Phnom Penh – By Night
It was a Saturday night and we were walking uptown from our guesthouse. The park along Sihanouk Boulevard up from the Independence Monument was full of sweet looking families and young couples playing badmiton as the sun was setting. It was like a film clip for a bad love ballad of the ’80s, complete with naked kids playing in the fountain at one end. It was a reminder to the fact that Phnom Penh is also home to many wealthy locals.
At the end of the park were two giant posters – one of the King and one of his son. They seem to be pretty popular around here.
We headed towards a scary looking theme park so we could walk uptown by the river instead of the quickly darkening back streets. Turns out that walking isn’t really catered for in that neck of the woods. The narrow footpath (when it existed) was either covered by motorbikes, cars, people or food stalls. It was impossible to walk through. We crossed the road and found ourselves tip-toe-ing through mats placed down for people to eat road side takeaway from. It was definitely easier to walk along the river, but we were then faced with the problem of getting back to THE OTHER SIDE. The road was so full of continuous traffic – motorbikes, tuk-tuks, cars, cyclos and bicycles – that the idea of looking left, then right, then left again was utterly ridiculous. Instead we preyed on some young local girls who were about to cross the road. We stood very close and crossed when they did, which made them giggle but got us across the road. The way to do it is just slowly step into the traffic and continue to walk slowly and consistantly across the road with the traffic going around you. Easier said than done. Who needs a theme park when you’ve got cheap thrills like this?
We stopped for a drink in the safety of the Foreign Correspondent’s Club and watched the traffic from three storeys up before heading off to another fantastic dinner, this time at a place called Friends. By eating here we were doing our bit for the locals at the same time as having excellent food and inventive cocktails. The place is used to train disadvantaged kids up in hospitality – they run the entire place and all profits go back into the organisation. Their tapas menu tempted us with zucchini and cheddar fritters, smokey eggplant dip and sweet potato chips with curry mayonnaise. And then there were seconds… and the strawberry and green pepper margarita. Mmmm.