I put some new and not-so-new photos up from random weekend activities over the past two months: visits to friends, the Mekong River Swim, another wedding, camping, ruined temples, a zoo, and a community forestry project. No wonder my host sisters have been complaining that I'm never home to play with them.

Last week I was biking home late at night (and by late, I mean 8:00) from a friend’s house after a trip to the zoo and some ruins on a mountain. For better or worse, I’ve lost most of my fear of biking at night, but that doesn’t make me immune to problems. Everything was going fine until I ran over one of the ubiquitous shards of glass that litter the streets, which blew my tire with a sound like a gunshot. I didn’t know where I’d find a place to get it fixed since few people are out on the streets at that hour, but fortunately, there was a streetside moto/bike repair outfit still open just down the street. I pushed my bike over and, thanks to my recent Khmer lesson about mechanical difficulties, explained my problem. The mechanic agreed to help, so I sat on the worktable and waited while he went to work. Of course a white woman sitting by the side of the road with a bicycle is conspicuous, but I’m used to the staring and didn’t let it bother me too much until a moto with three drunk and noisy men in their twenties pulled right up onto the curb beside me, nearly falling over in the process. The mechanic put my bike aside and set to fixing their moto, which I wouldn’t have minded so much except that it meant I had to sit and wait while the three of them watched me for awhile, talking amongst themselves and pushing each other toward me, and then sat down next to me. I was pulling off a passable act of ignoring them until one came up next to me with the predictable line: “Hello, wassaname?” Even under normal circumstances, I’m not in the mood for this, but this guy reeked of alcohol, and I was decidedly unimpressed. I kept ignoring him until he started pushing me, to which I responded, in Khmer, “I don’t want to talk. You’re drunk. I don’t want to talk to you.” Maybe not the most culturally appropriate response; maybe I could use some lessons on being polite and reserved from Khmer girls. But sometimes I’m just not in the mood. After pushing me again, he went and sat down behind me with his friend. I couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying, but I picked up enough to know that they were talking about me, and that it wasn’t very nice. I finally turned around and told them, “Don’t talk behind the foreigner’s back—she knows Khmer. That’s inappropriate.” The guy just looked at me and kept going, “Huh? Huh?” I wondered if I had completely butchered my message in Khmer until his friend repeated to him word for word what I had just said. Ha. At least his lack of understanding was due to his inebriated state and not my lack of intelligible Khmer. In any case, they stopped talking about me, at least as far as I could tell. When their moto was ready, they left without much fanfare, much to my relief. Good grief. And they wonder why I don’t want a Cambodian boyfriend. How have I gotten to be so cynical?

Hello all! I've been back in Phnom Penh for over a week now, but I'm just getting around to uploading the photos now. (Since we have three days this week off for the King's birthday, I have time to sit at an internet cafe.) I won't go into detail about the trip here because I wrote some pretty extensive captions on the photos, which you can check out here. Hope you enjoy them.

For now, I'm enjoying this holiday just to stay at home. (Mind you, I use the phrase "stay at home" loosely. Meaning that I'm not taking any bus or plane or train trips.) Time to do laundry, clean the bathroom, do jigsaw puzzles and play games with my host family, and spend time with various Cambodian friends around Phnom Penh. On that note, I just got a phone call from one of them saying I should meet her for dinner. Right now. Who says you can't be spontaneous in Cambodia? Soum lie haey!