Phnom Penh

My tuktuk took me off the beaten track, into a warren of winding, narrow streets, where the upper stories of old buildings, in a multitude of different styles, jutted out above the lower stories. The higher parts of the buildings leaned towards each other until someone stretching a hand out of a window could hold hands with someone putting a hand out of a window on the other side of the street. Little bars and cafes on the ground floors were illuminated invitingly.  This is old Phnom Penh, destined for demolition.

The tuktuk stopped at the entrance to a collection of old wooden buildings on stilts built right over the water at the edge of the lake. As I entered it was dark, lit like a Fellini film set. There was loud reggae music playing, drunken Westerners shouting, groups of Africans huddled round tables and Cambodian prostitutes wandering about. This was a fragile floating palace, with wooden bridges across the water, leading to long boardwalks with tropical plants in pots and rooms leading off. Cane chairs with big red cushions were scattered about on a large boardwalk overlooking the lake. There were a few mattresses on the floor for the tired, the stoned and the stargazers (they would have to imagine the stars because there was much too much light all around).

I booked into a basic, cheap room upstairs, which was surprisingly quiet. But decided against joining the noisy crowd downstairs and went, instead to one of the nearby cafes to eat, drink beer with huge lumps of ice and chat to the Australian woman who had fallen in love with Cambodia and worked in the bar in exchange for food and beer. She spent her days volunteering in an orphanage and she wanted to live in Cambodia forever.