Goodbye, goodbye...

In Cambodia, they have this saying: "Same same, but different".    In one of my future blogs, I want to comment on things here that I notice are the same as in the western world, but different, or maybe about some of the things that I've noticed are the same as before, but are distinctly different now.  This is just one small example of the latter.

Tonight I want to say goodbye to an old friend, The Soup Dragon Restaurant, which is situated on the corner at the entrance to Pub Street, the 'in place to be' for tourists.  (That link will show you what the Soup Dragon was like in 2009,  still fairly similar to what it was like when we first went there.)  When we first discovered this open-air restaurant in January 2008, we went there early every morning for breakfast.  We would be the only foreigners (barangs) in the place.  The heavy wooden chairs would scrape across the terracotta tile floor as we struggled to drag them out from under the tables.  The soup was prepared behind a low wall, and we would watch the steam rise from the soup pots, and smell the delicious odours as the cooks busily worked in plain sight.  We ordered the same thing every morning, off a menu that was printed in Khmer and broken English.  Two bowls of noodle soup, one croissant, a coffee and a tea would cost us $4.25.  We would leave $5.00 on the table, and walk away thinking we'd paid way too little for such a great meal  ....And the waiter would run after us, trying to give us change because we'd given him too much money.  I'm not kidding.

Tonight we went back to Pub Street, which we now try to avoid because it's way too busy for our tastes, with too many tourists and too many tuk-tuks, and too many hustlers crying out 'Hello, Madame', trying to sell you something.  The Soup Dragon is still on the same corner,  but now it's filled only with tourists, and all the locals have moved on, probably to some quiet hole-in-the-wall on a side street, where foreigners don't go.  It now sports snappy wicker furniture with deep comfy cushions, and a projection TV that measures 6' x 3.5'.  The menu now offers a large variety of western food, and the prices have more than doubled...... and I'll bet my last dollar that the waiters don't run after you to give you change if you leave a tip....

As I left Pub Street tonight, I felt sad that a part of the Siem Reap that I fell in love with is gone forever.... but that's progress... and in Cambodia, any kind of progress is a good thing....

So, 'Goodbye' to the Soup Dragon of my past.  It's time to move on to new adventures.