there 's a snake inna kitchen what am i gonna.....

 .. various internet and computer troubles have kept me from posting.
the season is over, it was not good and not bad, decent is the best way to describe it. now the rains are  supposed to be here but they are only very moderately so; the odd thunderstorm and a drizzle or two and that's it so far. Cambo is in the claws of a heatwave, temperatures of 45 c seem to be the order of the day in PP. even up here in the mountains we do sweat.
 the tedium, boredom and absence of cash that go with the off season are no real fun at all.
the strange weather  makes for loads of great fruit on the trees and a variety of less appreciated wildlife. bugs, spiders millipedes (oh how i hate those) and - yes- snakes abound.
yesterday, i was sitting at the computer getting ready to blog, when Elvis snarled, growled and barked: when i looked up he was face to face with a rearing spitting cobra.. while stamping my feet and making the wood floor vibrate (snakes are deaf but hate vibration)s and ordering back elvis- who listened for once i was able to defuse the situation. the snake vanished under the freezer.. aaw. spitting cobras are mean and aggressive and i hate those in my kitchen.... i took the dogs and went to get help. bon serrei, her nephew and moni came  immediately, the snake was gone. into the wall, a hollow `space, there was no one under the freezer. moni went and got a special kind of lime in the market, seems snakes hate that smell and won't cross it ever, they rather starve. let's hope he is right. i do not scare easy, but that one did it. lucky break that elvis did not get bitten, and what a great dog he is!
 well where did that beast come from. fro m under the bar we decide; and today bon serrei and me had to  make sure there were no more reptilian surprises under the bar; moni's delightfully khmer  parting remark was; when sit at bar maybe not put feet under bar. maybe more snake.
so this morning, to work we went, with a stick and a flashlight and that was most likely the most scary job i ever did, but in the end:
there was no snake under the bar- not anymore but we found the shedded skin of a beastly specimen that must have been at least 5 meters long. aww god only knows how long it roosted there! (as the life snake i saw was only about two meters- or less, it seems i did not live with one but two cobras for i do not know how long). on second thought there have been no rats around for quite a`while....( rats, they tend to move when there are snakes around)
 pity we did not get to kill the spitting cobra: i always wanted a pair of snake skin flip flops!!

..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. ..