Oktoberfrat

Last weekend I went to an Oktoberfest celebration at the Cambodiana, one of the more luxurious riverfront hotels here. It sounded like fun, a departure from the normal nightlife scene and an opportunity to consume some animal parts. As much as I love the food here I do miss sinking my teeth into a big ol' hunk of cow or pig. I knew there would be German sausages aplenty.

I think every German and Austrian expat was there, as well as most of the older foreign crowd. Translation: Lots of sloppy, old men with bewildered looking young Khmer girls in tow. There are plenty of expat bars here, but you're always aware that you're in a foreign country and different rules apply. I think because there was such a large group of foreigners together in a European-themed setting it meant whatever inhibitions people might normally have were left at the door. It was like 25-year reunion frat party.

The buffet spread was indeed impressive. I figured I would go for a while, mingle, drink my two free beers, eat until I exploded and escape before people started dancing on the tables. No such luck. People were dancing on the tables at 8:30!



I apologize for the poor photo quality. I didn't think to take my camera so I had to use my phone.

One thing I do miss from home is a choice when it comes to beer. There's plenty of beer here but it's mostly standard pale lagers, comparable to Budweiser or Miller Lite. I couldn't bear to watch all the fat, drunken foreigners stumbling into each other, or listen to the ear-splitting music, but at least I could enjoy some good German beer, right?

Here is the beer list, in its entirety:

1) Tiger

Tiger was one of the sponsors. The $18 ticket entitled me to two free drafts. I drink Tiger all the time. It's a perfectly decent beer. Shouldn't there be some real beer at a German Oktoberfest party, though? No hefeweizen, no pils, no doppelbock... sigh.

There was a (cough) German band. Luckily they had a captive audience hellbent on getting trashed and making fools of themselves. The band was bad in a way I've never seen a band be bad before. I think there were a few German songs in there, but it was mostly the same crappy songs you'd hear at a wedding, but set to a "German beat". For those of you with a musical background, this means every song was played to thumping quarter notes on the bass drum. It was historically awful. I knew it was time to go when they broke out the Chicken Dance at 8 pm.

Cambodian cuisine

One question people from home ask me is what do I do for food. Do I cook? Do I eat local food or western food? And so on. I have a small kitchen in my apartment with a single gas burner, but I only use it to heat water for noodles or coffee. Food here is so cheap and so good that it doesn't make sense for me to cook. Back home it's far cheaper to eat at home than go out. Here it's the opposite!

Even at the tourist restaurants on the riverfront it's possible to have a meal and a cocktail for $5 or so. Get away from the tourist areas and go to one of the little sidewalk restaurants and you can eat well for less than a dollar.

People think I'm exaggerating to make a point but I can get an honest-to-goodness meal for less than a dollar here. There's a sidewalk cafe around the corner from my school that I frequent. The owner cooks up a few big pots of soup. You lift the lids, look at what's inside and (if you don't speak Khmer) point at what you want.

This is my favorite soup there. It's a sweet-and-sour sort of affair, with pineapple, tomato, melon, fish and an okra-like vegetable. I get it often but because I use the point-and-smile method of ordering I have no idea what it's called! (Hopefully this will change soon. I start taking Khmer language lessons this week.)


As you can see I get a bowl of soup, rice, a little bag of chili sauce, a cup of jasmine tea and even a plastic spoon for 4,000 riel. That's about 95 cents at the usual conversion rate. It's possible to eat for half that.