The sound of silence...

Again, not dead, just busy. I am now back in the UK and setting the organisation up in the UK. Thanks to all who read my blog, I hope you enjoyed it. This is the last post....

All the best

Ed

Pics

Article on traffic in Phnom Penh

• In a city of 2 million people, 4 people die on the roads every day and 75 are injured.
• $116m is the cost of the traffic accident, which is equal to 3% of Cambodia's GDP
• National Geographic ranked Phnom Penh as the second least livable city in the world

Full article here if you're interested.

Ramblings of a tired man

I'm in my hotel room in Vientiane, capital of Laos. I've spent the last 45 minutes cursing my air-conditioner for the high pitched noise, only to discover that it's actually crickets outside.

I desperately need a haircut but have been working (and playing) so hard over the weekend that haven't got round to it yet. I've also developed a Phnom Penh Paunch (artist's impression), the result of eating out for every meal for 3 months and taking absolutely no exercise (because it 35c+, there are no pavements and, oh well, I'm lazy!). Consequently I look like one (or both) of those hairy bikers.

I discovered a Swedish Baking House round the corner (how random?) and bought some Kokosbollar, a favourite while I was in Sweden. I'm waiting up till 11:30pm when my partner George (OK, actually GEORGINA!) gets in from work in the UK.

That's it!

and some more...

More holiday pics

Vietnam Holidays!

I have spent the last week in Vietnam having a great holiday with my friends Nils and Turid. Snorkelling, exploring villages on beautiful little islands, lots of food... well, you know the routine...

Not dead, just busy

Super hectic after 2 weeks unpaid holiday, one week management retreat, one week back in the Phnom Penh office then off to Vietnam on this Saturday for a week's unpaid holiday then back to Cambodia at the weekend and then off to Laos for ten days after that. Phew. And the requests for proposals and objectives from management keep on coming. It's good though. Back to it. Bye!

Sat in a cafe

I am sat in a cafe and in the last ten minutes I have seen:

• a police car with 2 adults and perhaps 8 kids in in, none wearing seatbelts
• A child on a motorbike carrying a 4 foot x 4 foot clothes hanging rail
• A motorbike with three people on it, one of them holding a saline drip bag high up on a bamboo pole.
• Two people on a motorbike carrying a bicycle
• A family of five on a moto

Back from hols

I have just said goodbye to Georgie at the airport after a fantastic 2 week holiday that went in a flash. We did everything you should do on a holiday in Cambodia; saw the incredible Angkor Wat (and other temples), ate shellfish in a shack on the beach in Sihanoukville, ran away from French crystal meth freaks trying to get us to drink some bottle of booze with snakes and scorpions pickled in it, got sick (me and Georgie), got sun burned, ate too much, drank too much, sploshed about in the gulf of Thailand, lounged around in the hotel, explored the rural villages in a tuk tuk, got rained on (RAINED on), felt bad about the poverty, drank champagne back at the hotel...

The bus back from Sihanoukville that apparently takes "a few hours" took us seven and a half hours due to flooding across Phnom Penh. For one hour we traveled about 100m. The road, pavement and every bit of space exploded into a mass of motos, everyone scrambling to find a bit of space to squeeze their way out of the city. You cannot imagine the filth of a flooded Phnom Penh.

Next week I am back off to Sihanoukville for our management retreat.

I... don't.. even... know...

Update : Oh, I just got it. Sewer meaning someone who sews!

It's good to know exactly what you want

Impending electric shock

I am waiting with some level of trepidation my first electricity bill. Electric power has only become widespread again in Phnom Penh in the last decade, so I am told, and it's still very dear. My friends paid $100 for electricity in a one bed flat last month...

I have seen the power station. It has about 5 massive exhausts burning... wait for it... diesel . That's why it's so expensive, the whole of Phnom Penh is powered by a massive generator...

*****UPDATE*****

Well, it came... $127 for one month. For what is basically a bed sit! That's the price of aircon and running a fridge freezer in my sheltered outdoor kitchen...

Changes have been made to this post in the spirit of peace and love! Long live the Freebird!

Today is the first day I have walked too and from work, risking life and limb trying to navigate the roads. I'm pretty pleased to report that it was uneventful in terms of major injuries or high excitement mishaps. I did see a stray dog almost get squished.

On Friday I went to the second birthday party of SE Asia Globe magazine. With free food (full scale western BBQ) and free booze in a funky little hotel garden, it was a great way to end a great week. I think I met most of Phnom Penh's movers and shakers. And they met me, which I am sure they are writing about on their blogs right now.

As I write I am sat in one of Phnom Penh's squillions of expat bars. This one is the Freebird. There's a sign on the wall saying "Explosives, when used properly can be a wonderful source of entertainment". I can believe it. I'm here to have the Freebird burger - half a pound of minced beef with bacon and "elemental" cheese. There's only so much rice one can eat, my dear Watson.

Today I got verbal agreement from a client on my first deal at work.The first of many to come, I am sure. The GM did the half joke / half serious "Why don't you stay on here for a year or so...". I'm flattered, but... no...

My love/hate relationship with Phnom Penh continues... right now I love it. Yesterday I hated it... (though was cheered u by the purchase of DVDs of every Royle Family episode ever, every Fawlty Towers episode ever and seven films for $27, about £18). "What did you see when you were in Cambodia, Ed?", "Oh, everything, the Royle Family, Fawlty Towers..."

Thanks for bearing with my stream of consciousness.

Yoghurt make man go crazy

It's never a nice feeling to have one's idiocy revealed. That feeling of humiliation as you realise just how stupid you've been. I experienced it today when I told my colleague that I have mango with yogurt and oats for breakfast. Hysterical laughing and head shaking ensued, punctuated with "You put mango... ha ha ha... mango... ha ha... with yoghurt?....ha ha ha!" How could I have been so stupid?

My decision-making proces

I had to create a flowchart for something at work and while Googling some example flowcharts I came up with this one that nicely sums up my own decision-making process, including my decision to pack in a secure, well paid job in a recession to go and live in Cambodia.



























Source : www.pootergeek.com/2006/12/the-logic-of-my-life/

Me getting down to business

More photos of the whole team here http://phnompenning.com/photos/ddd/

Spiders for dinner

MORE PHOTOS HERE (From my friend's blog)

It's 9:30 on Sunday morning and I'm sat on the balcony just having finished a big bowl of noodles and tofu for breakfast. It's really hot already.

Yesterday I went out for a really long walk around Phnom Penh and then in the late afternoon I met with about 15 people from work and we hired a a boat to cruise around the Tonle Sap, Meekong and what ever the other two rivers are caled that converge in Phnom Penh. The Cambodian contingent were asked to bring the snacks. Imagine our delight as they produced whole deep fried finches (I think), silkworms and tarantulas!!! I munched a tarantula's foot (that's a sentence I never thought I would write!). Actually, I'm not sure that they really have feet as such. Maybe an ankle. Or hoof? It tasted pretty much like barbequed salmon skin. The taste itself really is not a problem, it's just the psychological aspect (even James Bond is scared of tarantulas). I was told by my friend that with the silkworms the problem is not just psychological - they really do taste awful. The boat trip descended into a bizaree Kareoke, freak-dance-off. With everyone making proper idiots of themselves. In a good way.

The place to be?

By the time I had walked 200 metres down my street today I had been asked 7 times if I wanted a motobike taxi, two times if I wanted a tuk tuk taxi, I was offered drugs twice and offered my choice of either Cambodian, Vietnamese or Thai girls.

Later I went to the western style supermarket and while in the tuk tuk in a traffic jam I got hit by two street kids (lightly I hasten to add).

Phnom Penh is an interesting place to be. It's an experience. I don't think may people would claim that it's a pleasant place to be.

The sweaty spirit of compromise

I just practiced my negotiation skills in order to get the aircon turned down from 30c to 24c.... yep, it's hot today.

Party Khmer Style!

Last night I had the great privilege to attend the birthday party of the son of the nephew of my friend Toro. Down some backstreets by the entrance to a garment factory, the small house looked out onto narrow streets lined with corrugated iron houses. There were perhaps 20 people in attendance, plus lots of children running in and out. The men sat at one table and the women and children at the other. The women made and served the food while the men drank Angkor beer and ate frog soup and roasted fish.

Every time we wanted to drink out beer we had to raise our bottles and chink them with everyone elses. That's a lot of chinking. "Why?" I asked.

"You have five senses. You can see the beer, you can smell the beer, you can taste the beer and you can feel the beer in your hand. But you cannot hear the beer. To use all five sense we must hit our bottles togther."

My friend Toro

Toro drives a cab for a living. Like almost everyone in Cambodia he has an interesting story. I only know the story from the point that he was conscripted to fight the Khmer Rouge. He spent two years living and fighting in the forest, eating whatever he could find. Pythons apparently were regular fodder. Initially the fighting was fierce, but eventually Toro's fellow soldiers and adverseries called an unofficial truce to stop the exhausting violence. Toro finally escaped to Thailand and became a fisherman ("we worked so hard, so hard you wouldn't believe") before returning after the collapse of the Khmer Rouge regime.

Toro asked me recently why I had so many Jewish colleages where I work. I said that I guessed there may be an element of shared experience - Hitler's extermination of the jews and Pol Pot's extermination of so many Khmers. Toro replied, "Yes, but it makes me so sad that my country did it to itself."

(I asked Toro's permission to write about his story. Like most Khmers he is keen that it is heard)

Dazed and confused

More more more

More photos of the weekend

Photos of the weekend

Best weekend yet

This weekend has been the best yet. On Friday a friend showed me round some great little bars. On Saturday we went out on the motos to the riverside just outside Phnom Penh. There are loads of what are basically decks with lots of hammocks. We sat in the shade and had our fill of freshly cooked food - fish presumably from the river - and drank beer with as much ice as will fit in a glass. On the way back we went through villages where the children would run out to meet us, shouting "hello"!

Today we went about and hour out of town on the motos to Oudong mountain, on the top of which was a number of temple-type buildings. Truely incredible views for possibly 50 miles plus (it's a flat country!). I was laughed at by a large group of school girls, presumably because I am tall, or white (I was one of only two white people in our party) or because I have a beard/chest hair. Or all three perhaps. I think they're freaked out by me doing three steps in one stride! I can barely fit my white flappers on their little steps. Anyway, the place really was incredible.

Later we drove to a local village to another place similar to the hammock place and had fresh fish and a roast chicken. And beer with lots of ice :-) It costs us $6 each. Then we took back roads as far back as we could (avoiding the insanity of the main road). More amazing sights - villages, rice paddys, etc etc. It's the real deal, even a few miles out of the city, We happened, totally randomly to pass the house of a DDD employee, who saw us and flagged us down. We sat in his yard and he cut some coconuts down fro the tree and we drank coconut milk direct from the coconut itself.

We almost hit a cow on the way back. And a lizard.

There are weddings everywhere in Cambodia. Today we saw about 15. I was woken up by one this morning at 6am. It was verrryy load. My colleague told me his wedding had 700 guests. As I write he is at one with 1200 guests. Even at SE Asian prices that's expensive!

My friends have been snapping pics all weekend. My camera is currently kaput. I will steal their pics and post them here ASAP.

Kind of missing yoou all, but to be honest, it's pretty good here so it's easy to forget you all. Oh come on don't be so sensitive.

View from my balcony!

Lounging

Have spent most of my weekend on the balcony with the ghekkos in the cool shade, enjoying the view of the King's Palace, National Museum and the Mekong river (gloat, gloat!). Pics to follow when I can find a fast enough internet connection.

On Friday went to the Heart of Darkness club which had signs outside asking you to leave your firearms at home and was half full with prostitutes. Obviously this is right up my street, but as they won't let me bring in my AK47 I won't be returning.

I saw a monkey about 3 streets down from me. He was sat on a shop awning. It was a hell of a surprise!

Bought some $8 Birkenstocks and lunch and iced coffee for $3.

Disappointed

I thought it was pretty much an established fact that the size of a country's ants increases in direct correlation to that land's exoticism. I can reveal this to be a myth. Cambodia's ants (at least Phnom Penh's) are the tiddliest, palest little weaklings you can imagine. Were they to meet one of our Brit ants (or "British Bulldogs" as I will call them from now on) down a dark twig, they wouldn't stand a chance.

I feel a strange mix of great disappointment and extraordinary pride.

Traffic

The traffic in Phnom Penh is truly crazy. Most people travel by Moto (moped), as I previously mentioned. Motos are not limited to just their drivers. I have seen whole families of five, Buddhist monks, a fridge (+driver and passenger!), and a helmetless toddler slouched asleep across the handlebars as his father negotiates the traffic. The “back seat” of a moto can be hired for $1-2 per journey within town. I have quickly learned that tuk tuk (a small carriage pulled by a moto) is a safer and more comfortable way to travel, though slightly more expensive at $2-3 per journey. The rules of the road are very simple : there are no rules. Well, perhaps one. If I am bigger than you it’s my right of way. If you are bigger then me, it’s your right of way. I have only seen 2 or 3 sets of lights, otherwise there are no road markings and no “give way” signs or lines. It’s not uncommon to see cars and bikes traveling on the wrong side of the road. Remarkably (pretty much) everyone seems to avoid each other. As a pedestrian, negotiating these roads can be a hair-raising experience. With the crazy roads and the dirt and dust walking is not the most pleasant way to get around. Finding at tuk tuk is never a problem though, with drivers offering their services about every 15 seconds…

Moto madness!

It's 33 degrees today and I've just taken a helmet-less* (slow) ride on the back of a moto (moped) back from a local restaurant where I had frog with ginger! I think that's all I need to say for now ;-)

* Mum, Dad and anyone else who cares about my brain, my motorbike helmet arrives tomorrow!

Arrival!

So here I sit in the Phenom Penh office! I finally made it! Lot's to write about, but not much time now. Will update properly soon.

Jelly! In coffee!

“I usually get panic attacks on planes but I took two Temazapan before I got on so I'm alright. My ex wife suggested I take them. I've got three ex-wives. I'm going to Bangkok to meet up with a girl I've been chatting with online. All set up by an agency. She doesn't speak English, but they will send an interpreter.” My flight companion is not the only one. A guy, I'd guess German, about 20 just walked by with a woman basically dressed like a prostitute. I'm not in some seedy district of Bangkok, this is the airport!

I have been awake about 20 hours now and I'm pushing back zzzzzs with an iced coffee with loads of chunks of jelly in it. Jelly! In coffee! They finally did it! I think I'd better only put this post up once I've had a night's sleep. I suspect I'm slightly delirious.

Another eight hours until the flight leaves for Phenom Penh. My plan is to eat things.

A beautiful sight!

The passport is in my hands! The flights are confirmed! Yes!!!

Sorted

My new passport should arrive on Wednesday 11th Feb and my flights are rebooked for Sunday 15th Feb. Nothing can go wrong.

Zen and the art of passport applications

I'm writing with slightly less humour today.... After 3 days running around London trying to make this happen, UK Passport service refused to renew my passport in 24hrs, because it was issued in Stockholm (where I used to live). They would/should have known this was the case at the time they advised me on the phone that it was possible to renew in 24hrs. As they did not, I have to wait 7 days for a new passport, therefore missing my flight which I only managed to get moved last time through extended, humiliating pleading (have you ever seen a salesman in a tutu bark like a dog? It's a miserable sight).

I cannot now say when I will get to Cambodia. I am hoping that Etihad Airways will reschedule my flight for the third time without further cost, but I am going to wait to rebook until I have a new passport in my hand. Total cost of all this so far (inc hotels in London, taxis (tube and bus were down in London when the snow hit), food, etc) is at least £500 as it stands....

So I'll be in the UK (probably Oxford) for another 7 – 10 days. BUY ME A DRINK : 07941 635 651.

And there are no leopards or even snowmen anymore.

Amazing snowmen!

Them : "The issue is that your passport has frayed edges. If you travel to Bangkok with that they will probably not let you through. They will then deport you back to the UK (and charge you for the flight) plus we will also pass on the fine we get charged, which can be several thousand pounds."
Me : "But it had the same frayed edges when I traveled to Berlin, Paris, Oslo and Stockholm!"
Them : "Yep, but Bangkok have just become really strict very recently."
Me : "OK, delay my flight until Tuesday, I'll get another passport"

(book hotel room for 2 nights, total £200. Take out £115 for fast track passport.)

God : "Let there be snow!"
Me : "God! This is why I am an atheist!"

Them : "The buses and most of the tubes are down so no one can get to work, so there are very few post offices open for you to get the passport forms from. You'll have to call round to find one that's open"
Me : "Dammit, I have no mobile..."

Them "Yes, this post office is open!"
Me : "Horray!"
Them : "But we are going to close in an hour so that staff can get home"
Me : "Taxi!"

Them : "We're closing the passport office until Wednesday. Bad luck."
Me : "Oh.. sh**"

Them : "Sorry, your flight cannot be delayed any further. You will have to rebook at full price."
Me : "Oh please! X 48
Them : "OK. OK, you fly out of Heathrow on Sunday 8th. Now get lost and leave us in peace"

I'll be staying in London tonight, meeting one of the very few people that can counter sign my passport application tomorrow and then spending the day in the passport office on Wednesday! After that not sure where I will be!

Made a new friend :




















STILL NO LEOPARDS.

Incredible Leopards!

I am sat on the bus to Heathrow. I dreamed about what Cambodia would be like last night. It was on the top of a very large hill, overlooking an infinite jungle. Everyone was very relaxed, but there were lots of leopards. And they were wandering around among the people. No one told me about the leopards...