Spoiler Alert: The otter is ok.

I saw a guy carrying an otter around the other day. Today while taking Caesar for a walk, we spotted it walking along the road with his friend, Dog.

Cambodia dogs are pretty smart around traffic and know to stay out of the road. This otter did not. 10 seconds after the last video it got hit by a car after jetting across the road. Good news for the otter is that the car wasn’t going fast, and it didn’t get run over by a car, only bounced around underneath.

It had walked along the road for several minutes before, but after it got hit, it sprinted back home with his dog friend.

The video does not show the otter getting ran over. Not very good videos.

Cambodia: Sihanoukville building collapse death toll rises

A 7 story building, which was originally 2 stories but had several stories added, collapsed in Sihanoukville today.  Almost 2 dozen Cambodians were killed. That number will probably rise.

Sihanoukville used to be a small resort town for fishing, beaches, and backpackers with relatively small buildings, and compared to today, a much lower crime rate. Cambodians would go there on vacation with there families.

Then came China. A few years ago, China started something called the Belt and Road Initiative. A world wide initiative to invest TRILLIONS of dollars in development that will ultimately in debt the poor countries where they are investing.  One of the places were a few billion dollars went was Sihanoukville. Fifty plus casinos have been added along with dozens of hotels. Tons of Chinese have followed, which push up prices so the average Cambodian can no longer afford it. Also, a large number of gangs, and a big increase in crime.

It was a Chinese owned building that collapsed, and it was called an ‘illegal’ building in some news articles – adding extra floors, no construction permit, stop work notices ignored.  The land footprint couldn’t grow, so to make more money, they add extra floors.

It will be interesting to see if there will be any consequences to those responsible.  Of course other than a few dollars worth of fines for each person killed.  There is already a very strong anti-China sentiment here.

How China changed Sihanoukville
The Chinese loan model, often characterised by opaque contracts, exorbitant interest rates, predatory loan practices, and corrupt deals, has left smaller countries further debt ridden and in danger of losing their sovereignty.

Phaedra and Annika telling Caesar bye as they leave to visit the US for a month. Just me and little C for a while.

Almost 40 hours to make it back to Pelham.

I annoy Annika when I don’t buy things that I say I want.  I think it’s a good habit, but she likes for me to treat myself.

When we were in Thailand I said I was going to buy an little elephant, but I forgot. I have walked through the market here with her several times and picked up an elephant and put it back down.  She always saying “Just buy it!!!!”

Well, guess what I got for Father’s Day?!

Friends from church invited us to their daughter’s birthday party.  A Nigerian family that has moved to Siem Reap to teach.

I work at night for my company and usually work really late. Not too often, but sometimes I don’t even go to sleep at night and just stay up. I rarely get to experience the cool morning temperatures, but it’s nice when I do.

This morning I took Caesar out for a walk. He gets too hot during the day, and we usually go around early evening.  In the evening there are 100’s of people out on this same road eating at the food carts.  Pretty empty in the morning.

A big thanks to our class at church for sending a package to us from the US.  It sat in the post office for about a month, and was pretty beat up, but other than 1 small bag of fritos that had opened and spilled, everything was intact and good.  And I only had to pay about $2 in taxes to get it.  Thank you to all.

Annika got to open it for us.

Peeps and peanut butter m&m’s were first to go!

Annika drew a picture of Rio for Channy and gave it to her today, and she drew one for herself too.

Caesar gets cold sometimes and goes into his little cave.

We are about a month into the rainy season and the “cooler” temps.  It’s still hot everyday, but the occasional rain will drop the temp a good bit (usually only briefly).  Today was our biggest rain so far. Annika and I were stuck inside the grocery store for most of it.

Below, Annika buying some of our favorite chicken from a street vendor.  We visit this same spot at least once a week.  Lots of splashing and getting splashed while riding home today.

Miscellaneous

Korean Bakery, with a French Name, in Cambodia.

I yelled before the pic to see if Caesar would react.

I park my moto under the shade of some mango trees next to the house. The other day, there were 100’s of big red ants all over it.  I knocked most of them off and went on my way. As I’m riding down the road, they are popping up all over, and I’d brush them off on the side of the road or at a stop.  I just assumed it was a fluke that they were there and didn’t think anything of it.

This morning, while it’s a relatively cool, I went out to cut the grass a little and cut some of the lower limbs of the trees we park under.  I found a dozen weaver ant nest in several of our trees.  Thousands of big red ants.

The ants will pull mango leaves together and form a nest inside the leaves.

The also have a pretty painful bite – I had a few ant bites after this. No lasting marks, but initial sting is very noticeable. Both the ants and the larvae are eaten in SE Asia.  I passed on that.

Aftermath, most of them were killed in the nest with some ant spray.

We finally went to Burger King the other day after passing by it 100 times. It was the most authentic “western” burger we have had.  Prices were the same as US as well.   It’s a nice option to have occasionally, but still nothing beats the local street vendors for price and better tasting food.

Our language teach Channy lost one of her dogs today. It was my favorite part of showing up for class. Seeing Rio run out to greet you, and chase after us when we left. We also got to keep him for a few days a couple of times. He got caught by a bigger dog in her neighborhood.

Annika and I went out to lunch today and we were mistakenly given our order to go. So we go to a park near by to eat lunch.  We hear what we thought were birds in the trees, 1000’s of them. The were actually huge bats. I’m pretty sure they are fruit bats, or flying foxes.  Most of them were just hanging upside down in the trees.