Nathan Nelson

Smoke and noise

// December 27th, 2007 // diary

You ever get those days when you’d just like to crash out in the house, enjoy the peace, read a book and contemplate life? I had one of them today, but I still have to leave the house because the family downstairs are driving me insane.

I think Khmers are actually at their happiest when they are making a lot of noise. From weddings with music loud enough to puncture eardrums to the ice cream carts that play pop music at full blast, to the occasional high-pitched wailing of the women cooking rice on the street stalls (imagine the noise a Jawa would make if it were psychotically angry) to various mobile phones, moto horns, dogs, children and monks on PA systems, sometimes it never seems to stop.

I was happily crashed out in the living room just now watching Battlestar Galactica, then a large motorised generator got started outside my bedroom, so I had to watch the TV with subtitles. Then a lad downstairs started playing an arcade game on his phone that throws out lots of loud ‘pew! pew!’ shooting noises. I could still watch the telly so I carried on. Then, and this is the straw the broke the camel’s back, someone started smoking fish right under the living room window, so smoke came billowing into the living room and I was trying to watch the TV with tears in my eyes while I was getting smoked myself. You can’t shut the windows here. No windows. To top it off, someone is now banging a pan lid around for some reason.

So I’m off to look for somewhere peaceful where they aren’t trying to smoke me. Maybe another country, because they’re all barmy here.