Sunset around our house

Went out for a walk around our house the other evening. This is what we see within 200 meters from our place. Note the locals fishing in the swamps and the amazing cloud formation we had that night.

Christmas in Siem Reap

Christmas time is coming. This is even evident here in Siem Reap. This will be our first Christmas away from family. But we'll try skype into the respective Christmas parties.

We have one mall in Siem Reap and they recently put the Christmas tree out front. This is the only place in Siem Reap with escalators. When we first took the kids out here for an excursion, they were too scared to go up the escalators and we had to carry them up one at a time.

Out front our mall.

Inside.

A five star hotel is doing some charity fund raising on Christmas eve for the kids of CDO. As Stan is the oldest and fattest barang (white person) they know, Stan has been asked to be Santa clause for the night. It is going to be one very hot night for him in the suit and beard... even if we get our 22 degree Celsius cold spell.

Stan recently went to the temples with Julian who visited for 5 days. Here are some photos of that trip.

Our friend Sitha tried to get us to eat some curried spiders. She told us that when she was a little girl, she used to catch them and eat them on her own as they were very poor. She likes the bulbous bit the best and she pulled that off first thing and ate that. Stan tried a leg but was not very impressed.

Government warns us to prepare for cold spell

From today's newspaper:

The government has been warning people to be prepared for a cold spell. People should 'bundle up' during this time. Temperatures may even drop to 22 degrees Celsius.

I wonder how Nicole will cope. She pulls out her North Face Jacket when it gets to 26 degrees Celsius. We may need our next lot of visitors to bring some ski jackets!

:-)

Best new idea I have seen in November

People here are very innovative and are coming up with new business ideas all the time. Sometime it may be a mobile kebab restaurant attached to a moto, or it may be a bread delivery business. The best one we have seen this month is the tuk tuk pizza restaurant.

A Cambodian entrepreneur has made a brick oven pizza delivery restaurant. How it works is you call him with your order. He makes the pizza and puts it into his wood oven, then drives it to your house/hotel while it cooks.

The only minor problen is there is no such thing as an address in Cambodia. Everything is described as in being near such and such landmark. This makes the delivery very difficult to arrange.

More daily life in Cambodia

It is actually cheaper to go out and eat local foods than to go to the supermarket and cook at home. We have been struggling with the plummeting Aussie dollar lately and we have been hunting for even cheaper places to eat. We're now on in the same restaurants as the locals on the main highway through the city. The dogs lie around hoping for any leftovers.

Flat tyre

With the roads being so bad and rubbish, nails and glass thrown everywhere, it is quite common for us to get a flat tyer. We have had three or four already. A couple nights ago we had one at 7pm so Stan pushed the bike several hundred meters down the road until we came to a moto repair shop. The owner was in a wheel chair. He had been born with two small misshapen  legs which he could not use. His nine year old son immediately started to work on the flat tyer when we pulled up.

The work was done under one very dim light. Stan had to use his flashlight app on his phone so people could see. After replacing the tube and for an hours work, they charged $5. We gave them a little bit extra as a tip and they were exceedingly pleased.

Halloween in Siem Reap

The locals went all out for Halloween. The center of town was packed with young Cambodians, most aged about 16-25. They were having a ball and much makeup was used. It is interesting to see how they embrace some of our western holidays and how much fun they derive from them. In the west, these events like Halloween, Christmas, Easter, Valentine's day, etc have become hollow events which are really just centered around corporate marketing and advertising. Here in Cambodia, these same events are fun. Wonderful Halloween costumes are MADE (not bought) with sheets, plastic bags and makeup. It is very refreshing be be out of the media manipulation where large corporations tell you what you have to buy to have fun. For Cambodians who own very little, fun is what you make yourself, not what you buy.

A girl on the street dressed as a ghost.

A girl on the street in her Malificent costume. Entirely made from black plastic bags and black tape.

Some kids sitting next to us at dinner getting their zombie makeup ready.

Temple Bar. All decorated for Halloween and the staff all dressed as zombies.