Kampuchea Crossings

Bump to baby on the beaten expat track

Phnom Penh

My favorite iced coffee in Phnom Penh

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I’ve tweeted this iced coffee before, and I still love it today. It’s dark, strong and rich, perfect for a Monday morning start to the week after a tiring weekend with a sick little 11 month old :-(

She’s one of the vendors outside on the street, just outside a small food shop, on St 67 south of Russian Blvd / St 110 / Preah Angduong. This area, especially on St 114 / Kramuonsar between St 67 and St 51, is densely packed with food shops serving a gamut of Khmer and Vietnamese foods. Psar Thmei (New Market) is a block away, where buses leave for destinations all over the Kingdom, so it caters to the masses of travelers passing through. See a map of Phnom Penh here.

2000 Riel for a bag of iced coffee

The coffee grounds are steeped in boiling water using a muslin bag shaped like a filter. Because the coffee is strong, the grounds in the bag can be re-used. Photos above are courtesy of Doualy Xaykaothao.

… and ok, it’s one of my two favorite iced coffee vendors in Phnom Penh. Below is my other favorite place to get an iced coffee, Rising Sun Pub, on St 178 between Sisowath Quay and Sothearos. They use the Vietnamese cold-brew method using a mini drip brewer, pouring the water through the grounds about three times to get that nice strong flavor. mmmm…!

6000 Riel for a glass of iced coffee

Christmas in the Penh

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I love Christmas! But Cambodia is not a Christian country, so it’s up to the expat community to organize our own holiday affairs. Some events, like the ones below, have grown over the years and are a fun family outing. The best part of this year is that we have a baby boy to celebrate the holidays with :-)

This Apsara pic makes the annual email rounds.

WIG Christmas Fair 2011
Location: Hotel Intercontinental
Time: Sunday, 27 Nov 2011 10:00am – 5:00pm
Cost: Admission is $3, children under 12 free. Proceeds go to projects that support vulnerable women and children in Cambodia.

Christmas Village 2011  
Location: Le Duo Restaurant #17 St 228, between St 51 and 57
Time: Friday – Sunday Dec 2-4 10am-10pm

Christmas Craft Celebration 2011  
Location: Nam Trea wedding hall, #167, St 163 in Toul Tum Pung
Time: Sat Dec 3 10am-4pm

Christmas Carols by Bella Voce 2011
Location: The Intercontinental Hotel Ballroom
(296 Mao Tse Toung Blvd +855-23-424888)
Time: Saturday, December 3, 6pm
Cost: Individual $5, Family $15. Tickets will be sold at Jars of Clay coffee shop, #39 St 155 (near Russian market) Toul Tom Poung and at Jacob’s Well Restaurant, Crn of St 111 and 242 ( near Monivong and Sihanouk Boulevard)

Christmas Street Fair 2011
Location: St 240 between Norodom Blvd and St 19
Time: Fri-Sat Dec 9-10 5-10pm

Christmas Caroling 2011  
Location: Gasolina 56- 58, St 57 in BKK 1
Time: Fri Dec 16 6:30pm

And then there are the cafes that offer your traditional desserts for order – from gingerbread cookies to fruit cakes; pannetone; pumpkin, apple and pecan pies. Check at The Shop, Java Cafe, Jars of Clay, and Le Duo.

Happy holidays!

Living in Phnom Penh, Having a baby in Bangkok

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Photo by Keith A Kelly

CHOOSING THE HOSPITAL

We work and live in Phnom Penh, and wouldn’t feel comfortable with the specialists / facilities here in case of complications during delivery. The nearest city with internationally accredited care is Bangkok, so there we went at 35 weeks 6 days gestation, the latest we’re allowed to board a Thai Airways flight (with a fit-to-fly certificate from the doc).

Most of Bangkok’s well-known private facilities have high quality patient-oriented care and great customer service. They have translators, can take care of extending  visas, take the baby’s passport photo (this isn’t easy so do get this done at the hospital!), get the birth certificate officially translated and documented at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and liaise on documentations necessary to register the birth at your particular embassy etc. Many people go to Bumrungrad Hospital; read this post and follow the link to her birth story at Bumrungrad here. This hospital is located in the neighborhood of Sukhumvit where many Arab nationals live, so the third spoken language is Arabic.

The delivery packages she quoted for Bumrungrad are comparable to those at Samitivej:

  • Natural birth/Water birth (3 days admission) 55,000Baht / US$1800 on exchange rate 30Baht=US$1
  • Natural birth with Epidural (3days admission) 68,000 Baht / US$2267
  • C-section (4days admission) 78,000Baht / US$2600

So I’d heard there is a ~90% c-section rate in private hospitals in Bangkok..? At any rate it’s high, but that’s due to a lot of other factors (including the Asian quest for luck, leading parents to schedule c-sections on the most propitious time and date for birth). [Read more…] about Living in Phnom Penh, Having a baby in Bangkok

Turning the consultancy leaf

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Yii-chaa (ladymonks) at the Pagoda

I just concluded my employment with the GTZ Health Programme, who I’ve been with since 2006, on a team collaborating with the Ministry of Health and partners on social health protection strategy and policies for Cambodia. Concurrent with health financing initiatives, the programme is active in developing quality accreditation processes at the provincial, district and facility levels. I was responsible for monitoring, evaluation and reporting, the Safe Motherhood programme and patient rights advocacy.

Vastly challenging and rewarding though working on this programme was, after much thought about my role on the team, I finally came to the conclusion that it was too limited on the community mobilisation side, a personal interest that is simply outside the mandate of the programme. I opted to cut the salary ties and go the independent consultancy route. I found myself in a second-guessing cold sweat for several weeks after that decision, but in the end there is no other option.

The disconnect between policy/programme priorities and the goals of the community was not being addressed, and vertical programming is inadequate to address the social issues among the population. Amid the rapid changes in Cambodia’s health care system, it’s a crucial time to build upon the grassroots infrastructure. So I’m currently exploring options for lifestyle messaging trainings. In this I’m referencing primarily safe motherhood/delivery messages considering the high maternal and infant mortality rates (MMR and IMR) in Cambodia (two of our millennium development goals). Having worked on health financing initiatives and in light of Cambodia’s social health protection strategy, in addition to the personal financial planning gaps highlighted by the global economic downturn, I’m also investigating financial literacy as a component of such public health messages.

Another project I’m involved with is developing a Centre for Exchange in Phnom Penh and Vientiane. Back in college, friends and I set up an Asian American organisation under the leadership of a smart businesswoman I greatly admire, Latsamy. Today it is still very active in advocacy and networking. There was a lot of great input from members, and mentorship from a Pakistani activist, Asma Barlas. We’re aiming to set up a platform for Khmer-, Hmong- and Lao-American students to network with fellow students in Cambodia and Laos to promote, advocate and develop sustainable solutions to issues in these two countries.

I’m still concepting the programming strategy for both and bouncing ideas around with fellow consultants and startups. I’ll keep you posted :-)

Guinness surger unit hits Phnom Penh on St Patrick’s Day

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This year’s Guinness quest took us to Pacharan for happy hour. Celebrating St Patrick’s Day at a spanish tapas bar might sound a bit odd, but they were temporarily hosting the Guinness Surger Unit. This nifty contraption uses ultrasonic pulses to stimulate the molecules and release the nitrogen, transforming your sad can of Guinness into a cream-brimmed glass of velvet, just like a draught pour. Funky eh? The unit isn’t expensive; I’m amazed these Irish bars around town haven’t caught on to it as it’s been around nearly 4(?) years. And for $3.50 a pint, it sure beats the other bars selling the widget cans for $6.50!

Great piece from Good, on getting to know your Éire-inspired words, from Irish apricots to Irish wolfhounds: Get Your Irish Up!

Like it or not, part of Irish history involves a metric ton of colloquial terms that have the word “Irish” as a describer. While you’re hoisting a Guinness or chasing a leprechaun, take a minute to appreciate this small but vibrant subset of the huger linguistic impact of the Irish. As a substantially Irish person myself, I can appreciate that not all these terms are flattering, but they’re an undeniable fossil record of how people have perceived the Irish, and the prejudice they’ve faced. Dictionaries—accurate ones, anyway—have never been a safe haven for the squeamish; they record the sins, errors, prejudices, and foibles of humanity in all their ugly glory.

late night soup messenger clak-clak-claking down the street

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So Keith and I were the other night having a few drinks at Rising Sun by the river when the Soup Messenger came by. Here’s what it sounded like:
[audio:https://www.abejero.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Sound-clip-clak-clak1.mp3|titles=Sound clip clak clak|righticon=0x0000ff]

It’s a relic of the olden days, when food carts roamed the city streets and a little boy was sent ahead to let people know the food is coming. The kid taps a stick against a piece of bamboo, the sound of which the dead of night really carries– especially back when houses were mostly wooden. (The concrete shophouses along the river also bounce a healthy bit of noise). The sequence and rhythm of the clak-clak-clak is code for what kind of food they sold – bohboh (rice soup), nom ban chok (white noodle soup), etc. If you want some, the kid will run back to the cart and bring a bowl of soup to you. The cart pusher will wait until you finish eating (cuz s/he wants his bowl and chopsticks back), and the boy will go on ahead looking for more customers.

When we heard the familiar clak-clak-claks, Keith chased the kid down for a photo (we’ve been trying to catch a picture of him for months!). But it just doesn’t really do it justice. So when the kid came back around to go into the opposite direction I chased after him for a sound clip. It was dark and hardly a soul was out on the streets, so he was probably thinking how loony foreigners are.

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