Wonder ??

Sometimes I wonder why I keep coming back! With the millions of insects, mosquitoes, dust, no air-cond, no washing machine, no water heater (not that we need it). Worst of all, I have been tortured with this loud music since 5 am in the morning, without stopping for breakfast, tea, lunch or dinner for the past two days! HELP ME PLEASE !!! For those Malaysian who complain about the 5 times a day’s prayers should come and live here, and all this blasting is not for prayers, it is for a funeral. Cannot imagine if this is a wedding month.

Yes, your guess is right, I am in Battambang, Cambodia now. As you know, I booked my air ticket in January but decided not to come because of the above reasons. Then Prema moved back to KL for good…. ..it lasted 5 weeks. Could not stand the life in KL and decided to come back here. What can I say ? Her personal cleaner, cook and maid had to come along to help her settle in again. (I wish the air fare to Perth is as cheap as coming here too)

Life is full of surprises and we realized the wisdom later. Just before the plane landed in Phnon Phen, Prema whispered to me that the guy who sat next to me is very interested in me, it seem he has been staring at me for a long time. Like I believe her la ,it must be my new hair style. (Oh ya, I forgot to mention, I cut my hair very, very short… like shouting to everyone, PLEASE LOOOOOK AT ME!)

To cut the long story short, the minute he got my attention, he asked if I know someone in Phnon Phen by the name of Peter who is a Bahá'í! I don’t know how he associated Prema and me as Bahá'ís but BINGO! Raymond Peter is an old friend of mine. So Stanley (I know my daughters are going to scream MOTHER! Why are you talking to strangers?!), and his wife Ai Peng stayed in the same hotel with us and we had dinner with Raymond Peter that night. And then, Ai Peng gave me a good massage… one the best I’ve ever had. It seems Stanley has been doing this business for the last 20 years but Peng just mastered the art for the last four years.

Prema has been complaining about her backache for the last two days, her health has not been good lately and the six hour bus ride aggravated it and this morning it became so bad. But no worry, an SMS came from Stanley and Peng, they arrived in Battambang at 5pm today.. that’s why I said in the beginning, lots of things happen with a reason. Of course we invited them for dinner and in return they gave both of us an hour of massage. Prema’s pain was gone immediately, not much of a different for me since I am the healthy one.

Let’s see what else happened. I brought them to the CORDE’s Centre of Learning in the village. They were impressed with the development work being done. It was an evening class and there were 6 classes going on at the same time and everybody was engrossed in their study. All the teachers are volunteers and they are trained by CORDE. If only you can see all these classes, then you can appreciate what Prema and the rest of the friends here have done and Fay, you will never force Prema to go back to Malaysia again.

I love Battambang in spite of all the above. That’s also because it’s much, much safer on the streets, the market is a walking distance, I can just sit around the coffee shop and observe passerby’s and have real fruit shakes for less than RM2.00, I feel healthier because there isn’t any junk food, no durian, no cheesecakes, no mamak…only home-cooked healthy food…by me, and me alone. And best of all, I don’t have to worry about telephone bills, electricity bills, etc, etc…in Malaysia, for now.

I am oily, I am sticky and it is getting late. Goodnight.

p/s the above blog was written at home on the 5th and it is 9th today.. By the way, I am going back on the 11th.