Across the road is a healthy handful of restaurants, bars and hotels including the well known FCC where I enjoyed a pleasant jar of Ankor draught whilst looking over at the muddy banks of the Mekong and Tonle Sap Rivers. Better still was a little bar that I luckily passed by on my walk home, called de ja vu, comprising of mostly ex-pat and international travellers. I embarked on a fairly heavy night of conversing, drinking and singing on stage with a table of volunteers from the local hospital who originated from such places as Switzerland, Ethiopia, Philadelphia, Brisbane, Cork and Auckland.
The owner (who is from Bulgaria and resembles the would be love child of Jack Sparrow and Dimitar Berbatov) and I have now become firm friends after engaging in humorous banter regarding his potential divorce to his luminous Portuguese wife. I naturally urged the break up in the hope that I can then marry her myself. I think he can see through my plan though.
Dimi, the Bar OwnerCambodia is absolutely Ronny Roasters at the moment and so the day-time trips to the Royal Palace and National Museum have been at times exhausting and only just saved by my constant appetite for an ice-cream. The natural shade of the courtyards were met with eternal gratitude even as most of the ice-cream melted over my shirt and hands. Today I took a fierce looking moto to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, located about 15km outside of the Capital. The moto underwhelmed me beyond measure as we got routinely overtaken by smirking school children on their bicycles. Not only that but due to the lack of accelerator (my lawnmower at home has a more powerful engine) we had to brace the slow and unbearable stench of neighbouring garbage trucks drift by.
On a not too dissimilar note, I have encouragingly finally surrendered to the wild orchid like aroma rising from my backpack and decided to do my laundry. On handing over my bag of secrets to the young ladies at the local laundrette, they mercilessly went through my underwear, piece by piece and openly mocked me. Even though I'm not fluent in Cambodian I didn't need a translator to understand the reasons behind their cackling and pointing at my Incredible Hulk pants. I have never felt so humiliated. Until I looked on in further horror as they cried hysterically over my bright pink pants.
Phnom Penh Song of the Day: Cyndi Lauper - Time After Time
This majestic 80's song lit up my breakfast at Cafe 33 and somehow narrowly beat a terrific euro-dance version of Enrique Iglesias's first English smash, Hero
i-pod Song of the Day: Passion Pit - Let Your Love Grow Tall
A real gem from their sunny album Manners which I urge you to have a listen to
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