Cocks in all their guises

A farewell evening for the lovely Linda who yesterday left Kampot for adventures in teeth repair, bifocal tuning, beach dwelling and an eventual return to her motherland proved entertaining on many levels.

 

We wandered into town around four to eat before imbibing, deciding on the local kebab shop for our dining pleasure, partly a pragmatic decision courtesy of a certain member of our party fearing ‘chub rub’, but mainly because Linda really likes James, the owner, and Lucky his pet cockerel.

 

Yes, you read that right, Lucky the cockerel rules the roost at Aroma Bar and Restaurant, strutting proudly around the outdoor seating area, clucking and crowing to anyone who’ll listen.

 

I greeted Lucky with a cautious ‘hello, you’re a beauty aren’t you’ (ever the charmer moi) before settling to look at my menu and next thing I know I was glancing up to find Lucky perched on Linda’s knee and being petted like a cat.  And boy did he love it.  His clucks turned to rattling purrs of glee as Linda tickled his breast, his head tipping coquettishly to one side as she caressed the area at the back of his neck, earning herself the highly imaginative name of the Cock Whisperer for time immemorial as far as I’m concerned.

Lovely Lucky in close up

The cock whisperer in action

Strutting his stuff

Suitably nourished we headed off to the riverside for farewell part one in The Fishmarket.  A genial affair involving cocks of the alcoholic variety ala cocktails, with various members of Linda’s extended family out here – that woman seriously knows everyone!!!

 

A visit to the comedy club shifted the focus from cocks to vaginas as we guffawed and snorted our way through a set by the very funny British comedienne Jo Jo Smith bemoaning the loss of her sex drive post menopause.  As if this wasn’t funny enough in itself, watching the reactions of the younger clientele as she regaled us with tales of dried up nether regions very nearly resulted in a Tena Lady moment for us two women of a certain age.

 

The after party took us to a late night bar in town and introduced me to a whole new Kampot world I didn’t even know existed (well I kind of did but chose to ignore and now know why)!

 

Alcohol flowed and laughter filled the air as Linda held court over various groups of locals and tourists in the tiny cramped space.  Meanwhile, at a stool at the bar I was being amused by an extremely colourful fugitive from the long arm of the British law, visiting town from Phnom Penh and delighting me with tales of his debauched childhood on the Wirral and even more debauched adulthood in South East Asia.  The conversation involved the use of the word cock on a number of occasions (both the singular and the plural) and during our encounter I experienced a first for me, an offer of a kind never received before (it didn’t involve cocks in case you were wondering but did involve a place where they would normally be in evidence) and one that I think I managed to refuse politely whilst successfully stopping the ‘WT Actual F did you just say’ bubbling away inside from bursting forth from my face.

 

The next cock to feature in was the 5am crowing of the local rooster community as I lay on my bed, sleep deprived and still marvelling at the bizarreness of last night’s proposal.

 

The sun rose, I lounged, Linda cleaned and then we headed out, cycling slowly into town past streams of excited Cambodians off on holiday adventures.  As we passed a side street we were stopped in our tracks by a family of baby chicks being led along by their feather duster impersonator mum.  Looking further down the road we realised that the local cocks had obviously been extremely busy as four more families of chicks with their respective mums pecked in the dirt around them.

Feather duster chuck

Settling down in a local café for breakfast we came across our last cock of the adventure.  This one was of the human variety, prevalent across South East Asia (and most of the rest of the World too) old enough to know better, lover of the sound of his own voice, with absolutely nothing of interest to say.  Yes ladies and gentleman of the flipflop blog reading variety, I was sat opposite none other than the lesser spotted cockwomble.  Quickly realising I had inadvertently applied my make me invisible cream before leaving the house I stopped wasting my time trying to engage, leaving that to rugby loving Linda whilst I tucked into my eggs and bacon and reflected on a fabulous cock filled few hours to mark the departure of my fabulous friend.

Linda and I on one of our recent mad adventures