It started with a bike ride.
The streets at night are not particularly well lit except for the main arteries, such as Norodom Boulevard. There, the streets are lined with lights, a red carpet of lights. Every block or two is a little post, containing an umbrella and one or two bored officers in their khaki uniforms and walkie talkies. My bike happens to have a little gadget that, when you flip a switch, something rubs up against the front tire and activates a little light on the front of the bike. Very useful at night.
I took the main street, of course, and when I left around seven thirty, it was packed. You have to pay attention, with motos and tuk tuks cutting you off at every turn and winding your way through oncoming traffic at every intersection. I'm getting good at it, but haven't lost the habit of swearing badly whenever the nearest tuk tuk decides now is a good time to cross.
The ride took me to street 136 and the Europe Guest House, where, while waiting for friends, I chatted with the friendly proprietor, who offered to keep my bike in the back while we kibitzed about. I gladly accepted, and with the other three, headed out in search of food.
We found what's called the Night Market, apparently on the list of "Where You Should Go" in the Cambodian guidebooks, as can be judged by the amount of tourists uneasily slipping off their sandals to settle themselves indian style on the covered ground, carefully balancing plates of food from the surrounding food stands. It looks like carpet, the design at least, but isn't, a sort of woven vinyl that makes strange patterns on your skin if you stay in one position too long.
The market is roughly organized in a rectangle; the lights from the stands more than enough to light the open center, where each stand seems to command a certain area. Baskets of hot sauce and other condiments are strewn throughout, but if you try- as I did - to move them to another area, soon enough some assistant will come by and give you the basket you were really supposed to be using. Whoops.
My stomach had been upset for most of the day, no doubt complaining about all of the very new things it's been asked to handle in the past week, so I just got a simple chicken fried noodle, which, when mixed with the hot sauce, was absolutely delicious. Some greens, some noodles, a bit of sauce, and some chicken. Simple enough. I also got a fizzy drink that I still have no idea what it actually was -- my guess is the Khmer version of cherry soda, though it would surprise me if it was actually cherry. Either way, it was very tasty. A stage was set up on the other side of the rectangle, a strange built up podium with some Khmer band happily jamming away.
The food finished, we headed off in search of a bar the girls had heard about, heading to the riverside. After a false start in the wrong direction, we found the place. It had two floors, sleek and modern like most of the buildings on the riverside. The party, whatever it was, was happening on the second floor, so up we went.
It could have been any other club; the lights down to a low red, a bar and some places to sit, and in the next room a DJ pounding away your basic club hits, like "Call Me Maybe" and a remix of "Rolling in the Deep". The drinks were expensive by Cambodian standards, 5 bucks for a cocktail, and I wasn't particularly in the mood, so I passed.
Any other club, except filled with Khmer people (which I was actually somewhat pleased about -- I would have been somewhat dismayed if it was filled with westerners). Any other club, except the tiny balcony wrapping around the outside overlooked the Mekong River, with palm trees along the wide riverside promenade and tuk tuk drivers grappling for customers leaving the nearby bars. The tourists, which you can spot a mile away, staring around at their strange surroundings and carrying their backpacks on their stomachs.
It was nice, I guess. We went inside after awhile to check out the dance floor, which again could have been any dance floor, any place, the flashing lights and circling colors. The pumping beat. I was tired, and not particularly interested in partying the night away (yes, you can fall over in shock now), but let's be frank:
Dance floors intoxicate me.
They just do. The beat gets into my blood and it's over. And yet: here, with three other ex-pats, the Cambodian guys turning their heads, the flashing beat and throughout all of this the undeniably surreality that I am, in fact, in Phnom Penh, in Cambodia, absolutely nowhere near anything I know...
The sheer incongruity was almost enough to send me reeling. Fortunately or not, I didn't have much time to contemplate it, because the girls decided to try and talk their way into the 14 July - held, naturally, on the 13 July -- party at the French Embassy. Never mind you had to have a French passport to get an invitation.
Nevertheless, we got a tuk tuk, the driver asking his friend directions because he didn't know where the embassy actually was, though didn't want to lose business. It was easy enough to find, after all; an impressive wall with one door, a crowd of tuk tuk drivers standing around and waiting for people to leave, long rows of motos on either side.
The party was winding down, and the girls began their pitch. I stood quietly to the side. One of the officers came over to shake his head at our behavior, and I naturally denied all knowledge of the plan. I said -- honestly -- that a friend had invited us and I understood perfectly well we were late. The girls pleaded and begged and got some lady in charge who was passing to have pity, and then we were in.
A long, paved walkway led to another sleek, modern building, very white and blocky, like a giant piece of minimalist, abstract art, just in architectural form. The main building was in front of us, but we veered to the right instead, following the music. The building was light and airy, and opened up onto a sprawling lawn, where a stage and a dance floor had been set up. But for every person dancing, there were three standing around, talking and schmoozing, a few white-clad officers with impressive arrays of pin on their uniforms and red shoulder sashes, and equal parts Cambodian and French people.
The officer was right; we were late, and not three songs later the band closed up shop, leaving a bunch of drunk twenty somethings - they had been serving free alcohol -- looking for the next best thing. It was, after all, only 11 o'clock.
We had acquired a couple more people by that time, and I was getting very tired. Everyone seemed to be heading to one of the few nightclubs, Nova, but I asked one of our new Khmer friends if he could just take me back to the guesthouse, where I could get my bike and go home. He agreed.
During the time, however, in which we tried to decide where to go and how to fit seven people onto three motos, we were continually accosted by a bunch of drunk twenty something French ex-pats, with obliging tuk tuk drivers in tow, to ask where we were going, or where the next party was happening.
We got ourselves sorted, and headed first to the club to drop everyone off. It was again sleek, looking for all the world like a renovated warehouse, surrounding by security guards and motos, again. We left the girls, and my friend took me to the guest house. My bike was exactly where I had left it, and I headed back home on the now mostly deserted streets, coming back into a quiet house.
The evening was fun. I will grant it that. However, it made me think a lot, and to be very honest --- it bugged me. The many drunk French people just desperate for the next party, the 'find-the-next-party' attitude in them and in my own group. Listen, I have nothing against that, I've been there, I get it. However --
I am not here to go out all the time. Safe or not, I don't necessarily feel comfortable wandering the streets at night, and I'm just as happy to bed early and wake early. Every once in awhile go dancing, sure. But to be here just to find the parties?
No. I realized forcibly that it's just not what I'm here for. The sense of displacement was enough to tell me that.
In the meantime, the job search continues. I remember from living in Asheville how long everything seems to take, and how really quite awful the waiting is. But I have to be patient; as utterly bizarre as it is, I have only been here a week.
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