Tata.

Ming Visal had extended the invite for Josh to come eat dinner with us at the house, and last night was the night. On the moto ride down, my driver Veasna in front, me in the middle and Josh on the back, we hit a red light which happened to be manned by a handful of police officers and when the light changed they kept traffic in its place.

It was at the street that comes into town from the airport, and we soon discovered that the King had just returned from his travels in China and France. His escort was something to behold as a bunch of matching black cars streamed past, led by police cars with flashing lights, followed by a swarm of police motos clustered around one not at all conspicuous black car in particular, and then several other black cars, police cars with flashing lights and then Land Cruisers and finally more police motos. I had always thought that when you have some sort of an important person in an escort out on public streets you wanted to make it a secret as to which car he was actually in, but maybe I just picked that up in Clear & Present Danger.

The original invitation for my brother to come eat dinner was to entail rice and whatever else at the house but as it happens, we went out to eat. It was a great place and I was ticked that the batteries in my camera had died earlier in the day and I had left the camera back at the house. The place was a huge restaurant on the other side of the river and just outside of town, and our table was up a couple flights of stairs and overlooking an open-air dining area directly in front of a stage with live karaoke music entertainment. But the thing that sets this restaurant apart, above the rest, was the retractable roof over the stage that is capable of closing over the dining area below in the event of foul weather. It looked like something right out of one of the new-fangled ballparks back home. But a close second to the retractable roof were the ladies at the door who are sitting down on either side of the exit and then stand and bow as you pass. I wanted to tell them I was not the president or anything, and never could be, having been born an American citizen in Guatemala (unless of course Arnold is able to change that law). But then I would tell them, those girls at the door, that I really don’t want to be president anyway.

Anyway, so as not to allow the technical difficulties with my camera to thwart your viewing pleasure, I have done my best to recreate what my photos might have looked like, using a black Pilot G-2 05 pen and a pad of paper featuring the former logo of World Relief Cambodia in both English and Khmer. These works of art might even be better than photos because they are stunningly realistic and have captions built in. Enjoy.