and i'm back. sorry its been a while, i know everyone has been worried about me. unfortunately i have neither been sold into white slavery nor holed up in an opium den with 70 virgins, although I do have a vacation coming up.

It turns out that there is one micro-brewery in Phnom Penh. It also turns out that the micro-brewery is 50 meters from my house. why it took me 3 months to realize this fact is beyond me. what matters though is that I found it, that its awesome and that everything is buy one, get one free for the whole month. The best part about the brewery is that it's a chinese restaurant, which means you can order dim sum while 1 beer turns into 4 and 4 beers quickly become 8. The beers are the best beers in town too - real german-style lagers and ales. They actually give you that comforting beer buzz, which none of the other beers here do. And the proximity to my house is unbelievable - I could grab a freshly brewed beer before i catch the bus to work everyday and not wake up any earlier. what really puts this restaurant over the top is that the 3 times i've been there, all within the past 10 days, is their uncanny ability to recognize when you're getting to leave. As soon as they sense someone asking for the bill, they bring over free beers. I hope I always live within 50 meters of brewery.

AK-47s are the weapons of choice for "freedom fighters" everywhere. But what makes them so popular? I went to the headquarters of the cambodian special forces to find out. (and by "find out" I mean shoot an Ak-47, because what else am I gonna do on a sunday afternoon.)
The shooting range in cambodia is on the base of the special forces. It's the general's side business. For a fee, you can fire pretty much any weapon in the cambodian arsenal from handguns to grenades to rocket-launchers. you can even drive a tank if you've got an extra $1000.
My friends and I arrived at the base around 3 pm, its about 15 km outside the city center, just past my office and up a dirt road. We arrive and the guy working the range hands us a menu of guns that are available to shoot. it's a little expensive, like $30 for 30 rounds of an Ak-47. handguns are bit cheaper, like $10 for 15 rounds. I've never shot a gun before and neither had one of my friends, so we started out with a 9mm. There's no safety training or anything. he hands you the gun, you walk over to the targets, he hands you the bullets and you get to fire away. the 9mm was smooth, really easy to fire. turns out that hitting targets with a handgun isn't a strength of mine.
After emptying a clip, it was time for the real gun. the AK-47 is in this special bunker. We head over to it, and as the guy is loading it up, he turns to me and says "do you want to shoot at chickens?" (for an extra fee, you can shoot, and preseumably kill, chickens. You can also shoot cows, but i hear a cow costs at least an extra $100.) I opted for the inanimate targets. firing that gun was ridiculous, so powerful yet so easy. I started with single shots, then switched it to automatic. I barely tapped the trigger and i rattled off like 5 or 6 rounds. i may not be able to hit the side of a bus with a handgun, but put an AK-47 in my hand and i can turn that target into swiss cheese. No wonder AK-47s are used all the time - they're fucking awesome. I've got a couple pictures from this excursion, i'll try to post them. and if anyone gets the chance to shoot an AK-47, do it.