LThe tigers let him down, the monkeys robbed him. But Bernard has found a new territory to conquer, and this one, he promises, will not betray him: chili.

There exists, at the bar, a hierarchy more sacred than age, money or tolerance: seniority. Whoever got here first is right. Bernard knows this. Which is why Kevin’s arrival was a declaration of war.

Bernard pays in cash. Always. It is, along with the stool and the refusal to walk, one of the three pillars of his civilisation.

Bernard sprained his ankle getting off his stool a little too fast. He walks away with a splint, a three-day hospital room, a fridge stocked with smuggled beer, and the deep conviction that he narrowly escaped death.

Bernard's brother Michel lands in Phnom Penh for the first time. Bernard, eight years of seniority and a stool molded to his own backside to his name, gets ready to play seasoned guide. He doesn't yet know that Michel took two years of Mandarin in college and picked up a bit of Khmer out of curiosity before the flight.

Bernard decided, one Saturday, to "make the most of the residence pool." Six Anchors later, the pool is mostly making the most of him.

Bernard has sung the same Khmer song at the same karaoke bar for three years. He still doesn't understand a single word of it. In his own eyes, he's a local star — a title that, in his mind, now sits right alongside King of the Bar Stool.

Bernard arrived in Cambodia eight years ago. He never left. Neither did his belly. Bernard orders his Anchor at 4pm sharp, knows every bartender's name going back to 2018, and for the past six months, he's even found love. Well, a version of love. And you hear him before you see him.