Living la Vida Loca

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It was with glee that we skipped out of the worse than average, but cheaper than most, Spring guesthouse into the throng of waiting tuk tuk drivers and asked to be taken to the FCC. Tonight was our night of luxury - of air conditioning and soft furnishings and having the chance to get properly clean for the first time in ages.
We checked into our room, and having got over the disappointment that there was no bath, settled into our new surroundings - quickly changing into the complimentary robes and slippers provided. This was a far cry from the ant infested 5th floor sauna room we spent the last three uncomfortable nights in. Which is not really surprising as it cost ten times as much as the last place which was a paltry US$6 a night.
Tomorrow we would return to our shoestring lifestyle, but tonight we live like the Kings of our name.
After a gloriously deep cleaning shower we spruce ourselves up for drinks and dinner at the famous Foreign Correspondents club - or the ‘F’ as it is affectionately known by it’s regulars
The FFC is not of the Steven Schanberg era of Cambodian foreign correspondents made famous by ‘the killing fields’ who chronicled the American bombings and the fall of Phomn Penh to the Khmer Rouge. ’ It was built as a sanctuary for the legions of writers reporting on the subsequent ‘peace’ which in reality was nothing of the sort. It also became a popular place for diplomats to conduct discreet business.
Still popular with nostalgic hacks (the mini-bar is testament to this - housing full litres bottles of spirits instead of miniatures) the two level balconied bar and restaurant with panoramic views of the Mekong, attracts visitors and ex-pats in equal measure. The food is reputed to be some of the best in town and as our evening of luxury extended to food and drink, so we were looking forward to a good feed.
The menu was a good mix of Khmer and western food, with their wood fired pizzas supposed coming highly recommended. Mal’s mind was made up for him when he saw the lasagna on the specials board, and I eventually plumped for the garlic prawns rather than the lotus root curry, in order to have a day off from rice with my dinner.
Mal’s lasagna (to which he added a side order of chips) was apparently delicious - I would not know as tonight he wasn’t extending any tasters, and his plate was cleared before I was half way through mine.
The garlic prawns which was advertised as being served with potato gnocchi on a minestrone base, was in reality a delicious, full-flavoured casoulet with added succulent prawns and crusty baguette to mop up the juices. I’m not sure if it was because there were so many flavours and textures that I haven’t experienced for months, but it was a taste explosion - absolutely heavenly. I could have kept on eating it forever. Except I couldn’t. A stomach shrunk by appetite sapping heat and budget rations for the last 45 days could barely contain half of the creamy white beans and tomato sauce and I had to concede defeat. Mal gallantly stepped in and cleared my plate.
As this was our night of excess, we had already decided that we would have desert tonight, and we weren’t going to let our groaning tummies thwart us. Forgoing the delicious sounding white chocolate panna cotta with passion fruit and coconut creme brulee - we decided to try the tasting plate of Khmer deserts.
We should have heeded the warning of the pudding gods as the restaurant and the whole street was plunged into darkness just after we placed our order, and made good our escape before it arrived. But alas, we were still there as the waitress brought over the local delights for us to try and the back-up generator kicked in.
It looked pretty enough, little squares and rhombuses of coloured cakes, baked rice wrapped in banana leaves and a small bowl of rice pudding with soy beans.
I started with one that looked like a dense flourless cake. Dense wasn’t the word, the cloying vaguely almond dough immediately stuck to my mouth and sucked up all my saliva. It took half a glass of water to eventually dislodge and swallow it. Mal was having similar problems with something that looked a bit like coconut ice but had the texture of an inner tube.
None of the little cakes were sweet enough and as a result had a slightly savoury taste. We moved on to the diamond shaped green and red jellies. How can you possibly go wrong with jelly? If you serve it warm apparently.
We found ourselves with a bit of a conundrum. All of these deserts were inedible to our (most probably ignorant) western palates, but we felt it would be insulting to leave all but a few mouthfuls on our plate. Whilst Mal willed the electricity to fail again so he could throw the offending items over the balcony (we’d have to hope that no one was passing underneath as these dense confections would surely kill on impact, even from just one storey up) I surrepticiously squirelled bits into napkins which mal transfered to his pockets for disposal elsewhere later. He left the restaurant half with his pockets groaning with the weight.
We returned to our room fully replete, having not needed the desert that we couldn’t stomach. I however, spent all night dreaming about the pannacotta that could have been.

Before we knew it, it was time to give up our brief lives of relative luxury and return to our world of cramped buses and rustic insect infested bungalows.
I had one last proper shower and dried my hair with a hairdryer for the first time in two months, before settling down to room service breakfast on the balcony.
We started with freshly baked croissants served with a beautiful homemade vivid yellow lemon curd. Delicious.
Mal followed up with a fry which came with a lovely spiced tomato chutney and I opted for eggs benedict with a lime spiked hollandaise. It was sublime. Once again, I was thwarted by the sheer volume of food, and once again Mal had to step in and help.
Before we left there was just time to scour the room for anything that might be deemed as ‘complimentary’ - toiletries, writing materials etc - I decided regretfully to leave the FCC slippers as I just couldn’t squeeze them into my bag.
We were picked up by minibus and taken to the bus company office where we waited for our bus. And then we waited some more.
As is often the case here, if one bus or ferry isn’t full, they cancel the service and make you wait for the next one - which is invariably packed to the rafters. On this occasion we were particularly irked as we had booked seats 1 and 2 - which meant we would be at the front and got a table, extra leg room and - most importantly- sitting ahead of the TV screen and speakers which blare out Khmer karaoke classics for the duration of the journey.
When we got on there was already someone sitting in our seats and the hostess send us back down the bus - right under a set of speakers.
There’s no option but to put in headphones, turn them up loud and try and drown out the TV, which always seems to proceed the karaoke marathon with one of the Rocky films, dubbed into Khmer, with one person providing all the voices.
On this occasion I chose Fleetwood Macs ‘Rumours’ as the soundtrack to my escape from Phnom Penh. As the familiar strains of ‘the chain’ kicked in, it seemed a little bit ironic to listen to a piece of music so heavily associated with the speeding cars of F1 - an hour after we left, and two and a half hours after we were originally scheduled to depart, our trundling little bus still hadn’t escaped the city limits of Phnom Penh.
Still, in just over 5 and a half hours, we would arrive in Sihanoukville.

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