When you've made it into the NY Times

- by far the finest paper in the english-speaking world, I might add - you've made it to the big time.

Congratulations to Siem Reap!
No longer are you relegated to the "International" [better known as the "Atrocious Conflicts"] section, or merely a mention in the Times' "Book Review", where yet another Pol Pot biography was recently featured, or - as in April - the back page of the Times Magazine with a brief memento mori on the Khmer Rouge's evacuation of Phnom Penh 30 years before. Even recent reviews in the "Arts" section somehow managed to throw a tragic cast on what should be a celebration: Phnomh Penh's University of Fine Arts' collaboration with a Khmer-Californian dancer who has brought their modernized traditional dance to the States. Cambodia = tragedy, in the minds of most who've got any idea of where it is on the map.

But this weekend marked a (perhaps anomalistic?) change in coverage: Siem Reap proper even managed to eclipse Angkor in this Sunday's "Travel Section"; I suppose anyone who knows anything about travel these days knows all there is about Angkor by now. In Travel's "Surfacing" subsection, a succinct title says it all: "By the Ruins, a New Night Scene".
[NB: I'd put a link here, but the Times requires of newcomers the ignominy of signing up with them, so instead I'll just excerpt the article.]

For those of you who haven't yet visited Siem Reap, seductive tourist literature might have you envisioning an evening under the stars, with magnificent visages of Jayavarman VII (a la Bayon) in full view of your table. [Though if you've had enough Red Bull/vodka pitchers at the Angkor What?, you may be forgiven for mistaking Temple Bar's striking 3D facade for the real thing.]
The closest of Angkor's temples are over a dozen kilometers away from the Old Market area, where most of the reviewed establishments are located.

The writer, Jennifer Gampell, emphasizes the explosive growth in Siem Reap's nightlife. She makes comparisons to the Bar Street of five years ago, when there were about a fifth of the occupants there are now.

On to the excerpts - and, of course, my take on several places the author visited in Siem Reap. Also, she was writing for the affluent Times reader, (who typically includes vacationing in a long list of hobbies) whereas during my time in Cambodia, I was figuring out how to stay there for the long haul. Different attitudes, different audiences, and very different pocketbooks.

The article begins with the Linga Bar http://www.lingabar.com - it’s “the town’s first gay-friendly lounge-style bar. Opened last November by a hotel manager, it’s now frequented by as many straights as gays….The large drinks menu (most at $3) includes martinis and cosmopolitans.”

[Interjection: if you can’t remember what a linga is, but have vague recollections of narrow stone images from a World Religions class or an “Eastern” art history chapter somewhere, you’re close: just remember what organ most rules many men’s thought processes and decisions; it’s often their favorite plaything, and the focus of far too much that goes on between the sheets for more than a few of them. You get it.]

MY TAKE ON LINGA (get your minds out of there!): The BF and I passed by Linga many times, and had a drink there once or twice. We were drawn by the ambient music – the smoothest we’d heard in Siem Reap – but the space, from its surfaces to its service, was polished to the point of mediocrity: a shiny poseur in a dusty tourist town. Its sleek steel décor was softly illuminated by artfully colored lamps. Linga looked identical to the Manhattan gay bars I’d stumbled out of more times than I’d like to admit. The (all male) staff was much more discreet at Linga, though.
It’s a good thing the BF and I aren’t into cruising: despite the sensual lighting that flatters people of all ages - men, women, or anything in between - there were few, if any, other patrons there, whenever we stopped by. We rarely visited, as other places in Siem Reap have better wine or cheaper cocktails, or both.
All in all, the Linga leaves one with an impression like that of a one-night stand: it's expensive veneers, convenience, and tawdry, forgettable conversations.

Of the Blue Pumpkin cafe, Gampell writes: “The minimalist white and air-conditioned interior…makes a cool alternative to the other naturally ventilated spots….the spacious two-story café also features free wireless Internet access.”

BLUE PUMPKINs according to E: Who cares about free WiFi – aren’t travellers supposed to be getting away from work? And why on earth do people go tourist-ing halfway across the world, only to sit insulated from the smells and sights of the street, in a cold white box just like the ones they sit in at home?!
You’re better off at the 2nd-floor Balcony café any time. Its splendid view and languid fans are the sexiest way to escape from Cambodia’s year-round heat. The fans’ blades carve up humid air into caresses that’ll soothe your sweaty skin with a finesse that frigid, dried-up air-con could only dream of.
The Pumpkin’s prices are high-ish, even for its good quality, and are not for long-term travellers on a budget. Bread prices were misleading and mismarked each time I went in for a loaf of precious whole-grain. Though reasonably good baguettes are everywhere in Siem Reap (a legacy from the French - it seems they’ve never left), hearty whole wheat bread is cherished by expats in Asia. Annoyances like these are a small price to pay.
Choose your luxuries with the same discretion you use when choosing battles.

The Times then unconditionally rhapsodizes about Abacus restaurant: “A few blocks outside the Old Market area, the French-owned Abacus…is barely six months old and already a favorite with the discerning expat crowd. Set in a relocated Khmer-style wooden house with a bar underneath and extra seating in the lush tropical garden, its menu changes daily. Succulent grilled fish (with pesto, curry, or saffron cream, unusual meats (ostrich) and starters like smoked salmon guacamole – (sic) more than worth the $5 to $10. Vegetable accompaniments are free.”

E’s ABACUS experience: I’ll begin by lifting a compliment typical of those the BF tosses at me, almost daily. It applies here: everything about the place is gorgeous. Without question. All of it, from the large - a luxuriant garden brimming with flowers and waxy tropical leaves, to the smallest details - a burgundy swath of silk draped elegantly across the full-length mirror placed near exquisite (and not very French) bathrooms. I particularly admired the bar, which was the only place I explored during my visits there.

Unfortunately by the time I wandered over to Abacus, it was our last week in Siem Reap. Our money wasn’t just getting low, we were completely in the red: our cumulative cash balance was beneath the floor, somewhere in the sewer pipes (perhaps where it belongs). Though there was no restaurant-money, one must always make room for beer-money. Particularly when the beer comes with green & black olives glistening with oil, rosemary, and garlic, thanks to the bartender/part-owner from Aix-en-Provence. Those of you who’ve never lived in the hinterlands of Asia for a year or two will have no idea how the sight of plump olives can cause knees to tremble, a truly erotic sight for those of us who’ve been deprived.

I’d sip the tolerable local brew, Angkor (surprise),slowly slide olives over my tongue, and gaze at the calm sky and faux brick painted on the bar’s low ceiling,. Students from Phnom Penh’s Fine Arts School had come up for an afternoon and painted it, said the bartender. Running my fingers over the bar’s surface, I marveled at its gigantic laterite bricks, nearly identical to those used as foundation stones for Angkorian temples.

Though I didn’t sample the food, Abacus’s dishes possess what is, to me, the most important quality in a meal: colorful presentation. When not painting with a brush, I lavish more attention on cooking, and have discovered once you’ve got good food with great colors, everything else falls into place. All their dishes smelled divine. Reading the menu each time I entered was a miserable, mouth-watering experience, thinking of the “haves” eating all around me.

The best option? To drown hunger and money woes in beer at the same time. It was delicious in every way.

Cameras for Cambodia {click on me}

has filled its quota of a dozen cameras! Hooray - after only a month of solicitations (the good kind). It'll be exciting to finally get to Siem Reap, interview a number of kids, then select the first five of them.

From another part of the world, I read this in the NY Times (the only Times for me, sorry, dearest English R) today.
From the too-brief interview with a Cairene Felucca sailor on the Nile, named Ahmed Yousef Ibrahim.

He works from 8am - 1am every day.
His favorite hobby: chatting with his boss who also happens to be his best friend.
What he does for fun: "I sit with my kids, eat nuts, drink [tea, of course] and chat while the kids quarrel. That's my life. It's the best thing in the world."

I love it....can you imagine many (western} dads like that? Who don't mind their quarrelling kids and just talk round them while tossing nut shells over their heads? And then say their lives are the best in the world.

Expat Ambivalence by David Oliver

He's said it better than I ever could. A selection of those passages that reflect my current state:

Home is more than hallways of photographs recording the changes in photographic tones over the years. Home is a place to remember the years which connect us to one another. A glow of the familiar brightened by a glass of wine. Home isn't a place so much as a collection of sympathetic ears and imagined camaraderie.
Home is a kind word. Home is mutual admiration. Home is a pack mentality.

Stay away from home long enough and when you return, don't be surprised if you've been slowly roasted on a spit.

Don't be surprised if the exotic silks and Middle Eastern throw rugs, the alabaster figurines, the Tibetan artifacts are not oohed and ahhed over but given a cursory, envious, not-too-deep beneath the surface of a facade of welcome home--"oh, thanks."

Take your ex-pat Humphrey Bogart dreams, your wanderlust fuck fantasies of being an ex-pat and remember to play it--stay gone a year, maybe two, no more than three--then you can return home and maybe family and friends will want to hear of the places you've been, maybe they'll want a narrative to go along with the photographs again.

But beyond that--remember--the friends you leave behind, the family you keep close to your heart while you take the bus to the train to the tuk-tuk to the trails do not keep you close to their hearts--and remember don't be bitter.
You made the choice.
You are not well remembered because you got away from the routine of hallways and brats with big ears. You have chosen to be an expat. Your father will die and maybe you'll rush home. Your mother will die and maybe you'll rush home.

But don't be so foolish as to believe that your remaining family members don't have bones to pick with you--a well rehearsed diatribe--they'll be waiting for you. Like cats waiting for prey: stock still, barely breathing.

Home is a family that preys together.

Do not be surprised when you return to your home town, after an absence of more than five maybe ten years and you are greeted by the force of outrage and hatred. You are not the intrepid explorer of your wet dreams. You are a coward and you ran from familial endurance.

You are not someone who thought that out there you might be able to do a little good for those who don't have hallways and wine glows of jibber jabber, you are selfish, self-centered--outcast--and the greater the love you may still feel for those you left behind, the greater the joy those left behind take in withholding a kind word.

Return with money.
Return with dreams.

Expect that [family & friends] may more aggressively than passively do what they can to wake you from the fantasy. Family and friends resent their own ignorance and feel that their lives have been wasted when they hear of the places you have been, the people you have met--events they can only see in movies, on NOVA, on the Discovery channel or read about in a Reader's Digest, maybe glimpse in a two-year old National Geographic in an HMO.

It will be their fury that will drive you from your home if you have it in mind to return to this place. Play ex-pat. Stay gone a year, maybe two, no more than five. Beyond that your home is where you are, not where you came from. Dream about the past. But do not be so foolish as to believe that it will ever be something you can hold in your hand again.

Thomas Wolfe famously said you can't go home again and that is not just a message for expatriates but a warning they should embrace or at the very least heed. Be mindful of the reputed horrors of reverse culture shock and dissatisfied with the lifestyle and job prospects at home, many expatriates eventually find out that they have to stay abroad, even if it means leaving a life time of memories and dubiously sincere embraces behind--forever.

Home is not a place where you will receive civility and the occasional ’Have a great day.' Home is where you may be attacked or intimidated to the point of mutual abject fear and loathing. Where you once thought of yourself as a guest or visitor may now be your home--but you will also be nothing more than a guest or visitor there. Where can you live? You can return to that place you thought of as home but remember that you are now a tourist and ugly national in a hostile area--imagine your drunken brothers-inlaw carrying machetes, in your mind put your sisters and brothers in sarongs. Participate in rituals but don't go bush--don't offer to help marinade the steaks or toss a football with a nephew.

You may tolerated briefly but surely someone has you, this loathesome, irresponsible savior cum stranger fixed in their crosshairs.

David notes that this diatribe is "where I am now. I have never lived
overseas and NOT thought about returning home--until now. I'm inching
towards acceptance. I dunno. I've never been to Utah. "

Meteorites

are the excrement of the stars in Khmer culture, according to the author of Parish Without Borders A meteorite recently fell somewhere in Cambodia (no specific location was given) and was seen, naturally, as a bad omen. I mean, who wants the stars to be crapping on your field?

Other tidbits on the site are on pyjama-wearing in the street complete with photos - something I can corroborate - and the photo of a mango-catcher, an ingenious device made of bamboo used to fish ripe mangoes from trees.

Reading these reminders of daily life there brings back some memories of Siem Reap. Bicycle-riding was treacherous: within days of one another, the BF and I experienced several cautions.

~ One afternoon I was almost hit by a tree as young men sawed at huge limbs above the street. They began to fall right as I sped under the tree in the midst of the street.

~ The BF was mildly hit by a pair of glamorous young girls on a motorbike. They were dressed in bright silk for a party during the peak time for such festivities, the cool season. Apparently they were looking more closely at their makeup than at the road.

~ One night I met the BF downtown at some forgettable bar-or-other on Bar Street. "Did you see that group of people on Sivatha Blvd?" he asked me over his first Angkor.
"Yeah," I said. "It looked like the usual gathering of feisty tuk-tuk drivers having a friendly argument with the police looking on." The BF shook his head.
"There was the chalk outline of a bicycle in the street," he said quietly.
We were especially careful riding home that night.

The sometimes very English BF always complains about driving in Asia, but in many parts of Siem Reap, the traffic is reasonably slow. This is due to the incredible chaos of the streets, which are effectively four improvised lanes going two alternating directions. There's an eddying river effect to the traffic if you're looking on from the sidelines/trying to cross the street.

No hesitation is allowed, whether pedestrian or driver, as that will confuse other drivers who must gauge your pace in a split second.
Now there's one thing to brace myself for when I go back in June.