Culture day

Sihue was as good as her word. The fish Amok was fantastic. Spicy, but not too hot, even for Allie. Served up in a half coconut shell with the steamed rice in an envelope of banana leaf, it was a fitting last supper at our little beach side retreat. All that remained after breakfast the following morning was to load up the bike and pay our bill… I must admit that one hurt a bit. We hadn't been keeping too close an eye on our expenditure and one does tend to consume rather more tinnies than usual whilst lazing around in the sun. Add to that three evening meals and two breakfasts and it all tots up rather quickly, but it was worth it, not least after nearly four weeks on the little Honda, I think Allie deserved a bit of pampering!!!

At this point we knew we were close enough to Phnom Penh to do the run in a day, but that put us two days ahead of schedule (and our hotel booking). So my plan was to head up to Toek for a couple of nights by the lake, which would also put us on a slightly less major route into Phnom Penh. Our guide described the town as “languid” with a picturesque lake. Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans… The lake was only a lake in the wet season, when we arrived it was but a rather mucky swamp and the town was so languid, it was one of the scruffiest we’d seen. So we voted with our wheels and kept them rolling, straight through to the capital. Arriving at hotel we checked to see if they our room was available, which of course it wasn't, but we were told they had another room which we could have for two days before transferring to the room we had booked. Then came the sucker punch. In spite of reserving the room for 4 days and paying a $10 deposit, they were now asking $25 per night as against the quoted price of $15! They made no comment when we asked for our deposit back and we simply walked next door to the Channsoda Guest House and booked in at $20; once more over budget but with Chinese New Year Looming on Monday and the streets far busier than on our previous visits, we coughed up!

Cambodian National Museum

The Channsoda is a fairly small, nice clean guest house, situated opposite a park and across from the Royal Palace, which I can see from the balcony where I’m sitting typing. It’s also just a stones throw from the river, so very convenient for just about everything we might need. Having spent the rest of our first day back getting some of our kit sorted, such as straps and bags which we will no longer need, we wandered down to the Kymer Royal bar on the riverside to relax. It felt odd knowing that we would be in the same hotel for nearly a week and would not have to pack and load the bike every morning. To be honest I think we would have both preferred to have stayed down in Kep for another night or two if we had know what to expect in Toek, but then that’s the joy of travelling!!!

Talking over what we both still wanted to do and see before heading home, we decided that the following day, Saturday, would be a culture day. After a light breakfast at the Bright Lotus we headed over to the Cambodia National Museum which fronted onto “our” park to the right of the Channsoda. It had barely opened it’s doors when we arrived but was already quite busy. A huge and very ornate building, as befits such an amazing collection of artefacts covering the last Thousand or so years. As you would expect, much of the collection were various figures and other items from the Angkor period. The carvings were exquisite, with so much detail on them, even after so many years of weathering. Most were carved from sandstone, although granite and schist were also used. One room had a collection of wooden carvings, most of which were in surprisingly good condition, and another housed traditional silk pieces which had been recreated from photographs of the originals.  Whilst I admit to being a bit of a philistine when it comes to such things, I still found enough to keep my mind entertained for a good few hours and by the time we left it was getting on to beer o’clock; but not before we had purchased tickets for the evenings performance of the Cambodia Living Arts Traditional Dance Show.

And what a show it was!  Cambodian Living Arts was set up in 1998 by one man, Arn Chorn-Pond to try to preserve Cambodian Art in all it’s forms, in the wake of the Pol Pot massacres of just about every Cambodian intellectual and artist,  Arn Chorn-Pond,  is a musician and a survivor of this time period. He was born into a family of artists from Cambodia’s second-largest city, Battambang, separated from his family in 1975 and sent to a children’s labour camp. The organisation gives work (and therefore a wage) to dozens of Cambodian artistes, as well as training a new generation of performers. The show which played to a full house, lasted for an all too short hour and a half and in spite of rather uncomfortable seats we sat spellbound, judging by the applause, we weren't the only ones.