Siem Reap

Siem Reap had changed out of all proportion when I reached there nine months later. The old spreading tree, under which I had eaten so many meals, had disappeared to be replaced with a bank of shops, yet more restaurants and a boulangerie. Tourists had almost completely taken over the town, with puffy pink German, Israeli and British faces and their accompanying tightening shorts on display just about everywhere. Locals had taken refuge from the spreading Mexican restaurants, inside - at the old market, where you could still get authentic Khmer food, coffee and a not unreasonable bargain on a Cambodian made white cotton shirt.

The dusty tuk tuk journey from Siem reap airport, into town, recalled that fateful journey when I had proposed to the woman who, one day later, was to become my wife at the gallery Colors of Cambodia. However, on this newly dusty journey, I noticed that new hotels were sprouting up everywhere along that route into town - like so many dubiously wanted toadstools and were, no doubt, a necessary evil if the town is to continue to grow from the tourist US$.

Siem Reap seems to have lapsed into a reluctant symbiotic relationship with tourism. Tourists need that launch-pad to propel them towards the ancient joys of Ankor Wat, temples and their all too enthusiastic brush with another’s poverty, while Siem Reap is in desperate need of money to develop the town after the atrocities which occurred in Cambodia not too many decades ago – which left the whole country devastated.

Once more I trundled up the steep staircases to my attic studio apartment - above the Colors of Cambodia gallery. I almost literally dropped my camera, in my haste, and placed my tablet on the small wooden table provided, tidied away the red suitcase then immediately sprung downstairs to see what the children had been doing in my absence – wonders it would seem. On the walls were new watercolour and acrylic paintings, while gathered around the tables, inside, were advanced students drawing stunning artworks from photographs. We unpacked the boxes of materials I’d brought from Malaysia, and set about stacking them in the store-room, for use after I had gone. There was a buzz of excitement as I renewed old acquaintances, and then started planning for the following few days of my visit.

Despite its growing tourist trade, the ever present WiFi internet, and the nightly drunks – Siem Reap still holds both a charm and an undeniable peacefulness for me. It remains one of the few places where I can easily write poetry and prose, dance without hindrance and probably make no end of a pratt of myself. Ankor Wat – that grand Wat (monastery temple) mesmerised me on my first visit. It provoked me to write the lengthy poem – Colors of Cambodia, which I have since included in the book – A Story of Colors of Cambodia. Siem Reap/Ankor seems to lull me into a more balmy cultural existence. Maybe it is the centuries of culture layered in that tragic land, maybe it is the sight of oh so many Buddhist temples or maybe there is just something so very amazingly different about Cambodia and, in particular, Siem Reap.

On the last trip to Siem Reap I was in awe. Cambodia seemed very familiar, yet very different at one and the same time. There was a similarity to Thailand, and in particular Chiang Mi, while some of the rural villages reminded me of Perak and Malaysia’s kampongs. Yet there was always that difference, that undeniably Cambodian difference which pronounced itself in the language and in the local food, which was in no way similar to Malaysian food, but bore a slight resemblance to Thai cuisine – especially the salads. Street food seemed to be a disappearing art in Siem Reap but, aside from the fried insects, I could still find the spatchcock chickens and the Chinese influenced Gu Tsai Guay (fried chive cakes), on the rare occasion I was at the Old Market early enough. The wonderfully aromatic Vietnamese coffee still seems to be available – if you know someone who knows where to look – I had the Khmer artist Seney scout some out for me.

Harold Wilson may have said that a week may be a long time in politics, but a week in Siem Reap seems no time at all. I fairly flew around snooping in art galleries, attending exhibition openings, drinking at the Foreign Correspondents Club – which you no longer have to be a foreign correspondent to enjoy, and generally poking my nose into whichever art farty goings on would allow me to. And that was it. Schools visited, Art History lecture done, friends made and I was off again, back to Malaysia with the promise of a slight trip to the Philippines in the New Year.

Battambang

The desiccated rat lying under the restaurant dining table was, probably, not the worse experience of my life, but it was, nevertheless, an eye opener to the northern Cambodian city of Battambang (pronounced battenbong).

   It had been a not unpleasant journey from Siem Reap to Battambang. The sun perpetually glinted into the aged bus. Practically clichéd ladies in straw hats rode by on even older bicycles and mid-aged ladies proffered dried chilli fried insects – with curry leaves, which they held aloft, in rattan baskets, to bus travellers. As we ambled past rural Cambodia on roads evidently not used to speed, rice was being harvested in miles of paddy fields and small tractors, with long trailers, heaved weighty loads of rice sacks along the side of the ever dusty Khmer road.

   The four hour journey (from Siem Reap to Battambang) was laced with intermittent sleep, fields, small villages, the ever-burning bright sun and glimpses of the tastiest baguettes outside of France, or so I was led to believe by one traveller just returned from Paris. Neither the sleepiness of the countryside, the oddness of the cuisine nor the seeming calm everywhere were to prepare me for the under-table deceased rodent, nor for the snub given by a workshop who had forgotten to close their classroom doors.

   It was a time of learning. It was a time when mindfulness was tested to its limits. However, that mindfulness eased me through minor confrontations without my more natural recourse to choice English words and colourful phrases honed and hammered into shape by the wilds of my not-so-dear Essex (land of white ladies shoes and sparkling white handbags – for dancing around). I resisted the call to use that 15^th Century vulgar expletive beginning with ‘F’, or raise my whole bowman’s hand or, indeed, give the one finger salute when one American harpy commanded me and my students to exit from their workshop at Phare Ponleu Selpak. True, and in retrospect, she was only protecting the sanctity of her workshop, but there were no signs to indicate a workshop was taking place, nor their need for privacy. That female had a most rude and offensive manner but, in the fullness of time, we sailed beyond her turbulent maelstrom, past her harpy-clad rocks into the calming waters of that near serene charity art school.

   One day past the harpy and dead rat incident and I was back at Phare Ponleu Selpak, this time giving my own talk about Art History, or rather a truncated version of 150 years of modern Art condensed into two hours. The student crowd could not have been more attentive as they sat cross-legged on the wooden floorboards. Shafts of light coming through wooden walls gave the room a fantasy ambiance, and made it entirely conducive to the sharing of visual delights. It was a little surreal, however, to be talking about Surrealism and having to stop after each sentence so that my translator (himself an artist and one of the founders of the charity Art School) could relay my thoughts. My gesticulations got lost in the translation process. There was I - all full of gusto and wide gestures, and there was my friendly translator calmly wrangling my meaning into Khmer. I have no idea if the travails of Andre Breton or the Gaudi inspired Salvador Dali actually reached those polite and intense students, I hope they did.

   When not being translated, I headed to the San Puoy mountain temple and trundled my way up God knows how many steps, past just as many monkeys and eventually was awarded with a stunning view over the flat fields of Battambang. I was lucky. It was nearing sundown, sun rays highlighted gold covered images of Buddha and aspects of his teachings and the whole ambience was just too celestial. I say too celestial as I had to drag myself away and begin the descent, down those worn steps again - in the failing light. It was then, having survived the mountain steps and being driven to a local (now infamous) Cambodian restaurant, that I was confronted by that ignominious dead rat.