Bernard has lived in Cambodia for eight years. When a wedding tent goes up under his window, he knows he is in for it and drafts his complaint at once. He doesn’t yet know who it will end up serving.

Sophea dared him. Bernard said yes, somewhere between two sips of beer. Nobody at the table believed he'd actually show up — least of all in flip-flops.

Ever since he became, without knowing it, the global face of ethical elephant tourism, Bernard has held a new conviction: he has a gift. Two and a half million people can’t be wrong.

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.