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.....
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.....
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