Ramadan and Cat Calling.

Traditionally, there is something quite romantic and exotic about Muslim prayer, rolling through the night, delivered by a single, deep baritone.

However, the mystique rapidly deteriorates, when, come the last night of Ramadan, that single trained voice is joined by hundreds of others, including the quite horrendous addition of tone-deaf child proteges (a sound not unlike a religious cat in heat).
Add to the mix fireworks and 5 year olds on homespun drums, and the end of Ramadan in West Java, soon takes on a quite dark pallor for the unbeliever.

This non-symphonic rapture continues until dawn. And just as one finally feels sleeps desperate embrace, the dreaded cat-child asks Dad for one final spin on the dreaded Megaphone 1000, and the quiet madness of the middle aged expatriots one meets, makes complete sense.

Cambodia

Let's be straightforward here, some folk like to get a little stoned. And most folk who like to get a little stoned, like to ramble through dusty, tuk-tuk, BBQ-scorpion-on-stick, backwater kind-a places, well,
...stoned.
And yet, even with the shadow of spending one's last minute against an ominous, pock-marked wall in East Java, the same people, will still try to get a little stoned. And succeed :)

Yet there are some places in the world, that regardless of whether someone could show them to you on a world map, will evoke a Deep Emotional Response, a look of pained remembrance and whispered, hallowed advice,"...terrible things happen there".

Such a place is Cambodia.

Maybe it has something to do with bookshops having a disproportionate number of titles in 2 genres*: Theme One: Barangs (Foreigners ) and their their gruesome survival tours in Asian prisons, or Theme 2: Books on the Khmer Rouge, Cambodias infamous genocidal government of the late 70's.
Oh course, the fact that most people seem to be related to a policeman/army captain in some way, might also help to aggravate the feeling of paranoia.

In fact,Cambodians are a great people and I did not test this hypothesis, but more likely to "fine" you for unscrupulous tourist behaviour than truck you off to some jungle gulag, ( progressive behaviour that is far less likely to happen(anymore) in places like modern South Africa.)
But For all the good humour of the people of Cambodia, there lingers deep in all minor tourist criminal minds, the awful dread of ever having to call long distance with 6 terrible words to impart,"Mom, I'm in Jail.... in CAMBODIA".

Poor Cambodia. Great people. Beautiful place. Heavy Name.

p.s. Due to extreme superstition, this blog was not published until after leaving Cambodia.

*This generalization about Cambodian bookshops in fact grossly untrue and was a cheap ploy to make a point and rustle up some cheap laughs... there are also lots of great coffee table books about Ankor (a phenomenally beautiful place and 1 of the Ancient Wonders of the World)...

ModbookScrapbook

Noodle Soup

Nothing can instill deep, sincere homesickness quite like food. Specifically, food you don't recognize.
Food, in fact, that looks suspiciously like Things We Don't Eat. Take for example that mainstay of Thai cuisine, the good old street vendor noodle soup. What exactly are those sinister cadaver-grey golfball shaped edibles anyway? And why pray, are there only 2 of them. Maybe a diet of exploitative Indiana Jones movies has left me with an overactive imagination, but the least one can do is make a little effort in disguise...add some food colouring, make it three instead of 2, and please please, change the size.
I do eat them though, but with a particular mechanical jaw action that suggests to the casual observer, "He's killing something" or "Hit him with a broom! He touched the wire!" or more likely "He knows not what he eats...yet his eyes allude to terrible suspicion"

At some point it all gets a little too much and one wakes bathed in deep refined-sugar withdrawal sweat, neon logo'd Pizza Hut burning through the cortex. Giving in to this dark demon has terrible consequences for both diet and wallet. There is no wheat in Asia, and based on the price tag of a medium Hawaiian, no cheese or sugar either. In fact, the single most expensive meal you can buy in Asia is probably a pizza from Pizza Hut. We're talking more expensive than the King Prawns in a top local restaurant. And to add insult in injury, after months of eating rice and green bean, it leaves you feeling quite nauseous...but that's the price of western food crack.

I do prefer the soup...If only it would stop watching me....

Special Good Luck Morning Price

When budgeting for a trip to the Orient, it is crucial that you do a honest and brutal personal assessment of your skill level in the chess game that is The Haggle.
It is not unrealistic to say that your precious travel allowance could last twice or half as long depending on your bargaining temperament. Travel guides are quick to bleat about how uncool it is to barter over what amounts to a few cents, but the truth is, without steely resolve and a suitably aghast expression when you're presented with the initial price, there can only follow a financial massacre, leaving only, blood soaked sarongs, an empty wallet and a bag full of cheaply varnished "antique" art, to be handed on to new travel friends as a gesture of "what a great connection", before b-lining it to the airport.

And be aware, it doesn't stop when you leave the tepid, sticky bubble that is the local market. It continues everywhere. Negotiating (and its dark twin sister, BeingRippedOff) are as ubiquitous in this culture as courtesy and helpfulness.
Everything requires a haggle: Accomodation. Price of the lunch buffet.

Even the morning paper from street corner newspaper guy. There in the top corner of the broadsheet, a delicately scratched out price has been replaced with a far fairer recommendation - 90,000 rupees (about 80 South African Rand). And we're not even talking chunky newspaper with Tonight section and stuff. No, just a flimsy 6 pager....80 bucks.
"It's a newspaper for christs sake, you insolent bastard."(This suitably aggrieved opening salvo marks you as no apologetic haggle first timer)
"okay, okay. I give you special discount.... 80,000" The price delivered with a hand flourish to bring attention to the headline, as if to suggest that the choice of Times New Roman in the masthead clearly marks THIS paper out to above your average fish n chips packaging.
"You make me want to throw up my undercooked banana pancake, you bottom feeding cur.(Here, the use of confusing high brow English allows for satisfying cussing without fear of being understood whatsoever ) I'll give you 3,000"
"Bank-roooooot!" (This standard guilt-laden response is accompanied by an anguished expression intended to invoke nightmarish imagery of starvation, pestilence and general hardship, which though most likely true, is damn unfair business practice )
"It's a N E W S P A P E R! Do i look like i've just picked my brain out of my ear with a blunt fish knife. How white do I look??! I've got a tan and everything...4,000"
"Okay okay...Final Special Good Luck Morning Price....60,000"
"Not only do I find that screamingly offensive, but this whole exercise is growing profoundly tedious. 5,000... (As none of this English will be understood, it is best at this point, to actually replace outstretched paper with 5000 rupee note and start backing away....
"No,no okay okay.... 10,000...9,000....8,000....6,000"
Wow really? You're so relieved at having dropped the price from 90,000 that you gratefully shove another 1,000 rupes into his hand and proudly stride away with a newspaper worth about 3,000.

And that's how they get you...everytime.