City Experiences

Phnom Penh is transitioning. Rain is more unpredictable, falling with a fierce clip-clop on rooftops in mid morning bursts. The sun is beginning to set behind dumpling clouds backlit by a peetering brightness. We are having a break post work. There is a cafe near to the CSC, situated on the far side of the river which looks back at the capital. It is a tilted blue stilt house as close to a boat as can be. It's creaky hull insides are hung with hundreds of bells on chains that whisper with river breeze. The whole place lists like a waterlogged lung. Phnom Penh is rigged out in lights, glamourous from afar. In the water below us a headless goat bloats, snarled in fast moving river shrubs. This is a city where life coils and sticks and changes as fast and as unpredictably as the rain falls and dries.

Later, in a cafe with wide windows which gape onto the street, I watch more city life unfold. Two men crash from their motos after colliding with tarmac ripples. A lorry nudges close and inspects the damage as the men dust rainy mud from their knees. The truck inches past, and soon the men are back on the bike and off again with red lights blazing - going faster through embarrassment at falling.

A second moto blurs past, saddled with gigantic sacks of river spinach. It's tyre is caught by another road lump, and a spinach sack flaps up to spin like an escaping bird before crashing to the ground. Another couple, older and crammed onto their bike with piles of food stuffs wedged everywhich way around them, pull over. The woman hitches her plastic poncho, puts a hand to her wide brimmed hat and hops to rescue the spinach. She slips amongst the traffic to retrieve it, the sack now open and licked by tyres. They drive off. The spinach is a garnish on top of a threadbare rice sack. They have driven home with a little extra this evening - a small preciousness rescued and risked for.