April 16th (2020)

 

April 16th 

It's so very lonely, you're a thousand light years from home

It's so very lonely, you're a thousand light years from home

(Rolling Stones, 2,000 Light Years From Home, Their Satanic Majesty’s Request, 1967)

The Malaysian Immigration website has issued the following...

‘The Government of Malaysia has announced to extend the Movement Control Order (MCO) until 28th April 2020. With the latest update, MYXpats Centre and Immigration Department of Malaysia will be temporary CLOSED until 28th April 2020.’

Today’s Khmer Times informs that ‘Cambodia has reported that for the fourth consecutive day, no new cases of COVID-19 positive have been detected.’ fingers crossed everybody.

8.40am

After a turbulent night when, like some apprentice actor on his first rehearsal, sleep stubbornly refused to appear. Bleary-eyed breakfast is cornflakes, milk, sugar and the obligatory ‘Red’ coffee.

Today, officially, my Cambodian visa runs out. I hope that I am informed correctly, and that there is an amnesty on overstayers, until 1st May, or so I am told. 

I walk along Central Market Street (at the rear of Siem Reap Provincial Hospital) in a state of disbelieve. The street which thrived with small Khmer eateries and coffee huts, has been cleared. There are only a few tell tale signs that those enterprising vendors were ever there. A signboard here, a broken plastic chair there, a solitary rubber flip flop, a pink broken child’s shoe add to the sense of desolation. There is still plenty of rubbish to clear, but the stalls and the people are all gone.

Though, technically, an eyesore, I’d always taken those stalls as a glimpse into an authentic Khmer life. I frequently took the thick, dark, chocolaty local coffee (with the obligatory condensed milk which bites your teeth as you drink) from one of those stalls. Other stalls produced more Western coffee, with the cappuccinos, frappuccinos and, if you were lucky, the New Zealand Flat Whites too. There was one stall which mostly specialised in the construction of Khmer baguette ‘sandwiches’ called ‘num pang’ in Khmer. Though essentially similar to the French influenced Vietnamese ‘banh mi’, the Khmer version includes some sort of meat like a pate, ham or pork, and comes with served cucumber, carrots, chives and onions. Another much missed stall served ‘kuy teav’ or soup noodles. This is thin Asian soup, not the more robust British type. It’s mostly a meat broth with ingredients which can include pork or beef bones, rice vermicelli, fried shallots, green onions and bean sprouts, pig’s intestines, solidified pigs blood,  fish balls, pork or beef, depending on your preference and what is available. The ingredients would sit there, on full view, in a glass case. All you had to do was choose.

Today’s spend on shopping at Angkor Market is $16.45 (Gillette Blue razor blades 6 packet, Enchanter Deluxe Perfumed soap x2, Farmhouse milk x 2, Dasani water x2, Kerrygold butter, Iceberg lettuce, Dutchie Corn Beans Yogurt x2, Schweppes Tonic Water, Cola Coffee and Paldo pot noodles which could be Korean, but who really knows?).

Lunch at KFC (Zinger Cheezilla box = the chicken burger, a piece of chicken, two small pots of mashed potato and an iced Pepsi) $8.40.

Equals $24.85, ooops.