An anonymous reader wrote, "Faithful blog readers are curious to learn about the Cambodian dating scene for giant white foreigners. Please indulge." As I am a man of the people, I will indulge.

the dating scene here is essentially split - you have the barong (foreigner) dating scene and the khmer-barong dating scene.

the khmer-barong dating scene is less of a dating scene and more of a "business" scene. 90% of all "massage" parlors, 99% of all Kareoke bars and literally hundreds of "girly bars" offer more than just massages, kareoke or drinks. Usually $5-$500 will get you all sorts of dates, depending on the establishment, the girl and the type of date a barong is looking for. Moto drivers will often say "bong chom s'rei s'ah?" which means, "do you want a beautiful girl?" if you say yes, they'll take you to one of the aforementioned establishments and they'll get a cut of the money. The odd thing is that most of the dating women are vietnamese or of vietnamese descent. Khmers don't really think that khmers are pretty - they have an interesting concept of beauty. so that's generally the dating scene. it's easy, very user friendly and being a serial dater is encouraged. sometimes however, these dates stretch into the morning and even beyond. some in fact "find true love," but the motto of the khmer-barong dating scene remains - "no money, no honey."

actually funny story. i joined a rugby team here and we had a big tournament about 3 weeks ago. teams from vietnam, thailand, singapore and even dubai came into town. the tournament was sponsored by a few girly bars and so at about 2:00pm one of the bars brought in a bus full of girls. the girls were all no taller than 5'1" and ran over to all the enormous disgusting rugby players and started massaging them, toweling them down, etc. there's really nothing like a 5' 100lbs girl who looks no older than 19, trying to hug a 6'3" man who wieghs 250 lbs thanks to booze. her arms generally wouldn't fit around his legs, let alone his torso. after the tourney, the rugby players bombarded the girly bars.

the barong-barong dating scene in phnom penh is a free-for-all. to fully understand it, you have to know a few premises of this city. first, 95% of the people come here for fun and because they have few, if any, attachments to the real world. second, most of the people here work for ngo's or other semi-volunteer jobs, so most of the barong are pretty young. third, there is very little to do in phnom penh except drink and hangout. and fourth, the girls outnumber the guys here. combine these three principles together and you've got a recipe for an orgy to end all orgies.

so dating here really doesn't exist too much. it's a lot of hooking up, then hooking up with someone, then hooking up with someone else and repeat. some people date people for a while, and then they usually end up hooking up with their ex's friend. its quite funny, yet awesome. the only bad part of barong-barong dating is that phnom penh is really small so rumors fly around faster than they do at boarding schools. for example, according to the word on the street, a friend of mine had 5 girlfriends at the same time. his response was "i fucking wish, but really i've only been able to pull off 3 girlfriends here at a time - but one was just a tourist."

I went to a khmer wedding on sunday. Cambodians are very superstitious, certain numbers and certain days of the week are lucky. Apparently 11/11/07 is really lucky number because there were about 300 weddings taking place on sunday. The wedding was held at the "Mondial Center" which can be described as a large giant wedding complex. the complex takes up an entire block and only weddings take place there. There must be a few hundred rooms, which i imagine all look the same - exact replications of the sets in "the wedding singer."

My friend's cousin was the lucky bride, so I showed up with my friend and part of her family. (i'm not sure where the rest of her family was, but they weren't at the wedding. I don't know if there was a family feud ongoing or if the absent family members just had really good excuses.) We finally found the right room; the entrance was decked out with giant statutes, flags, bright yellow and orange banners, hundreds of flowers and a couple neon signs. Before we could enter we had to take pictures with the bride and groom and their family. Cambodians don't just take one picture, they take 20. So here i am, in a suit (the only other people in suits were the groom and his father), towering above complete strangers, i.e. the wedding party and my friends, smiling constantly for like 20 minutes. (i'm a giant in this country and i'm going to miss this height advantage so much when i leave. but at least i've experienced life as a basketball player). Finally the pictures end and we head inside. Tables everywhere. The only open space is directly in front of the stage, which is the in the middle of the room. But even the open space has a table, but at least there's a wedding cake on it and not a bunch of people stuffing their faces.

we head to our table. no one has touched anything yet, because at weddings no one can start to eat or drink until the whole table is full. luckily we fill the table. The table is full of various types of drinks, sodas, water, juices, beers, etc. There's even a bottle of black label, black-market black label, but black label nonetheless. I start eyeing the bottle; it would be very rude of me to drink anything before someone else has. One of the guys at the table offers me the bottle. Jackpot! I promptly open it, fill my glass up with ice and start pouring. I offer the bottle around, sadly there are no other takers. So now, the only white man in the place, who's far overdressed has decided to drink scotch alone. awesome. I tell myself it's ok; i can always make up for it on the dance floor.

The food starts comes out. there's like 8 courses. all very good, except for the black stew made from innards (i'm not sure which animal). I thought i was eating a mushroom - it turned out to be intestines.

Its time for the bride and groom to "come down the aisle." This exercise consists of the couple walking about 20 feet - from the back of the room to the table in front of the stage, while people form tunnel and throw flower buds onto them. and they don't just toss these flower buds, they wind up and throw them, right at the bride's head too. there are no noticeable injuries, and the bride and groom dive into the cake.

after the cake, which isn't shared, the dancing starts. There are two things you should know about khmer dancing. first, nobody can dance, at all. not even a little. i look like a pro out there, and I lack rhythm like cambodia lacks paved roads. second, all the dances seem to go in a giant circle. you take a step or two forward and then a step or two back. you're always moving forward in a large circle. The table which displayed the wedding cake remains in the middle of the dance floor. Everyone starts dancing around the table. it looks like a giant donut, the dough being the dancers and the table the jelly filling. now this is where all that lack of rhythm comes into play. because no one can keep a beat, groups start to form. One group will move forward while another group is moving backwards. its total chaos. and to make matters worse, the band will randomly speed up the song and then slow it down, without warning and without a reason. luckily i'm a good dancer by cambodian standards, so i hold my own. of course by this time, there are like 50 people left at the wedding. its not late or anything and i've only been at the wedding for like 2 hours at this point, but cambodians simply eat and leave - thats it. i don't know why this is the case, but it is and no one seems to mind.

so that was my khmer wedding experience. I haven't seen any pictures yet, but i'm sure they will be priceless. stay tuned for tomorrow when i detail the story of the cambodian killer cow.