Supply and Demand

I haven’t blogged for a while because I told myself that nothing interesting was happening but that’s wrong.  Even the most commonplace events, sights or activities have some interest if you look hard enough.  I’ve been busy with work and other things so have let the blog go a bit but recently I’ve been thinking about some of the routines of life that are different from home.  Drinking,  or more accurately, what to drink is one of them. 

I’ve worked my way through a range of drinks from the almost undrinkable to the expensively imported in the search for a reliable alternative to wine.  I like wine but recoil from the bottles of imported French wine as they are ridiculously expensive.  £10 for a rubbish bottle of Van de Paye which would be £4 tops in Sainsbury’s is a rip-off.  The local Dalat wine is thin, weedy and sour, borders on the undrinkable but is cheaper at £2 or so.  Beer is just lager really so it’s yellow, slightly sweet and generally flavourless.  Sapporo, the beer from Japan is the only exception to my general lager rule but still makes me feel uncomfortably full after a few.  For all of those reasons I now drink spirits but which ones?

When it comes to the hard stuff my choice is wide.  At the bottom end of the market there’s Hanoi vodka.  Even as you drink it you can feel it’s bad for you.  I get an almost instant headache followed by a general feeling on unease, like I’ve been poisoned, which I probably have.  Koreans love Soju, a colourless, odourless liquid made from rice which tastes worse than the vodka but doesn’t seem so toxic.  I drink it in emergencies only.  Next up from those two is rum from the Philippines.  This comes in two colours, white and brown, but only one flavour which I would describe as bland but on reflection, and after trying Bacardi, I now realise that’s what white rum tastes like.  For those who are prepared to pay there is no limit to what you can buy but I’m mean and I like value for money.

The other problem I have is supply.  There are a couple of decent sized supermarkets in Phu My Hung and lots of small stores and  there’s a couple of fancy wine shops too for those with deeper pockets but there is no consistency in supply.  For a while now my nearest supermarket only has Hanoi vodka and I’m not drinking that.  They used to have a reliable supply of Philippino rum bit that’s run dry so imagine my pleasure and surprise when I saw a small shop nearby selling it. I was so pleased and surprised that I nearly bought two bottles but instead went for one plus  a probably fake bottle of Gordon’s gin at the knockdown price of £5.

what's in the freezer compartment of your fridge?

Inspired by my luck and the spicy tang of the gin, I wrote this blog entry.  Cheers! 

Tet’s Up

The holiday season is over for another year and I’m back at work.  The university is full of noisy students wondering what they’ve let themselves in for and depressed teachers back after a longish break.  ( Only 3 weeks, most universities would have more but we really work for our living here. )

The roads are full of rush hour motorbikes and that makes my ride home after work a lot more interesting.  I have to be constantly on the alert and practise my 360 degree vision skills if I want to get home in one piece.

Tet, or Vietnamese New Year, is celebrated a bit like we do Christmas.  There’s food, drink, relatives and gift giving. Money in red envelopes is the normal gift so there’s no problem having to take the unwanted present back to the shops the next day.  Instead of Christmas trees people have blossom clad branches, often a whole shrub but, as there is no discernable season here, the branches are stripped of leaves and have bright yellow flowers glued to them.  Yellow seams to be the colour of spring no matter where you live.  And just like Christmas trees, once it’s all over the branches are dumped somewhere and forgotten about. 

I’m back at work for the next 12 week with a new set of students but mercifully there is a short break at the beginning of May when we have a long weekend.  Cambodia gave me a taste for holidaying, relaxing and travelling which has taken a while to shake off.

Cambodia

We are back from our holiday, the girls are back in England and I’m starting to think about my next outing in just over 3 months time.

Although I’m back home I’m too lazy/busy to write a blog entry so pinched this from wikitravel or somewhere like that.  It sums up our holiday pretty well.

Get in

You can get there by plane to Phnom Penh or Siem Reap.  It’s inexpensive and runs frequently, but the bus is cheaper.  It does mean that you arrive late and tired but think of the planet and your bank balance.  You can save a bit of time and money by taking a sleeper bus but these can often be replaced by a regular bus with reclining seats so you don’t actually sleep at all and spend the next day recuperating.  The people in the reclining seat in front of you will try to recline their seat, crushing your knees and make sitting impossible.   If they attempt to do this, brace your legs and defend your space.

Sleep

The Green Garden Home in Siem Reap has a lovely pool.  The Cove Beach has great views but you pay a hefty price for them.  The Chhaya Hotel is a self contained backpacker ghetto and very cheap.

See

The ancient city of Angkor is well worth a few days and is so good they named a beer after it.  The vast Tonle Sap lake and surrounding waterways.  Serendipity Beach, which should be renamed Predictability Beach as every bar sells exactly the same as all the others.

Drink

Angkor beer at any time but especially during happy hour, which usually runs from 5pm to 10pm.  Try to ignore the taste and believe its tag line, “My country, my beer”.  You can also get Mojitos crammed with mint.

Eat

Cheese burgers, a mild creamy curry akin to Thai but different, crunchy salad with a mouth-numbingly volcanic chili dressing and fried eggs every day for breakfast.

Do

Get a massage from trained masseurs who really know what they are doing. The next day your back will feel like it’s had a tough workout.  Swim in a crystal-clear, turquoise-blue, coral-filled tropical sea.  Cycle around and clamber over ancient ruins and marvel at the carvings. Travel by boat through a birdwatchers paradise to Batambang, Cambodia’s second biggest, but quietest, city.

Get

A pedicure on the beach.  A foot massage in a night market.  Various hippy bracelets sold by children everywhere.  Cheap t-shirts that won’t survive the first wash.  Sunburn after swimming too much swimming without sunscreen.

Happy New Year

It's Tet, Vietnam's equivalent of Chinese New Year and  all the indications are that it's best to get away from the transport chaos and inflated hotel prices that come with the holiday period .  I've taken a very long bus ride to Siem Reap in Cambodia this time joined by my daughters Charlotte and Alice.  The bus journey was long, tiring and very, very cold as the driver had the air conditioning turned down to an icy blast for the 15 hours it took us to make the trip. 
Siem Reap and the templates of Ankor are worth the journey and the hotel had a pool.  We had two days looking around Ankor and a day resting in the town. We took a tuk-tuk on the first day and cycled on the second.  It was hot but not too hot and cycling down the shady roads was a pleasure.  You pay a lot for the access but once in you can clamber over everything without anyone stopping you and they are impressive.  The souvenir sellers can be annoying, pushing postcards, guide books and t-shirts at you that you don't want but otherwise it's a very peaceful experience.  The whole area is kept clean by a small army of workers in green uniforms who spend their days sweeping up leaves on the sides of the roads in a vain attempt at  tidying up a tropical forest.  At least some of the $20 a day fee goes into the local economy.

We left Siem Reap by  boat to Battambang crossing the massive Tonle Sap lake and winding through a narrow river to the town.  Eight hours of bird and village life watching along the bank, engine noise and hard wooden seats.  There were scenes of unbelievable poverty along the way where families live in crude wooden shacks and catch the tiny fish that fill the water.  Sadly plastic bags are everywhere marking the high water mark on an otherwise very natural scene.  Perhaps the cleaners of Ankor would be better employed here.

After a long, noisy day we arrived in Battambang and walked the few hundred meters to the hotel area taking pleasure in stretching our legs after sitting so uncomfortably on those narrow benches all day. For a fraction of the price and half the time we could have taken a bus but, as I keep telling the girls, we wouldn't have had the experience.

Battambang is a town for locals with a handful of backpacker hotels and restaurants in contrast to Siem Reap whose sole function is to cater for tourists of all pockets many of them rather deep judging by the number of 'international spas' springing up all over the town.  It's a bit scruffy and dusty but very cheap.  The main street is busy with cars and motorbikes but the side streets are quieter and the restaurant owners are happy to see tourists sitting in their restaurant chairs reading and not buying much throughout the hot afternoons.  We had a ride out into the countryside this morning to a couple of temples on top of small hills with great views of the countryside around them but other wise the day has been lazy, with us not doing much at all.  Tomorrow we leave for Phnom Penh on the 8am bus for a mere 6 hours.

A bike ride to Hiep Phouc

The original plan was a ride out to the Mekong delta and an overnight stay down there.  Nobody was up for it ( except me and the organiser ) so we agreed on the softer option of a ride out of Phu My Hung into the countryside. 

There’s masses of building work going on here and the first part of the ride was through vast, under-construction towers.  One day this area will be occupied by the affluent escaping the cramped conditions in HCMC but right now it’s a world of construction traffic grinding along in a cloud of grit and dust, not the most pleasant of riding conditions.

But that soon gave way to a smaller village strung out along the single carriage road.  Shops, cafes, hairdressers and motorbike repair shops on both sides selling the same stuff as everywhere.  The going was better here with less traffic to dodge.  Some of the local kids waved at us.  They must think we are mad, why aren’t we in air-conditioned taxis like all the other foreigners?

Eventually the road ran out  at Hiep Phouc a sleepy village on the banks of one of the main rivers.  We looked at the river, had a rest and coffee before exploring a little further. The whole area here is a watery maze of rivers and tidal channels, all murky brown with a collection of floating debris being washed backwards and forwards with the tide.

The land is very flat and criss-crossed by muddy ditches between fields that look like they get a regular flooding.  Some of the village houses are simple wood and corrugated iron affairs and some are huge villas guarded by heavy gates and barking dogs.  The divide between rich and poor reaches down to this little village from the city quite easily.

We rode back on a different route, past an industrial estate and through more local districts before returning to Phu My hung and it’s fancy shops, restaurants and luxury housing.  After 4 hours of cycling I was exhausted.  I need to spend more time on my bike getting fit.

Bills

I paid my bill the other day for water and for the maintenance of the block, it was about £12 for the month.  They put a bill in your post box next to the entrance to the underground car park.  Mine is labelled F16-7 and I have a key for it.   You pick up the bill and take it to the site office under 2E.  The counter staff there happily take your money and stamp your bill for you.  You have to go to a special bank for the electricity bill and to a special building on the edge of Phu My Hung for the phone and internet.  It's a one story building set in the middle a small green and looks like a motorway service station.  No automation or online payment available here, just me walking around the local area with a clutch of bills in one hand and a wad of cash in the other.

The service charge is worth the money.  They take away the rubbish, keep the lifts going, do the gardens and run the security.  Security in the car park can be annoying as I’m only allowed to enter and leave on my bike by one of the entrances as I don’t have an electronic ticket.  They give me slips of paper, one half for me to keep in my pocket and one half for them to staple to my bike.  When I leave they just collect the two halves but never check them.  Maybe I should hot wire one of the fancy 4X4’s that live in the car park and try and get out with that.

Every morning the small army of workers who run the place squat outside the site office chattering and eating their breakfast.  They wake me up and I know by their sounds that it’s time for me to go to work too.  They work long hours and are constantly collecting rubbish, weeding the gardens and the other day, there was one cleaning the grout between the tiles by the lift.  That seemed a chore too far to me and I’m sure the worker would much rather be sitting in the shade beside the site office eating another breakfast.

On my bike

It's slightly ironic that only a few months ago I was getting rid of a bike and now I'm buying one. I had this cheap, heavy, clunking thing that I'd bought a few years ago when I didn't live in London. It was fine at the time and all I could afford. Once back home the idea of peddling uphill on the Archway Road with buses and cars grinding past me and then lugging the thing up four flights of stairs finally convinced me that cycling was not for me.

I sold it in the end, with an ad in Gumtree that got a massive response. A young guy came round and for £45 he got the bike, a lock and a bag of tools. What he didn't know was that I was ready to dump the thing outside Sainsbury's and let it get stolen. I hope he's getting his money's worth and doesn't read this and find out that he could have had it for free.

But times have changed, I live in a very flat part of the world and my block has an enormous car park where my new bike now lives. Well, not new but new to me as I bought it from an Australian who lives nearby. And I've upgraded from heavy and clunking to light and swishing, I have bought a Trek mountain bike. What's prompted me? One of the teachers is planning a cycling weekend into the countryside and I really wanted to go so I got onto craigslist and found myself a bike. The gears click professionally, the saddle fits comfortably and the breaks stop me dead, even if they squeak when they do it.

Tonight I bought a lock and a leg for it to stand on when it's not going along.  Now it's in the car park at the bottom of 1F, my building. Tomorrow it'll take me to the university and back. The traffic is mad around here on the main roads and I hope I survive the experience. The motorbikes are shoals of fish, dodging out of the way of the bike in front that suddenly changes course. Every day I see another student in plaster or with cuts and bruises on their faces, arms and legs. Perhaps one day I'll be brave enough to get a motorbike and risk my life on the crazy roads but for now I'm happy to be on my new bike.