Phnom Penh

The traffic in Phnom Penh is miraculous. Not only do you have people transporting immense loads on tiny motorbikes (so far my favourite is the guy driving the bike, and behind him the friend supporting a five foot high cylinder of gas cross ways across the bike) as well as families of up to four crowded on one bike, kids with no helmets sitting on Dad's shoulders, but you have cars and tuk tuks all weaving in and out, doing u turns across the main road, driving down the wrong side, or getting the passengers out of the tuk tuk because the hill's a bit too steep. We haven't seen a single accident: people all drive relatively slowly so that they can stream around you without stopping.

Our first night here, we walked to the main road from our staff house. It was dark, and fragrant with all manner of appetising smells and an underlying odour of slightly fermented sewage. Children waved and shouted hello. People's houses are often open: there'll be a studio/shop/warehouse on the ground floor, and you can see people working as you walk past. The alley we live on is dirt, but many of the streets are paved with concrete, covered with a layer of rubbish, sand, chickens, etc. At 6.30 pm it was full dark, but very hot.
We got to the main road to find that the restaurant on the corner is in fact slightly dubious. (Girls waiting outside to entertain gentlemen) So we retraced our steps to a place we had walked past, which was basically the front compound of someone's house. The menu was all in Khmer script, but the manager was very patient with us in transalting: Grilled cow, lips of cow, head of cow, bit of cow, um, not sure how you say....
OK, we'll have the duck. And the chicken, fried with a fruit he can't explain exactly, so he fetches one to show us. We share three dishes, and rice, and get some beer and some soft drinks (Lychee juice, Soursop juice, Grass Jelly juice) We discover that in Cambodia, they leave the bones in. None of this taking a fillet and chopping it up, no, take a cleaver to the whole bird. Apparently, they actually eat the bones - for a diet so lacking in dairy, this must be an important source of calcium.When we are stuffed, we call for the bill (Sohm cuk loy!) and discover that we have feasted all five of ourselves for the princely sum of approximately six pounds fifty.

OK, off to New Life Fellowship to sort out details for much of the rest of our time here. They run a drop in for street children, a slum visiting program, english and healthcare classes and many other things which we will hopefully be working on while we're not building houses.

Khnyom mao pro te Kampuchea nam bay san tear!
(I came to Cambodia to build houses. And do other things, but I haven't learnt that much of the language yet.)