It's early morning, it's about 6:30.... The Guesthouse cleaners and waiters are sleeping on the stairs, immaculate in their starched uniforms. That's something you see all over; In the market stalls, shops, bars, verandas, restaurants, post office: Someone sleeping... either in a hammock, on the floor, on top of shop supplies..... or on top of undelivered mail... Don't matter which time... just blissfully sleeping... I get it alright, I do my siestas too... No need to stay awake during the hot hours...!
Yesterday afternoon, I was off to the Royal Palace and The Silver Pagoda... I had been so clever as putting on my only sleeveless shirt I own... Which is "INTERDIT, Madame!" S0 I had to put on my raincoat, I bought in Thailand... Good stuff! It's has it's own sprinkler system on the inside, or so it felt like... After about one minute! I was dripping wet in the humidity of the afternoon heat.. So maybe I didn't pay so much attention, as I should have? But I really think, that all this gold and splendor is a bit like taunting the poorest of this country... of which there are millions! The Silver Pagoda burst of a silver floor... But the floor is very hard to see, under the carpets and when visible, they are stucked together with tape! The emerald Buddha is very nice... But I liked better an unassuming little one, outside, almost hidden under a tree.. Someone had given it their grandmothers best light blue cardigan to wear... I took photos, but this PC do not have an USB... So you must wait, till I find one!
After I went down to the Tonle Sap to find a restaurant with an upstairs balcony... I did the whole river front and at last found a place for my sundowner... The riverfront is full of people; street kids, old lady's selling copied "Lonely Planet Guidebooks" -( I bought one for Laos, they are fine, but for the maps... They tend to be almost unreadable, when they are copy ones!) White guys with their Cambodian girlfriends hang around in big groups at the "English/Irish/American pubs", Landmine victims begging, Tuktuk drivers hassling, Street kitchens cooking up grasshoppers w/chili or Sugarcane being thrashed by a big wheel into fresh and very sweet juice. The traffic is awesome; Motos, cars, trucks, bicycles and Tuktuks... It's quite normal to ride at least three persons on a Moto! The highest number I've seen so far is 6, but then 3 of them were kids... I have even seen a mother breastfeeding the baby and daddy driving the Moto with the older kid in front of him, while chatting away on the mobilphone!
Well all this does not come silently.. so the noise is deafening! Shouts,honking, beeping ( instead of using the lights, naturally!) of horns and chanting, music from open doors...... At last I found a semi quiet place to wound down, enjoy the sunset and say goodbye to this city...
Now I'll go looking for a place to have breakfast - just a fruit salad- a cup of tea and hop on a bus to Siam Reap...
Ps. Néné has asked for an explanation of "Kmer food"; Well," Kmer" is what most of the population of Cambodia, calls themselves and their food is more like Vietnamese than Thai... That means they use bitter leaves a lot, a lot of green salads, chili, onions, not so much meat and then mostly chicken and pork.... And then they have as the Vietnamese inherited the "Baguette, the croissants and the brioche from the French colonialists - Jubiiii, This beeing one of the better things to have survived over the years!
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