Life in Cambodia

HperMart and Dinner with Friends

Since my Cambodian Visa was still an issue and two times prior going through the Vietnamese border didn’t fix this problem, I thought I would try again today, right? 3rd time’s a charm?—I was hoping my luck would lead me since I was holding a coveted ‘blue letter’ from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs…if this didn’t work, nothin’ would. I breezed through to Vietnam, had the requisite iced coffee, 15 minute stay over and made my way back through to Cambodia to give it all a shot at the border again. Ahhh, but first, what was this curious huge blue building called the “HyperMart Duty Free” partially hidden by the new Vietnamese immigration office? Hmmm, I could only imagine, so of course I needed to check it out. Well, it turns out I’ve got a Costco less than 45Km away from me. Truly, they had Kirkland brand stuff, Target brand clothes—actually the exact black pants I bought for work a few months ago, sure enough, right there, my size even…for a 3rd of the price. Strange. All of the junk food comforts of home in super size (!) just like Costco: Doritos, Corona bottles in a case, Motts Apple Juice, Zest soap…it was too much, I almost felt like I was at home, except I was surrounded by Vietnamese people and the only one staring longingly at the Doritos. Don’t forget all of the standard duty free items that were also stockpiled: liquor, cigarettes, chocolate. The place even had microwaves, toaster ovens, blenders etc and a huge restaurant, but no hotdogs or pizza, it’s standard Vietnamese fare only; fine with me. Anyway, was just a really weird thing to discover in this corner of the world where everything seems so foreign, except now the border has Target clothes and Kirkland brand products--it’s like I wanted to run in the other direction because it just didn’t fit into the picture. So I figured, I knew this scenario in another world, why not blow a little Vietnamese Dong here and get some TP, other paper products and some requisite junk food: I crumbled for the small bag of Doritos, which tasted the same. Didn’t need ‘em. Although my friend who brought me to the border on his motorcycle was so impressed (nothing quite like it in Cambodia, especially to find it around Svay Rieng) he asked me to take his picture in front of the place. Yes, important and prestigious.

How could I top that for a Sunday you might ask? Well, I got to eat some darn good Khmer food at the moto friend’s fiancée’s parent’s house (got that?) that evening. She cooked up some really good food and interesting too—remember the frogs? Well, they were here tonight and cooked up on the grill. Aside from the odd presentation: completely flattened, but otherwise in-tact (resembling the just-run-over-by-a-car squashed variety) I felt a bit bad gnawing at its legs to get some meat. But it was darn good meat—as they all say: a little bit like chicken… but just enough, not too much. Of course, Pork was the other white meat on the menu, which was good but it was hard to stomach some of the innards this time for some reason. I won’t go into details as some of you may have weaker stomachs than others, but let’s say there was nothing left to the imagination or of the poor pig, inside and out. I ate a lot but went light on the innards and the silhouette of the poor frog on the road soon passed as I continued to enjoy the smoked sweetness of the full frog, yes indeed. Good food, lots of rice, as is the standard. Since my two friends are getting married and having their engagement party on Saturday, this was one last time for their parents to get together to plan for Saturday, so a special time to celebrate and eat like there’s not tomorrow...

posted by Life in Cambodia @ 6:33 PM