It Gonna Rain!!!

Here in Bodia we gots two seasons, wet and dry, aka not rainy and raining like every day.  Now we haven't hit the actual rainy season yet, but only got a few nice glimpses of an ever present future coming my way, and it aint pretty. Its actually purdy messy, being that the deluges that bring torrential rain make it hard to do just about anything here.  Wanna teach some youngsters how to kickflip, nope.  Wanna go see the ladies at the market for lunch or dinner, nope.  Wanna cruise to out and meet some amigos for a watered down Angkor, nope.

Not really a whole lot gets done when the rain gets to rainin.  The power usually goes out.  The black river, aka open sewer system starts to overflow and streets get flooded.  If you are unlucky enough to be on a moto, you have two options.  Put on a lil plastic poncho and try your best to make it to wherever you are headed to, or just post up under the closest shop and wait it out.  I like the second option personally as it give me some nice time to practice my non-existent Khmer language skills, and always improving hand gestures and sounds in order to communicate.

Rainin Sideways Yall. 

Careful with the Moto Broto!

Who Wants to Take a Dip in the Darkness of the Black River?

Now as I mentioned, stuff gets flooded out and flooded over, and if you are lucky enough to be in a place with virtually zero coordinated infrastructure, you can how interesting it can be.  This brings me to a nice lil story that happened Saturday for me, which is actually Friday for you, and now I am actually writing this tomorrow. Still with me....... Technically I'm in the future here, so if anyone wants to know some cool factiods about whats gonna happen and who is gonna win the NBA or NHL finals, think of me as your personal Biff Tannen.

So back to some story tellin.  Saturday morning team Sweatistan decided to take a group outing with the whole staff (including boyfriends and daughters((none of which were mine by the way))), Belgian doco film crew, a couple skate-students, some home cooked yum yums.  We loaded up El Jefe's red coche and the Cambodian Crusher full of all of the above mentioned goods and headed out to Takeo province, where our very own Chan2 grew up, for a country picnic and visit to the wildlife park.  Sounds pretty nice right.  Well you bet it was.  It was pretty fucking awesome, we had lunch with some monkeys, saw sunbears, crocodiles, tigers, and all sorts of cool critters.  Everything was going as planned.  Then, guess what came next. Rain.  It wasn't superbad rain, but it was a couple hours of on and off again rain, no biggy....... right?????

Monkey Lunch!

Me and Sawadee, Savuern's lil one.  Most Common Words Between Us Goes Like This, "Brother Play Angry Birds?!" 

We need to now remember what I mentioned before about the lack of infrastructure here, things like roads n such, and how they are affected by rain.  Deciding that if it is gonna keep rainin, we should head out soon as roads get messy and if we are out too late we would be driving in the dark. Like real dark, as until you reach the Penh most highways are unlit and littered with motos, also unlit, and an overall pretty treacherous time.  Add to this the fact that we have to bring Chan2, her lil cousins, and Madre back home to their village which is down some Cambo country roads before we even make it to the highway sets us up for some hijinks.

There are two roads to Chan2's house, and the good road aka better dirt road is actually being worked on, so the other only option is use the not so good road.  Going in and out the first time to pick people up wasn't too bad, as it had yet rained that day.  Key word being yet.  After the rain and on our way to drop folks off things were a bit messy, but not too too bad.  Or so I thought.

On the way out, things got radical.  Like ole fashion car in the radical.  While driving out on a dirt path not much bigger than the Cambodian Crusher, shit happened.  All of the sudden the rig started slippin the wrong way, straight into the rice paddy, full of rainy season goodness.  Part user error part bad road part car waaaaaaay too big to be cruising in that hood, part all three combined for a late afternoon mess.  I can try and explain how stuck we was, but instead of making yall brainiums work hard I have provided some lovely photos of the whole shebang later.

Ok, now even with 4 Wheel Drive on this bad boy, we were soooooo off kilter and the bottom of the paddy is soooooo much mud, there wasn't much luck getting out with a lil bit of help.  Now my all time favorite part of the experience was immediately after we ended up in the ditch.  Having been in quite a few scrapes like this growing up, I pretty much know the car A. would not explode and 2. not explode and everythang would be A-OK soon enough. Guess who didn't....

My Khmer amigos.  Now one has to remember my previous ramblings about the Moto Madness here, and how very few drive a car.  Well imagine a car full of people who rarely ever drive in one, and even rarelier fall into a ditch in one.  As soon as the car stopped, my friend the Dancebot Chada, freaked and pretty much jumped out the car right into the water, yelling for everyone else to do the same.  I was trying to explain that things were actually alright, and if people wanted to end up on dry land, all they would need to do is actually get out my door.  Guess what happened.  Yup, nobody understood, except Joan my Belgian amigo, and they all pretty much abandoned ship right into the rice paddy.  It was pretty funny.  

After a few attempts of trying to hammer the Crusher out frontways and backways, to no avail, the village people began cruising by to see whats with all the commotion.  Pretty soon we had the entire village, and their cousins, and cousins cousins coming over to see how the barang (me) got a car in the paddy.  We began to discuss strategery, with the rest of the Sweatistan krew and figured to get Benji, el Jefe, behind the wheel and the rest of us doing work after it, pushing knee deep in rice paddyness and at least ankle deep in mud, which by the way is extremely squishy between the toes.  

Sometimes it Takes a Legit Frenchman to Get Things Unstuck.

Next, people all started lending a hand, from getting wood planks to jam under the tires for traction, to help push, or just moral support of hanging out sans shirt looking radical(which was quite a few see below plz).  After pushing quite a bit with many hands and little success, the new friends called in probably the only truck big enough to pull out the Crusher to the rescue.  As this bad boy comes rolling in, it too almost falls into the paddy.  Which would have been shitty for us, but probably pretty funny to read for yall. 

Anywho, we get the cars attached (by metal wire which was attached to each car via being tied around a wrench, one of which got torched the first go round FYI) and with the truck pulling forward, the Crusher crushing backward, and as many people that can get a hand on the vehicle pushing, plus a few on the sides trying to weigh down the airborne wheel for traction we achieved momentous success!!!!  Really it wasn't all the momentous, just a car out of a ditch, but it felt pretty awesome and pretty sure everyone was super stoked to have been a part of the group effort to liberate the Crusher, just in time for a nice Cambodian sunset and a not so nice and somewhat dangerous drive home.

We made it safe and sound back the the command center known and shared a couple of luke warm beers, laughing, crying, and laughing again about the level of fun had that day.  It was pretty awesome, no joke. 

Before the madness, we caught this lil one taking the cows for a stroll!

Backways.

 

Frontways.

 

OnLooking With Authority!

 Check the Road, Pretty Tight Confines for the Crusher.

Awaiting Reinforcements. (ps This dude is my fave) 

Group Fun!!

As I previously mentioned this guy is the fucking best.  Just making sure everything goes according to plan. Pretty sure he stood like this the entire time. 

Yup!

 

Made it out Just in Time For a Beaut of  Khmer Sunset of the Rice Fields.

Lorli and the Temples of Vroom!

Ok, so I know that I promised to provide yall with photos of my trip pretending to be Indiana Jones while visiting Angkor Wat during the Khmer New Year Holiday, which I will do. But honestly the place is so immense and amazing that my lil iphone pics cannot do it nearly enough justice, even with my artsy $1 app that makes it look like I know how to take pics. There is a reason that tourists go there for a week and spend pretty much all day everyday visiting temples. There are like a million of them I am pretty sure, and they are all pretty dang cool too. I guess that's what happens when you have successive kings trying to outdo each other over a few thousand years.

If you really want to know more about it, my suggestion is to hop on a plane to Phnom Penh to come and visit me! I very much like visitors! When you get here we can cruise to Siem Reap and I will play tour guide and you can take all the photos your heart desires. We will even stop for the best cheeseburgers I have had to date in Cambodia. Sounds like a plan to me. We can even hit up Battambang, a sleepy town with some very cool old colonial architecture, awesome people, and good french fries too. Just give me about a weeks notice and I will take care of the rest. Done and Done. See you there.

Now I have some other fun stuff I want to discuss with you. I have been working on an idea in my brain, trying to document the different modes of transportation in the lovely Kingdom of Cambodia. Besides the Khmer Rich rolling deep in SUV's there are some pretty awesome methods of getting around town and making sure whatever goods you have get there too. From overfilled trucks with dudes riding on top, to bicycles with old ladies meandering through dirt roads there are multiple modes utilized here. With all the different types of ways of getting from A to B, by far the most entertaining has to be the moto. For me, I am actually getting pretty used driving our machines around town, which is pretty fun, albeit a tad dangerous and it can also be a bit hectic. Need to meet some folks to discuss NGOness at a coffee shop, hop on a moto and Pow! There in a jif. Need to grab lunch from one of the lovely ladies at the Russian Market, moto+me=done. Pretty simple math.

One drawback is that you never know when Johnny Law might pull you over for just about anything. Got blues shoes on, that's a ticket. Driving with a light on, that's a ticket(best part about is that it is totally illegal to drive with a light on during the day, but no problem driving at night without a light). Being white, That's definitely a ticket. But with all the dodging of the po po, I am improving my bargaining skills with them too. Very easy to talk your way out of a $20 ticket down to just a couple bucks. My personal move is to make a phone call, pretend I am talking to a boss at an NGO, then tell the copper to take me to the station because I would gladly pay the fine, I just need a receipt for the NGO. For some reason they never want to, wonder why...... Anyways now that I am official to drive with my real license issued from the Cambodian Man, I am emboldened to keep up my motoing ways.

Keeping with the theme here, many of you have probably heard me talk about how much I enjoy these thangs, so I made a plan to document these machines to show everybody stateside what coolness/crazyness I get to witness on the daily here. Really the best part about moto's in Asia is not just the machines or the people riding them, but what you can actually put on them. Motoists get pretty inventive when it comes to hauling around goods in these parts. So far I have seen pigs(yes not just one but multiple pigs!) on the back of a moto, 5 people on one moto(only 1 helmet though), tractor tires(about 5 was what I counted), and I have even heard of fridges being transported on these bad boys. Pretty much if you can figure out a way to make sure it doesn't fall of you can take it on a moto.

Last Friday afternoon, when my work was pretty much done for the day I went outside the casa/officina grabbed a chair and sat for about 25 minutes just looking for some fun stuff to cruise by. Literally in just the 25 minutes I was able to capture what I would say is a pretty nice slice of Cambodiana motoness. The neighbors were pretty hip to my game and it became a community effort to look down the road, see what was coming down our way and make sure I was ready to snap a pic. Savuern's father, who is probably the coolest dude in Cambodia by far, was more than happy to play lookout for me and give me a thumbs up when he saw a good rig on its way. When I showed him the afternoons work of street snapping unsuspecting moto drivers, we were both satisfied with our work.

It now becomes a bit of an afternoon trend, taking a 15 minute break to hang out on Savuern's porch, eat a cookie, mango, or whathaveyou, talk in broken English and Khmer, mostly not understanding anything being said, but somehow smiling and laughing a whole lot. They also find it fun to watch what stuff gets strapped to the back, sides, tops, whatever of these. Pretty good times and when you come to visit the temples I can take you there too and enjoy the radness of the hood and its inhabitants.

Here is some of our handywork from the afternoon, and ok ok a couple pictures of temples too. Enjoy!

Bag Man.

 

Somebody Just Hit Up the Khmer Ikea!

Just Think About How You Would Even Try to Add 2 More to on This?

3 Folks 1 Helmet.

Notice the PJ's, Pretty Standard Issue on Khmer Ladies.

Dude in the Back is My Partner in Crime. Dude in the Front, Movin Some Merch.

BattamBang!!!!

Tried to Get Artsy With This One.

Where We're Going We Don't Need Roads.

BattamBang Market.

Cambodian Countryside as Seen From Like a Million Stairs.

My Steed for Cruising Angkor Wat.

Pretty Effing Kewl!

This is Bayon.  This is Also Some Dudes Face.

I Thought This Looked Pretty Neat.

Probably Some of the BEST People Watching Ever Here.

Yum Yums

When living the Cambodian dream, it's nice to have a couple of strong arms in the bullpen when it comes to eats.  Being halfway through my time here I have found a couple of go tos and even a few John Rockers, where they coming running out the gates fire some heat and either get it done or melt your insides.  

For the most part food here is a mix of neighboring countries Thailand and Vietnam with some Chinese thrown in the mix too.  Khmer food itself is pretty good, with an interesting rotten fish paste sauce called prahok, which can range from wow that doesn't taste like fish at all and is quite pleasant to holy shit I'm pretty sure I'm eating rotten fish.  Which as most with a western palate can imagine us pretty fucking awful.  Otherwise there is a lot of peasant style food, all stewed together and served with rice, or grilled up and served with rice.  Which by the way I am beginning to crave on a daily basis.  It gets served with every meal here: 

Breakfast-pork and rice or rice noodles with weird sauce as I call it or rice porridge with chickeny bits and chicken blood chunks. 

Lunch: stewed or grilled critters with rice, rice noodle soup, rice noodle salad, or maybe a KFC smacker if you are feeling big-time. 

Dinner: repeat the other option from lunch that you didn't eat yet. 

Now living in the burbs, we don't have much in the way of expat fancy spots with French culinary heart stoppers like Croque Monsiuers but we do have plenty of the local eats.  Which can be good and/or bad. Or really good then uh oh, maybe that was bad after all.   Playing a daily game of the tummy wobbles is a constant.   It all depends on where the stuff comes from, and how fresh, as a lot of local eateries don't have fancy refrigeration devices, but rather a block of ice keeping the critter of the day fresh.  

So with all of this in mind here are a couple of my favorite eatin holes that I have found, and even a few of the lovely ladies that serve me the goodness, and make sure my tummy wobbles right.


Lady 1- Street Noodle Lady
Found this lovely lady my first week here when I was still jet lagged and not quite my freshest.  When starving and being shown around town, I asked a couple of barkeeps where they eat(note to all, always ask the barkeep where they eat or what to eat if the bar serves food. It is usually the best recommendation you will ever get. Right Wolfeyes?) and they looked out the front door and said "yup she is here. Just go to the corner and see the lady in the cart, its good.". Or something like that, I didn't have a tape recorder and y'all know how quickly I forget stuff.  Anyways, at $1 per plate and as of now probably $20 spent here, this moto bike with a mean street chef keeps me full on the reg.  She's got two options on this rig, noodles with a concoction of sauces some street meat, some greens, and a fried egg and fried rice. Both are good, but the noodles kill it for sure.

 
No food truck needed, we already got a noodle-moto.


Lady 2- Spring Roll Lady
This gem of a lamb works at the Russian market and serves $1 worth of veggie spring rolls with noodles, peanuts, sauces and bit of sasitude.  Even when I am there and I don't actually eat at her joint, she know me enough to suggest that I at least need a couple of spring rolls even after I have just eateded.   She is good and knows my weakness, which I commend her on. 

She chefs up a mean batch of goodness filled with rice noodles, herbs, and scissored up spring rolls with mix of five or so sauces, one of which looks like milk but is definitely not, and pow. Welcome to Flavor Country.  Population You.  


Would you be able to tell this lady no? Didn't think so.


Put all these together and you get something pretty amazing.


Lady 3-Noodle Soup Lady

This babe hangs right next door to the spring roll lady, which gives me the toughest daily decision when cruisin the market for lunch.  But often times she wins out with her noodle soupy yumins. Now at first I played it safe and ate stuff like the chickeny bits.  It was good.  But then after a getting good at the game of street meat, I started venturing into the bits and pieces.  And believe you me, was I missing out.  Never did I realize that insides could be so good. Typically, my only foray into this field was with menudo, and to be honest, this stuff kicks it in the ding dong. There are some special techniques that they know on this side of the world which makes you say wow. This really doesn't taste like the inside of a pig, and keeps the chew factor at a minimum. Add in some healthy dose of your choice of noodles, different types of chili, and some greens and pow there you have it. Pig part brothy goodness ready for consumption. Extra bonus here is that my roommate can get soup without meat, which is usually quite tough to do, but allows for equitable lunches for all while on a busy work day.


Insides soup for the Cambodian soul.


*This is not this noodle soup lady, she was on vacation when I began this post, so I have this artist rendition of another soup lady, who is also quite phenomenal, instead.


Lady 4- Saveurn (SA- voon) AKA our Cambodian Madre

Where do I start with her. Saveurn is our neighbor and house caretaker. She also happens to run the local fruit and veg stand right about 50 feet from our front door. She spends half of her day selling fresh produce to local passer-bys on via moto and the local community who cruise to her shop to get whatever stuff they need for the day. The second half of the day she works for us taking care of the house, office, rooms, kitchen, everything. Now not only do each of us who live in the house frequent her shop on the daily to pick up stuff, my go to is some greens and stuff to make a $.15 pack of noodles into magic or mangoes for a late afternoon snack, but she has now figured out what each of us like, and brings us green mangoes and other interesting fruits just about every other day. Have you ever munched a green mango with homemade chile, salt, sugar, and dried shrimp? If not I suggest cruise to the Safeways bud, pick up a couple and blow a hole in what your mind once thought was delicious.

Now if that wasn't enough, she also cooked us up an amazing Khmer New Year dinner at her casa, and I have been lucky on occasion to get some homemade lunches before she cruises over to our place in the afternoon. I usually just play dumb and leisurely stroll by around 11:45 to pick up a snack, and then hey what have you, pork and veggies with rice? Well I was just gonna eat a snack, but ok ok I will try a bit and stay for lunch. I think she might be catching onto my game, but I don't think she minds at all. In fact I have been negotiating some cooking classes for me with her to learn some of the secrets of turning chicken hearts into, well, more edible chicken hearts. From her estimation its gonna cost me about $3 to cook dinner for the whole crew, not bad at all. So Savuern, if you have wifi in your spot and happen to have been playing a funny game pretending you don't know English this whole time and are reading this, "MUCHAS GRACIAS SENORITA!!"


Sa-VOOOOOOOOON!!!!!!!!


Creating some Khmer New Year decorations.


Well this was just a bit about some of how I keep myself fed properly while over here. There is also some decent home cooking that goes on as well, but honestly getting full for $1 often beats me cooking in 100 degree heat. As I said before, you sweat just about doing anything. Writing a blog. Yup.



Sometimes I just end up eating Gollum Fishes. My preciousssss.



If you count there are about 5 different animal products going into one of these sambos.



Which of these two ended up in my tummy? Maybe both?



Centipede, Snake, and who thefuckknows wine. Guaranteed to make you see something.


Next Time: Who has 300 pictures of temples. This Guy! Thanks Khmer New Year!

Li Hi!