Playing the tourist

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Today started with the sound of a rather loud angle grinder. And it started early. Not the ideal background noise for a planned skype call, but thankfully the Jars of Clay cafe is only a few moments walk down the street, complete with air conditioning, free wi-fi and enough quiet to hear yourself think. Savoring the bittersweet lemon and sugar crepe while talking to loved ones is an excellent way to start your weekend.

Back home by 9am, I was ready for Sophea and Sothea, the lovely HR and Admin assistants from the company I'm working at to come and take me out for the day. After stopping for a quick breakfast of noodle soup at a Khmer style cafe, our first destination was the national museum, which I had not visited last time I was in town. As I was walking through, admiring the various artefacts and getting a run down on the history from Sophea and Sothea, a man came up to me and handed me a flower from a bunch that he was holding. I was most surprised but managed to get out an “ah-kuhn” to say thank you, thinking 'oh, isn't that nice'. As I went to continue on my way however, the man stepped discretely into my path, pointing me toward a shrine which I had not noticed before, motioning that I should perhaps place the flower and some US dollars as little sacrifice. All of a sudden it made sense. Whilst I would be quite happy to contribute financially to the upkeep of the museum, this was something quite different, so I politely handed the flower back with a revised “otay ah-kuhn” (or “no thank you”). I didn't quite have sufficient command of the Cambodian language to explain that being a committed Christian, I had no business (nor desire) to be making sacrifices to any other gods! However even without this further clarification, he didn't seem terribly offended.

Having managed to extricate myself from that slightly awkward situation, the museum tour continued without further incident. Returning to the tuk tuk we drove past Wat Phnom and toward the Royal Palace. Arriving at the palace though, we discovered that actually it was closed to visitors. Being the King's birthday weekend, the king was having a celebration. Somehow our names had been left off the guest list (an oversight I'm sure) so we made our way back toward the Russian Market, teaching each other bits of Khmer and English as went. I couldn't help but notice the imbalance. While I asked about the Khmer word for dog, the girls wanted to clarify the pronunciation of the word cosmopolitan.

At the market, I asked the girls if they could help me to find some clothes suitable to wear to the office. I'd been told before I came that I should wear the same kind of thing as I would wear to work in Sydney (which for me is business suits/dresses). Given the rather warmer temperature here I concluded that the best idea would be to buy some lightweight pants and shirts. Wandering around the market the girls pointed out various t-shirts and even jeans that might suit the purpose. (A little confused I later checked the dress standard with one of the owners of the company. It turns out there had been some misunderstanding, based around the impression that Aussies, being a laid back bunch, would wear casual clothes to work). Whilst most of the clothes that were deemed suitable were not available in sufficiently large sizes (a sign of things to come), the girls were a great help at giving me an idea of how much I should expect to pay for various items.

After sharing lunch together at a nearby restaurant (awesome beef fried noodles, $2), the girls headed off and I went home for a much needed nap before heading out again in the evening for dinner with D & R, the couple who run the company and their 18 month old son. D & R's house is very nice, and not terribly far from my house – maybe 5 minutes on the moto. They have a big front yard, and their house is really nice and airy with a lovely kitchen, bathrooms with sinks, and air conditioning! They even have room for a little slippery dip for their son in the front room, which is great when it is so hot outside. Their son seems to be a very sociable little boy – I was quite surprised that as soon as I walked in the door he took me by the hand to come and read books with him. Sadly many of the books are in Swiss-German which of course I could not read a word of. But we had fun pointing at animals and making the moo and woof noises while his parents put the finishing touches on our amazing dinner. As a fitting conclusion to a multi-lingual day, I learned the Swiss-German word for car - though it seems I have the pronunciation of an 18 month old...

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Comments

[Sherif]

Sounds like you had a really fun day!