Thursday 26th January 2012 Jet Blag

Breakfast is a rather snatched affair for me. I slept until 7.15am – as long as I possibly could – before showering and dressing and heading downstairs. Thankfully the check-out would be later in the day, so I don’t have to worry about my luggage. I find DJ at the back of the restaurant and then help myself to some bacon and eggs and a cup of coffee. The restaurant is busy with tourists from all over Asia, it seems, and the buffet looks like it caters for about a dozen different country’s cuisines.

It does feel like breakfast time, strangely, even though my body is probably still at 1am, technically speaking. DJ tells me I shouldn’t think about what time it was in the UK, as this will make the jet lag harder to get over. I’ve had the extra day, of course, so this might help as well. I don’t feel too bad as we headed over to the site, and things aren’t too bad until mid-afternoon when I start to feel really tired. A cup of coffee helps me keep going, and I made it to 6pm without yawning too many times. I do struggle somewhat to take in the new information DJ was telling me, though. This isn’t really anything out of the ordinary – on any new job there is always a ton of information to absorb, not to mention dozens of Korean, Filipino and Cambodian names to remember. Some of it sticks, I think, but most just goes in one ear and, can’t find anywhere to sit down,
then flies right out of the other ear.  DJ is quite understanding about it all, anyway.

After work finishes - at 6pm on the dot - I am taken to my accommodation to check in. It’s a very pleasant place, being a set of serviced apartments with pools and gyms and so on. My apartment has one bedroom and has plenty of space for me. It has a kitchenette with a few appliances, but I can’t see me eating there much, since breakfast and lunch are provided (dinner too, if I want to eat Korean all the time), and there are plenty of cheap eateries within a short tuk-tuk ride, according to DJ. Everything in the apartment block is done for you including cleaning and laundry, making life easier when away from home, and as promised, the commute is probably the shortest I’ve ever had, with it only taking about 200 strides from the front door of the apartment to the office door (yes, I counted). On the walk to work I pass by a few local establishments, including what looks like a car servicing shop and a local cafe, both low metal-framed buildings with corrugated-tin roofs. There are street vendors selling Lord-knows-what here and there, and about a thousand mopeds and motorbikes parked along the side of the street where the site hoarding is erected. I see people staring at me as I walk along. I’m quite hard to miss, given my dimensions both vertically and
horizontally. I don’t expect to see many overweight Cambodians, to be honest.

The lead Korean man (Project Manager) had invited us for dinner (my first night and DJ’s last), so I rejoin DJ at the office and we are whisked off into the Phnom Penh night, this time in a black Land Cruiser along with another of the Korean management team. I am a bit more alive to my surroundings this time and watch the world outside go by. The favoured mode of transport here is anything on two wheels, as I’d seen on my last stint in the Far East (Taiwan 2002/3), but there are also quite a few tuk-tuks pootling around. These little moped-fronted wagons look like great fun to ride in, even if they don’t look entirely safe. None of the driving looks safe, to be fair; most junctions lack any kind of control in terms of traffic lights or what not, and all the vehicles dodge and weave between each other and the pedestrians who cross the road wherever they can.

It doesn’t take long to get to the restaurant we are eating in, and the driver parks us right outside, literally on the pavement.  The building is a modern, plaster-rendered affair, with neon signs and large windows. Inside I see that it’s a contemporary Asian restaurant with dark-wood tables and high-backed chairs. There are plenty of people in, including a few Western tourists. We are taken off to the left to a raised platform where there appear to be private rooms in the Japanese style, with yellow papery walls between thin, dark wood sections.   We take off our shoes and enter a wood-floored area where the table is sunk into a recess in the floor. There are six legless chairs around the table, and the four of us take our places – some taking more time than others to get down on the floor and manoeuvre our legs into the recess.

Our host orders tempura, some bento-box style main courses and some warm sake. There is some small-talk about where we all come from, how old we are and what other projects we’ve worked on. The Project Manager seems to be permanently attached to his over-sized mobile phone/PDA gadget, and is constantly looking at it. When I tell him I am from York, he starts searching the web for maps and information about the city. My attempt to explain what a Yorkshire pudding is doesn’t seem to spark any recognition in him.

The food and drinks arrive and they are tucked into with aplomb. The sake is topped up every few minutes from little china teapots, and there is always a clinking of little cups and a “Kumpay” or “Cheers” or even “Yakidar” before taking a drink. The food is all very tasty and fresh, even though I can’t tell what I’m eating half the time. Some of the tempura looks like whole fish with eggs in the middle, and I skip those particular delights. I can just about deal with the top half of a fish that protrudes from my wooden bento box, with the dead fish eye starting at me.

I find myself unable to finish the food in my box – it is huge. Another pot of sake mysteriously appears and is vanquished, and then it is time to go. We extract ourselves from the recess in the floor and make our way out. The driver appears after a moment and conveys us back to our accommodation. I am soon in my apartment unpacking my cases and filling wardrobes and drawers with all my belongings. Shirts go on hangers, underwear and t-shirts go in the drawers, toothbrush and razor by the bathroom sink, mountains of pills, creams, sprays and drops on the bedside table...

I turn on the TV in the lounge and scan through the channels. There are about 70 or so, most of which are inscrutable and might as well be from another planet – lots of flashing lights, colourful graphics and zany camera angles accompanied by loud, jolly music. I guess they are mostly Chinese and Japanese channels and wonder how they tolerate these constant barrages of sensory overload. I also find some English-speaking channels, BBC World, Bloomberg, Fox Movies and so on. There are several sports channels including ESPN, so I should be able to catch a few football games in the comfort of my apartment, rather than some bar with naughty food and booze.

And then it’s time for bed and lovely, lovely sleep...