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One month of "dahlaeyng" lies ahead of Norah and me. "Dahlaeyng" is the Khmer word for any leasure activity outside the house. So that means of course eating out and shopping; but anything else too, from beach time to visiting friends and family. First we should meet a few relatives and friends; after that, we may stay on our own. It's Norah's logic, not mine, but meeting friends and family is mostly fun. For a while.

The very first firsts are something else, actually: getting a handphone and a motorcycle.

Handphone

First morning in Phnom Penh. With a busy local girl in town, you need two handphones and two motorcycles, everything else is stressy. We go to buy my Khmer SIM card first.

I sit on the back of her Honda, as we zoom along Sihanouk Road to one of the many handphone shops with the big "Mobitel" sign. It isn't easy like in Thailand to buy a prepaid SIM card: To get a Khmer SIM card for me, she has to show her passport and fill out a huge form. She advises me not to lose the SIM card, and not to take it out of Cambodia - "maybe problems".

The SIM card alone is 12 USD, with no credit so far. And that's for a dull nondescreipt number. She has searched through long rows of numbers to find any combinations that might be easy to remember, "lucky" or auspicious. To no avail, at least in the cheapest price category: If you want a somewhat prominent number, you pay much more. (Her very handsome number had been really expensive.) We also buy 20 USD credit for me.

And while she hops into Lucky Market next door, I manage to buy another 20 USD credit. I will secretly feed it into her handphone later.

Moto

With a local girl in Phnom Penh, you need two "motos", as motorcycles are called here. You can rent your two-wheeler from places like "Lucky! Lucky!" or "New! New!". But the machines aren't all that new, and they want to keep your passport or 500 USD deposit.

Norah says she convinced her neighbor to lend me his machine for 3 USD a day - that's cheaper than any shop does it. - "Is it a good moto", I ask? - "Yes, good!" And her neighbor doesn't want any deposit.

Her neighbor's moto resides in a dodgy backyard, but the pitch-black old-fashioned machine itself is even dodgier. At first glimpse, I can't even tell the manufacturer. I notice the moto has no basket and no mirrors, and I don't see footrests for the backpassenger. "I do a test trip around the block, ok?" - "Ok!"

After ten meters I realize the lights don't work, the fuel gauge doesn't work, the speedometer doesn't work. The engine seems ok, though; the thing zooms steadily and not too noisily down Monivong Boulevard; I step into the brakes, and they do a good job, too.

Anyway, it's a wreck, I say to Norah when I chuggle back into her courtyard. "You know what I found out: No basket, no mirrors, no footrest. And then: speedo, fuel gauge and light don't work." Her Mr. Neighbor stands two meters off, respectfully awaiting the result of our impromptu conference. Norah gives me a mild grin: "Hans! You think I didn't check moto before? I know everything already! This moto looks old - good for us, nobody will kill us to get moto! Footrest and mirrors? No need! The light, I talk to neighbor already: He will fix it!" She gives me another mild grin and forces me to decide pro or contra.

We take the rustic thing. In one month, we never have any trouble with either neighbor or machine. I miss it.

Visiting Srei Tuj

We visit her friend Mrs. Tuj and husband in their shabby apartment. According to Norah, they have some money, they just don't like to spend it on creature comforts. We've brought a big basket of good fruit from Boeng Keng Kang market. For Srei Tuj's adoptive child I have a few shiny plastic toys from Farangland.

We sit down at a table bursting with meats, veggies, sauces and drinks. A pot of soup boils over a gas stove in the middle of the table. They offer me a can of Anchor beer, to be poured into a prepared glass full of ice cubes. When I opt for Fanta instead, they give Norah a mild look - is he a real man?

After dinner, they have a present for me too. It is a high something, wrapped into glittery paper. When I open it from the top, first I see the typical spiky hat of a carved apsara dancer, a Khmer icon. Uiii, I think, as I slowly unwrap the lower parts - this is an apsara dancer statue; but this means she will be topless, flashing a pair of wooden dream breasts, sexy like on the walls of Angkor Wat. Hmm, this would be kind of awkward in our conservative circle here. How to deal with a sexy semi-naked wooden dancer on our dinner table?

I unwrap a few more centimeters of the wooden dancer. And see: This carved one has a silk shirt carved onto her! Very rare, but modesty remains high on our dinner table!

Back in the hotel room, Norah smiles: "You know, Srei Tuj wanted to give you apsara dancer. First she only saw statue with no dress! Can see everything!" She points to her chest. "But then she found apsara dancer with full dress!"

Norah sighs with relief.

Trip To "Spark"

When we said our goodbyes at Srei Tuj's place, her mostly silent husband whose name I always forget, suddenly gave word: "You like to dance? You know Spaaaaahk?" We end up with his invitation to some kind of mysterious dance-place named "Spaaaaahk".

Three evenings later, Srei Tuj's husband pulls up at the hotel driveway with the default Khmer car, a white Toyota Camry of unknown vintage. Norah and I hop inside, and on the backseat we meet a young brother and a young sister of Tuj's husband. Tuj herself "feels sick", we hear. Everybody starts chatting away as the car slaloms through dark dangerous backroads, crosses a few main arteries, then dives back into gloomy Phnom Penh neighborhoods. The Toyota finally parks in front of a colossal, brightly lit space ship.

"Spark" is a huge disco, bigger than most places I have seen in Thailand. In true Thai style, we settle on slick steel bistro stools around a small round bistro table. With Srei Tuj absent, her husband can peacefully order Tiger beer. Uniformed waiters fill our table with drinks.

I'm a bit shy with Mr. Husband's young sister. She gives me adoring looks and says awkward things like "Oh mister, I think you look very handsome"; Norah sits right next to me of course. Finally I manage to get young sister and young brother to the dance-floor. Norah refuses to dance.

This is the only Thai-style dance-hangar I ever saw in Cambodia. Two differences to Thailand though: They have an actual dance-space in front of the stage; you don't bounce around your bistro tables, as in Thailand. And, of course: The music is much more soapy and unspicy, the performers look as slight squinted and mollycoddled as any slimy Khmer karaoke video actor.

I ask silent Mr. Husband, and he nods. We agree to drive home, the waiter is called. Mr. Husband had invited us, but of course I plan to share the cost with him. Then I'm in for a double surprise: I see a computer-printed bill - a novelty in Cambodia outside the big hotels -, but what's even more astonishing: It is me who gets the bill.

The waiter stands next to me and opens the folder with the bill to me. I look at the bill for ten long seconds, just waiting that anybody would intervene and take care of the bill. But that doesn't happen. If I had agreed to pay before, I would now give the bill to somebody else to check it. But in this situation I simply have no idea what to do. We had clearly been invited here by Tuj's husband. Being invited and then having to pay is an absolute novelty with the friends I made all over the region. Well, I am the oldest and the richest guy around our bistro table, and on other occasions I would happily pay for all. I am unhappy, but now I will pay for all, too; anything else would be too embarrassing at least for My Khmer Lady.

12,50 USD. I shrug and pay 13 to the waiter, who bows and shuffles off.

Back in the hotel room, Norah frowns: "WHY you have to pay? He invited us. What's that?" But what could have been done in the disco? We never hear from Srei Tuj and husband again.

Soup Chnang Dei

Norah knows that I would love to meet her parents. Partly because they are her parents, and partly because it would be a fascinating trip into Old Asia. I really exploit my local friends for those glimpses into Classic Asia I am addicted to. And Norah's old ones live far away next to Phnom Domrei, the  Elephant Mountains, in something like a self-supporting rural community.

But I am not to meet her parents, and her grand father in Prey Veng province is off-limits too.

"Why can't can't we go there", I ask?

"I think you know why...", says Norah with a regretful voice.

More she says not. But of course: There is no talk of marriage. I figure that means we are not to meet her more sensible and conservative relatives, like parents and grandfather.

But a few younger relatives of Norah's are in town, and Norah is happy about an evening with everybody. I tell her I would like to invite all and sundry into a Khmer style restaurant that would be fun for everybody and that would have at least one dish suitable for the Farang palate.

Nine people on three motorcycles, we roar into the steamy Pnom Penh night. Her niece and nephew from part 2 are there, too. We stop in a small road on the corner of Monivong Boulevard. A garage style restaurant with tiled walls has put ten tables on the pavement there. We hand the motos to service guys who perfectly thread the machines into the rows of motos that already park there. We get a numbered ticket for every two-wheeler.

On the pavement, we find a round table with just the perfect size and sit all around. It's right in the roar of dust and diesel, but that may be part of the fun. A gas stove is turned on in the middle of the table, an earthen pot full of dark soup lands on top.

What we are now going to eat - or *do* - is called soup chnang dei, which translates to "earthen pot soup".

"What would you like, darling", asks my caring Norah and reels off about ten items. I understand nothing and suggest she just orders anything that's fun. We would share all-around anyway.

Soon the waiters appear with plates and plates, then more plates filled with anything that might fit into the boiling broth. All kinds of meats, egg, fish, salad, veggies, fish chips, meat balls, noodles, actually a lot of things I've never seen.

"Any rat or dog in there", I ask Norah secretly?

"You crazy!!"

You throw anything into the bubbling broth, wait a minute or five and try to fish it out again - or steal somebody else's food. Put it into your personal bowl first, and then into your mouth. Norah takes care that I don't boil my stuff for too long or too short; with a mildly ironic smile, she has also asked the waiter to replace the chopsticks near my plate and bowl with fork and spoon.

All the time, new plates of food come up. Empty plates don't disappear, but service stacks them in a laundry basket next to our table. All in all, it's great fun. We don't exchange a lot of ideas except for "You like it?" or "How old are you, mister", but the vibes are good.

9 p.m. - niece and nephew need to sleep now! So we call for service. The waiter grabs the laundry basket with all the empty plates and starts to count them. I realize all our different items came on three different kinds of plates, relating to three different price groups. So the price is easily added-up; then he counts the old Coke cans that have also been collected in our laundry basket. One more time, the bill is handed to me. Just 14 USD all in all.

Suddenly her cousin stands up and gestures at me: "I pay, I want to pay!"

What is this, I had invited everybody. "Ah, I'll pay", I smile to her.

"No, please, let me pay", cousin insists, swinging a twenty dollar bill.

"But why", I ask back, wondering what the waiter thinks of our dispute, "I am glad to be here with everybody, I would really like to invite you to celebrate the good time in Cambodia."

It's one of the hardest bargains I have in Cambodia, and I lose it. She will not even let me share the bill - she pays it all, plus tip.

 

© Hans Meier. All rights reserved by the author.