Author:

Guilty Pleasures: nature

At 7.30 this morning I saw a penis. I’m a big fan of the little man, so nine inches out of ten this would usually be a welcome start to my day. I’d be chuffed, for example, had I spied a demi-tumescent David on a morning stroll through my Renaissance sculpture garden. Or looked up at the right time at the matinee of a Buns of Steel Vegas hen’s bender. Or been awoken beachside at the Aegean’s premier nudist resort by a wine-dark Adonis bearing dawn cocktails.

Alas, the male part I scoped from my dim-sum-bound tuk tuk was a policeman’s sorry fingerling answering the call on the wall of Sisowath High. He and his mate had just come off shift extorting money from kids not wearing helmets. Maybe, like many members of the animal kingdom, corrupt cops mark their territory. Devil-may-care middle-class Scoopy riders are probably worth their weight in Muscle Wine back at the squad room. Maybe he was just a lazy prick who should have known better, being a role model for the Future of Cambodia and all. Perhaps I’m being uncharitable. The poor fellow may have real health issues. Incontinence can be a consequence of Type 2 diabetes, plus this little piggy was no manorexic. Probably thanks to stealing all that candy from babies.

But maybe he was just too exhausted to make it back to HQ; our law enforcement officials have been so busy lately, after all. Whatever his excuse, there’s not one for flailing his weensy hose willy-nilly in full view of Norodom peak-hour traffic. Oh. Maybe he was drunk. So that’s OK then. Whatevs. It was enough to put me off my chicken paws.

Unless we’re a nutter, or drug fucked, or it’s New Year’s Eve 1998 in the Mount Gambier Safeway car park, we women don’t just drop trou and piss all over town. We plan ahead, or find a dunny while we’re out and about, or just hold it. If this sounds like sour grapes, I admit I’m occasionally envious of the practical aspects the male member affords, most so when I need to spend a pretty penny or twenny. I’ve lamented my lack of convenient tonk on many a miasmic loo stop en route to Temple Town. Or after one too many vodka Red Bulls in the aptly named ‘powder room’ of <insert noxious nightclub here>, scowling and Pretzel-legged for 20 minutes until the inevitable sextet of ladyboys and strumpets tumble giggling from the only unclogged cubicle.

And though there are fewer people to disgust if you’re caught short outdoors outback Downunder, seeing a man about a dingo can nevertheless be fraught. I love camping: sausages and sauce in bread for breakfast, leaping into remote lakes with your togs off, watching your shirtless bronzed beau and his hot mates stride across the Gibber Plains towards a galah-pink sunset. But after a day frolicking in exhausting nature it’s hard to relax with a slab and a fire-side round of Michael Row The Boat Ashore when you know later there’s a life-threatening chance you’ll dock with a 300-year-old fire ant colony or douse a previously sleeping eastern brown snake of the trouserless kind.

Plus I don’t know if you’ve been outside with thousands of miles of moonless night around you and not a soul in sight, but it’s a bit spooky. Which means you have to coerce someone to go with you; certainly not the private comfort stop everyone was hoping for. During daytime it’s even harder. It’s not exactly old growth rainforest out beyond the black stump. You’ll be lucky to find a tiny bush, let alone a rocky outcrop. A fluorescent white arse is not naturally camouflaged in the wide brown motherland I used to call ‘home’. A bit of old stick doesn’t provide a colossal bot any protection from the airhorns of a gurning trucker clocking 200 down the highway. He can see you 20 miles off and by jingo he lets you know about it.

CharmingVille’s not the only place on the planet where blokes unzip and let rip, and our coppers aren’t the only ones painting the town yellower than a colonial pile and stinking up the great outdoors. But lads: just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. You’re pissing all over your Kingdom, fellas! Only the other night, incidentally during a nature break between episodes of Idol, I heard an epic voiceover on a StarWorld station ident dramatically intone: ‘Home is not the house that you sleep in, but the place where you stand.’ Exactly. And who wants to be standing in their own wee?

 

A dining experience less ordinary

There are no hamburgers on the menu at The Duck. No cordon bleu, no carbonara, nor anything else predictable. In a town of 3,000-plus restaurants, The Duck confidently occupies a place in the top 1%. And the menu is anything but ordinary.

The Duck opened in April last year to mostly stellar reviews. The food was outstanding, if a bit pricey by local standards. And three months in, says head chef Dah Lee, the staff were celebrating a successful launch.

By August, however, the rains had driven much of Lee’s new clientele away. What began as an auspicious summer turned uncomfortably quiet. Lee shuffled the menu, adjusted prices, introduced a wallet-friendly weekend brunch (bacon and poached eggs, pancakes with lime syrup and fresh cream, eggs Benedict, each for under $5). The tables again started to fill.

As a christening to The Duck’s second year, Lee brought in award-winning Australian chef Glenn Thompson to help create a new menu (something the restaurant plans to do quarterly now, instead of annually). The result is a menu steeped in classic French cooking styles, infused with bistro comfort foods and drenched in Asian flavours.

It’s still not cheap (good things never are). Starters range from $4.50 to $6.50, salads and larger dishes from $6 to $21. Desserts are all $4. Yet for the money, there are few better restaurants in town.

Lee, a broad-shouldered Kiwi of Taiwanese decent, opened his first restaurant some 30 years ago in Wellington, New Zealand. In the ensuing years he has nurtured a penchant for contrasts and his dishes, in the French bistro tradition, are rich with textures and flavours.

Chili salt prawns ($6.50) are dusted in herbs and spices, grilled with heads and tails intact and plated with a half lime and a tasting saucer of sea salt, red chili and spices. Outside the prawns are hard and sticky. Inside the meat is soft and mildly salty with a hint of anise. The salt-and-chili powder provides a tangy, crunchy accompaniment.

Similarly, the coconut cured fish ($4.75) is a thick fillet of mackerel dressed with a tamarind-peanut sauce and topped with a mountain of crunchy, fried vermicelli. The light, airy noodle contrasts perfectly with the heavier, full-flavoured fish; the ever-so-slightly sour tamarind balances the lingering sweetness of the coconut.

For lunch, The Duck serves five-spice pork belly as a salad. On the dinner menu it’s offered as a starter (both at $5.50). As a salad the greens are firm, fresh and crunchy, a vegetarian yin to the succulent, fat-drenched yang of the pork belly.

Mains cost a bit more, starting with the steamed silken tofu with onion and chili jam ($7.50) and topping out with an Australian sirloin ($16.50) and lamb rack with eggplant ($21). The crisp-skin red snapper – a pan-seared fillet over an ample mix of corn and mushrooms – lands somewhere near the middle ($11).

In another town, The Duck is the kind of place that bustles from open to close. In Phnom Penh, however, with narrow expat crowds and wax-and-wane high seasons, such excellence can easily go under-appreciated, if not undiscovered.

Yet The Duck remains unpretentious in its sophistication. And as restaurant prices continue to climb elsewhere, and over-sauced pastas and gourmet burgers proliferate, Duck’s essential gourmet will no doubt ripple through the capital’s culinary landscape.

The Duck, #49 Sothearos Blvd; 089 823704.

 

Ice-cream artisans

Bubbles is not what you expect. Not really. The name conjures ideas of saccharine spaces decorated for aspiring 20-somethings, places with 37 varieties of just-add-water powdered teas. Not this Bubbles (although there’s a jar or two of the powdered stuff laying around if you really want it). This Bubbles specialises in small-batch artisanal teas made from fresh local fruits and Asian spices. The signature cups include tamarind mojito (a not-so-sweet blend made with homemade tamarind syrup), classic ginger, blueberry rose lemongrass and lychee basil lime. Bubbles also does small-scale creamy homemade ice cream, one pan at a time. Try the salted caramel.

Bubbles, #70 Street 113.

 

Guilty Pleasures: holidays

One morning last month, naked and shivering in my parents’ guest bathroom, I lubed myself from head to toe with half a tub of Body Shop Nut Butter in preparation for some vigorous exercise al fresco.

As a long-time resident of the ever-moist CharmingVille, I usually glisten like an unctuous seal. But after a KNY fortnight Down Under on a power shopping spree ‘n’ parental pilgrimage, my skin was dry as a chip.

Except for a few warm, wet nooks up north, the antipodean atmosphere desiccates a tropical pelt. And autumn down south can be bitter. Not Yakutsk in January, granted, but still. Even a few hours’ exposure tramping from mall to dire mall to tick off my ‘Only-in-Oz’ shopping list (orca-fit cotton underpants, obscure electric toothbrush heads, Spanx™) and I itch and whine until even my deaf mother pulls across three lanes of oncoming traffic so she can dump me on the kerb to find my own way home.

I don’t know if you’re entering middle age and have been recently abandoned in an IKEA car park late on Easter Sunday in a third-tier Australian suburb by your 74-year-old mother, but it really confirms that one of you is the worst person in the world. Luckily she couldn’t work the GPS and after circling the trolley park had to come back so I could help her find the exit. Me and Mum. Probably a good thing we don’t share a hemisphere.

Anyway, as the morning chill goosed my every bump and sucked the juice from every pore, I prepared thusly for my am ‘run’ – all 325 metres of it – which I’d promised my Bodes-side gym instructor I’d do during my trip. Well, I promised him I’d do an hour of meaningful exercise every morning. But these days I’m barely Australian, let alone Christian, and in the lead-up to Khmer New Year I’d forgotten about the whole Easter thing. Jogging past a nearby strip mall wearing a sweatband, tearfully discovering a giant chocolate bilby centrepiece outside the Jobcentre, detouring through the front bar of the local and tottering back to base, hours later, cheeks stuffed with Caramello Koalas, is probably not what he meant. But anyway.

I felt a bit weird caressing myself with a fistful of fair-trade nut fat while Mum and Dad shambled next door in the kitchen. I could hear them stacking the breakfast dishwasher and talking in Old Person (‘Is it bin night tonight? What time does Eggheads come on? Is it bin night tonight?’), but needs must. My epidermis rustled. Like a fragrant but shameful Channel swimmer, I checked and rechecked the lock on the folk’s facilities before waxing on. Given my generous acreage this took longer than ages, and after a while I started to think about the Bodes: the Hubster, the Bunster, pork noodles on a Sunday morning. My thoughts wandered. Now don’t take this the wrong way (if you’re American, it’s not too late to go get a donut), but they wandered to how much I missed bum guns. Mum and Dad had trucked in the best loo paper money can buy, but nothing gets you feeling fresher than a pre-paper blast from the elephant-in-the-room of personal hygiene. I found myself reaching for a phantom squirter on more than one occasion. Pavlov would have smirked knowingly. Though I often whinge and carp about all things KOW, I was shocked at how acclimatised I’ve become.

On holidays in a town with three Targets, four Officeworks and a couple of overrated pandas on a sex-exchange programme, you’d think I’d died and gone to Adelaide. I admit I revelled in my choice of pickled walnuts and cheap gossip mags. I kicked red leaves down the street and rollicked in the dog park with tick-free Tilly, Smokey and Rex. Cold Chisel is still on high rotation if you like that kind of thing. But as the normcore days wore on I began to yearn for old CharmingVille’s quirk and edge. I venture we even have better mod-cons here, too: free wifi, world’s best Bloody Marys, one-dollar eyebrow waxing.

And while the days chez rellies were chilly, the nights had me almost weeping for my adopted home and Marital HQ. Of a sub-Arctic eve, tucked up in the bed where I suspect Gramps drew his last breath in 1988, the jolly thump of the disco tuk tuk was replaced by the council rubbish truck and incessant beep of the nearby pedestrian crossing.

As much as I love my olds, and no matter where I am, I yearn to sit on my CharmingVille balcony in knickers and a T-shirt, any late afternoon of the sweltering year, and feel that portentous wind-rush just before the hot drama of a calamitous, all-night thunderstorm. I almost always feel good in my skin here. And my arse is home and hosed.

 

Penh-Dacity II:Bong James Bong ( May 15)

Desmond, an English-language expat and accidental bar/music manager, is at a wedding somewhere in Kampong Speu, walking in circles and twisting his hands. He’s had a call from a mad musician threatening to burn down the bar. Stuff like that happens. Now read on for the sixth part of our exclusive fiction series by Guillermo Wheremount.  

“Dude, can’t this wait until tomorrow?” “What’s the story with this #$%@ country?” shouted James Bonne down the phone. “I hold you personally responsible for this. I know people, buddy. Screw with me and you’ll never work outside this town again.” “OK, OK, don’t panic. Jesus. I’ll come back.” Sighing heavily, Desmond watched his spirit ebbing around his ankles. Then he squared his shoulders and pulled Phany off the circular dance floor. “How do I get back to Phnom Penh?” “You no have good time bong?” “Having a great time, but James Bonne call me.” “He very crazy, bong.” “I know.” “Very, very crazy man. But sing nice song.” “He wants me to go back and open up Snuck Bar, he wants his guitar. It’s stupid. But I gotta go. Can I get a tuk tuk or something?” “Oh, very difficult bong. No have. Hmmm. Bad thing. He crazy, crazy man. You wait, bong, I find something for you.” Phany returned with the young lady in the bright orange dress, drifting with unconscious grace on impossible heels across rough ground, hair piled sky-high and beaming like it was her birthday.  “Bong, this my cousin Sophal. She go back to Phnom Penh tonight on her moto. She take you.” And so it was that Desmond was riding through darkest Cambodian highway night on the back of an orange-and-white low-powered moto staring at the back of an orange helmet trying to keep balance as buses and trucks with deafening horns passed perilously close to his exposed left knee, while clutching a plastic bag filled with a bright orange dress and a pair of impossible heels. Wilder than anything Kerouac ever imagined, he thought. “You’re very brave,” he shouted into Sophal’s ear. She chirped something back that he could not hear, but he suspected it was: “I can’t hear what you say.” So he left it at that. By the time she dropped him safely at Snuck, it was late evening. “Thank you so much.” “Pleasure, bong.” There was an awkward silence and then she said, “Maybe soon we have barbecue?” And so numbers were exchanged. The orange-and-white moto spluttered off and farted its way around the corner. Bong, James Bong had found a place to wait. Tem Pting Fate, as it happened, Desmond’s favourite after-hours spot, conveniently located across the road from Snuck. The rock star was in the rear, again sprawled in a booth, but this time with his clothes on. Not much less drunk than the last time he was seen, though. “You know this guy? Crazy guy,” said Dalin, the regular cashier, from behind the bar. “Yeah, I know this guy.” “You make him go, bong?” “Yes, yes. I’ll try,” said Des with a sigh. He slid into the booth and into Bonne’s blurry field of vision. “OK, here I am.” “And you are who?” “Des, from Snuck bar.” “Ah, Des, my man. Good to see you, good to see you. What is wrong with this #$%@^ country? They keep putting ice in my beer.” “Time to go home?” “Not yet, I’m staying around for a week. Got a gig, man.” And then, conspiratorially: “Do you know who was president when the US government fraudulently claimed they went to the moon?” “No idea. Washington?” “Pshaw! Nixon. And do you know who was illegally bombing Cambodia and Laos around the same time?” “The Chinese?” “The $@%# Americans. Nixon again. I’m just putting some links together. It’s very interesting. And I hear there’s some kind of Cambodian space project going on. I bet there’s a link, some kind of cross-funding deal, covert… do you know anything about that?” “It’s a band.” “A band? Are you sure?” “Yeah. So you want your guitar?” “Snot my guitar,” Bonne slurred. “Ray Davies’ guitar. Lent it to me.” “You want it?” “Tomorrow, mate. Don’t think it’s safe with me now,” he said with a goofy grin. As angry as he was at leaving the wedding for nothing, Des was feeling a little more than delighted with the thought of barbecue with Sophal. So his forgiveness swung to the foremost and he managed to convince James Bong that there was a better place to drink just around the corner. He guided the whiskey-sodden singer into a tuk tuk, gave the name of the hotel, noted the expenses he was racking up in babysitting this clown, and was free. The phone rang, and for once it was a pleasing ring. “Bong, you come eat barbecue now?” Continues next week    

Easy riders

In 1903, childhood friends William S Harley and Arthur Davidson decided to strap a 116cc motor to a bicycle and see how quickly they could throw it down the Wisconsin back roads. The first bike could go straight, even take a gentle bend, but couldn’t make the pull out of a short grade. Not a complete failure, but a chance to go back to the drawing board. Classics – whether literary, culinary or a piece of machinery – take time to ripen. For evolutions and innovations to occur, relationships must first be formed. Naturally, since the Harley-Davidson is a native of Wisconsin, there had to be a few Germans involved in kickstarting greatness (think the Flying Merkel).

As the first of these bikes were being rolled out in the Wisconsin cold, their builders – many of whom were German – were eating plates of Bratwurst, thick pork chops, potatoes and solid, fresh-bread bowls of goulash soup. Such plates fuelled the graft, helping stave off the winter cold, and were delivered by women who had left Germany for the farmlands and factories of the American Midwest. Women whose daughters married the boys next door, before those boys were sent off to war.

Returning from the battlefields, these boys – now hardened men – struggled to survive in Eisenhower’s bland tranquility. So instead they sought out freedom and adventure on the ever-expanding interstate highways, riding cheap surplus motorcycles and rekindling the camaraderie of the front lines. The rebellion began as a quiet one, but it would ultimately bring about a new universal order.

If you see cops or bikers eating at a place, you can count on the food. This particular rule is paramount at Lone Bros, a cosy roadhouse with a live-and-let-live streak of stubbornness. Claus, the German owner, is a quiet man, quick with a pour and meticulous with placing your drink on a folded towel. His tattooed arms are efficient, his motorcycle enormous and his moustache second to none. Outside the bar stand two huge and beautifully shellacked picnic tables, with long benches that offer a good-humoured rowdy space and uninterrupted views of the picnic of lost souls that is Street 51.

The food, as with the chrome-clad 1500cc motorcycle poised outside, is quality: built for comfort and power, not speed. Bone-sucking pork chops; chunky potato salad with apple; intense sauerkraut with grilled brats that pop when cut; hearty chunks of fresh bread (expect change from a $5 note). Friday night is specials night, when the tables groan beneath vast servings of schnitzel or Flemish stew: hale-and-hearty recipes passed down by crazy aunts dragging unruly kids across post-World War II Europe. Good for the stomach and good for the soul, for as Dan Aykroyd once put it: “You don’t need a therapist if you own a motorcycle.”

Lone Bros, Street 51 & 174 (from 6pm)

 

Oh, you teas!

Soul Tease is the antithesis of manicured Street 240 style. Hidden at the top end of a narrow, black-and-white spiral staircase, the place feels like the accidentally cool apartment of DIY artists who took over the flat next door. A makeshift Buddhist shrine decorates the living room. Secondhand fashions hang from a clothes bar. Outside, a quiet, second-storey terrace peers into the Street 240 treetops as dreamcatchers rock in the afternoon breeze. The shop specialises in home-scale, hand-blended teas and the menu reflects the shop’s carefree style with concoctions such as Zoe’s Pheromone (a mix of Thai tea, ginger, lime, green and chrysanthemum), Bed of Roses (ginger, rose, green, lemongrass and lime) and Emma’s Blood Boiler (turmeric, chilli, lemongrass and ginger). There’s a small vegetarian menu that includes hummus and a short but eclectic smoothie list, too. Teas and smoothies are $2, the food just a dollar or two more. Soul Tease, #55e Street 240.

 

Cheap, Cheap: 21 reasons love-struck writers should lay off the coconuts

A recent Global Post article fell in love with our fair capital for its cheap coconuts, cheap housing and cheap beer. And while low-cost she may be, it’s quality, not price, that makes Phnom Penh more than just a cheap thrill

…..

Phnom Penh, you have arrived.

No longer are you the shattered, post-war basket case where pot-holed streets go dark at sundown and machine-gun fire regularly pierces the night. You could be Melbourne, Tokyo, Zurich or Sydney.

So swoons the online news service Global Post, which last week published a story about our capital entitled ‘21 reasons you should drop everything and move to Phnom Penh’. As the author of the piece argues, “It just might be the greatest place in the world to live.”

That’s daft, of course. Phnom Penh is not a bad place to live – if you don’t mind the heat and the dust and the mad traffic or any other number of things that drive clingers to first-world orderliness mad. But not even after three bottles of Chivas would government spokesman Khieu Kanharith claim it’s “the greatest place in the world”.

Clearly it’s not. That doesn’t mean it’s not a pretty damn good place to live, however, because clearly it is, yet for almost none of the reasons that the Global Post story professes.

The most striking error of omission comes by way of the capital’s diverse culinary landscape. Phnom Penh is an eater’s paradise. The erstwhile Pearl of Asia supports a revolving list of more than 3,000 restaurants, according to the Yellow Pages. And that number no doubt misses the untold legions of greasy noodle stalls and street-side sandwich carts where cheap and delicious eats come plated for mere thousands.

Then there are the barang-owned and barang-friendly places: world-class French (Armand’s, Atmosphere, Topaz), authentic Mexican (Alma’s, Cantina, Taqueria Corona), healthy vegetarian (Artillery, Vego, The Vegetarian), hearty Russian (Irina’s), Middle Eastern (Petra, Beirut, Turkish Delight), Indian (Shari Punjabi, Flavours of India), Italian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, sandwiches, donuts, pizzas – the list literally goes on forever.

Yet all GP gives us is ‘Number 15: Amok is delicious’, with a mistakenly identified bowl of vegetable curry. Yes, seriously, they got the photo wrong.

As a perfunctory nod to entertainment, Emily Lodish, the author of the story and a former editor at The Cambodia Daily, gives us The Rock, the capital’s south-side monument to overpriced scotch, karaoke and reverb, reverb, reverb. Absent are the old-school haunts that made Phnom Penh epic – Zeppelin Cafe, Howie’s Bar, The Heart of Darkness – and newcomers like Nova, Pontoon and Code Red. There’s no mention of the town’s vaunted crop of sky bars (Eclipse, Kolab Sar, Maison d’Ambre), no tips on killer happy hours (NagaRock, Bouchon, the Elephant Bar), no shout outs to the burgeoning live music scene (Slur, Sharky’s, Equinox, Oscar’s).

In short, their list sucked coconuts.

Should you really drop everything and move to Phnom Penh? For the half-crazy, the dead-enders and 8am boozers with no place left to run, definitely maybe. Phnom Penh remains a wonderful place to be hard up and dead broke. For the sane, however, if you are planning on trashing a rich and rewarding career of being overworked and underpaid for a layabout’s life sauntering from the pool to the bar to the massage table, at least do it with competent counsel and a fruity alcoholic beverage with an umbrella stuck in it.

For starters, you should know that there is exactly one reason that makes Cambodia compelling (you have to discover it for yourself). The rest are superfluous.  Secondly, almost everything Global Post said was wrong.

GLOBAL POST: 1. Motodops know everything

ADVISOR: You MUST be kidding me. Motodops usually know next to nothing – most noticeably useful things such as a language that you speak or how to read a map. Ask for a ride to Russian Market and you’re just as likely to end up at O’Russey. Plus motos are dangerous: an average of five people per day die in road accidents, most of them motorcycle riders. Tuk tuks are a much safer bet. While they cost a bit more, their slower pace affords a view of the city that’s impossible to appreciate when you’re hanging on for dear life. Even better are cyclos, the fast-disappearing three-wheeled pedicabs. There’s no better way to explore the city. The few remaining old-timers still on the pedal have witnessed much. Just being in their presence is humbling.

GP: 2. Hammocks are everywhere and, coincidentally, so is nap time

A: As shocking as this may sound, Phnom Penh is not the only city in the world to possess hammocks. Nor are Cambodians the only people to nap in them. For a daytime kip, there are far better alternatives to a hot, sweaty, sciatic-nerve-crunching hammock. Try any number of the city’s hotel swimming pools (Sofitel, Himawari, InterContinental on the high-end; Patio, Plantation, Splash Inn at the mid-range; or Golden Boat at the budget level). For sky-high luxury, check out the rooftop hot tub at The Quay Hotel or top-floor sun-deck pools at Patio or Frangipani Fine Arts. That’s where the people you see napping in those hammocks would be if they were you.

GP: 3. Two-hour lunches

A: Leave it to overzealous expatriates to skimp on the important stuff. A two-hour lunch is wickedly unambitious. How could you possibly travel, eat and sleep in such a short amount of time? Three hours is de rigueur – 11am to 2pm – and allows for an unhurried pace, because work (pfffft!) places a distant ninth after family, friends, food, drink, fun, television, sleeping and root canals.

GP: 4. Cheapest massage ever

A: A massage should be many things – relaxing, rejuvenating or therapeutic, for instance – but cheap is not one of them. In fact, hunting for a ‘cheap’ massage is unlikely to lead anywhere that does not require bleaching first. Never take recommendations from know-it-all motodops, either, or you will likely find yourself bleaching before and after. For high quality yet affordable massage services, try Bodia Spa, which was voted Best Spa two years running by Advisor readers, or U&Me, which placed second in 2013.

GP: 5. So many holidays

A: Here’s one we can actually get down with. Cambodia not only has a crazy number of holidays, but also an official national policy which dictates that any vacation landing on a weekend must be reimbursed on the next available business day. Anyone who can afford it will often take an unofficial day or two off before and sometimes after the official holiday to stretch the absurdity even further. And why the hell not? The time off comes mandated by a seriously worker-friendly labour law (go figure, right?). Just don’t ask for a raise.

GP: 6. Monsoons that remind you nature is more powerful than people

A: Palm trees and sunshine every day? Nah, we moved here because of the rain… said no one, ever.

GP: 7. Free meditation at Wat Lanka

A: Score one for Emily and Global Post. Meditating with overweight, politically connected monks is seriously cool.

GP: 8. The best iced coffee you’ll ever drink comes in a plastic bag for 50 cents 

A: We tried to tell our best friend in San Francisco this just last week: “Dude,” we said, “you should really quit your job, sell your house and move to Cambodia. They have really, really good ice coffee here for 50 cents.” He called the embassy first – and begged them to save me from drugs (the embassy could care less, of course). Next he called my parents and suggested an intervention. Then, being Californian, he ranted down the phone line for 20 minutes about sweetened condensed milk, high sugar content and diabetes before launching into a tirade about the scourge of plastic bags.

GP: 9. Fresh coconut vendors

A: Moving to another country in order to save a couple bucks on coconuts strike us as a tad extreme…

GP: 10. Vann Molyvann’s architecture is still found all over town

A: While true in a technical sense, the current state of affairs offers little reason to rejoice. As Director for Urban Planning and Habitat during the 1950s and 1960s, Vann Molyvann worked on more than 100 projects in Phnom Penh, Kirirom, Sihanoukville and Kep. Much of what remains today is unrecognisable. The Grey Building, for example, which is now the Phnom Penh Centre, has been “rendered and renovated beyond recognition,” wrote Claire Knox in The Phnom Penh Post in January last year. Other Molyvann creations are badly neglected (The White Building), and several of his signature pieces – The Preah Sumarit National Theatre and State Palace, for two – have been razed. “I feel extremely sad … It’s a systeme totalitaire!” the iconic architect told the Post. “There is no hope left for my buildings. I believe most of them will go. I cannot elaborate any more: I am sick of it.”

GP: 11. There are spirit houses at every establishment

A: If you are a Cambodian Buddhist, spirit shrines are a part of your daily ritual. If there was ever any novelty value in them, it likely wore off at an early age. For the rest of the world, the shrines are likely to hold about as much significance as icons from other religions that you don’t practice. Which is to say: zero.

GP: 12. Cruising the Tonle Sap

A: Score another for Emily and Global Post. There are few better ways to watch the sun go down over Phnom Penh than sitting topside on a boat on the Tonle Sap. Somehow, it never gets old.

GP: 13. Beer is cheaper than water

A: Anyone paying more for water than beer should have his or her passport revoked. A litre of bottled water costs 25 cents. A litre of beer, even at the cheapest beer garden, costs twice that much. But that’s not the point, really. The point is: don’t drink cheap, shitty beer. Spend the extra buck or two and sip something that won’t give you diarrhoea. There’s good stuff around: Beck’s, Hoegaarden, Cooper’s Pale Ale, Sierra Nevada. Buying local? Cambodia was voted best beer by our readers last year, with Anchor a close second. Search around; that’s half the fun.

GP 14. Plants grow like crazy and they don’t need any help

A: Was 21 some kind of magic number? The result of a bet after too many beers? Why not make it 9 or 11 or 15 and cut the daft ones? It’s hard to imagine anything more spectacularly inconsequential to the decision-making process than the rate of leaf and stem growth. “Honey! Why don’t we move to Phnom Penh, in Cambodia. I hear you don’t have to water the plants there.” Seriously, WTF? Unless, of course, this was intended as a coded message to the 420 set…

GP 15: Amok is delicious

A: Granted, a good amok is divine. And never mind about the picture in the GP story, which is a vegetable curry or something. But Cambodian food is far more than fish amok. In fact, the subtlety of great Cambodian cuisine relies on the interplay of flavours between foods, betweens meats and sauces, soups and mains, spicy flavours and mild. Cambodians love to dine out, too, as evidenced by the capital’s 3,000-strong restaurant industry. Any serious accounting of capital dining could hardly overlook such a fact.

GP: 16. Every day is an adventure

A: If you are lucky, this one is true: every day is an adventure. That’s mostly because the Cambodian space-time continuum vibrates at a frequency slightly askew to the rest of the cosmos. Time bends. Facts are malleable. Noon can mean 2pm or 5pm. Today can mean next week. But such foreigner-conceived trifles rarely influence the Cambodian grid, which is mostly immune to the barang’s neurotic obsession for accuracy and precision. Cambodia will force you to let go of the unimportant things, or it will make you a raving, jabbering mess. Consider making the adjustment as something akin to spiritual growth.

GP: 17. DVDs for $1

A: For the cheapskate introvert, this is actually pretty awesome. For the rest of us, however, Phnom Penh offers real-life movie theatres that show overseas blockbusters and locally produced hits. In 3D. In conditioned air. With popcorn. If you are stocking up on $1 bootlegs, YOU SHOULD GET OUT MORE!

GP: 18. You can use US dollars

A: Unless you are an American, this reason is worse than useless. And even then, why would it matter, except to save the Yanks the mental trouble of considering exchange rates? Seriously, how rude!

GP: 19. Getting out of the city is just as awesome as staying in it

A: Actually, getting out of the city is 1,000 times more awesome than hanging around in the city. The magic of Cambodia lies in the countryside. The people are even more friendly (impossible as that may seem), the pace of life even slower. Visit a rural wat. Walk through a rice field. It’s far more invigorating than life in the city. Look up ‘bucolic’ in the dictionary and you’ll find a Cambodian village.

GP: 20. The nightlife will surprise you

A: Holy sweet Jesus, No. 20! (Again, who decided on 21 of these?) What could you possibly say about Phnom Penh’s 24-hour nightlife, the thriving clubs with international DJs, the burgeoning home-grown music scene, the boutique watering holes and world-class eateries that make the New York Times gush. How about this: “No matter what you prefer, a casual chat in a beer garden or a dance-your-pants-off evening with Khmer teenagers, there is something for you.” Yes! That will suck just nicely, thankyouverymuch, Global Post.

GP: 21. You can get big apartments for cheap

A: So you can. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, either, especially if you have a large family, or want lots of roommates, or just like to show up the poor people on your block. Second-hand Mercedes and Lexuses (Lexi?) are cheap, too. Nothing wrong with flauntin’ the bling if you got it, right?

Riders of the storm

In 1953, the sight of a young, leather-clad Marlon Brando astride a motorcycle in The Wild One sent most decent folk into a collective, self-righteous tailspin. The movie was immediately outlawed in the UK, where it stayed on the black list for the next 14 years. Too late: biker-gang leader Johnny Strabler’s soulful menace, that ultimate-for-the-time icon of restlessness and rebellion, had burned deep into the collective subconscious. And replicating that image on the streets swiftly became about something more than skin-deep. Legend has it that, in London during the 1960s, riders would select a song on a cafe’s jukebox then race off on their Triumphs, BSAs and Nortons, returning before the track finished. These greased-up rockers often clocked speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour – rare at the time, hence ‘ton-up club’ – by stripping all but the essentials from their machines, which were little more than a seat on wheels. With custom cafe racers now on Cambodia’s streets, The Advisor meets those magnificent men of Moto Cambodge and their riding machines to talk fast bikes and slow food.

How did you cafe racers find each other? 

Patrick Uong (Cambodia/US brand manager): Once upon a time I moved back to Cambodia from NY and was in search of a bike. Happened to be told about Paul Freer. The very next day I was walking down the street and saw Paul on what is now my bike. It’s an early ‘90s Yamaha SR400, all blacked out, nice and fierce. Really badass. I saw Paul on it and he has this white hair and wears spectacles and braces.

Justin Stewart (Australia, animator): My son calls him ‘That English chap’…

Patrick: He was wearing a white linen vest and spats! I contacted him, bought the bike and then met a lot of other guys who’d bought bikes from Paul. We realised there was this little contingent of us. The platform of the SR400 lends itself very easily to transformation.

Nick Chandler (New Zealand, marketing): The SR400 is like the foundation of motorcycles: it started as single-cylinder and hasn’t really changed since. Single-cylinder, big-bore, torque-out thumper, mid-size engine. You can make a tracker, you can make a racer; all the styles we’re into.

Patrick: I started riding about 14 years ago in San Francisco, old ‘80s plastic BMWs. They’re so easy to work on – none of this supercharged engine stuff, just pure animals of joy. You get to tinker with them, or someone else tinkers with it for you, and it’s not incredibly expensive.

Nick: It’s like a lawn mower! The SR really is that simple: it’s a carburettor, a fuel tank, an engine, a gearbox and a sprocket. Nothing fancy.

Patrick: And the kickstart. Don’t forget the kickstart! And the SR was modelled on the BSA – it’s a better version of the old English BSA.

Justin: There’s one newer bike in our fleet, but we prefer bikes from the ‘70s. I was massively into dirt bikes in Australia then came here and saw Paul’s bike. That was my transition into road bikes. I now have an SR400 Tracker; the CL450 ‘70s bike, stock, and the BMW K100 RS, which was just an opportunistic thing –it was really cheap and really ugly and I knew we could chop it up!

Patrick: Paul has this really distinct style; he gravitates towards these old, oily machines. Paul is a British riding gentleman. He would wear wool knickers right now if he could! When I built my bike, I hadn’t seen a single cafe racer in Phnom Penh. Ever since I started riding, I’d always wanted one.

Nick: Yours is probably one of the most distinctive SRs I’ve ever seen, Patrick. It doesn’t look like anything else. You know what people say about their pets? If you were a motorbike, you’d be your bike.

Patrick: I put a lot of sweat into it!

Nick: I come from a motocross background, so I always put straight motocross bars and knobbly tyres on my bikes. I do like cafe racers as well, though: stripped back, clip-on bars for speed, rear sets so you can lie down on the tank. It started in the UK. Guys were coming back from the war with their stipend from the army. ‘What am I going to do now? I’ll buy a bike!’ That’s how the Hell’s Angels got started in the US. In Britain, mods and rockers would race from cafe to cafe, trying to hit 100 miles per hour. The easiest way to make a bike faster is to strip weight off and that’s coming back now; the number of people talking about cafe racers is growing fast. There’s something about that simplicity that people are going back to. And being on a motorbike is the ultimate freedom.

Have you ever read Zen & The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance?

Everyone: Yes!

There’s something rather special about messing about with bikes. When it comes to customising a machine, is it a psychological exercise as much as a physical exercise?

Nick: Look around the table – we’re all dressed a certain way that’s representative of ourselves and that’s perhaps a conscious decision, but with a motorbike it’s almost like looking in a mirror without knowing that’s what you’re doing. Like I said, if Patrick was a motorbike, he’d be HIS bike. I like dirt bikes and they originated from Steve McQueen and co grabbing their Triumphs, taking them off road and racing them.

Patrick: Steve McQueen for us is an icon.

That famous scene in The Great Escape, when McQueen’s character, Hilts, jumps a border fence on a Triumph TT Special 650, was added by the director especially for McQueen, a known speed-freak and petrolhead. 

Nick: Have you seen the 1971 documentary On Any Sunday? McQueen was an absolute nut job. All he wanted to do was ride bikes. It’s an expression of self: with a motorcycle, it’s you and only you. It’s a selfish purchase. If you buy a car, you have to put up with other people. You establish a relationship with a motorbike.

Justin: Motorcycling, for me, is surfing when I can’t surf.

Being a fighter pilot when you can’t be a fighter pilot. 

Patrick: Surf culture, skate culture, motorcycle culture: they go hand in hand.

Nick: You sit down with a mate and talk about what you want to do with the bike, plan a road trip…

Patrick: That’s motorcycling: it’s you, your mates, your machine, the journey.

Nick: A lifestyle! People accept each other simply because they both ride motorbikes.

Patrick: We were talking earlier about what makes a cafe racer. It’s usually the lines: the shape, the form. It’s very straight, horizontal; cut like a bullet.

Calls to mind New Zealander Burt Munro, played by Sir Anthony Hopkins in The World’s Fastest Indian, who set the land-speed world record in 1967 on a bike he built by hand in his garden shed. 

Nick: Exactly! And that’s the point of motorcycling: anyone can do it. They’re cheap to buy, cheap to own and simple to work on – if you want them to be [Laughs]. I can’t remember the last time I went on holiday with someone else. I usually just fly to Colombia, Sri Lanka, anywhere, rent a bike and spend 14 days riding around. It’s a visceral experience; you’re exposed to everything around you, so you get to experience your environment. That’s what Moto Cambodge is about: we get together, talk about what we’re going to do to our bikes, do it, then go out and ride them. And we can do it right here, in Cambodia: create something world class in a town where the power still goes off once a day.

Tim Bruyns (South Africa, chef): For me, it’s the same as these guys and their bikes: taking all these influences and bringing them to Cambodia, using them, and putting their experiences and how they feel about bikes into a Cambodian context. At Common Tiger, just about everything is sourced from local markets, but our food isn’t ‘Cambodian’, it takes everything that I am and I’ve experienced and puts it altogether on a plate. We had one prawn dish with handmade cannelloni: it had red curry, which is Thai; it had a confit garlic and lemongrass espuma, which is modernist. So there are all of these influences, but at its core it’s a product of passion and its environment. It’s like working on a motorbike, you miss out on other things; it becomes so much a part of who you are. Working with food, it’s the same and we also tend to gravitate towards like-minded people. Between the two disciplines, there are many similarities and that’s why we’re all here, which is good!

Patrick: Tim cooks from his heart and that’s how we feel about our bikes. We’re all super-passionate about what we do and we hope that other people catch on too. When Tim comes to the table and talks about the food he’s prepared, in his voice you can hear how passionate he is about what he’s created for you – ‘This is what I made for you!’ – but being very humble about it. I would like to portray Moto Cambodge as humble, too. We’re not hot shots, we’re guys who like to ride bikes and talk about bikes and tinker with bikes and go find bits and then build and construct and fabricate, you know? It’s about substance and aesthetic, the same way a chef composes his plates. Think about how much he has thought about that. That’s what we also bring to custom bikes: we really, really think about what it’s going to look like; we envision everything. It takes months to build one – and so much planning.

Tim: That’s why taking old bikes and bringing them into the context of who you are and where you are is so awesome. When you start as a chef, you earn $200 a month for six to seven years because you’re learning about what’s gone before and learning that gives you the tools to go forward. I’m always looking through 19th century recipes; early 20th century recipes, everything, because it was awesome then and it can be awesome now, but I’m going to take it and put it into the context of Cambodia.

Nick: And make it accessible, which is what you’re both good at.

Tim: People have this idea of what fine dining is, but Common Tiger isn’t excessive; it’s nothing over the top. Chill out in a comfortable chair. Our most expensive dish is $14; we haven’t even got tablecloths! [Laughs] Food should be about sitting around and being in a position to talk about bikes, to talk about whatever and enjoy it.

Patrick: Food, like bikes, is about bringing people together.

Tim: And with these guys doing what they do, why not just put the two together and do something different and fun, put some love into it?

WHO: Cafe racers
WHAT: Fast bikes & slow food
WHERE: Common Tiger, #20 Street 294
WHEN: 6pm May 9 – 10pm May 11
WHY: “On my tombstone they will carve: ‘IT NEVER GOT FAST ENOUGH FOR ME.’” – Hunter S Thompson

 

Drinks at 11

The higher the altitude, the better the wine tastes. It’s something about the breeze, maybe, or the penthouse vibe that comes with relaxing high on a rooftop terrace. Kolab Sor Sky Bar (at the hotel of the same name) sits atop the 11th floor, a wood-and-clay-tile sky garden overlooking the capital’s rapidly changing skyline. A mix of potted plants, small trees and shrubbery stamps a friendly, backyard character on the space. To the east you can just see the Tonle Sap river. A full menu is available from the restaurant downstairs. And the bartender remembers your name.

Kolab Sor Sky Bar, #436 Street 310.