Phnom Penh Sliding Boys
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Phnom Penh is a crazy, dirty place. Beggars are everywhere and you feel like you are in 1st century Rome where rubbish was disposed of in the streets and where people defecate wherever they like, yet amongst all this filth there is still the Cambodian spirit. That huge welcoming smile that sucks you in, and those big brown eyes that make your heart melt. I haven’t liked Phnom Penh too much, there are a few great places to eat like the Café El Mundo and the Indochine 2 (which is also a guest house) and the Independence Monument (to mark the occasion when Cambodia gained independence from France in 1952) is great to look at and the Grande Palace is… well… Grande…but there is just something about Phnom Penh that make you want to get out.
The day before we left for Siem Reap we took a walk around the town intending to see all the great temples like Wat Phnom and the Grande Palace and were walking along the waterfront when we came upon a bunch of boys having the time of their lives. The river is accessed by a massive embankment from the ground which goes down in stages to where all the tour boats wait for passengers (there are stone steps) and the water is absolutely putrid. So here are the boys, obviously having nothing else to do, using anything they can find; cardboard, foam, plastic bags, to slide down the embankment on… like a massive slippery dip! They were having so much fun that I couldn’t resist capturing the moment. So down I went into the sludge and the filth of the Mekong and started snapping them as they slide down on their makeshift sleds towards me. Once they figured out what I was going they really started to perform and got the biggest kick out of seeing themselves displayed back on the camera’s LCD screen.
Take a look at the pictures because they were just so fun to be around and later on I even let them have their own go at taking some photos… It’s strange how you can communicate with the children a little better than you can the adults and in some cases they can even speak better English than the adults… a lot of the time French comes in handy when addressing older people (all the airport security spoke French so I got along fine, plus we had a refresher course when we met our Canadian friends Erik and MG on the Trek). But it all seems to simplify when talking to the kids. They don’t seem to over analyse everything they hear and you don’t try to over communicate things, which all evens out and makes for some great times. So after the slide we got going and decided we’d get some of the photo’s we took printed to give to the boys. So after we put them in to be processed we found the boys and told them to meet us by the river at 7 so we could give them the photos and I showed them the photo lab receipt to prove we were genuine.
We went to the Indochine 2 for dinner where we met a really nice English girl named Rosalind and chatted over a few beers and some wine. A street vendor with one arm even sold us some post cards. That’s another sight you get used to, people wandering around with a limb or two less than normal thanks to the land mines that dot the countryside. Princess Diana was a big influence on starting up a de-mining charity to help clear the countryside of the awful war tools. Most of the time they don’t kill if you step on one, they just maim. You lose a leg or an arm or your body or face is permanently disfigured, and you’re lucky if you get to keep your sight. Angelina Jolie is also a big ambassador for this cause, which to me is so important. Every second of being in Cambodia changes you in so many ways and when you see a little boy with one leg, blown from his tiny body by the force of a land mine... you’re just not the same, you see things from a different perspective. So we were only too happy to buy a few post cards, and he was welcoming of posing for a picture.
By the time we realised the time it was 10 past 7 we rushed off to the river front… unfortunately we couldn’t find the boys and figured they must have thought 7am. But most of the kids go to night school so they may have had to attend. Either way, we missed them and decided we’d catch them next time we’re in Phnom Penh (after we go to Siem Reap, Battambang and Sihanoukville). But enjoy the fun of the pictures anyway. We didn’t get to do the walking tour of Phnom Penh this time, but when we go back we certainly will and we’ll also look for the boys. There is also a place where you can go and eat and they have some kind of trivia night for charity which Rosalind told us about, so when we get back to Phnom Penh, well do that too.
posted by Lucyspeak @ 8:53 pm
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