Penny and Fred

Curse of the Pigeons…

It’s coming up to 7:30am on another beautiful morning in the Penh.  Why am I up so early on a Sunday morning you ask?  Well, as a matter of fact, I have been up for more than the last hour and half, solely due to a pigeon that continues to terrorise my slumber…

This is not the first morning that the pigeon has woken me from a blissful sleep and prevented me from returning to my dreams.  It’s been going on for weeks and now it’s getting personal.  All efforts to deter them from perching on our roof, swating at them with the broom and banging on the ceiling, have failed miserably.  The purchase of a BB gun has recently crossed my mind, but sadly I can’t get the leverage needed to shoot the annoying buggers, from the small confines of my balcony. 

So brazen are these little critters that they have even plucked up the courage to perch themselves on the railing of our balcony and window bars.  They are now only a small step away from taking up residence in our apartment.  Fred tells me to ignore them and I would if I could, but their incesent cooing, is too much for me to bare…

An extensive internet search this morning has not produced any welcome solutions and I have come to the conclusion that I am quickly running out of options…  Nothing left to do now than to tell the landlady and hope that she gets one of her sons to climb onto the roof and install a row of spikes to stop the little demons from landing.  Only time will tell if this solves the problem and when my sleep is no longer under threat from these dirty, slumber polluting  nuisances, you’ll all be the first to know…

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A Day of Firsts…

Yesterday was an interesting day, filled with first time events, 4 to be precise, some to be repeated and others to chalk up to experience and left well alone in the future.

I didn’t intend to fill one day with so many first time experiences, but after 18 months in Phnom Penh, it only seems fitting to intensify the adventure factor at this stage in our journey.

My day began not unlike any other day.  I got up, put the coffee on, checked The Age website, switched on the BBC and progressively got myself organised to get stuck into a good days work.  As I finished pouring my first coffee for the morning I received a text from my boss with last minute lunch meeting instructions, nothing new there.  My first first wouldn’t happen for another couple of hours.

I think I have mentioned previously that I bought a bike, flat tyre included, a couple of weeks ago.  Late last week I finally got around to getting a new tube and was starting to feel guilty, much to the help of my landlady who constantly questioned why I was travelling on motos and tuk tuks, about still not having ridden it.  So I thought, today is the day to pluck up some much needed courage.

First number 1:  Navigating my cheap Chinese 6 speed through the streets of Phnom Penh.

My heart was racing before I even left the house and I began to worry that I would fall off the bike before I even got started.  My anxiety was less to do with my ability to remember how to ride a bike and more to do with the fact that although Cambodia has road rules, you would not need to watch the traffic for any more than 10 seconds to realise that absolutely none of these laws are respected, let alone appled by road users.  Traffic lights are ignored, pedestrian crossing, just painted lines on the road for show and don’t get me started on how to explain how driving on the wrong side of the road doesn’t result in more frequent and serious accidents.  Amazingly, with all of this going on, only 4 people die on Cambodian roads each day, a surprising small number amidst all the pandemonium, yet strickingly large considering the countries small population of 14 million people, most of whom cannot afford a motocycle, let alone a car.

Courage in tow, I jump on my bike and ride like the veteran, I am obviously not, weaving in and out of traffic…  I ride with a confidence that I am not convinced I have, I tell myself over and over again that I am going to make it to my destination without incident.  Motobikes, tuk tuks and cars pass me precariously too close for comfort.  I hold my line and continue to cycle.  A mere 30 minutes later I arrive at my lunch meeting, in one piece and feeling on top of the world.  As my friends would atest, I am now one step closer to learning to ride a motocycle.

Back to back meetings made the afternoon pass in a blur, before I knew it, it was 5pm and time to down tools for the day, hurry down some dinner before heading off to first time experience number 2.

First number 2:  Karaoke

There has been alot of talk over the years about going to Karaoke, but strangely enough it has never eventuated.  This time it could not be avoided.  I wasn’t convinced that I was going to enjoy myself, but I came to a surprising realisation, I am possibly a closet Karaoke fan.  Now let’s not get carried away, I am more comfortable singing along without the microphone in my hand and I was at least 3 more beers away from breaking out into a solo routine.  Plus after Fred impromptu bust out on the dance floor, there was no way I was going to follow up with a tone deaf rendition of ‘Sugar Sugar’.  The stage had been firmly claimed by Fred and his display of techno moves 101, the crowd was left wanting more.

With one more stop to make before heading home, we sadly left Karaoke at around 9pm, to go and see a friends band play at an open mike night at the Irish Pub on the Riverfront.  This is where the final two first happened almost simultaneously.

We arrived not long before our friends set started, just long enough to be introduced to the aging members of the band and still none the wiser to their signature style of music, I figured I would just have to wait and see.  The boys excused themselves to get set up and Fred ducked to the bar to order us a drink, arriving back with;

First number 3:  Bundaburg Rum and Dry Ginger Ale.

No, this is not a typo, he really ordered Bundaberg Rum and Dry Ginger Ale.  With an odd look from me, Fred proceeded to explain the madness.  While parousing the drinks menu at the bar his finger slid across the first item he saw, Bundaburg Ginger Ale.  He quickly realised he was about to place an order for soft drink and promptly changed the order to Bundaburg Rum and Ginger Ale without a second thought.  For all of you out there wondering if we inadvertantly stumbled onto the next big thing, short answer, NO… 

I wish I had asked what type of music was going to assault my ears, not that I wouldn’t have been there to support my friend, but at least I could have prepared with a set of ear plugs. 

First number 4:  Sex Pistols meets Irish folk

Now, we all love a little Sex Pistols style punk rock, but coupled with Cambodia’s love for playing music at a frequency high enough to burst the average ear drum, you could only imagine the hours of ear ringing that proceeded.  So loud were the instruments, that I couldn’t hear the vocals over the pounding of drums and strumming of guitars.  The boys played there part, performing like classic punk rock stars, long necks in hand, oblivious to the crowd and enthusiatically rocking out their 4 song set.

It didn’t take long for it to hit midnight and I was well overdue for bed…

Here’s to a day of firsts and hopefully more to come…

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Batten down the hatches…

Well reader(s), it looks like Phnom Penh is in for another bout of crazy weather, predicted to begin tomorrow… 

The text-a-thon started late last night, when my friend, who suffered extensive flooding in last weeks down pour, let me know that the search for gumboots and good quality wet weather gear were in the process of being sourced.  Me being the type of person that loves a bit of excitement and adventure, I quickly put myself onto the clean up crew.  Only time will tell if I will need to battle the raging flood waters of Phnom Penh to aid my submerged friends in need.

Fear not for us friends, if the 5 flights of stairs leading us to our penthouse apartment have anything to do with it, we shall be safe from the impending flood waters… 

So, it’s a lazy Sunday in the Penh.  Fred is playing around on the internet and I am doing everything possible to avoid doing work, stave off boredom and avoid sending Fred around the bend with my boredom induced ranting, including having cleaned out the fridge.  For all those that own a fridge as big as a car or the proud new owners of a fridge, that have the luxury of having an unobscured view of their food, a mild feeling of disdain is headed your way.  You know who you are… 

It’s amazing what one can find shoved into the back of a refridgerator.  In my case, a grapefruit, that’s right an entire grapefruit.  I’m still not sure if finding the grapefruit was in fact the biggest surprise or the fact that we worked out that it had taken up residence in our fridge over 6 weeks prior.  I think I am most thankful for the fact that it was still in one, although somewhat shrivelled, piece and had not yet started the process of liquification.  For those that know me well, I don’t do well with rotten and liquifing foods, especially applicable for foods in the fruit and vegetable family.

A few more intersting finds later, most not getting a second glance before being thrown hastily into the bin, and the realisation that we have more Soda Water in our fridge than any other item, we now have a clean and organised fridge…

There was but one exception to the ‘if it doesn’t look quite right, bin it’ rule, a tub of sour cream with an expiration date of 20/10/53, I’m still trying to work out if this was a miss print or have we really had a tub of sour cream in our fridge for the past 57 years??

So, with the fridge now clean and ice trays filled, I am back to trying to finding something that will distract me from the ever encroaching boredom… 

Suggestions are most welcome…

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Ribs & Beer! What more could you want in life?

Using an appropriate cultural translation,

Thank Buddha it’s Friday…

After a crazy week of building on fundraising ideas, producing documents and countless hours spent on the internet trying to learn how to write a sexy marketing campaign, Friday has arrived just in time and what better way to celebrate the occassion than with ribs and beers and the company of good friends.

You may be wondering why I am expressing so much excitement over the humble rib and cool crisp glass of larger?  Well, these luxuries, of worthy raving quality, are often in short supply in our adopted city of Phnom Penh.  So when Fred and I stumbled onto an Australian owned and run pub/cafe (Aussie XL) that serve up heaping portions of ribs, accompanied by a mammoth portion of potatoes prepared to your liking, chips, baked, mash and don’t forget the salad, we realised we were onto a winner… 

Our first introduction to Aussie XL was several months ago, when we paid a visit to the establishment not long after it had opened its doors, with a couple of New Zealand friends who were raving about the big salads.  Yes they were big, or should I say XL, but there was something lacking from that dining experience that I have never been able to put my finger on.  So we didn’t return until recently to watch the AFL Grandfinal (the sequel).  On that not,

GO THE MIGHTLY MAGPIES!!

Anyway, back to my story…  The previous week Fred and I had watched the AFL Grandfinal (the warm-up) at another establishment, not to be named.  We had gone their a number of times previously to watch the footy and a few games of the World Cup, but found that it lacked that, ‘juno se qua’ , plus the owner is a bit a a surly bastard.  So when the rematch was announced, Fred suggested a new venue to watch the game and Aussie XL it was…

We arrived early, picked prime seats right in front of the big screen, and ordered coffees and bacon and egg burgers to start the day.  Readers need to remember that we are 3 hours behind you and it didn’t seem fitting to start downing beers at 10am, although I know some of you may disagree.

Our food arrived and we were pleasantly surprised to find a burger heaping with bacon and 3 fried eggs, proving that everything is XL at Aussie XL, all for the bargain basement price of USD$3.50, Christmas had come early.  Needless to say that pretty much took up my food quota for the day and when Fred ordered a BBQ plate late in the 4th quarter I was surprised that he had made room in stomach for more food.  But in reality I was the one that missed out…

The BBQ plate was the size of a small child and I’m convinced that it weighted almost the same, piled high with a variety of BBQed meats and fresh salads.  The staff must have noticed my eyes light up and my heart break all at the same time when the food arrived because they quickly rushed inside to get me a bread plate and set of cutlery of my own.

Not feeling in any way inspired to tackle the whole plate, Fred made me a mini sampler plate of all the tasty treats and I promptly went straight to the ribs.  They were absolute heaven…  I should digress back a few months and update you all on when our love affair with ribs began.  In short, Czech Republic, when Fred ordered a heaping plate of ribs and I sadly suffered from one of my worst episodes of food envy in my life.  So when we reach Poland, I was determined to not let it happen again.  So, one night while walking around the back streets of Krakow, we stumbled across a small traditional polish restuarant and went inside to sample the local cuisine.  While I tucked into ribs, Fred took on a half kilo pork knuckle, both arriving with lashings of fresh horseradish and a variety of mustards.  Not surprisingly, the salad bar remained relatively untouched.  From that moment on, we have been in love (with pork ribs and knuckles) and have been on a never ending quest to find a rib in Phnom Penh that is worthy of comparison and now we have.

So readers, I’m wishing you all a festive Friday and hoping that you too will find the pork rib you are looking for…

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When it rains it pours!

Christmas has come early…  Two posts in two day, what will my faithful readers think?

After almost 36 hours of non-stop rain, a rare phenomenon in these parts, it has officially stopped raining, for now!  The rain saga continued with a night of opening and closing windows, numerous occupational health and safety infringements and too many soaked towels to count.  On my list of things to do today, washing…  Yeah for me!!

Last night I was fielding text messages from a friend who informed me that her lovely new villa apartment had been inundated with water up to her ankles and with no way of getting it out.  With the water continuing to rise precariously close to the electrically sockets, she asks me “If the water continues to rise and gets into the electrical sockets, will she get electrocuted?”  Now, I’m no electrician, but anyone in their right mind wouldn’t take the risk.  So she shuts down all of her power and heads upstairs to crash at her neighbours for the night.  Immediate crisis averted…

I woke this morning to yet another frantic text from the same friend with a despereate plea for help from an engineer.  My guess is that the plan to have the water pumped out of the house this morning has somehow gone terribly wrong.  She texts and says she will call in 2 minutes to get some advice from Fred, that was almost an hour ago.  A quick text to check if everything is ok? has gone unanswered, so I guess that’s an answer in itself.

Sadly this friend is not the only one that I know that has been affected by the onslaught of rain.  A colleague who lives over a lake in the southern part of the city, informed us this morning that the water level of the lake has risen so much that her house is now IN the lake. 

So, while I sip on my morning coffee and relay theses stories to you, I am in essence waiting for the call to join the clean up teams…  Stay dry people!!

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Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink!

For the first time in 18 months living in Phnom Penh, it looks like we may be experiencing our first ‘wet day timetable’.  It appears to have not stopped raining since 4pm yesterday afternoon, which has resulted in a number of comical stories to share.

I was at my bosses place yesterday and it starts to rain…  I think, this is going to be interesting trying to ride my new bicycle home, as flooding occurs very quickly here and makes getting around the streets almost impossible, plus my flat tyre was also going to pose some problems… 

So I decide to call my faithful tuk tuk friend Mr Hua.  He arrives and we load the bike into his tuk tuk, resulting in wheels poking out each side, leaving me exposed enough to feel the onslaught of the heavy rain.

By the time I arrive home and get out of the tuk tuk I am standing in almost knee deep rushing water.  My attempts to avoid getting drenched and pull the bike out of the tuk tuk, almost result in me loosing my thongs.  Bike in hand, I race across the road, by this time my efforts to avoid getting drenched are lost, to the front door of my landladies house, where I knock on the door.  She opens up, only to find a 6 foot foreign lady, looking like a drowned rat staring back at her.  I stand around listening to her telling me that it’s no good that I bought a bike with a flat tyre.  Thanks for pointing that out, as if I hadn’t noticed…

I park the bike and go to say my goodbyes when she kindly hands me an umbrella.  I try to refuse as I am already soaked through, but she is insistent, so I take the umbrella with grace and head down the street to buy some dinner from our local restuarant.  At this stage I am thankful for the umbrella, as the heavan open up once again…  I wade through the water down the street, still trying to not loose my thongs in the rushing water, the umbrella not providing me with much protection and making me a little nervous that the big metal point on the end is going to act as a becon for lightning.  Over a hundred Cambodians have died this year from lightning, granted most in the provincial rice fields, but under the circumstances I’m not thinking all that straight.

I arrive at the restuarant to laughs and giggles from the patrons and staff and order my food.  Another short wade through the flooded streets and I arrive home, only to find that we are loosing the battle with the rain on the home front.  Fred has covered most of the floors with towels to mop up the water running in from the tiny cracks around our windows.

So, I wake up this morning, it’s surprisingly and unusually cool.  A glance from the balcony, sorry did I forget to mention that we now live in a 5 story walk up, shows me that the streets are still wet from the ongoing rain.  I make a coffee and attempt to settle in to doing some work, but the heaven once again open up and I am running around the house closing windows and this time instead of trying to save my thongs, I’m trying desperately not to slip on the wet tiles and crack my skull open.  Windows closed and towels once again covering the floor, I’ve managed to avert disaster, avoid doing work for half an hour and update you on one of the many regular dramas of Phnom Penh.

Here’s hoping I keep my word and post more often…

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A nice stroll around Phnom Penh

Hey guys,

Not sure if there is anyone out still reading our blogs since we have been slackers, but today we went on a long walk to P’saa Orussey.  It was a hot day but we got up reasonable early for a Saturday (9 o’clock), not because it was hot cause both our bedroom fan and aircon were blaring through the night.  We saw it was very cold back at home at the moment (not that we care), no I actually am missing the cold Melbourne weather.  Maybe thats because alot of my last 5 years I have been away working and have missed these time.  Hot, cold, 15 seasons in one day I still miss Melbourne, we will return one day lol.

So after getting up and relaxing for a bit (Pen writing emails and me watching TV) we had left over spagetti on toast for breakie (still don’t know how to spell it).  Mmmm it was the second time I made spagbol since we left oz.  Garrett would agree there’s nothing like a good spagbol, if there was a spagbol contest, I would make the finals I reckon.  We were ready by 12 o’clock and got lathered up with sunscreen and headed off.  On our walk to the market we found a nice shop along the way, a deli/wine shop type deal, which had some nice things from back at home like crackers, pickled mini onions which Pen looooves, Australia Gold brie and Camembert… will go back one day as it is just around the corner.  Although the sun was hot, we enjoyed the walk and getting amongest our fellow PP’ians.

We found the Market without too must trouble, we have been to the Russian (P’saa Tool Tom Pong) and Central (P’saa Tomei) Markets a few times now and this was another one to add to the list.  It’s a 3 storey very big market which had dry food, fruit, veggies, meat (saw some nice glazed pigs and piglettes, Penny insists that we only need a visitor to make an excuse to come back and buy a whole beast - any takers?), chickens (alive and dead) etc etc, the other other 2 storeys had heaps of cloths, shoes, bags, jewellery and heaps of other stuff.  I don’t think it’s a common market for barrangs (foreigner) to visits, as we could have played a lengthy game of “spot the barrang”.  It was great just exploring, but we did have an alteria motive as we are invited to our first “Khmer” house warming party tomorrow, one of Penny’s staff members so we were looking for a gift.

We stopped for an ice tea at a local cafe across the road from the market, but it was quite bland so we ordered a sprite and mixed it in.  How’s that for engineering, heh, heh.  After a short break we went back to the market for another look then walked down Monivong Blvd to look for a supermarket Sam told us about during our trip to Koh Kong, not before a couple of pitstops (1) to a starbucks type coffee shop, I had the best fresh watermelon slurrpie there….. THE BEST, and Penny had a nice ice coffee with whipped cream, the fake stuff on top and (2) To one of PP’s major bus stops to get tickets for our Kep 3 night getaway (starting next Thursday whooo hooo, yes Pool, relaxing, us time can’t wait).

We found both supermarket and the Lucky’s drink shop which I had been told has the cheapest drinks in town.  We bought a litre of Beam for US$10.80 and did a nice shop for other supplies.  Pretty knackered by this stage we got a tuk tuk home for a well deserve cold shower and chill time.  Tonight for dinner I went down to the local pork n duck lady for 300 grams of each, one of our favourite dinners, just add rice and some cucumber and tomato (see no “e” Estelle and Garrett) Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Now waiting on some skype chat with two of our favourite Melbournites!!!

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Three weeks and counting…

Can you believe we have been gone for 3 weeks?

I wish I had sometime meaningful or inspiring to write at this time, but I have just finished a long day staring at the computer and my eyes are near falling out of my head.  I wonder what Fred’s cooking for dinner tonight?

Fred and I still don’t seem to have found our feet.  With the Khmer New Year having just finished, we have had a very limited list of things that we could do over the past week and a half.  In between, arriving, doing a little bit of sight seeing, moving into a new home, shopping for “stuff” to put in the new home, and starting a new job, I can’t say we have been able to enjoy much of the Cambodian experience.  I’m hoping the cultural experience will happen soon, otherwise we have moved a long way away from home for some better weather.

On the topic of weather…  It is still ranging between hot, hotter and stinkn’ hot.  For those that know me, would also know that I’m loving it, but my body is taking its time to acclimatise.   The “mango rains” have started early this year (or so I’m told) and at about 3pm every afternoon we get a downpour of rain and a bit of a lightening and thunderstorm to go with it.  I keep thinking that just one afternoon of these rains over Victoria’s catchments would do the state a world of good.  I tried to take a picture of it the other day, but it just wasn’t working.

Heh, did I tell you about the rat?  Tammy, you can stop reading from here if you want to avoid hives.

Last week I worked on a big funding submission, so after I had finally emailed it off at about 6:30pm, Fred decided he would take me out for dinner to the Micro Brewery up the road (I’ll let Fred tell you about that place).  We left to find a tuk tuk, no tuk tuk’s because of New Year, so we took ourselves across the street to a local restaurant.  A restaurant that we may or may not have been told to avoid.  What can I say, it was getting late, I was hungry and getting cranky and they had $2 Jugs, that’s right $2 Jugs.  I’m starting to sound like Fred, scary….

Anyway, we order our $2 Jug and a meal.  The beer, although served with big ‘hand-picked’ ice cubes to keep it cold (emphasis on ‘hand-picked’), was refreshing!  While waiting for our meals to arrive and trying to wind down from a crazy week, I felt something run into my foot.  Thinking that something round had escaped from the kitchen behind me, I half expected to look down and see an orange or sometime, but there was nothing there…  I took a looked around on the floor and off in the to near distance was a ‘rat’, running under the table of another group of diners and disappearing.  I got a little paranoid at this stage and couldn’t concentrate on the conversation that Fred was trying to have with me, I was pre-occupied with seeing the rat again.  Why?  I don’t know?

It was only the arrival of our meal that jolted me out of my unhealthy fixation and back to reality…

Our meal is a whole other story.  The spicy mango salad was great, but a little heavy with the dried fish, the rice with chinese sausage was pretty alright, but was devalued by Fred’s continual debate on the authenticity of the chinese sausage and finally, the spicy fried duck, which doesn’t deserve a rating or description.  I’ve got money on it not being duck at all, but more likely a relative of the rat that ran into my foot and mysteriously disappeared.

Surprisingly, neither of us got sick from this experience, not even a little bit.  If we had I’m not sure what we would have blamed it on, the ice - the fact that the ice was ‘hand-picked’, the chinese sausage - that may or may not have been authentic, the duck - that didn’t in the least bit taste anything like duck or the left overs of the rats wet nose on the bottom of my bare foot.

Frankly, I’m surprised that either of us are still alive…

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Bring it on….

There’s nothing quite like sharing your breakfast with a cockroach…  Fortunately for Fred, he had already finished with his tub of yoghurt when the cockroach decided to move in.  Now, these are no ordinary cockroaches.  Cambodian cockroaches are big enough to knock over a small child and boy, can they move.

To get you up to speed…  This has not been our first encounter with the ‘cockies’, this has been going on for days…  It started with one in the hall of the office, then 3 or so in the office bathroom, then yesterday while I was diligently working on a funding submission, one went running from one side of the office to the other.  All of these precious ‘cockies’ have come to their demise at the hands of the trusty office “Forms” folder.  Fred and I have been taking turns at throwing the folder on them, but the one in the staff room yesterday afternoon gave me a run for my money and when I missed him the first few times, he turned to charge and I almost soiled myself…

It’s not that I have anything against these creatures and I know that they are completely harmless,  I don’t fear them, I just fear them running over my feet or up my leg.  I apologise to anyone and everyone experiencing a ‘visual’ of that right now…  The other things that makes me a little unsettled is that awful smell they produce after being squashed - maybe Fred and I should think about bottling “eau de cockie”, it could be the new ‘mace’, scaring perps off all around the world.  We could make millions, no!  What women wouldn’t want a bottle of ‘eau de cockie’ in their purse for protection?

So, the battle between man and cockroach continues…  Every time I think we have them pipped, another one appears.  I wasn’t too concerned about them, because we have only found them on the bottom floor, but Fred tells me he killed a baby ‘cockie’ in our bedroom just this morning, yes, our bedroom, yes, this morning.  Now that’s a declaration of war in my books.  So today, I am going to google ways to deter these little darlings away from ‘my space’, because I just don’t have the heart (or nerves) to keep throwing oversized office folders at them.

I’ll be keeping you posted on the methods I’ll be testing and my success/failure rate.  I’m open to suggestions if anyone has any grand ideas.

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I’m still here!

Some of you may think that I have dropped off the face of the earth, because Fred has been responsible for all the blog postings.  But I’m still here….

It has been a whirlwind start to my new job, which I am loving, by the way.  I spent a week with my Managing Director learning the ropes of the job and creating list upon list of things that need doing.  As you can imagine I was feeling a little overwhelmed by Friday night, but I managed to have  a relaxing weekend, sleeping late and doing a whole lot of nothing, including not thinking about my list of things to do….

This week I have been working ’solo’, as it is Khmer New Year.  Everyone goes to the provinces to spend the week with their families and the city turns into a bit of a ghost town.  A little strange not to hear loud music and drunken peoples walking around the street - nice but strange.  The most unusual thing for me is that there have not been any fireworks.  New Years Cambodian style really is a family affair, more similar to our Christmas celebrations back home.

Fred has been keeping me company in the office this week.  While I’ve been writing funding submissions and trying to make sense of the office (Tam, I know your empathising with me right now) and having intense feelings that I have bitten off more than I can chew, Fred has quietly sat beside me, offer words of encouragement - in between hands of poker, of course.

Next week the staff are back and it’s back to business.   Fred and I will start Khmer lessons, I’ll book myself in for a Khmer cooking lesson, find a yoga studio and a Khmer kick boxing teacher.

I’ll try not to leave it so long next time between postings.

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