Continuing in Cambodia

Waiting on flight AK1480, there was the distinctly British sound of Artic Monkeys being played as we waited. A conglomeration of red bedecked flight attendants fluttered carefully mascaraed caterpillars, and pouted abnormally red lips while gossiping and tinkering with plastic trays.

The red gantry was eventually withdrawn and the ‘girls’ announced departure. My wife cuddled the small pillow that we had bought from home, and slept. The uneventful flight took its one hundred and twenty minutes (approx) and began its descent towards water logged, green, Cambodian fields.

Siem Reap had waited for my return. It was a fraction cooler. It was December, but nevertheless still damn hot, and damp. It was the rainy season, with previously parched land now drenched. Like most times of year for Siem Reap, it was still also tourist season, with (mostly) Western travellers flooding into this the fastest growing city in Cambodia.

We took succour at an eatery backed by the main (old) Siem Reap market. A bubbling group of U.S twentysomethings displayed their contempt for restaurant staff by shouting across the not large dining room “Here, beer” then laughing amongst themselves as if their inability to communicate with hard-working local life was humorous. It seems that ignorance travels as much as insight these days.

Outside of Serge’s Champey Restaurant the emaciated, tattooed, fire eater performed to an all white ensemble of onlookers, brushing his lithe body with fire and threatening to flambé his nether region too. On the conclusion of his performance he produced a black bag and approached his audience. As one they found interest in each other, the local shops, the sky or just about anything than the man they had been watching so avidly, save one tourist with a white goatee beard. He withdrew his wallet and proffered a note. The fire eater pocketed that note and collected his paraphernalia together, to begin again elsewhere. A comfortable coach drew up and whisked the tourists away.

Fried ‘minned’ pork did indeed turn out to be fried minced pork, luckily. The misspelling brought memories of The Goons and the eccentricities of the English. It also made me remember that the other surreal British troupe - Monty Python’s Flying Circus, who were reuniting some decades after disbanding like some aging rock band.

A small Khmer boy appeared with a large light blue bag. He posed against one of the restaurant’s posts for a while, then continued his quest for plastic bottles, which he scrunched and crunched into his bag. Shortly after, a small Khmer girl bounced up to us - “one dollar ten, ten for one dollar”. She stuck out a thin hand and offered rattan bangles. Like a novice tourist, I bought those brown and turquoise objects, much to my wife’s surprise, and placed them on her waiting arm. The girl, seemingly satisfied, wandered off into the rain bespeckled Siem Reap street.

The pensioned of all nationalities seem to impose themselves on gentle Khmer residents. The retirees rub reddening shoulders with browned backpackers who click merrily away at large red vans bearing the legend “Coca Cola” - as if it were something unthinkable that the American brand should have reached the depths of South East Asia. A blonde patron, having finished her burger, fries and coke, beckons the waitress in the age old fashion of pretending to write a cheque in the air. She puts away her digital tablet ready to rejoin the alien throng on the streets where, no doubt, she would be hassled by the nearest tuk tuk drivers to the extent that she would eventually succumb to their proffering or, frazzled, walk briskly away.

The much photographed Siem Reap has all the appearance now, of a pleasure weary mistress who is a little heavier around her waist, and perhaps a little sadder around her mascaraed eyes too. Like a true pro she had partied until she dropped and then picked herself up, and partied some more. But, her hand woven cotton sampot reveals its, and her, wear and tear, and the lines around her eyes have become deeper with each tourist filled year. And still the tourists come, ready to use this aging maiden, laden with their weighty wallets and hefty telescopic lenses, expecting to be continuously entertained.