Quite Random

Bank holiholiholiday

So today is a bank holiday for some reason, Wednesday is King Sihanouk’s birthday, and as for tomorrow, well, there’s a holiday either side of it so everyone’s taking that off as well.

It’s a miracle anything gets done here.

This morning a few of us helped escort about thirty-five children to an optician in Siem Reap for check-ups. A few myopias, an astigmatism, and a lot of rolling around the waiting room on wheely chairs ensued. The kids are very well behaved, and do such a good job of keeping each other amused that you feel like you hardly need to be there and they’re only including you in their fun because they actually like you.

This afternoon has been unproductive, even though there is rather a lot I need to produce. A failed mission to buy a copy of Shantaram, a successful mission to eat potato cakes, and doubtless a Christian missionary was sat somewhere looking smug in the Blue Pumpkin when I met up with a few friends. I have websites to complete, reports to write, lesson plans and course materials to prepare. This is great; I have always wanted about three jobs, and it’s always better to have stuff to do and not get it done than to not have anything to do.

South America is slowly being taken over by women, communists and peasants. With any luck they’ll come up through Mexico, invade the US, and the whole world will have cheaper fuel for pensioners, quesadillas, and alpaca socks.

My good mate Cookie is coming to stay soon. I told him that he should bring his swimming gear so we could go for a dip. He sounded surprised and maybe thinks I’m suggesting we go for a swim in a crocodile-infested swamp. No. We have pools here, actual swimming pools with fat Germans and everything. Just in case you’re curious, we also have:

• Recycling – except no-one has to be told to do it or threatened. People here collect recyclables because they can sort and sell them, and as is the case in dozens of other countries, Coke bottles are made of glass and are re-used.
• Wi-Fi – at most larger cafes and bars in town, free Wi-Fi. That’s free, Starbucks, you money-grabbing bastards.
• A 24–hour travel network – which is staffed by professional moto and tuk-tuk drivers who also offer temple tours, sunsets, drugs, and boom-boom. Take that and smoke it, TfL.
• A daily farmer’s market – never mind wandering up Northcote Road being sold pumpkin bread or pretentious tomatoes by Oxford graduates with inexplicably red cheeks, here we have a daily cornucopia of organic food and drink, fished, killed or picked that very morning, and frequently not even dead yet.