31st March (2020)

 

31st March

It was another night with broken sleep, hence this lazy day today. Yesterday, a dear friend tried to cheer me up and to some extent it worked. Without knowing when I can return home does bring me down. Like many other people, my life is on hold right now and full of uncertainty. I try to be more positive but there is an awful amount of negativity about, with more each day.

Phany has just informed me that, from tomorrow, the electricity with be cut off for three hours every day. We do not know the times. In the middle of a serious pandemic is this really such a good idea.

Today, I have sandwiches of bread, butter and palm sugar for breakfast with instant coffee using palm sugar. For lunch I have sandwiches comprised of bread, butter, processed cheese and a small, very deep red, fresh tomato and two nice mugs of Lipton’s tea. I’m trying to use up what I have, and estimate that I drink 1.5 litres of water, in various ways, per day.

Earlier I had gone to the Thai Huot Market and discovered that fresh chicken is cheaper there than at the Old Market. It is a price (literally) that I have to pay outside England. Ho hum. While at the supermarket I bought orange juice, two 1.5 litre bottles of water, four cans of Schweppes Tonic Water, a litre tetra pack of Cowhead Pure Milk and two mixed fruit Dutchie yogurts. Okay there is some comfort drinking there. I really, really want a bar of Cadbury’s chocolate, but when I realise that one bar is equal to a whole meal elsewhere, I refrain and just keep on longing. Altogether those items cost $9.50. Say $10. I am very lucky to have such a good supermarket within easy reach. 

However, whilst at Thai Huot Market, I realised that Colors of Cambodia is low on Butane Gas for cooking. Forgetting that I am in a country whose English language isn’t English, but American, I ask an ‘English’ speaking supermarket employee ‘do you have any gas, Butane gas’. I guess that he only heard the word gas, and said no, but tried to direct me to a ‘station’ down the road where is, apparently, a big sign. I thanked him, paid for my shopping all expectantly, walked out of the supermarket, and that is when it hit me. Gas, not as in Butane gas but as in Gasoline. Ho hum.

One by one the restaurants in Siem Reap are closing. I now add Sister Srey and The Village Cafe to the list. The latter of which is, honestly, far too expensive (closed until further notice). Of course, when some of those do decide to open again, they will face stiff competition. Some may not open again