The worst has happened. In this tropical country where sweating is synonymous with breathing, the worst has happened.

The air conditioner in my room broke.

I arrived in my room one night after work to discover that the second most important electronic in my room (the first being my laptop) had stopped working. I decided to turn off all the lights and channel my inner monk and just sit as still as possible, and maybe I would be able to last the night. HAHAHAHAHAHA YEAH I lasted about 5 minutes before I went downstairs to inform the front desk of my destitute situation. I went to eat dinner and returned to my room a few hours later to find two men standing on my furniture and performing open-heart surgery on the air conditioner. Needless to say, I couldn't stay in my room that night, but kids, it's important to look on the bright side of things. Like, when you get kicked out of your room, sometimes you get upgraded to a MUCH BIGGER ROOM:

The room had a seating area. For friends. Let's move on.

This actually happened like over a week ago, so I'm glad to report that I've happily settled back into my original room. I only had to spend one night in the larger room, and while it was nice to frolic around the extra space, it was annoying transferring things from old room to new room, like my pillow and toothbrush and pajamas. Plus, it made for a silly sight for the other guests.

Anyway, besides that riveting anecdote, I've got more to tell you! Such as! I took a cooking class!

It began with a tour through the local markets:

Mmm, tiger fish. You shall encounter my stomach acids later, and you shall lose.

The instructor led around our group of 12, and my fellow students-for-the-day were comprised of Australians and Lithuanians. They were fascinated by the live scuttling crabs and grossed out by the butchering meat and gutting fish stands. For the New Yorkers -- I mean come on, have you guys walked through Chinatown or Sunset Park? I grew up looking at this stuff. But I wanted to fit in. So I pretended to be grossed out too. Peer pressure, it never goes away.

I really wanted to try this sticky rice that everyone else ate, but the flies buzzing around the stand deterred me from partaking. HA! Peer pressure didn't get me this time.

We finally got to the cooking school and someone pointed out that it felt like an Iron Chef set-up, while someone else thought it was more like a Hogwarts Potions class:

We started off by grating carrot and taro to roll and deep-fry some vegetarian spring rolls:

Then came the big kahuna -- fish amok, which is a staple dish here.

First, we had to pound all these ingredients into a paste. Lemongrass, garlic, shallot, and some other ingredients that I could look up in my book for those of you who will undoubtedly run out and buy the necessary ingredients to recreate this dish in your kitchen.

This was a lot of work. Like, a lot. Or maybe I'm just extremely weak. We pounded for about 20 minutes (THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID HA HA HAAAA), during which time someone in the group decided to harmonize with some chanting. Australians, they're funny.

Then the fun part!

Banana leaf cup! I made it! Mommy look I made it myself!

Tiger fish, not so tough anymore, tucked inside my cute banana leaf cup and placed inside my even cuter steamer.

So beautiful.

After minutes of sweaty labor, mama & her baby.

Other proud parents.

Question: why was I the only one who dumped the fish amok onto their rice? Everyone else would take a bite of fish out of their little leaf bowl and then eat a bite of rice. HELLO this is totally the better way to eat it. If you had pasta and marinara, you wouldn't eat a bite of pasta and then take a sip of sauce. YOU MARRY THE TWO TOGETHER AS NATURE INTENDED. I don't know why this matters so much to me.

So the other day, I walked into this restaurant that was up my street for lunch. It had no sign, no menus, and no customers, but I figured you can't just turn tail and walk out. It turned out to be a really nice meal. It was a family-run place, and a 15-year-old girl named Monica took my order while her grandmother served me up a bowl of noodles. Monica asked if she could sit and talk to me, and since my only companion was my book, I said of course. She wanted to hear about the U.S., because her sister moved to New Jersey a few years ago and she wants to go there too, but her parents want her to stay and work at the restaurant. When I told her that her English was really good (because it was) and that she'd probably do great in America, she beamed and was so flustered that she seemed to forget what to say in English. Anyway, she was super sweet and I hope she does get to go the U.S. soon and hopefully see more than New Jersey! Hahaha, insert typical Jersey joke here. Best part was at the end of the meal when she asked, "Hey, are you on Facebook?"

CAUTION: Seriousness ahead. Skip to pictures if desired.

A few days ago, I visited the Tuol Sleng Museum, otherwise known as Prison S-21, and the Killing Fields. There's really nothing funny to say about the Killing Fields or S-21. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to visit these places because I don't do well being in such close proximity to sad things. I can read about war and violence and I can even watch some well-edited documentary about it. But standing on the actual grounds of where the events took place is something different and I'm not sure how I feel about it. There are photos of the people, there is still decaying furniture, and there are tools and instruments that lay around so unassumingly now. Maybe it's extra tough because the country is still healing so freshly from what happened. My tour guide turned out to be the same man that guided me around the Royal Palace two weeks prior. I had a really nice time getting to know him the first time, so we were very happy to see each other again. The minute I got into the car, he said that he'd make sure to take me to a shopping center after the day's scheduled activities because he remembered from last time that I'd wanted to go to one.

As we walked around S-21 later that day, he mentioned that as a teenager during the Khmer Rouge regime, he had actually stumbled upon the abandoned S-21 in 1979 and saw bodies still chained to the metal beds. Without really thinking, I asked how he happened upon S-21, and he ended up telling me how his family was in Phnom Penh when the KR entered the city and sent everyone to the countryside. Once they got there, his father was accused of being opposed to the regime and was sent away along with his mother to be "re-educated," and he assumes that they were executed.

It wasn't like it wasn't real enough to be standing in the place where the horrors happened, but to imagine that this man that I'd met only 2 weeks ago, who was so friendly and kind to me and always had a genuine smile and joked with me endlessly, was subject to the atrocities that the museum was dedicated to, was really tough. I asked him if it was difficult for him to give the tour, and he said that he still feels fear when he steps into the place, but he's glad that it's around to preserve what happened since the schools in Cambodia don't currently teach about the period. Anyway, he's an amazing guy; he went on to learn Russian and French and English, worked with the U.N. and with Human Rights Watch, and decided to become a tour guide so he could meet people and show them the city.

S-21, Building B

Barbed wire still up.

One of the makeshift one-person cells.

 

Kind of hard to see with the reflection but this is the famous photo of a prisoner and her baby cradled in her right arm.

Killing Fields

One of the mass graves.

The sign is self-explanatory.

Anyway, it was an experience, and not all valuable experiences have to be pleasant. Visiting the sites was a good way to reaffirm that nothing good comes from an unsympathetic "us versus them" mentality. Unless it's in sports, because damn it the Knicks will be a playoff team again one day and they will CRUSH ALL OPPONENTS.

On a much brighter note (brighter if you like me, that is), I will be getting on a plane in 3 days to fly back to New York! There are a few things I will miss about Phnom Penh, but one of those things is NOT my roommate:

This little guy has taken up residence in my room for the past few days. I don't know why he likes it here so much but he just refuses to leave despite my attempts to shoo him out the door. Fortunately, he seems to have the same sleeping schedule as me, so when I get tired of trailing his movements, he gets tired of moving, and we both call it a night.

EDITED: Oh my God, I just found another little guy in my room! So now you're inviting FRIENDS over?! Not cool.

I can't wait to go home and see EVERYONE, especially you, you, you, and you. Oh, and you.