I went down to breakfast this morning and noticed signs all over the guest house asking guests to be quiet, which seems a not unreasonable request, but also banning hedgehogs, which was frankly baffling and got me wondering whether the locals have a habit of smuggling hedgehogs into hotels:
When I asked about this I was directed to point 12 of the Hotel Regulations which states ‘Fruits with strong odor such are not allowed in the hotel’, and this picture is apparently not a hedgehog, but a very smelly fruit. As this rule comes directly after the rule telling us that ‘Weapons or explosives are forbidden not to bring inside the hotel premise’, I can only assume that this fruit is highly dangerous.
I had my town orientation tour today and we got into Mr Vibol’s tuk-tuk and chugged past the pagodas, the cows and the bicycles to have a look at the town centre. The market has piles of fruit I don’t recognise, and there are so many different types of rice, you could probably have a different one each day of your stay.
The eating out area is appropriately named Pub Street, but there is also Bug Street, where the speciality is Insect Tapas – I’m very keen to go but think I’ll wait a few days to acclimatise before I visit.
Tomorrow is Day One at the Children’s project – I’ve been told today that my class has a lot of lively boys and that their permanent Khmer teacher is not good on discipline, so I’m wondering what I’ve let myself in for … so much for the manual that led me to believe that teachers are so highly revered that they’re practically worshipped over here.