Battambang Days

April 10 - Day 65

Its not easy starting up a business in Battambang but nothing ventured.....

First step is to clean up the premises

And now to strut our stuff...

Time will tell.

Meanwhile we are trying to book a bicycle tour in Vietnam – nothing fancy – a few days a few bikes and a local guide.  We hear bicycles are much used in Vietnam. We are happy to sleep in homestays and anticipate colour, culture and spectacular geography.

So much used in fact that there is an infinity of reviewed operators out there offering itineraries. And an equal number of warnings about disappointments and scams. We get up early, whilst Taran sleeps on, to trawl the net.  It is endless.  No sooner than we settle on a plan we discard in favour of some other.  Vietnam is a big country. Possibilities multiply. The Internet; an endless beach of possible picnic spots.

Three hours later we have failed to find a place to put down our figurative towel.  It is too hot and trying to carry on. We have lost all enthusiasm and ability to decide. Deflated and overcome with abstruse data we agree to postpone again the search.  It is taking an awful long time.  Perhaps as long as the trip itself if we are not careful.

Closer to home Jo has planned a tour of Battambang galleries tied together with a theme of networking for the schools.  Taran and I are going to the market for supplies.  We are entertaining tonight.  It is so hot (bloody 40C again) that everything seems to happen through a haze slightly apart from me.  And slowly. 

Taran is disappointed with my bargaining skills and just with the merest hint of disputation gets 10p off the lady with the mushrooms.  I am content considering the temperature to go with the flow and in the process am undoubtedly taken for a ride.  But the whole vegetable bill is only $6.  Taran and I discuss market economics whilst sweating along the concrete road to the supermarket.  In the heat my head down I miss the greeting from a teacher from the school.  Taran spots her and we stop to say hello.  Somailly has been buying medicine for her tooth ache and seems cheerier than yesterday when her swollen jaw and pale face were clenched in quiet suffering.  It is very nice to see her.

We walk on through the heat shimmer and we are suddenly looking at Taran’s football. When we left the restaurant the night before, Taran who is frequently carrying this very green football started up a game of catch with a street child - a tiny and very dirty boy  but probably Taran’s own age.  As we got in to our friend’s car Taran paused and getting out again presented the ball to the boy.  The boy was stunned.  Did not know quite what was happening but we left him with the ball.  It was clearly Taran’s gift.  We mulled in the car whether the boy would have preferred money (his quick thinking friend had immediately asked) or would he value the ball or even be able to keep it.  Who knew but we imagined perhaps in years to come we might see a now famous Cambodian Footballer, playing perhaps in the Premier League interviewed on TV.  “Well it started when I was a street kid in Battambang.  I was given a football….”

Anyway here it is again, in front of us on the pavement, on the other side of town.  And 10 feet way there is the boy, fast asleep on a bench in the shade.  We leave him to it.  But it was nice to see him.

We are making connections here in Battambang but it takes a while.

And so does cooking supper in the heat in a power cut.  It is completely dark on our terrace and we must handle hot pans and ants in a juggle to get a meal prepared in our primitive kitchen.  We use head torches and like two pot-holers camping underground we chop tomatoes and when the water pressure goes ferry fresh supplies.  A thunderstorm starts and we borrow candles from downstairs. And work through the drips from the leaking roof.  But we have the ingredients, fire and utensils and when the power finally comes on and Juan and Hannah arrive an hour late it is nice to see them too.