Quite Random

Spider / human territorial dispute

He’s about two inches across, legs and all. Chunky little body, and thick hairy legs. I think I even saw his eyes glistening at me last night. There have been spiders in the bathroom before, but they all had scrawny stick legs like a harvestman. He’s got legs like an England prop, and I think he’s eaten the scrawny spiders because the other night he was snacking on something long and leg-like. I chose to accept him as my new housemate, because he’s not done me any harm. I’m used to living surrounded by small creatures – the geckos chirp reassuringly outside while they clumsily pursue moths around the porch light, the mozzies zuzz by my head in bed, and the occasional cockroach is seen off the premises with a can of Raid and a broom. The spider and I have been fine for a week. He pushed his luck the other day by clinging to the side of the toilet roll when I needed it but mostly he hangs on the wall eating stuff or twinkling his eyes at me.

Tonight, he pushed it too far.

I walked into the bathroom and was ready with the usual ritual – check to see where he was and offer him the kind of greeting that gentlemen acquaintances do in lavatories – a nod and maybe even a sideways-murmured something resembling ‘alright’. He was sat on the toilet. He might as well have been reading a paper and smoking a cigarette. I needed to use it but he stayed where he was, seemingly ignorant of my pleading expression.

Bear in mind at this point that the bugger is way too fast for the cup-and-postcard trick, and he’s on a curvy toilet seat. Khmer toilets come with a hose by the side, useful as a bidet or general hose type thing. I took it from the wall, aimed and fired. The jet of water hit him but stone me if he didn’t scuttle under the rim, wait a moment, and then disappear around the back of the bowl. Before I could see where he was, now he had done a disappearing act and had I been sat down he could choose to crawl under me and bite my arse at any time. I couldn’t take the chance. I hosed the toilet down, but no sign of him. I didn’t want to kill him, I just wanted him off the toilet and maybe washed down the drain to consider the error of his ways. Nothing. No wet spider.

He’d won. I had to make do with taking a pee from three feet away in case he jumped me, before closing the door behind me. Returning ten minutes later, there he was, back on the toilet seat, smugly victorious. The thing is, I feel a bit bad for him. I think I washed some of his dinner down the drain, and I am much bigger than him. But I still haven’t gone and if I get desperate, he’s getting the hose again.

Fashion faux-pas

Today I wore my Communist Party T-Shirt to work, a great Tom Burns design I first saw being worn by Declan a while ago. This was mainly because I was short of things to wear having stayed in a guest house last night to get away from another Khmer wedding next to my house. I slept like a baby without techno music rattling my teeth at two in the morning.

I didn’t realise it would get the director where I work worked up. He didn’t notice the visual gag but remarked about how the Communists (in this case the Khmer Rouge) had killed so many million people, and that the hammer was something Cambodians had been bashed about the head with and the sickle was something used to slash their throats. He said it with a smile on his face (he says everything with a smile on his face), but I wasn’t going to get into a discussion about how Pol Pot was a loony before a Communist and he wasn’t even on the T-shirt – I took it off and changed into the only other T-shirt I had on me. That was for the Angkor What Bar and had ‘promoting irresponsible drinking since 1998’ on the back, which didn’t seem to bother anybody.

No news is just no news

There’s little to report at the moment – life goes on, it’s getting so hot that everything is starting to feel like hard work, and Siem Reap remains a curiosity, a town that’s developing fast while remaining random, quaint, and cut off from whatever I thought was reality. Coca Cola want to put big promotional awnings up at our local bar, KFC are moving in to Cambodia, and in five years this place could look like Vegas or Piccadilly Circus, Starbucks serving frappucinos to hoards of Koreans and employing security guards at the door to keep out the children selling roses for one dollar. Who knows.

Some observations:

1. Someone told me that Khmer family planning was what happened when you can’t fit any more children on your motorbike.
2. Being in Cambodia means accepting a permanent state of greasiness.
3. I got all disgruntled when, in my first couple of weeks here, a Khmer official from the Department of Animal Welfare was five minutes late for our meeting. Now I think he is one of the most punctual people I have met here.
4. Khmer weddings appear to last for three days because a) if you had a twenty minute window like in England no-one would show up (see 3), b) they’re getting their money’s worth, c) no-one can drink dozens of bottles of Hennessey and Johnnie Walker Black that fast, and d) it takes three days to recover from the effort of putting up the purple marquee and loudspeakers the size of family hatchbacks.
5. The Macarena is compulsory listening at all Khmer weddings, and parties.
6. In Cambodia, all amplifiers and speaker systems have been modified allowing you to turn them up to 11.
7. In a rural area a lady may be sat under a large Coca Cola parasol with an ice box. Ask her for Coca Cola and you will receive sugar cane juice. It is better that Coca Cola and possibly contains less sugar.
8. Attempt to communicate with some people in Khmer and you will either be a) immediately understood with a loud exclamation of “oh you speak Khmer!” b) laughed at and corrected with what sounds like exactly the same word or c) expected to wait while someone dashes off to find their brother who speaks English because what you just said went straight over their head.
9. The Khmer words for apple, vagina and fart sound very similar, leading to potential difficulties if ordering fruit, gratification or medication. Other words that sound similar include monkey and mango.
10. I ate lunch in the market the other day and was served by a boy who likes men but not boys and a girl who dresses like a boy who likes girls but not boys. So that was a gay boy and a gay boylady. No sign of any ladyboys, they’re not usually out at lunchtime.
11. Common exchanges in Khmer include a) ‘hello pretty girl!’, ‘hello handsome man!’ b) ‘you’re crazy’, ‘no, I’m not crazy you’re crazy’, or c) ‘you’re a monkey’, ‘no, you’re a monkey’, ‘you just called me a mango’.