Orussey Market has probably gotten a mention on here before in my overall description of markets. It has probably been in the form of complaints about the fact that it leaks out the sides and I can never find the tiny side street somewhere around it that has the bikes because apparently the sheer amount of stuff that needs to be sold just can't fit inside, so whole side streets are dedicated to the excess.
I had previously never set foot inside, just seen it, like a giant parking garage that has been taken over. The street that winds around the outside is technically one-way but nobody pays much attention to that anyway. Some parking here, mostly just billions of umbrellas hiding more wares. I knew it was overwhelming.
And then I went inside.
I don't know how many floors there are. Three at least, though I wouldn't be surprised to find more. Each level is packed to the gills with stalls and aisles roughly a foot wide between each. Things are grouped by type, and on the third floor, where my friend and I found ourselves, it's all jewelry, beauty products, and clothes.
So many clothes. Jeans for ridiculously tiny asses but mostly a million different kinds of shirts. Some for men but mostly for women. From traditional blouses to the modern n'importe quoi, T-shirts ranging from weird and Asian to cute and Asian to totally inappropriate to fashionable to ridiculous Engrish. Shirts of every cut and style, then if that wasn't enough, there are stalls upon stalls of fabric -- embroidered, gaudy, colorful, traditional, god only knows what.
When you hit the jewelry, it's a mass of shiny objects, from tiaras to rings, and about a thousand of them in each stall. They look like costume jewelry and probably are, but the vendors try to sell them for 15 bucks for a bracelet, and say "No discount", with varying degrees of friendliness.
Food vendors come through all the time, selling anything from fried tarantula to soda.
I am trying to paint a picture like this: massive amounts of human life, materials, and much more of it than you'd ever think would be possible in one place.
My friend said, let me know if you start to feel claustrophobic. I said no worries, I'll be okay. It's just busy, right? But I noticed about ten minutes in that my body was acting in a very strange way. I felt jumpy, shaky, and anxious. My limbs were started to get oddly weak and my heart was pounding.
I thought, is this really happening? Is this really the market? Is there really such great energy here that it is doing this to me?
I sat down. I took a few breaths in through the nose, out through the mouth, and did the best energy block I know of, imagining being surrounded by water, like the fountains at the Bellagio.
Suddenly, things got better, and I was forced to admit that yes, that was just a serious energy overload. I followed my friend around peaceably for the next twenty minutes, looking through all the crazy shirts, but when we got out at last and headed to a café for much needed air conditioning and a frappe, I was dead tired.
It started to rain and all I was able to do was stare blankly out the window and watch the tuk tuks stopping to roll down their windows, or giggle at the guy who was literally carrying around a table umbrella like a giant walking tent. But I was just not there, like some part of me had been sucked away. I was left with a fierce desire for quiet, to curl up on my couch and not deal with anything.
When the madness died down, I got on the bike and went home, and despite it being close to five, I crashed.
A half hour of strange dreams later, I returned to the world and was back in one piece. I even went out and joined the same friend for a last happy hour as she is sadly leaving town, and peaceably spent the night drinking sangria and later on gorging myself on a feast of Indonesian food -- there were six of us, and we did it tapas style, everyone sharing everything, and it was brilliant. I am still recovering from the food coma, in fact...
But it was seriously like an overdose. I even had to sleep it off. Apparently you have to build tolerance for Orussey, according to my friend, and I don't doubt it. But at the same time, I think it's probably one of the best places to find the "real" Phnom Penh, and not just the glossy expat version.
Still, for those of us uninitiated -- to be partaken with discretion.
No comments:
Post a Comment