Rue Pasteur

Lately, my favorite thing to do is to walk up the street next to our hotel, Street 51, or Rue Pasteur. I often walk to its far end at Wat Phnom, which is about two miles each way (I think...). All along the street are tiny businesses, including a tailor, which is just really a lady with a sewing machine, a barber, who is a man with a mirror, scissors, and a chair, and a sign maker, which is a man with spray paint and stencils. I only recently discovered that the sign maker also does license plates, but I'm not sure how official those are... Mixed in are little food hawkers, and after lunch, they wash up all of the dirty dishes in wide, shallow tubs. Once they're done with the dishes, they wash up the little babies. So, there are always wet, naked little babies waving at me as I walk along the Rue Pasteur. There are other types of businesses on the rue, as well -- nightclubs for foreigners with names like "Elsewhere," "Heart of Darkness," and "Cathouse" and internet cafes, like the one I just took refuge in during an afternoon deluge.

One section is what I like to call "kebob street" because both sides of the street are populated with small restaurants, holding about ten patrons each, that sell grilled meats on sticks. Last week, I decided to grab lunch at one of these kebab places. Sometimes, this sort of venture can be impossible since my Khmer food vocabulary is limited to lime, chili, and water. Fortunately, there was a woman who begrudgingly spoke English to me. I opted for the beef-looking kebabs, rather than the obviously organ meat ones or the ground meat ones. When I asked for some rice instead of the baguette that normally comes with the kebabs, I was told I'd have to go next door. Then, I noticed that all of the other patrons were eating some sort of rice soup. So, I asked for a bowl of that. It turned out to be the most delicious curry chicken soup. It seems to be just rice cooked in chicken broth with fried garlic, minced herbs, bean sprouts, mushrooms, roasted chicken, and some pig's blood. It's served with limes, which fortunately, I love, just like the Khmer people do, so one can make it as sour as you want. Save the pig's blood, it was incredibly tasty. The kebabs weren't half bad, either. With a coke (bottled, and containing only pure cane sugar -- no corn syrup here), the whole meal cost 4,000 riel, or just one dollar!

I'm headed to Ho Chi Min City next weekend and am almost out of passport pages, so I had to make a trip to the US Embassy this afternoon. Fortunately, I'd just been there yesterday, Sunday, for their Independence Day celebration, making me familiar with its location, just off Street 51! I embarked on my favorite walk, happening by the two large public schools on the street just as classes let out. Everywhere was the sound of squeals and giggles. When I finally made it to the US Embassy, I discovered that they have the best air conditioning in all of Cambodia. It's a Siemens system, and it's magnificent! I could have stayed in that air conditioning all day, and it seemed for some time that the State Department was conspiring for that very thing to happen. It took forty minutes to add pages to my passport, which I assume took about ten minutes of actual work. This was one case in which the US Postal Service would have been more efficient (I guess that will give me a new attitude about those lines around Christmastime...).

And still the rain continues, and I'm trapped in this internet cafe with Khmer talk shows blaring in the background. When, all I really want to be doing is making my way back down Rue Pasteur to get some of that delectable curry chicken soup!