This is a typical view of what we see as we turn right out of our gate. The monk is a senior one as you can see by his red robe, the orange sunshade is typical. He is making his way up to the wat, collecting alms & dispensing blessings as he goes. One of our friends Vic(toria) is obsessed by monks. Women aren't allowed to touch them, which we feel just adds to the attraction (but they do tend to be young & very handsome too!). Spot the cyclo in the middle of the road & please note the completely colourless shirt. There must be a cyclo uniform shop somewhere.
This is looking back on the other side of the street at the cookshops opposite our house, where all the local moto & tuk tuk drivers congregate for their meals. Every morning without fail I get a call ..'tuk tuk/moto madame?' despite 4 months of polite refusal, this morning I nearly fell off my bike (there's the clue right there) laughing as a moto went past with the same old question. I told him I was willing to give it a try if he was. The dried brown things are coconut husks & used as fuel.
This is as I turn onto Boulevard Mao Tse Tung. Notice I am shamelessly using the scavenger lady as top cover as I know she is about to launch out fearlessly & diagonally into the traffic.
This is one of the reasons you can't walk on the pavements most of the time. These crews of young guys arc welding & steel cutting, are all over the city in their state of the art safety equipment of tightly wrapped kramers (checked Khmer scarves) & sun glasses.
There are some amazingly bling dresses in the tailors on streets 143 & 163. Khmer women (ones with a bit of cash in PP anyway) dress up exactly like Barbie for parties & weddings, full make up & amazing hair dos & their husbands show up in the same old flip flops & shirts they wear every day.
How else would you transport half a ton of rice?
This is another reason for the no go zone on the pavement. Weddings & funerals. Very hard to tell the difference & quite frankly I don't know whether people always do.
We have seen 4 monks on a bike several times. Bear in mind this is just a quarter of the photos from one morning's walk to work & a mere sample of the entertainment I get every day.
You can't see it too well but this is one of the wonderful portable barber's chairs that can be set up at any point. From what I can see, a full service is offered &, judging by the fact that I paid a dollar for the haircut in the salon that has mysteriously materialised in our ground floor parking area, probably for about 20p. Labour and service of any kind is ridiculously cheap. Note the intricate red & yellow tiles that pave the whole city, where they remain of course.
Ah.. all goes quiet as I get into our office street, it is first on the right with the yellow sign. This is before the snail lady, the egg man, the scavenger cart, the brush ladies, the ice cream man & the random dogs get started of course. And whoever it is that starts banging great pieces of metal together just when I want my lunchtime nap. I've come to the conclusion that, apart from the cars & motos, living here is like several hundred years ago in Europe with all the funny little stalls & vendors, dogs & rats, smells & rubbish & the way you can get keys cut, shoes mended, food & drink, medicine, rides to anywhere (as in - they won't have a clue where you're going so you'd better have) & blessings from monks collecting alms all on the street just a few yards from your house
More soon. In the meantime, please don't forget the need to keep supporting VSO through our Justgiving page at www.justgiving.com/jagoteers.
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