アホな走り集 カンボジア編

Congested

I have had a malingering congestion in my right ear ever since Amelie put one of her rubber ducks down the toilet, causing a similar congestion in our plumbing. The tricky thing about toys in your pipes is that the Cambodian toilet is set in concrete as are all the pipes. After a week of snakeing,plungering and pouring baking soda and vinegar down the bog we finally got someone to come and carefully chisel the toilet free from the tiled floor, extract the rubber duck from the now exposed pipe hole, and artistically re-cement the toilet back in place. This took 6 hours and cost $10. And my ear seems to be clearing all by itself...

The view from Jasmine

The view from Jasmine
Originally uploaded by ubikwity

Jasmine Restaurant and Jazz Bar

Jasmine Restaurant and Jazz Bar
Originally uploaded by ubikwity

Birthday!!!

We are celebrating Amelie's first birthday this sunday at Kep Lodge. 2pm til 7pm. Dan has hired some Apsara dancers. I will post photos here and on flickr.

Needs Repeating

Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.

When rich speculators prosper
while farmers lose their land;
when government officials spend money
on weapons instead of cures;
when the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible
while the poor have nowhere to turn-
all this is robbery and chaos.
It is not in keeping with the Tao.

If a nation is centered in the Tao,
if it nourishes its own people
and doesn't meddle in the affairs of others,
it will be a light to all nations in the world.

-Lao Tsu circa 500BC

Bokor HIll Station circa 1924

Bokor1\ old-side
Originally uploaded by ubikwity

This is the Bokor Mountain Hill Station as it was just after the French completed construction. The Cambodians have just recently begun fixing the 41 km road from Kampot to the 1000 meter cliffside that overlooks the Gulkf of Thailand. The ruined buildings of the hill station are worth the visit as is the stunning view.

Is Tourism a Renewable Resource?

The simple answer is yes, it is a renewable resource. The complicated answer is no, tourism is like a loaded gun, if you point it in the wrong direction someone could get hurt. There are too many examples of attractive destinations becoming over developed to a point of total desolation. Like mining and forestry if tourism is not managed carefully soon there will be no resource left at all. Kampot has been isolated even longer than most other parts of Cambodia and has only just begun to take aim at its tourists. Local businesses and government agencies are in a unique position to influence the types of tourist that would be attracted to Kampot. Already a great many come to see the natural beauty of the river, bay, and mountains surrounding the city. They come to see the old town with its crumbling colonial architecture. They come to take the rough road up to Bokor Hill Station. Often they come to spend some time volunteering for a local project helping the Khmers to better their own lot. Tourist and Ex-pats alike have found Kampot a nice respite from the chaos of Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, and Sihanoukville. Existing businesses are already doing a good job of catering to these visitors and they should work together in anticipation of greater numbers that will be coming. By working together they can influence the government to promote sustainable development projects and share in the resulting preservation of Kampot’s culture and environment for decades to come. By seeking only to secure their own piece of the tourist pie they insure that they will only be a lot of crumbs held together by their own dough.
(Editorial for the Kampot Dar'laing issue #3

Quiz Time!

What is a Stony Angel?
A) A cute hippie girl
B) A Japanese Cos-Play Character
C) A breast pump
D) A Cambodian River Fish
E) A Medieval Cherub

Answer in the comments...

Jas and Peekah

Jas and Pica
Originally uploaded by ubikwity

4 kilos of soft sweetness held by 40 kilos of soft sweetness.

Pa and Peekah

Pa and Pica
Originally uploaded by ubikwity

Peekah Amélie Norris born 9am November 12th, 2007 in Kampot, Kingdom of Cambodia.

US Ambassador greets new Warden of Kampot

Ten things you can do at home to simulate living in Cambodia

Some of you reading my blog or looking at my flickr photos may think that I am living in a tropical paradise. I have prepared a list of things you can do to simulate living in Cambodia.
1) Turn off all the hot water taps except to one shower.
2) Leave your windows open all the time and remove any screens from them.
3) Set your thermostat to 86 degrees
4) At least twice a week fill a bucket with water and splash it on an interior wall to promote mold growth.
5) Leave little piles of sugar in every room to encourage ants and other creatures to come live with you.
6) Only shop for food at the farmer’s market or an asian speciality store where you cannot identify any products.
7) Do not drive yourself anywhere, take a bicycle or have a friend with a pick-up truck drive you - you must stand in the back of the pick-up.
8) Go to a pet shop and buy one of the following to let loose in your house: lizard, snake, scorpion, large spider, rat, or pig.
9) Tune your television to only receive CNN and 5 foreign language stations.
10) Find some neighborhood kid, preferably with a learning disability who doesn’t like you, and pay him to do your laundry in cold dirty water.

100th post! - another list

Last 10 Non-fiction books I have read. Note that the most recent book argues that there is no such thing as a non-fiction book as all things require a subjective observer in order to exist.
1) Global Brain by Howard Bloom. Describes the evolution of organized thought from microbes to the current mess we are in.
2) Does God Play Dice? The Mathematics of Chaos by Ian Stewart. A lot of confusing numbers but still a great introduction into mathematical chaos and why everything you learned in school is wrong.
3) Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Starting 40,000 years ago things have just fallen apart...mainly thanks to Guns, Germs and Steel. Those conquistadors were even bigger assholes than you suspected.
4) A Short History of Everything by Bill Bryson. Starting with the latest string theories of creation and building up to evolutionary biology in a easy to read and often funny book. Gives credit to many great inventors, kooks, and explorers who never got any.
5) A Short History of the World by H.G. Wells. Written in 1941, with an after-word written in 1944, Wells describes our history from microbes to Nazis. Things looked pretty grim for the Brits. This should be a standard text for history as it is well written and displays a fair balance of world cultures. A noticeable anti-religious theme runs throughout. Money quote: “It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that at present mankind as a species is demented and that nothing is so urgent upon us as the recovery of mental self-control. We call an individual insane if his ruling ideas are so much out of adjustment to his circumstances that he is a danger to himself or others. This definition of insanity seems to cover the entire human species at the present time...”
6) Sideshow by William Shawcross. Describes in detail the giant shit that Kissinger and Nixon dumped on Cambodia. Great for swatting Republican mosquitoes.
7) The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Volume 2, abridged) by Gibbon. Déjà Vu all over again?
8) The Histories by Herodotus. Great historian, often describes events with the caveat, “ ...but I doubt this could have happened.”
9) Before Kampuchea by Milton Osborne. Cambodia was once the wealthiest country in South East Asia. Osborne describes Cambodia before Pol Pot but cannot hide his contempt for Sihanouk and a general right wing imbalance spoils the usefulness of this book.
10) Why Do Men Have Nipples? by Mark Lerner and Billy Goldberg. Why indeed.

Jasmine and Bokor

Jasmine and Bokor
Originally uploaded by ubikwity

Gulf of Thailand

DSC00029.JPG
Originally uploaded by ubikwity

We took a boat out to the sea and stopped for a picnic on this sandspit.

Lists!

I can't seem to keep my blog updated so I'm going to make lists. I'll start with a list of the last ten fiction books I've read (most recent first).
1) Prelude to foundation by Isaak Asimov, would've been a good short story as contained only one good idea.
2) Highways To A War by Christopher J Koch, good fictional account of a war photographer's love of Vietnam and Cambodia. Weak ending.
3) KPAX 2 by Gene Brewer, I hadn't read the first one but I saw the movie starring Kevin Spacey. I like the writing style, simple and breezy, but over-all it seemed a bit meandering, and it leaves the major mysteries unsolved, saving them for K-PAX 3, I suppose.
4) Villa Incognito by Tom Robbins, great book with the added bonus of taking place mostly in Laos.
5) Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami, just my favorite contemporary writer.
6) The Sirens Of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, A great American Hero.
7) Hard Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World by Haruki Murakami, this book should be the basis for a new religion.
8) Kafka On The Beach by Haruki Murakami
9) South of The Border, West Of The Sun by Haruki Murakami
10) The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, this was the book that got me hooked

Kampot River

Kampot River
Originally uploaded by ubikwity