happy christmas

From Christmas in Cambodia

Merry Christmas, everyone. Well, it's no longer Christmas here (as of an hour) but the sentiment counts. I thought my first ex-pat Christmas might be a morose experience but it certainly wasn't. Maybe I was supposed to go drink alone and have dark and sad thoughts about the direction of my life and the movements of the planets and what my family was doing (being asleep, mostly) but I couldn't summon up the energy for ennui. I had a good time despite myself.

From Christmas in Cambodia

Christmas Eve involved: six different bars, an expansive and meat centered buffet, the Cambodian Space Project, and an inordinate amount of passion fruit cocktails mixed with vodka. It ended with 3 AM swimming in the pool at Elsewhere with a bunch of Australians. I had a 5000 calorie bolster and thus was totally incapable of getting drunk. This actually got a bit expensive.

From Christmas in Cambodia

There may have been a lady-boy involved. (Hooker bars are incredibly festive around the holiday-time. Everyone's dressed up in red and white and dancing to WHAM which they love around here and all the sexpats are in a real good mood themselves. Just fascinating). One of the ladies had an enormous Viking helmet on but the photo didn't come out. I'm sad, too.