The Future is Blue - Reflections on Cambodia's Nouveau Riche.

We're staying overnight in a fairly unlovely town called Pursat, on the West side of the great inland sea which is the Tonle Sap Lake in North-West Cambodia.   (We decided against a possible visit to the flooded village outside of Phnom Penh yesterday (Sunday), mainly to prevent any recurrence of the colly-wobbles which we'd experienced only a day or two into our arrival in Cambodia.)      Our original plan had been to spend only two nights in Phnom Penh, and then go straight down to the orphanage in Takeo - that visit intended to be our only 'retracing' of last year's steps.   However, Neville at the orphanage e-mailed us shortly before we left the UK, asking us to postpone our visit there until after 11th November, because one of the young Cambodian women we met last year, called Nou (pronounced Noy, we seem to recall), is getting married on that day, and all their accommodation is full this week with wedding guests.

So, we've decided to explore Battambang province for a few days, and have stopped part-way in Pursat, after a 5 hour bus journey (for only US$5 - around £3.50 - per ticket, amazingly) from Phnom Penh.   On our way through and from the capital, we were struck by a new trend in construction styles and colours, in the newly-built houses for the middle classes - once again flourishing after the Khmer Rouge years.   And the same trend applies to many of the 'posh' hotel resorts (which are starting to destroy any sense of 'place' or local flavour, rather like the UK's High Streets these days, and parts of Vietnam we saw last year) as well as to the many new high(ish)-rise office-blocks housing mainly telecoms or finance/banking companies springing up in many places.   This new trend is definitely Blue!   Many of the rooves of these buildings are of cobalt, or maybe royal-blue sculputured tiling, and most of the windows - often covering a large part of the frontages and surrounded by steel or aluminium frames - are tinted a similar shade of blue to the roof, and 'mirrored' to boot, so that you cannot see in from outside, but presumably they can see out to what must be a sickly-looking outdoor vista.   Coupled with a penchant for painted rendering on the walls which ranges from ochre yellow through mustard, sapphron and marigold yellow, this produces, to our eyes anyway, a particularly gaudy and tacky-looking mixture.   But it's obviously the way to demonstrate one's wealth as ostentatiously as possible to others:  even in the poorest of shanty towns we passed through, those with the slightlty less ramshackle wooden shacks, but with obviously a riel or two to spare, are painting their wooden shutters, gable-ends, corrugated-tin rooves, or even the wooden stilts, still standing in several feet of water, in a similar range of colour combinations.   Yuk!

Though we've been here less than a week now, we've also noticed that Andy has a new form of salutation or greeting from the locals this year.   Instead of last year's "Happy Buddha Belly" calls he experienced, particularly in Vietnam, people we pass in the street are smiling and calling out "Hello Papa".  We're choosing to believe that it's a sign of respect and veneration for his advancing years - especially given that he's a good 18 months older than the average life expectancy here in Cambodia (62 for men and 65 for women) - but who knows?   There ARE other Westerners around of advanced years and grey hair, so it's not a completely unknown phenomonen here.   And no-one (yet) has chosen to call me 'Mama' or anything resembling Grannie - just let them dare!! - but maybe that's because I still have 18 months until I'm 65...?  

That said, however, there WAS an incident yesterday afternoon which might be relevant.   We were sitting by the river-front in Pnom Penh (Sisowath Quay) to enjoy our first beer for two days, and being badgered almost continuously by the dozens of very young childen who come by trying to sell books from plastic boxes, like supermarket baskets, tied around their necks with scarves.    One little cheeky chap, probably no older than our six-and-a-half year-old grandson, Rui, came by and made the usual spiel, expecting - and accepting with their usual good humour - a rejection from us, before moving on.   About 10 minutes later, he returned on the grounds that we might have "chain your mines" by then.   As we laughed at this renewed sales pitch (a new twist on the usual rote-learned speech) , and I picked up my beer to take a swig, this tiny lad pointed and wagged his finger at me, and went away smiling and pointing at the beer, saying "You be care-ful with that".

But now, folks, we need your help.   What would you have ordered from the wonderful menu we were presented with this evening, here in Pursat, where, it would seem, absolutely nobody speaks any English at all (sorry to sound so boorish, but it IS unusual)?   Ah..., but first let us set the scene.   Here we are in one of only two hotels in this weird town (most of which looks rather like a giant landfill site, and whose best feature, with hindsight now, reading between the lines of the Lonely Planet Guide, is its vertiginous concrete dam!).  The hotel has its own restaurant outside, across the broken concrete forecourt.   This almost deserted restaurant is full of huge, lacquered dark-wooden tables, each with its own filthy tablecloth, and, behind a large (blue!) counter in the middle of the room, a half dozen young girls (waitresses, we presumed) sitting chewing gum and giggling at us.  Outside, on the broken concrete forecourt is a 40-something Cambodian woman, in some way connected with these young giggling girls, and pushing around in a wheelchair an elderly, completely bald woman (her mother?) who rants loudly, continuously and rapidly in Khmer, at what seems to us anyway to be imaginary people all around her - rather like a scene out of Monthy Python or Little Britain at least.    After quite a lot of sign-language from us, mostly met with more giggling from the gaggle of girls, we are presented with an English language translation of the menu.  So, we can choose from Spacey Veg. Soup; Bread with Cary cooked fish; Rolled while fried noddle; Jam with bread and batter (same price as all the other main courses); Fried ginger with frock; or Rutty fried chcken.   Okay, over to you ....

Over and out for the time being.   Oh, except that: we're absolutely amazed that we got away with that deliberately provocative remark about our landlady/laundress - actually, our wonderful, dearest friend and next-door neighbour, Sandra.   We can only presume that her preoccupation with the current OFSTED inspection led to the lack of the kind of verbal explosion we had anticipated, or that she is having similar difficulties to Mike, our computer guru, who's reported this evening that the blog won't accept his attempts to add comments to it at the moment.   He's on the case, though, and hopefully will report via the blog, in case anyone else is experiencing the same.   Meanwhile, all the best, Sandra, with OFSTED - and, if you don't get another 'outstanding' from them this time, just refer them to us - we'll sort them out!