The morning started out with a final visit to the hotel for a send-off of our clients. We enjoyed breakfast at Soup Dragon and then followed that with some time at Common Grounds for internet time.
I finally called my mom to let her know I arrived safely. I know, bad daughter. But, she comes to expect this from me. I take a long time to call home. Really I just didn’t have internet access at a decent time for her.
When we arrived at the café, I was stunned at the news on CNN saying that Michael Jackson had died. What a loss! But I never really was all that fond of his music. I can remember when Thriller was out, I was in sixth grade and intentionally chose Lionel Ritchie as my favorite singer just to be opposite of everyone else. I still prefer Lionel over Michael.
Lunch was Beef Lok Lak. I prefer to cook it myself, but this was tasty enough. Making it is very simple. All you need is some beef that you slice into bite-sized pieces, steamed rice, freshly sliced cucumber, tomato and onion with some lettuce leaves, and finally a sauce made of freshly ground pepper, salt and lime juice squeezed over at the last minute.
If you want to know how to prepare Lok Lak, go to Kitchen Surprises.
We stayed at the café until mid-afternoon. We left to go get my massage that Da had promised me. He gets a really good price ($2/hour). I must say, however, that every massage that I have had in Cambodia is different. No two are alike.
The massage began with a foot wash. Then I traded my sandals for some plastic flip-flops and head upstairs to a room with three mats on the floor. I was instructed to change, which meant to take off my clothes and put on the T-shirt and pants provided. However, the pajama pants were a size Asian too small so there was no way I was getting into those. The T-shirt might have fitted, but I just took off my clothes and laid under the blanket.
When the girl returned (without knocking I might add), and she saw me lying there, she indicated that putting my shirt back on was ok, then she quickly decided, “No change.” This meant I had to put all my clothes back on. So silly.
On to the massage. . . I have never been so manhandled in my life. I swear she had Superman thumbs. I think that she felt she had to squeeze and kneed extra hard because I was so much bigger than what she is used to. It was not relaxing in the least. I could have sworn I was going to wake up the next day with bruises all over my arms and legs.
She massaged some of the strangest places. I think she rather enjoyed kneeding my backside and inner thighs, with all the extra squishiness. She was a pincher, too. My arms were squeezed and pinched. Everything always ended with a pummeling by her hands. Bang, bang, bang. Bonk, bonk, bonk.
If you like it a little rough (all you S & M types), I highly recommend a Cambodian massage.
Nothing else happened that evening. Da left early to go back home and I stayed in the hot room reading my book (Fall on Your Knees). Another day ended.
It happens that today I am shipping my copy of Fall On Your Knees to Poland. I'm a member of Bookmooch and I listed it there. It was a pretty good book but grim. Not anything I'd feel a need to hold onto though. I'm trying to reduce my piles of books so I joined Bookmooch. It isn't bad although the pickings are somewhat lean unless you like fairly mainstream bestsellers.
ReplyDeleteSarala (from Swap-Bot)