13 Things I wasn't aware that I had missed about the UK

It was difficult to leave Cambodia, even just for a few weeks, for reasons I still can't really articulate but now I find myself wondering how I will be able return. Having a foot in more than one camp can be a stretch & sometimes it may result in instability.

Listed below are some of the things in the last 19 days that the UK has reminded me is really very good about it which I had temporarily forgotten;

1) Biting the skin around my finger nails - I love this form of self mutilation & expression of anxiety but chewing my fingers to bloody stumps has been prohibited for self preservation reasons over the last 29 months in microbe rich Cambodia.

2) Silence - on my first morning home it almost deafened me. I've now grown used to the return of the steady hum of my tinnitus, which hasn't had a look in for the last couple of years against the constant stream of volume 11 amplified chaos of Cambodia.

3) Talking to strangers - being able to spark up a conversation with any random stranger on a train, in a shop or waiting for public transport is a real luxury. Being able to eavesdrop conversations & understand 100% of what is being said is also quite a nice thing to be able to do for the voyeurs amongst us.

4) Driving a car - although I do love taking my life in my hands every day cycling in Cambodia, the sheer joy & freedom I experienced driving my parents car by myself, windows down & music blaring (drowning out my tinnitus!) is unparalleled. I know it is terrible for my carbon footprint, expensive & not good for your health but I do love & miss driving a car. Traffic laws & enforcement of these laws is something I was fully aware that I miss about the UK.

5) Hugs - although I get the occasional hug from the village people & have introduced hugs to my khmer teacher, generally in Cambodia physical contact is culturally kept to a minimum. I have really cherished multiple hugging of all my family & friends (who as individuals don't appear on this list because I was already aware of how much I miss them).

6) Guinea pigs - my sister & nieces have guinea pigs as much loved pets, my brother-in-law views them as more of an experiment waiting to happen. They are very therapeutic but probably not a viable alternative for a pet in Cambodia where they would almost certainly just be eaten.

7) Food & drink - fresh milk, proper bacon, Walker's salt & vinegar crisps, draft cider, scones, multigrain bread, curry, freshly picked fruit from the garden, ploughman lunch, smoked salmon. I had really missed Christmas dinner last year & had secretly hoped that a roast dinner might feature in my visit to the UK but I was pleasantly surprised by multiple lovely BBQs instead.

8) Englishness - pub lunches, afternoon tea, complaining about the weather, grade 2 listed cottages, village greens, church bells ringing, steam engines, cobbled streets, BBC, Oxford spires, Bristol docks, Bath Edwardian architecture, not saying what you really mean & a GSOH. Even royalists (exacerbated by the royal birth), people with a elevated sense of entitlement & getting annoyed by public sector destroying Tories generated a warm affection in me towards my home country.

9) Hot power showers - I have a Cambodian friend who says that whatever guest house he stays at, no matter how grim, it is always better than his house. I have the same feeling about my shower in Cambodia now.

10) Dry Toilet floors - going to the toilet without having to wade through the wet room's flooded floor & getting the ends of even 3/4 length trousers saturated with fluid of a questionable source has been a particular highlight of being back in the UK.

11) English gardens - especially my Mum's - simply stunning. That also includes bumble bees who seem to be thriving in the south west.

12) Long summer evenings - I know we all get the same amount of day light in one year where ever we are in the world but sitting outside until 10 pm, in day light, surely is more than compensation for those  dark wintery afternoons, surely? 12 hours of day light every day, all year round, just seems so uniform & dull now.

13) Not sweating - it is so strange to feel a comfortable temperature whilst all around me people wilt & melt.

And now I must go back to Cambodia with the hope that a similar reciprocal list will make itself apparent soon after touch down..... 

Thirsty Girl

When I was a teenager a school friend used to call be "thirsty girl", as I liked a good soft drink. Living in the tropics hasn't quashed that thirst - it actually drives the eternal search for a good drink & I become irritable & tetchy if I don't have a water bottle at all times on my person. Being friends with someone that also really appreciates delicious drinks has exacerbated the need to address the parched palate on a regular basis.

Luckily Cambodia has plenty of delicious drinks opportunities depending on the time, place & need. I tried to list the top 10 drinks here but ended up with following

1. Fresh coconut - hungover, sweltering day in the hot season, diarrhoea - what ever the reason for your dehydration you can't beat a fresh coconut.
2. Lime juice/Passion fruit soda - Lime juice is the baseline go to drink when you are feeling in need of refreshment. This can be upgraded on special occasions to a passion fruit soda. The cafe opposite my house - Bamboo Train - undoubtedly does the best balance of lime & sugar syrup but this drink is ubiquitous here in Cambodia. Bambu Hotel has the best passion fruit soda. 
3. Sugar cane - if a refreshing drink & a pure sugar high is the question then sugar cane juice from a road side seller & the inevitable swarm of wasps is the answer.
4. Iced coffee - every morning in the hospital canteen this chocolatey khmer coffee with more than a liberal lashing of condensed milk & lots of ice (just don't think about how it is made) fills the gap until lunch.
5. Iced lemon tea - a lunch time refresher & naturally always literally saturated with sugar.
6. Tukakralok - ទឹកក្រឡុក - I could drink these anytime of day but for some reason - inexplicable like most things here - they are only available in the evening time. Fresh papaya, mango, chinese pear or coconut all with lots of condensed milk, sugar & occasionally egg with lots of ice to insure brain freeze.
7. Lime mint freeze - The Gecko cafe does the best of these - essentially a non-alcoholic mojito.
8. Syrup & evaporate milk - with ice, sickly thick syrup poured over ice & then evap milk. The ultimate comfort drink. Essential most friday afternoons & after a particularly harrowing clinical experience.
9. Free green tea from the road food stall in TK. Its a spit & saw dust establishment but the free tea they serve in dirty plastic jugs on the tables is the best I have ever had.
10. Cans - Coke, Pepsi cherry & Dr Pepper - Cambodia has rekindled a love of full fat sugary drinks. During the Giardia or Dengue induced appetite suppression a can of full fat Coke faithfully ensures at least 8% of your daily calorific requirements are met.
11. Royal D - absolutely a hot season essential, oral rehydration salts with added vitamin C. 
12. Cambodian cans - Cambodian cans are less carbonated, higher sugar content & can be very delicious tropical fruits such as lychee or Sour Sop,  just plain orange but winter melon & jelly grass are best avoided...
13. 50 cent draft Angkor beer - happy hour fodder & the down fall of many a burnt out NGO worker & the water of life to the majority of alcoholic sex-pats here. Dengue fortunately robbed me of the joy. 

Monk shower

Recently I had been feeling a little below par. My khmer teacher/Cambodian mother - S - had picked up on this (perhaps it was all the crying in my lessons) & after a long discussion with her sister in France it was decided that I needed Buddha in my life. I was given a children's book about Buddha & told to read it every day until I did so. It was about Buddha's life story rather than the Buddhist scriptures, these a fellow VSO volunteer had already once passed on to me.  S's book reminded me very much of a children's bible my Grandparents had once given me.

There was a particularly good story about a man coming up to Buddha & denouncing him. Buddha said "If you give someone a gift which they to don't accept, then who does that gift belong to?" The man replied "Me of course" Buddha told him "Your anger is the same as that gift, if I do not accept your anger or let you insult me then the anger only belongs & stays with you." - I liked that story very much, it resonated like a bell.

S was also convinced that what I needed was a ritual which I can best describe as a 'monk shower' - she thought this would help my bad thoughts & break the 'spell' that had been cast on me - it would only cost 5000R. In my home economics room at school there was a poster that read "Try every thing in life once & the good things twice" - with this in mind I found myself this Sunday going to the local Pagoda to have a monk shower.

Now my anxiety levels really started to rise when S came to by house & suggested I wear a swimming costume, my nightdress, normal clothes over it & also bring a towel. The reason for this would soon become apparent. 

S, me & K (who is currently staying with me) all cycled off to get me cleansed by a monk shower. When we arrived at the Pagoda there was a lot of young monks shouting "Hello!" which brought my anxiety levels up a notch. In a corner of the Pagoda was a small building, with a old monk & a Buddha shrine, where I was instructed to remove my shoes, take a bunch of flowers that S had bought & put them in a vase by the statue of Buddha. I then had to sit with 5 sticks of burning incense, head bowed, palms together & think. Once I had thought about all my friends & family's health & happiness, as well as the reason I have been feeling below par, I then was told by S to put the incense in a pot outside - stepping on a solitary molar tooth on the way - not sure why but I think this is a necessary if somewhat odd detail to this story. 

I then had to give a little orange candle & 10000R note (Barang prices even apply at the Pagoda) to the venerable monk who gave me a blessing whilst I struggled to sit with the soles of my feet facing away from Buddha but bowing 3 times facing him. I really need to take up yoga.

I was then ushered to the side of the building where S instructed me to take off my T-shirt & shorts revealing my nightie underneath. I sat down on a wooden platform on the floor & a young monk came to do what I can most accurately describe as Buddhist water boarding.

A full big bucket of water was scooped & poured over my head. The water was cold & my ability to breath was impaired. A sense of real panic began to rise & I started to splutter & choke. Then something odd & spiritual happened - well it was either that or hypoxia & a near death experience. I felt a very intense fullness in my head & chest followed by a sense release and then an over whelming calmness. Despite this the water boarding continued for a few more minutes after this but at least I was able to breath by then. 

At the end the monk - who it turns out was fluent in english - said "that's all - thank you!" so I got up & slopped over to where S & K had been sat waiting watching monks take normal showers or as K would later describe it as a Cambodian monk version of the Peter Andre mysterious girl video. I am not the only one with bad thoughts!

S dragged me to a small corrugated roofless shack to dry off & change but stopped me at the entrance & declared "Sorry - I need to wee" before disappearing into what I could be forgiven for thinking was a squat toilet. Only when she had finished & called me in to join her was I aware that it wasn't a toilet & she had just wee-ed on the concrete floor of a changing room. I would live to be 105 & I would still never really understand khmers.

Changing back into my shorts & T-shirt I began to understand S's suggestion of a swimming costume rather than the normal underwear I had opted for. Mounting our bikes to leave I pointed to the wet-see-through-boob-marks on my T-shirt to S who promptly indicated this wasn't appropriate with monks in the vicinity.

It looks like it will take more than a child's book & one monk shower to make me a better person....

Post monk shower - please note the hands

What I WON'T miss about Cambodia

I have mixed feelings about my imminent trip home to the UK. So in an attempt to make it easier to leave this country, which has crept into my heart & now has a vice like grip, that is causing my current ambivalence, below is a list of things I WON'T miss about this place (in no particular order).

1) The reliably intermittent water & electricity supply

2) Sex pats & seeing countless old, fat, ugly, repulsive western men with khmer girls/boys who look like children

3) The terrible roads & subsequent dust - everywhere

4) Overt & unabashed misogyny & an endemic disrespect towards women

5) Election Rallies & campaigning - noisy, disruptive & pointless in this "democracy"

6) Anything related to the health care system here - corruption, lack of compassion, people dying needlessly, mismanagement, mistreatment, staff ignoring my advice or wilfully doing the opposite.... x-ref any clinical blog

7) Early morning Wat monk chanting & banging of gongs

8) Khmer weddings - noisy, disruptive & also pretty pointless

9) Tony the compound's psychopathic dog's incessant barking at his own shadow - all day & all of the night

10) PTSD - the result of which often leads me to feel like I am living in a land of teenagers

11) Karaoke - both the loud videos on buses & the establishments that exploit & objectify women

12) Only, at best, being able to understand 30% of what people are saying

13) Mosquitoes

14) Mice & their excrement, the new acrobatic display they do around my living room in the evenings would be on the "things I WILL miss" list but generally jumping out of cupboards & bins at me I definitely WON'T miss

15) Wankers driving SUVs/motos/lorries/buses who seem intent on trying to kill me on my bicycle

16) Everything always being about money - no money, no life or មិនមានលុយ, មិនមានជីវិត as they say here

17) An apparent absence of any rationale or common sense applied to problem solving

18) A feeling of low grade frustration & anger - constantly & persistently

19) "Expert" Barangs of which there are many coming here with questionable skills & yet thinking they can single handedly solve the problem

20) Injustice, abuse of human rights & lack of true freedom of speech

The 'will miss' list is significantly longer & therein lies the problem....

Culinary delights...

When I went for my medical check up before coming away with VSO my GP informed me that I was morbidly obese & urgently needed to lose weight - I reassured her that I was off to a developing country for 26 months and that the Cambodian weight loss plan (low income, poor diet, chronic diarrhoea, cycling everywhere) would surely bring my BMI down.

For the first few months this looked quite likely - I lost 10 kg after various intestinal assaults from e.coli, Giardia & the like. However I am a Wilson & the thrifty gene is strong in me.

So an initial eversion to white boiled rice was quickly over come, Asian - in particular Cambodian - food soon became my favourite food. Recently working away from home, abandoned by my male Cambodian work colleagues & feeling rather glum I found myself perusing the local petrol station for delicious western comfort food. After pondering Pringles, sweets & ice-cream I eventual gave up & went to the local food stall for some 'bai char' - fried rice instead.

The trouble with Cambodian food is that the reason it is so delicious is invariably because it is stuffed full of saturated fat, sugar & MSG whilst served with an enormous plate of white rice. Even the Cambodian tendency to eat almost anything that creeps, crawls or canters has not helped me lose weight.

For breakfast I am partial to a big steaming bowl of Chinese noodle soup with offal with lots of chilli. Every drink I have will be crammed full of condensed milk. The snacks are exotic tropical fruit with a deep fried rice based 'nom' (cake) on the side. On a good day I can eat 3 plates of rice with lunch - often piled on my plate by my friend who also loves his food as much as I do. We have developed a companionship of polishing off plates of food that culture here dictates is actually polite just to leave.

It hasn't helped that sugar in every meal & drink has sweetened my tooth & given me a taste for full fat coke. This is less of a problem when I haven't eaten for 10 days (x-ref e.coli & Dengue) & drinking 8% of my daily calorific requirement kept me going, but obviously it doesn't help my current Cambodian weight loss programme.

In the last week I have sampled deep fried crickets with my Paddy field cocktail & eaten fertilised ducks eggs with varying levels of enjoyment. There are still Cambodian delicacies that I am yet to dabble in - snake (not to be confused for when a Cambodian mispronounces snack), dog, frog, turtle but I absolutely draw the line at spiders.

Psyching myself up by reminding myself of all the ants,  flies & other insects that I have inadvertently eaten here already

Cricket anyone?

15 day old chick inside

Yes that is a beak & a beady eye!

In khmer this part of the fertilised egg is called 'the pillow' & I can attest to it being absolutely disgusting - like chewing a condom as R so eloquently put it but he likes that!

Cambodian childhood memories

J, R & I were walking from our guest house to 'the forest' - a collection of food & drink stalls 20 minutes walk from the centre of the border town we work in once a month. As it is now the rainy season the area has suddenly come alive with verdant crops of corn, cassava & beans, growing rapidly in the rich tropical soil.

There had already been an afternoon storm, so the air was cool with a light evening breeze. The 'mountain' was glowing bronze in the setting sun, all was peaceful with none of the usual commercial lorry traffic that heads to the Thai border overspilling with Cassava & other cash crops. We walked in silent anticipation of the meal that was awaiting us - Sach Prohat (AKA dirty meat), Bor Bor, fertilised ducks eggs, khmer desert & fruit shakes.

It was one of the many moments I have here when I am filled with an overwhelming sense that it will be impossible for me to ever leave this place.

R then spoke unprompted, "I remember a scene from my childhood - maybe over 30 years ago now...."

He rarely talks about his childhood, ever, so J & I remained quiet, waiting for the story from his repressed memory.

"I went to see the orchestra - orchestra is that the right word?"

J & I confirmed that a collection of people playing musical instruments was indeed an orchestra.

"I was at the pagoda with my older brother watching the orchestra when some army men came in"

"Khmer rouge?" I asked

"Maybe - and there was a man with a women but the army men wanted her so there was an argument between the army man & her boyfriend. Then the army man got out his gun & shot the woman dead"

J & I looked suitably horrified.

"He then shot the boyfriend & then he just kept on shooting into the group of people - maybe 7 people were killed in total. My neighbour picked me up & carried me away from that place"

"What happened to your brother?" J asked

"He was older than me so he ran away as soon as the shooting started. Because I was younger, maybe 5 or 6 years old - I did not sense the danger so I just watched it happen until my neighbour picked me up & took me to safety"

"What was it that reminded you of that now?" I enquired

R just shrugged & then we continued to walk down the country road surrounded by the lush, dewy fields, the beautiful sky above heavy with inky clouds and with the song of crickets & frogs to fill our growing silence.