Free Wireless in Third World Airports Makes My Heart Flutter

So I’m chillin’ at the Phnom Penh airport in Cambodia. It’s a surprisingly nice airport that has air conditioning and semi-functional free internet. There is even a plug here! There is also a $25 departure tax, which I forgot about until I was reminded by security. Unfortunately I only have $23 left, but fortunately the departure tax people take credit card. Since January 17th (when I arrived in Asia) I have used my credit card three times, once for booking airplane tickets, once for the Cambodia departure tax, and once for an Ice Cream at Burger King in Hong Kong. I do like working with cash, but cash does not give me frequent flier miles and without frequent flier miles I do not get free flights and without free flights I can not travel the world, so I think I prefer using (and paying off immediately!) credit card.

My brother Zachary traveled with me through Cambodia for 8 days. Zachary had the goal of eating weird things. I had the goal of not getting sick. Zachary accomplished his goal. I did not.

At a bus stop Z found a person selling crickets, and bought $0.50 worth of crickets. I ate one cricket. He at the entire bag. I think the cricket would have been better with either salt or BBQ sauce. I think they were roasted and I thought they were a bit plain. I splurged and spent $1 on pineapple, only due to a mistake in haggling on my part. I should never have paid so much – pineapple should cost about $0.50. One of the many nice things about traveling with Zachary is that he compensated for my inability to judge how hungry I am – apparently I can not eat a whole pineapple. Luckily Z can eat a bag of crickets and half a pineapple, so I didn’t have to feel bad about not finishing my food. After all, there are starving children in Africa. And Cambodia.

Zachary pointed out, as many others have, that this blog is very food-centric. There are a few reasons for this. One reason is that about a month into my Europe trip I stopped eating fun and culturally-relevant foods and started eating cheap and cheaper foods, culminating in the Italy portion of my trip wherein I ate basically nothing for 9 days (the Coliseum cost the same as 2 days food budget!) and then was surprised when I fell ill in Switzerland.

A second reason for this food fixation is the inordinate amount of time I spend being sick. Since arriving in Asia the longest I have gone between bouts of food exiting my system very quickly (and often painfully) is 12 days. So I spend about 8 days eating everything in sight, and then I spend two days eating nothing but rice and sprite. Now some might argue that my penchant for eating strange foreign foods causes my digestive discomfort, but I would argue that it’s not often one gets the opportunity to boil and eat their own food on a street corner in Hong Kong. And the minute I get home I’m going to Taco Bell (I checked and there is one just 6 miles from San Francisco Intl Airport) which is probably just as deadly as street-cooked Cambodian squid.