The Celebration of the Soya Bean...
on Sarah G in Cambodia (Cambodia), 01/Dec/2008 06:00, 34 days ago
They have a saying here -‘Drink for drunk, if not drunk, drink for what?’, it makes for a pretty good party...Our invite to the‘harvest of the soya bean’ party came from Rowit the owner of the bar which is a favourite amongst the ngo’s here. He wasn’t very liberal on the details “Saturday go to big party”. New to the idea of packing a US army hammock and travelling by motorbike on dirt roads to a party, I left my high heels at home (in England) and we (our 3 volunteer assistants, Bas – my dutch VSO colleague, Ros – an Australian farmer, Kylie and Phil – Australians who work for Care and two French friends) departed unsure of what to expect.Bumping along on my own bike for the first 25km, the roads turned from bad to terrible and I had to give over to Rowit and ride with Narin - although I wasn’t defeated I was seriously hindering progress and we needed to get there sometime this week.A few motorbike problems later, our arrival was thankfully just in time to miss the slaughter of the cow, instead 15 or people were now working on constructing a wooden structure to form the bar. Cambodian hospitality is unrivalled and lunch of coconuts, chicken soup and rice was immediately served. I past up on the chicken soup but was asked if I ate egg , then immediately offered...the egg...the unborn egg from inside said chicken - also politely declined.A visit to the lakes followed, off we set further into the middle of nowhere. The track started off ok past a village whose inhabitants open mouths made it obvious they don’t see white people too often. We were first met by an interesting bridge crossing, I think the picture says it all...We then thought our plans were foiled, finding this in the‘road’...But this is Cambodia and nothing is impossible...Seven bikes made it across with no one even ending up in the mud. A few water features later...And a short trek through the jungle...And I was starting to feel I was in that song from my childhood“we’re going on a bear hunt, im not scared, we come to the some mud, we can’t go under it, we can go over it, we will have to go through it” but after – mud, rivers, long grass, planks of wood across rivers ( I don’t think they deserve the title ‘bridges’), jungle, and very rocky tracks, we reached the lake...Of course it is against Cambodian sensibilities to walk and the motorbike came with us much further than I ever thought a motorbike could go with walking only featuring in the final stretch. I was quite glad as there are no bears here but I did hear the word tiger a few times.By the time of our safe return the sound system has been set up...And dinner was in the oven...Darkness fell and although it was only 5.30 it signalled the commencement of the drinking. 24 litres (!) of gin had been ordered and gin fizz was on the menu– gin, 7up and lime juice. This is all mixed up in a barrel in the middle of a large circle of men (Cambodian women don’t drink) each participant gets a plastic cup and a drink master scoops you a glass full and make sure your drink is never empty...but also makes sure you are drinking it!A spare rib or two later...And the party was in full swing by 7pm ...A few more gin fizz’ and I tried my hand at Cambodian dancing, which kind of involves waving your hands aroundA meeting was held amongst our number as some wanted to return that evening, it was decided that we were all far too drunk and we should all stay. Bas and Phil took this as a signal to ensure they had absolutely made the most of the free gin...As the party died down we all slept soundly in our hammock... obviously NGO workers would never attempt anything as irresponible as driving home after the party...people could crash into trees, fall off their bike serveral times the follow this with hysterical giggling, spend entire journys thinking we are heading the wrong way and are going to end up in Vietnam...no nothing like that...