New home

I’m in! I like my new home very much, and have been spending the first week sorting things out. Since I viewed it, my landlady has installed a new fridge, air con in the bedroom, a TV, a gas hob and has put up a fence to separate my drive from the path that others use to walk to the house behind mine. However, there were no pans, crockery, bedding, shelves, etc, so I’ve had to buy quite a few things. The location is excellent – right in the town centre, near to a good restaurant, a few doors away from Rachel and Bram’s house and opposite the market, which means that I can pop out to buy my breakfast bread before I go to work. The style of the house is very typical of Cambodia. It is basically a boxy bungalow with a very high ceiling, and it looks a bit like a shop from the outside! The front room serves as my living room, dining room and study. I sleep in the downstairs bedroom, and have a large spare bedroom above. At the back is a basic kitchen, with none of the many standard items found in British kitchens, i.e. no oven, hot water, microwave, washing machine, dishwasher, or even shelves, cupboards and work surfaces! There is a separate western style toilet, and a shower room (no shower cubicle or hot water!). The house is light, cool and airy, with mosquito screens rather than glass at the higher openings.
Downsides: In spite of all the mosquito screens, I am plagued by dust, insects and geckos, and have to sweep up dead insects and gecko poo several times a day. Fortunately I haven’t come across many biting insects so far, but there are loads of cockroaches, ants, crickets and pointy black insects. There is a pesky kid who lives in the house behind who finds me very interesting. Consequently, I keep my bicycle and motorbike inside the house, as he is rather too attracted to them. Also, the old man who lives there has nothing to do all day, so he lies in wait to have a chat with me (in country-dialect Khmer). Even though he seems very nice, I can really do without it at the moment. The family live in a squalid house in comparison with mine, which makes me feel guilty. Communication with them has been very difficult, when, for example, I needed to sort out the air con that stopped working, and to get the cable TV connected, but in the end I’ve managed to make myself understood. Exhausting!