a choice of accents, fish, beef or pork. I prefer the fish, the beef and pork did not look very appetizing. The fish added flavor and was quite tasty, but there was only enough fish for three or four spoonfuls of soup. I added some of the pepper paste to give the remaining soup a little more flavor.



Figure 3 Rice soup on the stove

The soup is cooked up in a large pot on a wood and charcoal fire.



Figure 4 Soup seasoning, bread but a scissor?

What's the scissor for? You take the bread just above the scissor, break the two pieces apart and cut up each into your soup. I didn't know about the scissor and ripped mine up. That left my fingers quite greasy. Now I know why there's a scissor.



In Cambodia paper napkins are very small about the size of two squares of toilet paper and extremely thin, you could read a newspaper through them if you could read Khmer. When people are done with them, they just throw them on the ground of floor if in a restaurant.

Where will breakfast be tomorrow?

Working in the field

KAPE has been implementing a program that has provided life skills (chicken, fish and mushrooms raising) to poor villagers in a specific district in the Kampong Cham province. Today was the culmination of that project and there was a meeting/party planned for the participants and several local officials.

I was along for two reasons, first, I was technical support, secondly to record the event for KAPE, I am acting as the Communication Officer until we hire one.

Marry the project manager wanted to use a projector connected to a PC to show the handouts that everyone would have so she could explain the contents. That may sound funny, but in Cambodia when you give people something to read, you read it to them in a meeting.

This all sounds simple until you realize that there are no electric lines in this part of the province or most of the province. Ok a generator will do. A generator in Cambodia is a little different than what you may be thinking of. It is a little larger than a portable generator in the USA.



I am going to use this to power a laptop and projector connected to the laptop. What are the chances that the current will burn up the projector? I thought of this and brought along a small UPS.


When we arrived the generator was humming along on powering a wall of speakers.



I set up the computer, projector and screen under the tent. Now to check the power. I plugged into the antique extension cord from the generator and we did have power. The UPS came on and my computer power supply was working. I turned on the projector and just after the lamp came on, the UPS started beeping signaling that it did not have sufficient power. I listened to the generator. It was not running as fast as it had been when we arrived. Let's see if a little more speed on the generator will increase the power.

A colleagues and I asked for a few more revs on the generator. The man in charge of the generator took the crank, used to start the generator, and tapped the wing nut regulating the speed. I heard a little more hum. Let's try that.



Back at the PC, the projector came on and the lamp light. The show will go on.



My colleague started the presentation. Then the UPS started to grumble again! It wanted more power. I walked back to the generator operator and asked for a few more revs. He tapped on the wing nut again and I could hear the generator speed up. Hopefully that will do it. The UPS was happy for about five minutes but then it wanted a still more power. Back to the generator for one more tap. This time, we had enough power.

About five minutes later, the presentation was over.

Remember, the next time you are working off of an antique diesel powered generator, listen to the generator's speed. 

Dog almost gone muffins

Riding home from the store, I had two small muffins in a plastic bag hung over a bar on my moto. I avoided a dog while riding close to home. As I passed the dog I felt something hit my foot. I thought, "It was probably a rock that I kicked up" then I remembered the muffins. I looked down, they were gone. It was the muffins that had fallen off and hit my foot. I turned around and the dog was sniffing my muffins . I raced toward the dog as he picked up the bag. I beeped the horn and he dropped them. I quickly picked them up and growled at the dog "There mine." I road home with the muffins feeling a little guilty that I had not given them to the dog; here dogs and cats have to scrounge for anything they can get.