Relaxing at the House

Some evenings, Friday in particular, we may relax outside our house with a beer or two this is especially good if it is thundering and lightening as we are sheltered but have a good view of the night sky. That sort of rainy, stormy weather is very common at this time of the year.

There are 2 dogs living at the landlady’s house and these have taken a liking to Chris and sit with him at every opportunity, the problem is they have fleas and probably worms so we don’t touch them or let them in our rooms. Cambodians, I think it is fair to say, do not have animals as pets, if they have any livestock it is for a purpose. These dogs are guard dogs not because they are ferocious but as they bark, and bark they do frequently throughout the night outside our door as they sleep against the door for some reason.

They chew everything left lying around and one night pulled the door mat under the door and chewed it to bits. Another morning we went out and there was a dead rat on the tiled area- a present for Chris? It was moving but only because about a thousand ants had taken ownership and decided to transport it elsewhere!

When we approach the house the gate is locked and we need to put our hand through the bars with the key and undo the padlock. The trick is to do this without the dogs seeing you as they come rushing to the gate and start licking your hands and arms through the bars- yuck! When we both come back together say in an evening Chris has to put his arms through the gate, Angela can’t bear the thought of the licking, but to be fair she does try to distract the dogs away from my arms but as they love me so much they are not to be distracted.

Oh, we drink the beer with many ice cubes as it is so hot the drink never stays cool for long and it helps to balance the fluid intake.

For drinking water in the house we buy a 20 litre barrel from a small shop up the road from us we transport it back on the bike one of us pushing the bike and the other holding the bottle. This 20 litres costs 4000Riel approx $1 dollar or 60 odd pence; you may get a 300ml bottle for that in the UK.

20 litres will last us 4/5 days and is used for everything that goes in our mouths the tap water is definitely not suitable for us to drink.

PS Since we wrote this a week or two ago we are now down to one dog. The smaller one went for a ride in the Landlords car and it seems he had a one way ticket never to return. I think nipping the backs of people’s legs as they walked along was not acceptable – I wonder where he is?