phnom penh monkey madness

Surely there's a better way. This sounds like one of Murdock's ploys to get B.A. on an airplane.

***A-team reference stolen from gavinmac on khmer440.com**



Bounty for 'gangster' monkeys terrorising tourists at Cambodian temple

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Cambodian police have put a 250-dollar bounty on the heads of several monkeys who have been terrorising tourists at a key temple in the capital and destroying nearby residents' laundry, officials said Friday.

At least three of the large macaques, which have been biting tourists at the famed Wat Phnom pagoda and also tearing up Internet lines, are being targeted, deputy district governor Pich Socheata told AFP.

"There are more than 200 monkeys there, but only three monkeys that behave badly... they behave like gang leaders," she said.

"The other monkeys are afraid of people. But these monkeys are not -- they are scaring tourists visiting Wat Phnom."

Authorities tried several times to get the unruly monkeys to eat eggs laced with sleeping pills, but had always been outsmarted, she said, hence the bounty.

Wat Phnom is crowded with semi-tame macaques who occasionally cause havoc to nearby homes and hotels, tearing apart tile roofs and stealing any loose items that they find.

roofies, boobies, and coffee

i can't make this stuff up. i was at Quiz Night last night and a certain member of our team i will call 'A' didn't show up last week. i knew he had been in bangkok for a long weekend the previous week, so i asked him what the deal was. and this was his story...

he went out on the town for his last night in bangkok (go-go bars, etc) and returned to his guest house extremely drunk at 3 am. at this point in the story 'A' clarifies two things: one is that he is cheap and decided to stay in a dodgy guesthouse in a not-so-nice part of town. the second thing is that he came home alone. no hookers.


so 'A' returned to the guest house and remembers seeing the receptionist watch him walk by.

his next memory: giant boobs. there are two women in his room. one has huge
boobs which she is swaying hypnotically in his face. she holds a cup of coffee in front of them and tells him to drink it. he does.

36 hours later

...he returns to a state of consciousness on a flight to phnom penh. his cell phone and wad of cash were gone, no idea how he got on the plane.

apparently he made it to an Internet cafe and sent a cryptic, spelling error laden message to his wife. somehow he got the message across that he had been drugged. when 'A' didn't arrive on his flight, it just so happened that a plane had crashed in Phuket, thailand. needless to say, his wife was frantic.

the best part of the story was that this was not the first time this has happened!! the last time it was roofie-laced coffee as well (not sure if boobs played a part) at a sketchy bar here in phnom penh.
both times the thieves took his cash and phone, but left his SIM card and passport.

he reckons that he must seem like such a Nice Guy that the thieves couldn't bear to leave him totally penniless and helpless. but with a dose of rophynol that leaves you incapacitated for 36 hours they easily could have killed him.

bunna's nephew update

saw leann last night- -she just got back from the village. apparently they went to the free public hospital and they said they were full. lines outside the door. so they went to a private one and the guard looked at the baby and said he wasn't sick enough.

not f*ing sick enough.

they don't embalm here so as soon as the little guy died they had to get him back to the village for burial. people here are very superstitious, so the family had to cover up the dead body and act like he was just sleeping. otherwise nobody would agree to have them in their car or on the ferry. bad luck.

imagine that? new parents, their only child, dead. and they have to hold him, pat him, and pretend that their worst nightmare isn't true. since bunna took the child on his motobike, the village elders are making him sell it. it is cursed now. that bike is his only source of income. since his wife is 5 months pregnant and she was exposed to her dead nephew-- they say that her unborn child will cry for the first five months of his life because that is how many months old he was in the womb when he was cursed by the spirit of his dead cousin.

i wonder-- is the rampant belief in these sort of things a result of Pol Pot killing off all of the educated people during the Khmer Rouge era? people are so terrified of bad luck that they wouldn't stop to help parents who's only child has died.

i also can't help but wonder if some of these traditions are a throw back of contagious disease wiping out a village? i know in vietnam when a baby dies the parents have to burn everything that belonged to it. maybe not touching or having anything to do with the dead body is a protection against transmission?

i try so hard to understand, but its far beyond the realm of anything i can relate to.

bunna's nephew

got a call this morning from a friend, Leann. she's not going to make it to the Boogie Nights party tonight (where our other friend is dj'ing)... her driver's nephew just died. little kid living out in the village, 2 years old... developed a high fever so the family got money together and got him to phnom penh. the hospital took one look at them and wouldn't let them in the door.

my guess is they looked like peasants-- people who can't pay. the monsoon rain started, so the family went back to bunna's one bedroom shack to wait it out and think of another plan. the little guy's fever raged on, and the flood waters rose. they tried to leave again, but the water was too deep. the little boy died in the night.

the first thing that came to my mind is, "why didn't bunna call me? why didn't he call leann?" we could have taken him to a western clinic-- we could have paid. we would have helped.

then i read a post on the khmer440.com forum discussing the lack of infrastructure here in phnom penh. the whole friggin city was washed out last night, everyone was stuck until the water subsided. happens all the time during rainy season. yet the government officials all drive new Lexuses and new casinos are being built (all funded by the government). and little kids are dying because their parents can't pay to take care of them.

i remember in hanoi my maid's grandmother died out in the village. i knew she had been sick and asked Thu what was wrong with her. she just looked at me and said, "i don't know. she's sick." you get sick, you die. no diagnosis, no treatment, nothing.

that is life for most of the world.

Ugly American Embassy

i went to the good ol US Embassy yesterday to get more pages for my passport, and i witnessed some pretty appalling behavior on the part of a staff member there.

in the consular section, khmers had to approach a certain window if they wanted to get married or apply for sponsorship.

a woman sat on the other side behind glass and screamed questions and insults into a microphone. everyone in the waiting room could hear--- from her laughingly asking a man if he was gay because "what's up with the earring you're wearing?" (this guy was applying for a marriage license) to questioning the amount of money that another woman's husband sends her each month from the US.

another young khmer woman was interrogated about her relationship with her husband and then berated for not finishing high school. I believe the official's words were, "SO, let me get the straight--- you're not even educated and you just want to marry this american guy?"

i've heard some horror stories about asshole american immigration officials in airports but i've never seen this sort of power trip/public humiliation routine before. i understand the necessity of "sifting through" folks who are applying to enter the country, but i question the demeaning and public way it's done.

worldly belongings

my ship has finally come in! quite literally.

all 341 kg of my worldly possessions are in boxes at my doorstep. despite putting the value of these things at $250 on the forms i had to pay the Customs Man close to $400 for the privilege. sucks, but i've been living out of a suitcase since may 29.

i have a serious Greys Anatomy addiction of late. you can buy series of DVDs here for very cheap, so instead of watching them one episode per week like a sane person, expats find themselves watching 5 straight hours of one show or another.

mosquitoes continue to be a big problem at my house. i kill about 5-10 every night, and that is with screens. something about the stagnant canal in the backyard...they started fogging here yesterday (at school) while the kids were out at recess. i had a sore throat all night from breathing it in. disgusting, but you have to make the choice-- deadly chemical or deadly disease? malaria mossies at night, dengue mossies during the day. there's just no escape. they have tennis rackets with an electrical charge that make a zap and buzz when it kills the mosquitoes. quite fun, but not at 3 am.


my co-worker greg is a compulsive photo-taker, and i've stolen these from his personal site.


we share the job of special ed teacher here at school-- here we are in front of our office. before here, greg taught in kuwait with my friend annie (who i taught with in ecuador).

this is a photo of the front of my house-- i've got a big wooden balcony on the top that you can't see-- also lots of plants in the front.



the first few days were orientation for new staff. before i had the house i was in a hotel and couldn't leave little percy locked in a room all day, so i brought him along to the meetings at school.




setting up house is a trip-- not like you can just head to IKEA and get what you need...a few of us rented a tuk-tuk and headed to the wicker market to haggle for some furniture.



i am one of the few folks here who have an oven! most homes just come with a stovetop. it wasn't until after i moved in did i notice it came with two settings--- hot, and hotter. its quite funny because there are two "icons" to choose from, a big flame and a small flame. so i won't be baking anything complicated.


looking forward to unpacking boxes this weekend-- i have a worker coming on sunday to drill holes in the walls (they are cement so you need a special drill) to put up my artwork. little by little it feels like home.

chunky sweaty western woman vs petite powdered khmers

i've been here for one month as of yesterday and i really do love it.

today i slept until noon (late night) and then rode my wicked witch of the west bike across town with percy in the basket. dodging piles of rubbish in the street, surrounded by motos like a hornet's nest, checking out the royal palace in the distance. we're not in kansas anymore.

last night a pakistani wine bar/restaurant had a party and my friend was DJing, so i swung on by after a few drinks with friends at the Jungle Bar. Lots of fun, 70's retro-funk music and dancing. good times.

tonight my friend's wife is having a party to celebrate the opening of her beauty salon. Last time I was there they fussed over and straightened my hair beautifully-- later on that night i took a moto to the Elephant Bar for a birthday party, and god bless the monsoon season-- i rocked up to one of the fanciest colonial hotels in town sopping wet and sporting an impressive afro. Heng (my friend's wife) just looked at me and shook her head.

some of the khmer women that my friends are dating are pretty much the polar opposite of me--- beautiful perfect makeup at all times, straight as a rod posture, dressed to the nines, and very soft spoken. when i show up fresh from my bicycle (very peasant-like), sweaty, loudly saying hello to everyone in the bar and yanking on my dog's leash as he tried to chase a gecko up the wall, i imagine i am their worst nightmare. bull in a china shop, but they do think i am very funny.

looks like i will get the internet at my house on monday-- last dude that came to set it up looked at my house and the first thing he asked for was a piece of string. while he was attempting to hang some vital piece of equipment from a window (never a good sign), he then mentioned he'd never seen a Mac before.

needless to say, that attempt was unsuccessful.

work update-- i am working with a kiddo with selective mutism. he's lovely, and a completely normal kid outside of school-- but he has intense social phobia and won't speak in school. i've been working with him for a few weeks now, and i bring percy in sometimes to calm him down.

well, on thursday he made a sound in front of me! yes, it was just a sound, yes, i bribed him with a brand new pokemon card, but it was SOMETHING. i am ecstatic.

once i have internet access at home, i will post more, i promise!