The last little bitty bit of Phnom Penh

by Grace

The VILLA.

This post is also a little bit of an intro to my time in Phnom Penh. It’s now been two weeks since I left Cambodia, but I am dedicated! Without further ado, I present to you: THE VILLA!

The VILLA's 2nd floor balcony-lounge. It was lit with a red lantern which made it feel kind of boudoir in the nighttime despite the words "HOPE", "PEACE", and "LOVE" wrought out of iron and nailed to the walls.l.

Alice and Siena managed to land this sweet VILLA rental from an Australian family who went back home to have their second baby. Because giving birth in Cambodia is a daring thing to pull off. It has shockingly high maternal mortality stats. It worked out perfectly that they were gone for 3 months and needed house-sitters and Alice and Siena were interning for 3 months and needed a place to stay. Perfect.

The first floor. Alice's room and a bathroom are to the right, I slept on the guest bed, behind are the laundry room and office space and storage, and in the middle there is the RAD silver spiral staircase. Turns out every staircase is spiral in Cambodian houses, but it really impressed me that first night.

Let me just say that it was so welcome to have a real house with a real bed to look forward to after Hell-Flight 2011. And a real shower upstairs.

And a real nice kitchen.

For more pictures of Alice’s VILLA, check out her blog to the left.

Onwards!

The Last Phnom Penh Night

Alice graciously declined to go to a work party that sounded really fun in order to take me to ‘something fun’ instead. We very seriously considered going back to the PyeongYang restaurant but finally found some Cambodian classical dance to go watch instead.  Plus the show featured shadow puppets. Anyone who knows Alice also knows that she is totally nuts for puppets and masks.  In fact, let me retell one of our favourite stories:

During the 2009 winter break Alice went to Cambodia and Thailand with her brother. She returned with grand plans for our weekends (“WE’RE GOING TRAVELLING EVERY WEEKEND!’) and a 2-foot-tall wooden marionette puppet of an elephant-headed warrior complete with jointed trunk. It is terrifying. Ask her for a picture; she’ll be more than happy to show you. (Here’s her take on this conversation and the full weekend.) 

One weekend in March or April, which turned out to be one of our most prolific story weekends, I was supposed to meet Alice at the bus station. A few stations before I got there, I called her to see where she was.

G: Hey Alice, where are you?
A: Um … just getting on the subway. At Suraksan (her home).
G: What?! But we talked 30 minutes ago and you said you were leaving.
A: Yeeeah … I … I, uh, got distracted.
G: What?! By what?
A: …
G: Alice!
A: I was playing with my puppet.
G: WHAT!? Seriously?

How many people are you lucky enough to know who can become totally engrossed in making a puppet walk. For 30 minutes. And becoming engrossed in this halfway out the door.

So Alice was super pumped for this show. We got there early and bought our $5 tickets, then wandered around a bit and bought some sugar cane pieces (not even nearly as delicious as Svay Rieng.) We found the puppet shop and Alice went around to all the leather shadow puppets, touching each one with veneration and love. She effing loves puppets.

When it was finally time, we sat on the little wooden benches in the outdoor theatre. The benches filled up, the musicians came and sat at their instruments, one of the drummers lit the incense stuck in his drum, and a dancer placed a full head mask on the stage with an offering plate.

Part of the orchestra.

The big red drums weren't used, but the pitched metal cymbals were. Very gamelan-feeling.

The first dancer dancing more classical Cambodian dance faces the giant mask.

He becomes the giant.

When I was really little, one of my favourite movies (along with Thief of Baghdad) was King and I. My favourite parts were the parade of children and the Siamese dance version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Check it out.

Even though it’s not purist Thai dance, the stylization and gesture and movement infected me. Coming to Cambodia and realizing Cambodian classical dance IS Thai classical dance (generally) was like a homecoming. I was so excited for the classical dance part of the show; the one man in the beginning was it though. When I visit Cambodia again to go to Siem Reap I’m going to work hard to find a quality dance troupe, and hopefully someday I’ll manage to catch the Royal Cambodian Ballet. *shiver of delight*

The rest of the show was fusion dance, monkey dance-mime (they were pretty good!) and shadow puppets. The dance troupe isn’t extensively trained, but they’re adept at what they do and they were entertaining. We had a great time.

There were lots of fight sequences. Intimate fight sequences.

Shadow puppets!

Someone gets told off by a holy man.

A bunch of people bow to someone important.

After the show, the director invited everyone to take pictures with the puppets and performers. We were the only ones to get up ...

Alice is in puppet heaven.

The process involved in making traditional shadow puppets is long and arduous. There aren't many companies left who use real leather.

A dragon!

A giant. My favourite character in South East Asian stories.

After the show we headed over to the riverside Friday night market where we ate some sketchy but delicious street noodles and I bought … pretty much anything that caught my fancy.

A vast spread of picnic blankets. This is the "food court" of the market.

Yet more sugar cane juice for me.

Don't think ridiculous T-shirts are exclusive to Korea.

Nope.

My personal favourite.

We ended the night by getting $4 30 minute foot massages followed immediately by $4 full body massages. An $8 very well spent, I think. It got a little creepy when they led some men into the room where we were lying face down and topless, but we were feeling too SE Asian times to really care. We talked with the girls afterwards and we all had fun telling each other why the others are beautiful and musing on skin colour.

Just to round out the post (so far filled with all things Gralice: Asia, street food, puppets, Engrish t-shirts, slightly creepy situations remedied by making friends with locals,) here is a blurry picture of a moth that Alice found!

She is developing a fine appreciation of the insect world.

My trip to Cambodia was amazing. Big thank you and hug to Alice. I’m definitely going back when I get a chance (*cough* long weekend *cough*) Stay tuned for Singapore adventures and later, for Alice’s visit to Singapore (July 22).

 

 

Advertisement