Khmer Diary

[boysaigon]

Originally Posted by Faidenk

And if I didn't forget you are more than a match for me, bro. Look forward to shooting a few rounds with you. Loser spring for the beers.

any time bro, any time. Shall notify u once i got my schedule firmed up. Traveling with VIP but i shall extend a nite or 2 on my own.

[Faidenk]

When It Comes To Money


This has happened a couple of times. This morning I was getting my morning coffee fix stocked up at a supermarket at the Parkway SC. At the cashier, I paid with a $100 bill. The cashier, probably one of the owner's daughters, or not, scanned the items, the total came up to $11.20. She checked the bill against the light, snapped it a couple of times, well you can't be too careful, can you?

She handed me the change and the docket. I took the change and wanted to check the larger bills to check for counterfeits, one can't be too careful, when she suddenly asked for the money back, as though she suddenly realized having made a mistake. She made a show of recounting it, put another $5 back, and apologized for the 'mistake'.

Had I not attempt to rearrange them, the $5 loss would have been mine, sucker!


It's always a good habit to check the change. I have received fake bills before, a $5 and a $20, but managed to pass it on and have since been extra careful. Look out for those slightly faded, those that feel 'funny'.

Another good practice, when paying with a large denomination bill, always make a note of the last 4 numbers in the presence of the receiver, if he comes back to you and claims it is counterfeit, ask for the same note back. Unscrupulous vendors have been known to make a switch and return you a fake.

Until next time.

[Freestyler69]

Hello legendary FaidenK.. long time no see bro, since MMS days.. sure miss your FRs....glad I stumbled across your "diary" hmm.. so you're in Khmer hostility i see..

I myself been off for a long time so couldnt share much , a retired soldier.
I've been to PP 2-3 times and i truly enjoyed it although as usual i;'m the lone ranger on business trips... I remember went to this dark disco near Manhattan? Holiday hotel?? got a khmer gal with full body tattoo of dragons and other mythical creatures, what an amazing experience, I bought her back to the Himawari where i stayed in a 2 bedroom apartment, she ordered some happy pizza, some booze and fried chicken. Frankly, she was my 1st real Cambodian gal as previously I usually prefer Viets as they are better lookers. She is amazing with BBBJ had a piercing in tongue and boy she knows how to wiggle it while engulfing my whole lot... Forgot how many rounds we did that night.... she left nothing but a phone number (which I destroyed after 5 mins) and took nothing from me except memories..Things are very slow in PP, i remember taking the moto, i could jump out and hop back on even though it kept moving all the while...that was when i tried to go to Rock World? and it's so damn far and the road is so dark.. it took me ages to get back to sisowath quay, just not used to the pace there compared to SG.

I would be honored to have a beer with you in PP. Keep the diary, I'm a newbie in PP and very fortunate to have your guidance... Cheers

[Freestyler69]

Originally Posted by Faidenk

A couple of nights later, I popped in the disco again, just to satisfy my curiosity regarding the captain. She was at the door and again led me to a seat by the hand, like a child being led. She seated me at the bar and ordered an Angkor without my asking. She stood very close while talking into her walkie-talkie, crotch against my knee. She spoke halting English but good enough for me to understand, very rudimentary. Ask what I do here, where I am from etc. I evaded them by saying I am from Batambang, a Northern province. She pinched my arm but left it at that.

.

I think i could guess who is she.....although my encounter was just purely customer/captain.

[Faidenk]

Originally Posted by Freestyler69

Hello legendary FaidenK.. long time no see bro, since MMS days.. sure miss your FRs....glad I stumbled across your "diary" hmm.. so you're in Khmer hostility i see..

I myself been off for a long time so couldnt share much , a retired soldier.
I've been to PP 2-3 times and i truly enjoyed it although as usual i;'m the lone ranger on business trips... I remember went to this dark disco near Manhattan? Holiday hotel?? got a khmer gal with full body tattoo of dragons and other mythical creatures, what an amazing experience, I bought her back to the Himawari where i stayed in a 2 bedroom apartment, she ordered some happy pizza, some booze and fried chicken. Frankly, she was my 1st real Cambodian gal as previously I usually prefer Viets as they are better lookers. She is amazing with BBBJ had a piercing in tongue and boy she knows how to wiggle it while engulfing my whole lot... Forgot how many rounds we did that night.... she left nothing but a phone number (which I destroyed after 5 mins) and took nothing from me except memories..Things are very slow in PP, i remember taking the moto, i could jump out and hop back on even though it kept moving all the while...that was when i tried to go to Rock World? and it's so damn far and the road is so dark.. it took me ages to get back to sisowath quay, just not used to the pace there compared to SG.

Holiday Inn Cambodia has since changed its name to HIC Hotel, I suppose the US hotel chain isn't too happy with its name used on the sly. This hotel is owned by a Cambodian but managed by a group of Singaporeans. The disco on the same premise, Manhattan, is run separately by another entity. This disco, along with Casa, is notorious for its drug use in PP. I was warned not to leave my beer unattended, not unless I want to be 'medicated'. I'm sure the warning's an overkill, these days PP is a little tamer.

The management is trying hard to change that image but that will take quite an effort, especially so since the Manhattan is still in business as usual in its backyard.

Frankly, she was my 1st real Cambodian gal as previously I usually prefer Viets as they are better lookers.

Yes, the Viets are fairer but a mite too mercenary for my taste and have not come across any to change my mind, yet. The Cambos, on the other hand, come across as warmer.

I would be honored to have a beer with you in PP. Keep the diary, I'm a newbie in PP and very fortunate to have your guidance... Cheers

The pleasure's all mine. Cheers.

[Faidenk]

This started off as a short reply on the Cheap Super foods provide fiber, Omega, Vitamins etc thread at the Courtyard Café forum but it grew and grew so….

Since selling off the restaurant, I cook every single meal. On the average, it costs me USD1.00 for 2 meals a day.

I have stopped eating breakfast a long time now and in-between meals snack has never been a thing with me, other than a cup of 3-in-1 coffee from G7 from Vietnam. I used to enjoy my siphon steeped self-ground coffee back in SG but I switched out of convenience and because I don’t want to acquire too much baggage here in PP, not to mention the above the rich fragrance of the above coffee mix. Oh, once a month or so, I’ll have a bowl of pho bo for brunch at a specialized stall not too far from my apartment, $1.50, lots of beef slices and tendon, and unlimited basil, and some kind of coriander that’s long and saw edges, very tasty and rich.

Once in a while I might opt for a midnight supper with friends after drinks but never on my initiative. So, I can safely say I’m a 2 meal-a-day person.

With every meal, I usually have rice, a small bowl, equivalent to half a bowl of what is served with your chicken rice. The Cambodian rice I buy costs about USD0.80 a kg, excellent fragrance slightly different from Thai but nevertheless very good. It may be interesting to know Thailand is the largest buyer of Cambodia’s premium rice. I think they mix Cambo’s rice with their own so the premium Thai rice you eat could well contain some Cambo’s as well. Anyway, 2 meals of rice a day cost me a couple of cents. Some days I may have a noodle, usually in a bone-based soup but again the portion is small, I have cut down on my carbo intake a long time ago to maintain my weight at an acceptable level.

Let's see, veggie, of which I eat a lot, costs about USD 0.25 a day. It could be kailan, choy sum, or a myriad of other leafy veggies, usually stir-fried sans any meat, or if I decide on a soup, it’s usually marrow or squash in a pork bone-based or chicken bone soup, which, by the way, is dirt cheap. I love bitter gourd and have it at least twice a week, usually fried with a small portion of beef with black bean and lots of ginger & garlic. I don’t have any other side dishes with this.

Most days I have fish. With the exception of those living down in the south, the people here generally eat fresh water fish, harvested from fish farms or caught from the Mekong and they’re cheap - tilapia, both red and black; various kinds of catfish, and I prefer the patin which is only like USD3.00 a kg, some so fresh they are still alive. I ate this once in a KL restaurant and, fuck me, it costed more than a hundred ringgit. Excellent eating, very smooth firm flesh with lots of natural oil and perfect steamed with soy sauce with a little sugar and lots of ginger and spring onion. However, it is the toman that appears to be the favorite here, mine as well. At less than $2.00 a kg, it is almost my main source of protein, mostly steamed with soy sauce or taochio but sometimes in a tamarind soup with lots of basil, lime juice and lemon grass, almost like tom-yum. There are other varieties as well - eels, fresh water rays but I have so far restricted myself to the above.

Last week I bought 3 pomfrets, each slightly larger than my palm and just nice for a meal, for less than a dollar each. Extravagant maybe, but variety is the spice of life. This morning, I bought a carp, about 400g. Bones are a big problem with carps, those Y bones can be nasty stuck in the throat. This one isn’t too bad, although it has Y bones, they’re isolated more or less above the lateral line. One word, the fish mongers here has a particular way to clean the fish. They scale and gut it, chop off the fins and part of the tail, which is quite normal, but then they chop off the cheeks and to discard the gills. For bigger fishes, they chopped off part of the mouth as well.


This carp costs 5,000 riel (USD1.25) and I saved the other half for some other day. See how they chopped the gills off?.


There are sea fishes on sale too, but this wet market a 100m from my apartment, has only 2 stalls that sell them and the variety sucks. Sometimes the freshness is suspect so I normally stick to the fresh water fishes, with the exception of that 3 pomfrets. The usual fares from these 2 stalls are squids, prawns and the odd grouper, sometimes bonito and selar. If I yearn for other varieties, I’ll go to Phsar Thmey, the Central market. There they have a much larger variety, even oysters, which I indulge once in a while with a bottle of good Chardonnay. Not bélon grade but at less than $0.50 each and huge, I have no cause to complain. On sale also are white clams the size of tomatoes, perfect for that pasta with white wine; live octopus I have yet to try; mantis prawn; mud crabs but these are of disappointing size, I miss the Sri Lanka mudders; lobsters and so on. Seafood lovers won’t be too disappointed here.

Let’s get back on track. I’ve not cut down on my red meat intake completely but eat it infrequently. Beef is not too expensive here but don’t expect grain-fed or marbled variety here at the wet markets. Imported air-flown chilled prime beef are available but at a premium price and only at a specialized store. I used to make a very good beef stew with red wine at the restaurant with carrots, daikon, tomatoes and potatoes, and beef shins (lots of sinewy tendons in these) and a whole $3 bottle of a dry red (wines are cheap here too). It’s too much bother to cook for 1 or 2 persons and now I eat beef only when I have bitter gourd and then only sparingly.

Pork is the cheapest meat here but I buy it mainly for soup stock. I don’t take too much chicken either although I yearned for the Wenchang chicken I so loved to eat when I was in China. The kampong chicken (or free-range) here are too skinny and stringy for me. I usually keep a piece or 2 of whole thigh (farmed chicken thighs close to 400g each for about $1) in the freezer as a standby as it’s so versatile.

And I drink plenty of water. In fact, a whole 20L container of water a week, speaking of which, the FB astonished me just last week by hauling up the 20kg container up 2 flights of stairs to my apartment without pause. You see, she’s 5’ nothing, weighs maybe 48kg, works as a captain in a disco and the job doesn’t requires her to any strenuous work. How she did that without pause or even panting when I have to pause between floors I like to know.

This has been my diet for years now and I see no reasons to change. It has so far kept my weight and cholesterol down to a reasonable level, I’ve kept gout away with those veggies, my BP is under control with some time at the gym. Since I’m expected to die at 70, I hope the next 13 years will be without any surprises.

[Faidenk]

I culled this piece from a monthly free mag, the Bayon Pearnik, distributed free to F&B establishments. The Quirk column this month is especially humorous and hard-hitting, and definitely not fiction, by Joe Bloggs.



I love Khmers but they do have some pretty perplexing habits and attitudes, at least to Westerners:-

• No matter where you park your car, someone will ask you to move it. Once, I parked outside a drinks stall and was asked to back the car up half a meter – as if that’s going to make any frigging difference.

• Khmers think that building, or repairing, a pagoda is more important than building, or repairing, a road. There may come a day when Cambodia has the most number of pretty pagodas in the world, but no one can get to them.

• Khmers don't throw domestic scrap away, they believe most domestic scrap items can be used in the future and should be stored away in a dark and mysterious corners. Problem is that Khmers don't know what to do with them. Never will. So they fester – empty soup tins, the middle bit of garlic bulbs, old tissue boxes, broken typewriters, threelegged chairs, broken floor tiles and so on.

• Western car drivers who overtake a vehicle more than once every seven weeks are considered by Khmers as reckless and foolhardy. There are several bar-room theories why Khmers drive too slowly. One is that they have no insurance, but still heavily rely on the instant justice of a gun. So, as there is likely to be a gun somewhere inside a car (especially a Lexus) they drive slowly to minimize an accident that would result in death by gun. Another theory is that Khmers love their cars in an unnaturally exaggerated way (more than their houses) so want to spend as much time in them as possible and, of course, be seen in them. Another theory is the belief that driving slowly will mechanically preserve the car so that when it comes to selling it they can claim that it's "new", because the car has never been subjected to speeds more than 22KPH. Another theory is that no-one's taken lessons or a test. Finally there's the one that unfairly claims that a typical Khmer brain is not capable of computing too many decisions and body movements at the same time.

• If you’ re a Westerner trying to overtake a line of traffic, there's always the Khmer “driver” halfway along the line who has been psyching himself up for his once-every-seven-weeks overtaking maneuver and he's in emotional turmoil at the idea. He does everything wrong - no mirror, no signal, no warning, just maneuver, swinging out too wide, narrowly missing you.

• Children and girls on Khmer TV have dubbed voices that are the most extraordinary, high-pitched squeal ever heard by man or beast. It's a noise similar to throttling a kitten by throwing it in a river with a brick tied round its neck (which, by the way, is great fun except for the noise). And if there's a villain (or an old man) the voice is no less nauseating – an unnatural low-pitched voice achieved by drinking half a liter of kerosene.

• When painting a house, Khmers will spill half the paint on the floor and a quarter on your new furniture - only a quarter will be placed where it's supposed to be. All Khmer housepainters have taken the course entitled "How to paint a house like a three-year-old child would"

• You become loyal to a particular market stall – but instead of gradually reducing prices, the owner rewards your loyalty by gradually increasing prices.

• Perhaps for the rich and famous, having someone open your car door when you've just arrived at a supermarket is normal. For us bogstandard Joe Bloggs, it's called fawning.

• At night, one good way to distract other road users is to put so many flashing lights on the front and rear of a car that nobody has any idea what the driver intends to do. By contrast (but with the same high potential for an accident) are the cars with no lights at all – this is the favoured tactic of country people.

• When shopping, Westerners don't want to waste time sitting down on a dirty plastic chair trying to dodge questions about how much money they earn.

• Lots of Cambodians don't clean their teeth properly and have, as a result, seething halitosis. Some are even aware of this and cover their mouths when speaking. Why don’ t they just clean their teeth?

• NEVER ask a motodop driver to drive fast even if you're late for your plane. It's like asking bunny rabbits to repair your fridge. They can't, it's beyond them. And don't ask a motodop driver for change either, they don't carry change, why should they?

• There’s an old Khmer saying - “ a clean floor is a clean floor, and if you clean a floor for a long time, it will be clean. But it won’ t be clean forever. Soon the time will come to clean it again. But if you don’ t clean it well in the first place you must practice and practice until you can clean the floor better”. As soon as there is light to see, around 6am, you hear a chorus of brushes frantically sweeping floors, yards, roads, pavements – whatever is flat and underneath the feet. Once the people creating the chorus are satisfied that all Westerners are well and truly awake, they stop. And nothing else is cleaned for the rest of the day.

• If a Westerner speaks Khmer there's (usually) one of four reactions from the locals:- a) They assume you're speaking a foreign language and look completely baffled. b)They've got no idea what you're saying because you slightly mispronounced one syllable. c) They think you can speak perfect Khmer and gabble on at high speed, using complex words, uninterrupted for at least three minutes. d) They laugh at you.

• Some Khmers need to get real – having an argument with your husband about which salad bowl to use for lunch is no reason to take out a big rusty kitchen knife and cut his balls off. A typical entry in a Khmer newspaper reads, "Kong Chea Sothea, 19, poisoned herself to death last Wednesday in Phum Sa'at village, Kandal. Her parents say she was depressed after giving her auntie a cup of coffee that had no sugar".

• If you borrow a motorbike off a Khmer, expect:-
- No front brake and a back brake that barely works.
- Engine idle speed set so low the bike stalls at every opportunity.
- A drive chain so stretched it constantly bangs against the chain casing
- Just enough petrol to get around the corner (out of sight, out of mind and responsibility).
- A squeaky suspension (in fact the motorbike has never experienced the pleasure of protective lubrication in its entire service life)
- Dangerously worn tyres with half the air pressure recommended by the manufacturer (or twice).
- An engine that may or may not work.

• If you borrow a car off a Khmer, expect:-
- An interior that smells like a cheap Bangkok brothel on a Saturday night.
- Stupid little Union Jack cushions (in case the driver feels like a nap).
- A knobbly plastic steering wheel cover (for those delicate and complicated reversing maneuvers).
- Enough petrol to get you fifteen meters, or until the engine breaks (whichever comes first).
- A suspension system that should have been replaced 13,000kms ago.
- Four tyres – one made in Japan, one made in America, one made in France and one made in Korea – all different sizes and treads.
- An elaborate panel with 53 switches to control the flashing lights at night.

• Staring is a big thing in Cambodia. It's not considered rude and it's just plain old curiosity, but it's still bloody annoying and the line "Am I the first Martian you've ever seen? " is lost on Khmers.

• You're late for work, you need a box of matches, "Please, sit down". "No thanks, I only want a box of matches and I’m late for work". "My sister will be here soon". "Can't YOU give me a box o f matches? ". "I don't have the keys". "How long will your sister be? ". "Where are you from? ". "All I need is a box of matches!".

• Noise is a sign of life and Khmers think that the noisier you are, the more alive. Therefore, Khmers shout at each other rather than talk, mobile phones have the loudest ring settings, TVs and radios are full blast, pigs are tied up and thrown on trucks in such a way as to extract the most piercing screams, weddings have the loudest music imaginable, and so on…….they even read out loud!

• By the side of the road, you see a stall with quite an impressive display of drinks, considering it's a poor country – soft drinks, beer, stout, energy drinks, etc. You open the huge ice bucket (situated nearby) in eager anticipation only to find either, a) a bucket full of ice and nothing else except a small piece of ungutted fish being kept for the stall owner’ s friend or b) the bucket is completely full of drinks, right to the top, but with three inches of stale warm water at the bottom.

Mind you, I still prefer Khmers to Westerners.

[asylum javelin]

Originally Posted by Faidenk

This carp costs 5,000 riel (USD1.25) and I saved the other half for some other day. See how they chopped the gills off?.

hi Fairdenk

I think they collect the chick of the fish for another fish chick dish. Now I know how they managed to get so many fish chicks.

I was recently there and went to FCC, it is quite a nice joint. A local brought me to Kour Pao Heng at 445D St310 for roast calf. It was quite nice and not too expensive. Met a beer promoter there that can speak malay, cantonese and english as she has worked in KL for 5 years.

Went across mekong river and there are so many vn girls there....

Will catch up with you in my next trip this month.

cheers...aj

[Glock]

Originally Posted by Faidenk

Well I suppose these go on around the world, even in squeaky clean Singapore. I remembered ages ago the company I worked for was invited to tender for a system. The company painstakingly drew up detailed specs for the database, the outline of the program, hardware requirements etc. A presentation was put up, and the specs handed over for their perusal. In those days nobody thought much of a NDA, a government contract like this was considered an important stepping stone to more lucrative deals. Months later the company was regretfully informed the tender was shelved. A year or two later, one of the staff left and joined a newly set up government IT unit. As she had worked on that particular system, she was surprised to discover she was hired to work on that same system, using the same specs and database structure she had worked on in her previous company. That company is still around today doing quite well but I think they have developed a somewhat apprehension to bidding for a government job ever again.

not the first time i heard something like this

Originally Posted by Faidenk

A Canadian buddy I know here recently negotiated with a bank for a 1-year lease to a piece of land. The land is slated by to be developed in a year’s time, therefore the short lease. My friend intends to run a fair targeted at both locals and tourists, renting out stores to locals selling apparels, food, games, rides as well as organizing variety shows, Miss Fair pageants and so on. Far as he knows, he was the only person approached for the bid, he did his pitch and presented his plans for the ground to the bank but before he could submit his bid, he was summoned and arbitrarily told he was outbidded. He called me to ask if I had spoken to anyone about his plans, I had not and told him so. It seemed the successful bidder had the exact same plans. A week later, he found out the successful bidder was a relative of one of the bank senior staff. Figures.

your friend's mistake is to NOT prepare beforehand to rope in somebody connected to get a cut . if for example he had made friends with the bank's senior staff and offered to cut them in from the beginning , his proposal might have been considered "on the merits" ( i am serious about using that term )

[Faidenk]

Originally Posted by asylum javelin

hi Fairdenk

I think they collect the chick of the fish for another fish chick dish. Now I know how they managed to get so many fish chicks.

I was recently there and went to FCC, it is quite a nice joint. A local brought me to Kour Pao Heng at 445D St310 for roast calf. It was quite nice and not too expensive. Met a beer promoter there that can speak malay, cantonese and english as she has worked in KL for 5 years.

Went across mekong river and there are so many vn girls there....

Will catch up with you in my next trip this month.

cheers...aj

Nope, the cheeks, gills and guts are all discarded, the fish in the pic is too small for the cheeks to be of any use. I suppose that's the way it's done here.

The BBQ calf are nice, and at $4 a plate it's quite cheap. Near the Museum on Street 19, there's a stretch of of at least 5 BBQ calf shops cheek to jowl, so you get to select one that has better cuts.

Across the Japanese Friendship Bridge you'll find at least 10 restaurants and many smaller makeshift ones. These smaller ones usually have a few atap gazebos fitted with hammocks. You order your beers and food and they usually have young girls to accompany you for a few bucks in tips. They are also available for a quickie at any of the numerous guesthouses along the road, on the side further away from the river.

VN girls there? None that I remember. Time to update myself, I suppose.

[Faidenk]

Originally Posted by Glock

not the first time i heard something like this

I have always maintain the role of any government is, well, to govern, not to compete with the entrepreneurs they seemed so enthusiastic in cultivating.

your friend's mistake is to NOT prepare beforehand to rope in somebody connected to get a cut . if for example he had made friends with the bank's senior staff and offered to cut them in from the beginning , his proposal might have been considered "on the merits" ( i am serious about using that term )

Nailed it on the spot.

A good friend of mine explained, when I asked him to elaborate why he deems Laos a better environment for business, that the Laotians will ask you to mark up your selling price, while in Cambodia, you are asked for 'fees' upfront.

Now, the Laotians have a 'vested' interest to see you succeed in order to receive their 'cut'; on the other hand, you are on your own in Cambo, having your initial investment largely increased with no receipt to show for it and, worse, opened yourself to sabotage by business rivals or officials who find your ideas lucrative.

[Faidenk]

Well, nothing has been happening much and I have been lazing around most days. It’s really boring to be bored. I don’t go out much now because I have to go easy on my expenditure but also I am a bit jaded with the bars. At some of the bars 3 or 4 girls would sit with me and all expect ladies drinks. Well, during the ‘good’ days, it’s not too big a problem; I would buy food from the roadside stalls for them too. Even though at one, the boss buys me all the beers I can consume, the tips and LDs adds up. And besides, the FB is taking care of my ‘needs’. So this is just something to while away the time, snippets of this and that.


The FB

She seems to be loosening up a lot more. Where she used to climax once or twice, her tally is now 4, and once when up to 6, in one session. For reasons I do not fathom, I am taking longer to come. It could be I am now doing it with greater frequency, almost every other day, compared to twice a week when we first started.

After 6 months, she is still shy to expose her pussy to me. I still cannot understand her rationale, she loves having it painted, she has no qualms about shaving it upon my request, and she obviously enjoys it pretty much as I do, maybe a lot more, seeing as how easily she comes. She says her ex-husband of 5 years didn’t get to see it, her boyfriend of 1 year didn’t get to see it, so why should I? And only ‘bad’ girls are not shy. *Sigh*

A small comfort that she isn’t shy eating all my cum. And I got her to smear my cum on her face – it’s good for your complexion, haha.


Blackouts

Blackouts in the afternoons seem like a daily scheduled affair in the part of Phnom Penh I am living in, half a click away from the notorious Toul Sleng Museum. We got to talking about this and the friend said somebody is probably siphoning the fuel from the generators. Then he added, just look at where all the motorcyclists are buying their petrol, they’re buying them cheaper from makeshift stalls along the roadside in 1 liter plastic bottles. It makes sense even though they use diesel for the generators but what about the cheaper petrol?

It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago a Hong Kong colleague of a friend said these bottles are specially imported from Vietnam and they’re thicker so there’s actually 20% less petrol in them bottles. You got to admire these entrepreneurs.


Counting

After more than half a year here, it now dawns on me the Cambodian method of counting numbers actually sucks more than I had suspected.
For example,
1 - mui
2 – bi
3 – bai
4 – boon
5 – pram
6 – pram mui
7 – pram bi
8 – pram bai
9 – pram boon
10 – dob
11 – dob mui
20 – m’pai

And then when it comes to 30, suddenly it sounds Thai – sam sup, 40 – sei sup, 50 – ha sup.

That is so lame. That’s not all, I recently started going to the local market every other day to shop for my meals and I discovered sometimes the vendors, and I assume the rest of the locals as well, adopt some kind of weird numbering system. For example, if the fish costs 9000 riel, the vendor would say bai puan (thousand), which to my understanding is 3000 riel (USD0.75), and that is bloody cheap for a still moving Patin fish about a kg in weight. So I would hand over 3000 riel for the steal. ‘Jiang pram puan’, 5000 more. What she actually said it costs was 8000 riel (pram bai puan). So, the pram is understood. Only a dummy like me would think a kg fish costs 3000 riel. Anyway I am starting to get a hang of it now.


German Pizza Guy

There’s this German guy at Street 104 who sells pizza outside the Crossroad Bar. For $5 for a 8 or 9 inch pizza whether it’s mushroom or Hawaiian, it’s actually quite a bargain, and besides, it’s quite good. He’d designed his special pizza oven and had it done in a local engineering shop. We’d always asked him to join us for a drink whenever we’re at that bar, and always patronize his pizzas.

He always has his Cambodian girlfriend around. 2 weeks ago, he told us his girlfriend took his $250 motorbike and ran away. Poor guy. He wasn’t making that much money from this pizza venture I could tell but the girlfriend probably hurt him more.


Shooting Range

I am eagerly anticipating the return of my snooker kaki from his annual leave. We have a date at the shooting range. Maybe I mentioned this in previous posts but we got to know a bunch of military big shots at the snooker club in PP and believe me, they are way up there. Good players too. And he always introduced us to his friends as brothers, but I doubt we’re on that level, at best we are good drinking and snooker kakis. On the day my friend flew off, we were at the club playing with the generals. I asked the chief if he could bring us to the shooting range in his camp. No problem. We have AK’s, M16, Glocks whatever you want.

And with another local Cambodian who, if I do not know him and were on the phone, I swore was a Pom. Turns out he’d spent 20 years in the UK. Wonderful player who makes a 40+ break without really trying. OK, the pockets are big here, but you don’t see that from me. Anyway, we have another fishing date with him, promised to bring us where big fishes are jumping. Yiiihaaa!


Trapdoor Snails

Last week, the FB came knocking on the door with a bag of snails. After a little research, turn out they were Japanese Trapdoor snails. She washed them, covered them with water and threw in a couple of smashed chili padi’s to rid them of grits for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile she boiled a pot of water with a couple of stalks of lemon grass and a bunch of basil.

The snails were added to the pot and boiled for about 5 or 6 minutes and served hot. She made a dip of salt, pepper and lime juice. They tasted like heaven. For your information, they costs 3000 riel a kilo, about USD0.75, and these were just slightly smaller than a tennis ball.

[boysaigon]

... I prefer the patin which is only like USD3.00 a kg, some so fresh they are still alive. I ate this once in a KL restaurant and, fuck me, it costed more than a hundred ringgit. Excellent eating, very smooth firm flesh with lots of natural oil and perfect steamed with soy sauce with a little sugar and lots of ginger and spring onion. However, it is the toman that appears to be the favorite here, mine as well. At less than $2.00 a kg, it is almost my main source of protein, mostly steamed with soy sauce or taochio but sometimes in a tamarind soup with lots of basil, lime juice and lemon grass, almost like tom-yum. ...

Hi Bro,

do try to steam your patin (ca bong lau in VN) with taochio or the cantonese meansi. My vn cook ( a canton lady) used to do it with the fish belly....SUPER! The murky fermented bean taste somehow blends very well with the oily fish. Go try

[Faidenk]

Originally Posted by boysaigon

...
Hi Bro,

do try to steam your patin (ca bong lau in VN) with taochio or the cantonese meansi. My vn cook ( a canton lady) used to do it with the fish belly....SUPER! The murky fermented bean taste somehow blends very well with the oily fish. Go try

Yes, I suppose so. The delicate meat is ideal for steaming or poaching but I don't think it is good for frying. If you like fried fish, nothing beats the batang, coated with a little tumeric and salt paste. Another fav of mine.

I would like to eat a little more sea fishes but Phnom Penh being an inland city, more fresh water fishes are available. The sea water varieties cost more and not easily available in suburban markets.

[Ganesha]

Hi bro Faidenk, very good info u have. Maybe my next trip can have u as my guide if u dun mind.