I brought along a small notebook with me to Cambodia to write down various things – sights I wanted to see, things I bought and their costs, thoughts, etc. It got pretty ravaged by my constant digging for it in my pocket and consultation in rain, wind, drunkenness, this, that.

Before I go to Taiwan and and before I get carried away by a sudden mania for buying atomisers, I thought I’d put up some stuff from in the notebook here.

Siem Reap Temple Trail (in chronology)

Day 1
Chong Khneas Floating Village (not a temple)
Angkor Wat (sunset)

Day 2
Kbal Spean (technically not a temple)
Banteay Srey
Landmine Museum (also not a temple. I realise this list heading is misleading)
Pre Rup
Ta Prohm

Day 3
Angkor Wat (sunrise)
Preah Khan
Angkor Thom area

Phnom Penh Expenditure – Day 1 (30/10/09)

USD 24 — Accomodation – Capitol Guesthouse- 3 nights
USD 3 — Tuktuk
USD 3 — Tuktuk
USD 3.5 — Dinner (pho + beer. I walked maybe 2 hours for this. That should be factored into cost)
1.3 USD — Water
7.65 USG — Supper (white wine + calamari. FCC Cambodia. It seemed fitting to have a glass of wine there. Had the calamari for a laugh)
USD 1.5 — Drinks (carrot juice + a Beerlao. Provision shop near the guesthouse)
500 Riels — Rice Vegetable Pancake which is probably more a Chive Ricecake (streetside after confusing exchange with ricecake seller)

Prayer to Cambodia That I Wrote While On the Plane There

Cambodia I am yours for the week. Hold me safe. I am a reverent visitor and guest who does not wish to offend but live as you do as much as I am able to for the short time I am yours. I am a passerby who would like to know you. I chose you quickly but I promise not flippantly. I want to shelter in the majesty of your Wats, see the sunrises and sets you ignore. Receive me Cambodia for I am a lowly fly wishing to crawl along your carved walls. I promise to leave no harm and hopefully only good feelings as you fill me with good feelings of my own. Cambodia I am you wandering child hold me safe.

What a week it was. If there is anything to be said about travelling solo, it’s that the fear from being overseas alone is a large part of why it’s so dang fun.

Sort of an extended photo essay of my romp in Cambodia here.

I should mention though that I haven’t been spending extravagantly. But I hardly do. The last big ticket item I bought was this iMac I’m using. And it was high time I ditched the gummy old laptop. Other than that, I’m still using second/third-hand handphones (I’ve never had my own actually new handphone) and my twice-exchanged iPod shuffle – both being ‘problems’ that can be solved with a purchase of an iPhone. What? Financial crisis? What financial crisis?

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Yes, this has been a recurring theme around heres, I do like to provide a bit of schadenfreude for yous who glimpse these self-indulgent cyberpages: Work. Work makes me feeI sometimes that I am grasping at the idiomic tether being pulled away from me. I need to embark on some sort of vacation. C’mon Cartesian Devil, where is the deception of a comfortable existence my senses are supposed to be clouded by. Your moustache was always of more interest to me than your philosophy, Descartes. I always thought you looked a bit like William Shakespeare.

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I try to reconcile myself to this. This white elephant that stays out of sight for periods of time, but comes within cognition time and time again to remind me that my coiffure will soon (or already. I am my own Cartesian Devil) resemble that of an elephant’s – sparse – and with non of the elephantine wrinkles that can point to old age as a reasonable cause. Hereditariness, I aim my rapier sight squarely on you. And when I get a little cross-eyed, I view Work as a culprit as well. O Work, how you are the scapegoat of my life’s bane.

In more escapist moments, I make believe that I have the same mutant power as Professor Charles Xavier – baldness. (And what with my recent strangely sharply hurting leg of recent months, I might acquire his mutant wheelchair skills as well)

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I won’t pretend. I admit that the recent rejuvenation of my Twitter account (due to the recent juvenation of twitter locally) has made me neglect this blog. Twitter was the perfect excuse to be pithy without seeming stoic. And it resulted in a total blog silence except for the updating of the stuff on the right column. I thought well that suits me since I sort of like being simple, concise and all those other similar adjectives (Short? Lacking? Insubstantial? Enough). But of course looking at this ramble now, I have failed miserably. You could work out a logarithm that divides the length of this post over the average consistency and length of the posts on this blog over the period of time I wasn’t blogging. The logarithm would include those things, but most probably not in that order. I don’t have a degree in accounting to substantiate my claim. So I guess I am insubstantial.

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This has nothing to do with recessions whatsoever, unless I want to belabour the point and explain that the slab of pork below shrank in size whilst in the oven. But let’s not try to infuse this roast with meaning. Herbs with salt and pepper are enough.

This was the meat part of a birthday cook-in dinner thing we had over the weekend. Everything else was vegetables, I swear. Apparently, the slab still had nipples on it which my friend claimed he ‘sawed’ off. Wonder what that would have tasted like roasted. There was no cake involved so this cake of pork had to play the part. It was certainly harder to slice than cake. That red band across the top did not proclaim something festive-appropriate like ‘Happy Birthday’ but instead read ‘SINGAPORE APPROVED’.

And to give a better sense of size: it was the size of a brownie tray before it was roasted, after which it shrank maybe an inch on all sides. How do I know it was as large as a brownie tray? Because that’s what was used to catch the drippings.

Actually, a slab of roast pork like this is quite gruesome to me. I often think that this is what a slab of human might look like after being roasted nicely, what with pork being the closest taste comparison to human meat (I remember reading that somewhere – an interview with a cannibal, something, I can’t remember exactly what); it was delicious anyhow.

OK it’s technically my cousin’s so what it’s a family heirloom now.

That’s Bryan’s foot by the way.

of Montreal was hilarious, game, and awesome today at library@esplanade. They straight up played Beware Our Nubile Miscreants, Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse after a quick absurd interview session which left Jack & Rai pretty much speechless, and ended the whole thing with The Party’s Crashing Us Now after sportingly attempting to sing Chan Mali Chan. Dude, what? But that was a pretty hilarious segment as well.

While heading off they were mobbed and I said ‘You guys are awesome!’ and Kevin looked around to say thanks while Davey smiled. Bryan was being accosted by ladies and Dottie and Jamie had disappeared.

Tomorrow’s shows should be killer.