Phnom Penh Friday Night (I guess - have pretty much quit paying attention to days of the week).

Five thirty Friday evening in Phnom Penh - it is raining and the motorbikes seem to have been washed away - how else to explain the absence of the usual rush hour gridlock - where did they all go? The barbecued beef restaurant across the street just poured the charcoal into the cooker - I can smell last night’s remnants burning off the grill - such welcome delicious smoke (chnaang) - by six o’clock the last few nights the street in front was packed with bikes angle parked to the curb with millimeters between them as hungry homeward bound workers and students stopped by for dinner - where will his customers come from tonight? A single Toyota occupies the space - 3 people rather than 20 bikes with 2 or 3 people per bike..


The sounds of Khmer music come at me from every adjacent apartment and from across the street - surely one of the most foreign sounding of languages to our euro-centric experience made the more so by the overlaying of ten different simultaneous songs. I sit here on my balcony inches inside the dry zone from the roof overhang watching water pour from the extended PVC piping - I have finally stopped sweating - feeling cleansed from within - this place has all the benefits of a sauna - “Babs - her skin is like butter” - said in Mike Myers’ SNL voice. I could stay on this balcony for hours watching the activity below, breathing the cooking smells and listening to the soundtrack - in fact I probably will.