..it has been a while...

loads of work , guests, computer trouble and trips to phnom penh and kratie kept me busy.

The formerly green countryside has turned brown and clouds of red  dust accompany every and each action.

Nice customers in the restaurant these days and it is quite fun to cook for them. Although for the last few days we have hit one of those inexplicable waves of cheapos, let's hope the next load of tourists will turn out to be better.

the main street is still a holy mess: they dig and they sand and dig some more. the river is supposed to get a new bridge: they destroyed the old one and then- stopped. as there is not even a sign to say that there is no bridge, just, well the river, quite a few vehicles have landed in the sink.

the dogs are doing well; , a little mutt- black and white has joined our household to be an outdoor watchdog when she grows up: she wants to sleep inside is not allowed to do so and howls half the night if the spirit moves her.

 Elvis sat in an anthill the other day and did not enjoy the experience at all, poor fellow.

In the last few month it rained only once but quite a bit: somehow the keyboard of my laptop took a load of water when the roof leaked and the  e, the o , u and w and t did not function anymore and writing would turn into the inevitable gibberish. finally a new keyboard arrived and now the frustration of forced silence is finally gone.

..a cow made it into the garden and ate half of the bathrooms straw walls, and half of my favourite bathtowel.

...a few days before the chinese new year my dogs started barking around midnight and would not quit. On the road, about 60 meters from the restaurant quite a rackett was going on and on and on. The dgs kept barking and insisted i come down and open the dor. finally i did relent, turned on the garden lights and found two scared backpackers hiding  behind a banana plant. They  asked to come in and looked pretty harmless so i let them in. close the door quick they are coming after us  they insisted.   as they were pretty clean cut and my dogs did not object to them  i did. 

When they caught their breath, they told me the story; the had dinner and a beer of two at a street stall. next to them were a few police officers having beers too.  one thing let to another and soon the two tables were chatting- as far as possible with the language barrier and buying each other beers. when the tourists decided to go  to their guesthouse the police offered to drive them there in their jeep

they went, and the police drove quite a ways and asked for their room key presumably for the name of the guest house written on the labeled key hanger. then they would not give back the key and pulled a gun and a knife on the tourists. the tourists two rather fit american young backpackers had it and jumped out of the   jeep ran into the dark and somehow landed in my garden.  the police were not yet ready to quit and started chasing them. . indeed they did; stomping down the garden path, shining flash light and banging on my door. i did hide the tourists upstairs, just in case. Then i did my best 'angry granny'  - imitation: how dare they wake me, anger my dogs (who were groweling spectacularly by now)- and no i had not seen two tourists in the middle of the night etc. so they left. . but one stayed behind shining his flashlight around my garden. at about 3am he quit too.  ( the next morning we found that the police had not been  .able to raid their room: security at their guest house just pretende to sleep very deeply, and they had to give up.

still a pretty hairy situation ; armed police drunk and far out in the country. what can one do; call the police? ..

that's it!!!

..this is something i did post on the lonely planet thorn tree. as i have had it with missionaries, and i mean it...,
 what is it with people, can they not leave each other alone, at least when it comes to their innermost and  i believe highly  private  thoughts...? can i afford this, no i can not, but sometimes a conscience is more important than money ...
to the lonely planet:
this is not a nice post
but i have had it!!!

... as an owner of a restaurant in sen monorom- mondulkiri, cambodia, i want to make it official: i have had it with missionaries, and i will not serve them anymore in the future.

I find it highly offensive;if somebody , a Christian, or any other zealot for that matter- (which is their good right to be so, of course for themselves that is..)- comes here and sees it as his or her singular reason and right to convince the phnong- (a` minorities destitute, beleagerd and culturally widely ignored and discriminated) forcing them that they should believe in some extreme version of the christian god- or other; seven day adventists Baptists Mormons and then some...take your pick the place here is swarming

if the Phnong stay with their own beliefs- they can drop dead and more often than not they can forget about any help (not all missionaries are like that, but most are.). as i object for people to be forced/talked or bribed into to believing something they do not and giving up their own culture in the process , i will not aid nor abet this practice in any way, and would appreciate it if these people -those missionaries that is- - who i view as criminals personally- would take their meals and business somewhere else. thanks tanja, bananas, restaurant.
(ps i' m also sick and tired to be grilled about my own beliefs which i consider private too..)

...this is the detour we must take if we want to go to the bank...wonder when that little bridge will fall down.

looks like i will take off to kratie tomorrow  as yesterday was a brilliantly busy day at the restaurant: amongst others: a group of 16 with insufferable brats, and missionaries: i do not have much good to say about those zealots, but their rugrats are well behaved: they probably hit them over the head with the bible on a regular base.

 on the less fun side: the pump was stolen out of the well and Obama my white rooster was stolen too, the garden lights ditto.I hate this town and have defititely decided to sell the place and move closer toward the real world and my friends: maybe Phnom penh or kompong cham....

...and the dust blows on

Hope that all of you had a wonderful chrismas and wish you a happy new year!
here business pretty much as usual, whatever that maybe. the seson staggers away, sometimes marvelous, sometimes sluggish. had hoped to get to Kratie for a new years party at crazy chicago joe's restaurant - the place is on the mehkong and goes by the delightful name of 'red sun falling down'. but it looks like i will not make it there this year...
the city fathers and powers that be came up with a new bubu: now they got rid of the last of the tarmak in town- all the way to the bank- about 2 km out of town: the detour into town is still under construction... and they dug some more and closed off several streets- including mine- with huge heaps of earth, and everybody staggers over debris and that will not change anytime soon...

soo much red dust!

as it is dry and windy the dust is not far behind (or ahead as may be the case..) big clouds of reddish stuff alight on the horizon to join our own plentiful red dust that follows every car and moto, and heavens!- indeed- when the missionary plane hits our sorry excuse of a landing strip, it looks like all the forces of alexander the great are ready to storm our little outpost or... maybe ghengis khan.. but it is only the missionaries arriving (just as destructive if you ask me)...as my restaurant is not on the road- not good for business but better visibility, the dust is not too bad here, not like main street; today lian brought the cambodia daily from pp in his taxi. I read the rag and when i had finished it felt just like sand paper... reason beein' - the powers that be decided to spruce up da town and started by demolishing main street to become a boulevard of fifty meters wide: so everybody had to move their houses back by about ten meters or so. then bulldozers came and destroyed the street. plowed up all the old trees and left ; a dust bowl. then some kind of earth moving equipment was brought in to dig the monsoon drains. and so they did dig: now the street had holes- deep ones too. ( there was some fun when the bulldozer fell into its own hole and it took them several days of satisfying mucking around to get the bloody thing out).
then the powers that be decided that 'they maybe make mistake' and now everybody has to move back their houses yet again by several meters. did not go over to well with the natives indeed. so now everybody is fighting and the dust blows on and why do we need a boulavard anyways? beats us.

the dark days befor xmas..

as the dutch call it:.
...it has been awhile, sorry:
first because nothing was happening and then things happend and kept me trotting at a nice but not too dramatic clip: it was evident something like the season has started. for a little while the place was packed and so was bill's. so we made some money and started paying debts and stocking up and then... no more; the customers were gone and ...nothing. Now, this happens every year: the turnover between the people who want to be home for christmas and those who leave their country to flee the merry season..(still not an enjoyable moment after the 'crisis had hit our businesses rather hard...)..so until yesterday we were broke again, and then the first of the xmas haters arrived: just the people we like. not the ncv's, the dreadlocks, fake tatoos, recently artificially 'balded' 'price- of- cheap- banana pankakers'- discussing gap year idiots, but genuine people: writers, designers artists, photographers, and so on. a fun crowd, interesting and now we wait for the pp crowd to show up to lead these nice professionals astray... and off we will be...
when the eternal rainy season goes on and on, we always say; oh if it were only dry, and then it is and then we realize we did forget that after the rainy season the sunny , crisp( now that's an euphemism, we call it freezing) and.. aww.. the windy weeks start; it blows straight from where? manchuria? vladivostok or some such and it blows and blows. hard, enough to make my building and bed shake, to send the bullies under their blanket shivering and to make us wear multiple sweaters. how the banana plants survive this is beyond me- though they do look a tad tattered and ratty at the moment and tend to keel over prefferably onto power lines or on unsuspecting tourists. we do have a horrific time hacking the bloody things over before they do any serious damage-
..aw the ncv days aint't quite over yet. just had two: belgians, believe it or not....cheap as shit they were.( belgians as a rule can not resist a good meal and a few cold ones when they do they are seriously hardcore cheapos).
do not think any more customers will come tonight; it is cold windy and dark....
sooo an early night. ..

perfect days in paradise...

well, the season is off to a spectacularly sluggish start: yes there are customers and quite a few, and all of them give credence to the saying it's not quantity but quality. quality they are not.. they are on the whole dispicable and then some....
fat and blond and cheap are predominant: yesterday a sizable specimen rolled in after dark: ooh i have not eaten all day. and she ordered a lot and drank some and then she said can you change 50 dollars, and of course i was not able to, this being one of those interminable holidays of two weeks or there abouts- banks closed an all that.... oh i will pay you tomorrow- she said and bored me for another hour and the next day when i did need the money to buy cooking gas she was nowhere to be seen and when finally she came she said she was sick implying my food-( turned out she drank iced coffee in snuol of all places; i did not eat there she said, and you had coffee with that ice there in it i said??? wow that is stupid!!! i thought and she heard me...in the end she coughed up all twelve dollars that she owed me and will come back for more food(?)tomorrow)-to eat- i perceive that as a threat!).
but then yet it was it is one of those days today:
as by now we are truly poor bong sereri has taken to selling the fruit of our trees; and we make quite a bit of money from our bananas, milk fruit, guavas and so on. the bananas are quite a lot and ripe and have to go: so do the coconuts, but that is another` story all together..
the bananas: banana is the biggest grass in the world- also the heaviest as it turns out; the bananas- the fruit grow and grow, the plant: the so called grass lists and lists as the fruit grow, and those things get quite dangerous and one has to cut them down... the fruit by now getting to twenty kilos or more.. so we cut them and down they come shaking the earth and having bong serrei and me running for our lives more often than not...( the other day i tried this alone and the plant fell on me and i got stuck and it took me forever to dig my way out from down yonder, and a few bruises, now how ridiculous can it get bruised by bananas, try to live that one down....).
why are we doing this to ourselves bong serrrei and me wondered let the sellers get the fruit off the plants and we get a dollar less. then so be it we said ( as in depression without champangne is not worth it is as my friend fay would put it so nicely) so now the sellers/buyers come to the land and have to cut the fruit themselves.. so do come their dog; and the bullies killed it.. the dog, not the seller quite.. yet... : the dogs were trying to bite us...( ensuing discussion: you owe for dead dog. no dog bit us. and anyways- says bong serrei :you eat dog anyway..so you want money i get dog i eat myself..) the buyers bought that one .. pouff!! lucky break that one ...we did not have to pay for the dead mutt).
meanwhile: big crashing sound in the bar, glass`works a lot- breaking: damn rats i think and run into the restaurant: no rat, although most of the last remaining wine gasses are broken: stuck on the wall- mortified: caruso the ghekko: sorry he mumbles; there was this juicy spider and i.. i.. just ran into those weird things- , i did not even see them..and the spider behind...' 'getta move on, caruso' i say, and chase him off and remove the shards or our last vestige of civilisation...