It's Monday afternoon here in Phnom Penh, and my new schedule is very different from the last two weeks. For the first 2 weeks of school, it was class from 9-5:30, with a few breaks and a long lunch. Now I student teach from 8-9, and then I am free until 1pm. I almost don't know what to do with myself! It is nice in the morning to have a tuk tuk all to myself, instead of cramming 5 people in one, but I also feel a bit wrong about it, when I pass motos with 3 adults and 2 kids on them. I'll work on that guilt!
Yesterday was nice. Good morning in Sihanoukville, fairly quick bus ride back. It was when we got back to the city that is got a bit weird. First off, the traffic was the worst I've ever seen. Busier than rush hour, and it was a Sunday, although I guess since almost everyone is a Buddhist here that doesn't mean a whole lot... The second strange thing were the women walking around in what were clearly pajamas. Matching tops and pants, kinda like the ones men in the 50's would wear. But they were super colorful and patterned. I guess orange, red, and pink are the big colors this year. We asked Billy, our teacher, about it, and he let us know that it is perfectly acceptable to wear them around as casual wear. I mean, at least every third woman was wearing pajamas, out on the street. You really have to see it to believe it.
Sunday's are also really the only day that most Cambodians have off, so everyone was out visiting friends, getting their shopping done, just out and about. I think I might lock myself in on Sundays, it was that crazy. A few of us made the mistake of heading to the mall to get some food, never again! We split off, because the boys wanted KFC, and I'm just not that homesick for American food yet. Margaret and I decided to go to a local place for some soup, the Khmer equivalent to pho. Another strange thing, apparently most local restaurants will only serve family style soup on Sundays, so we decided to give it a try. That's when hilarity ensued!
First off, everyone in the restaurant stared at us as we sat down. Two white girls, local restaurant, totally get that. But two white girls, who have no idea what to do with all the stuff they gave us, now that is totally hilarious to them! There is a burner on the table, which how that made it through the fire codes I'll never, oh wait. I'm in Cambodia, never mind. So they bring this big pot of broth, with lots of stuff in it already, then four different plates of more stuff. That was where we got in trouble. There was a plate of the basil, bitter leaf stuff, what I think was morning glory (stems, really good), and two big pieces of fried chicken skin. So we started putting stuff in, but wrong, since the waitress was right there to tell us that (and the table behind us was nearly peeing themselves. I couldn't see that, but I'll take Margaret's word for it.) Then we added the egg noodles, all good on that one. Next plate had pieces of beef(?) and an egg. We dumped the beef in, then cracked the egg in. Next plate had some weird mushrooms on it, in they went. We put some of the fried garlic in, and then let it boil until the noodles were done. Now to the hard part. We had a ladle and chopsticks. No fork, or spoons, ladle and chopsticks to get this stuff into our bowls. The noodles were the worst, again, table behind us laughed their asses off. Rest was pretty doable, but how to get the soup from the bowl to our moths, with only a ladle and chopsticks. Again, the waitress stepped in and helped out, showing us the spoons we totally missed, hiding at the bottom of the chopstick thing. Rest was pretty easy, the soup was amazing, and it was actually really fun. We are totally going again next Sunday, in our matching Hello Kitty PJs....
I knew there was a reason I loved it here!
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