Chris Todd at the Cambodian National Library, Phnom Penh
Chris Todd from the National Library of New Zealand, Wellington, is spending 2006 at the National Library in Phnom Penh. These are her notes.
Dear All
After 4 months I guess it's not surprising that life here feels like the norm and I'm not noticing as many new and different things. But yesterday I woke up early - around 5.00 am and the only sound was some kind of warbling bird song. Then a little bit later a breadseller cycled by - I recognise their call now. The bread is carried in a large wicker basket on the carrier of the bicycle and there's a cloth over the top. Inside there's a small terracotta pot with hot charcoal to keep the baguettes lovely and warm. This morning I went for a cycle ride and passed the Wat Phnom temple elephant on her way to work. Her mahout was riding a bicycle alongside and they made their way up one of Phnom Penh's major boulevards. A most delightful sight.
Friends Robyn and Keith from Hastings have been visiting PP and Siem Reap over the last 9 days and I really enjoyed their stay. We have eaten lots of nice food and with them I discovered my closest Khmer restaurant - a rather lovely place with traditional music, excellent food and what could become a new addiction - pineapple daiquiris!
Robyn and Keith are great shoppers and a trip to the Russian Market last weekend was a real treat. The tuktuk drivers at my gate are of course also delighted by these visitors of mine. This weekend is another long weekend - in honour of the king's mother's birthday, so Beth and I are doing our cooking class on Monday. PP continues to provide surprising entertainment events.
This week there's a refugee film festival
at the French Cultural Centre and the week after there is a small
music festival which looks interesting. The rains are not yet in
full swing and the temperatures continue to climb with the very occasional
relief when there is a rainstorm (as I described in my last email). But there
is not nearly enough rain yet. I keep hearing how cold it has been
in NZ recently and the Auckland storm and powercut featured in various media
I see here. Cold is pretty appealing from this mid-late 30s heat.
Stay well
Love to you all
Chris
Dear All
I'm sitting in a cafe on the riverfront - the rain is bucketing down. I was supposed to be meeting someone at the Foreign Correspondents Club and thought I'd take my trusty umbrella and risk the rain. Bad move. The umbrella is not quite large enough and the only part of me that's dry is my hair! Lots of flooded gutters and I don't really want to think to much about what I was wading through on my way here. It is all part of some wonderful plan that the rainstorms come at the time of day when everyone is leaving work - complete chaos and some very sodden, but completely cheerful, people strolling along. I thought I was running out of new treats in Phnom Penh - but on Sunday I went on a marvellous 2-hour architecture tour.
A small group (8-10?) of us visited 2 1960s buildings not far from my house. One looks very like a slum now - Clare and Pete saw it on their first tuktuk drive around the city. It's actually an extraordinary piece of design that is perfect for the climat and the individual flats are cooler than my so-called salubrious apartment.It took a bit of getting past the grim surfaces but was fascinating to see the way concrete balconies and grills and building orientation could provide shade, ventilation and efficient living space.
We also had a short music and dance performance by some children from a performing arts school in the building. The kids are from the building itself or nearby slums - all of them very poor, and many of them orphans. Their performances were stunning, skilled, enthusiastic and very humbling. The tours help support the school and many of us gave extra at the end of the visit.
The second building was the National theatre. Same architecture and wonderful use of space and light, but sadly the auditorium was destroyed by fire during a renovation and there was no money to rebuild. We could get a good idea of the foyer area with its "louvres" set into the concrete walls so that on the outside they look like a decorative pattern and its only on the inside that you realise that they let the air flow through. Photos later.
Robert has been
adding some photos from SiemReap - many of them are from Pete - the ploughing
ceremony ones are his and the wonderful shot of the road on the way to SiemReap.
Hope you're enjoying the cold - it was 36 degrees in my house this afternoon!
Love
Chris
Dear All
It's early Sunday morning - I'm just back from my early morning cycle ride/roundabout practice and am shortly going to breakfast with 3 others from VSA. On my ride around I passed a large group of monks (maybe 20 or 30) on their way to a temple. They were walking across a park, so the saffron robes were a wonderful vivid contrast with the grass and trees.
The pinots were at a pinot noir blind tasting at a Pakistani restaurant. It was a great evening: 6 wines - French, Australian, Sth African and Chilean. None from NZ, although they had tried, there were none available. We were given general notes about pinot noirs as well as reviews of the specific wines and tried to match each glass with the reviews. The restaurant is small and the wine tasters a very friendly group. It was a first time event so I'm hoping they'll do more (& not just because I managed to pick 4 of the 6 wines and am therefore flushed with success!).
Last night's event (Saturday) was chamber music at the sumptuous Le Royal Hotel. A small, mainly Western, audience turned out to support a local string quartet. It was great to hear the music: Mozart, Stamitz and Abel - even though the playing was not exactly polished. This concert is part of a monthly series and next month there is a flute quartet. I'll be there. Afterwards, by way of contrast, we went to a riverside restaurant for supper and to hear a Western guitarist/singer playing various blues & country standards, a bit of Dylan, etc. He was pretty good and made an excellent finale for this musical evening. Competition for custom is pretty fierce on the riverside and unfortunately there were very few people at the restaurant.
I've also begun expanding my culinary explorations and on Friday bought takeaways from a local street restaurant. These are completely outdoor, but with table and chairs and usually an overhead awning of some sort. The cooking areas are stainless steel units complete with gas cookers and most of the food is cooked on order.
My dinner, soup with meatballs and Chinese-style noodles with pork and vegetables + 3 sauces (chilli, oyster and garlic) was all served in plastic bags and cost a grand total of US 60 cents! The process of buying, mostly in Khmer, was almost as much fun as the actual eating. My last Khmer lesson included names of fruit and I hope to include more food words in the next one.
Next
week I hope to go to a cooking class with Beth, the Australian volunteer
at the National LIbrary, so will have more to report on food. I know I don't
mention the library much, but am continuing to enjoy my work there. The week
after next we are being visited by the Librarian in charge of the main UN library
in New York, so that should be very interesting.
Love to you all
Chris
Hi All,
Back at the pool, it seems that the rainy season has begun. Temperatures are noticeably cooler, at least at times, and it bucketed down this afternoon while I was on the back of a motto on my way home from work. Thin plastic ponchos are the answer and the motodriver had a couple stashed for such occasions. I still got pretty wet, but definitely cooled down nicely. From up here the post-rainstorm sky is spectacular - huge tumbling white clouds, dark grey rain clouds and patches of blue. Skyscapes are just wonderful here.
I returned to work on Monday after a week with friends Clare & Pete from NZ. It was great to catch up with them and hear about other friends as well. The 'relief supplies' - books, cds, Listeners and wine were also most welcome. We spent 3 days touring around Phnom Penh, to the delight of the tuktuk drivers who hang out near my gate.Saw the main sights, checked out the markets as well as a reasonable selection of good restaurants.
A highlight was the Royal Ploughing Ceremony- an annual event that predicts the weather and harvests for the coming year. It involves a marvellous colourful procession of 4oxen, priests, guards in gold costumes, loads of 'retainers' carrying symbolic gifts or offerings.
The official audience is the king and loads of dignitaries and there is also music. We were on the traditional music side of the field - brass bands on the opposite side and virtually out of earshot. The oxen plough a furrow around the field (which is beside the Royal Palace) and then they're offered food from 7 bowls - each bowl contains something of significance for the year e.g.rice, water, grass, ... The choice of the oxen is used as part of the prediction.
It was all very colourful and a most amiable crowd of onlookers. We had an excellent time (& then found a cafe with the best coffee I've had here so far!) On Thursday we headed to SiemReap and the temples of Angkor. We hired a car, driver and guide and had a couple of days touring around the temples. They are so magnificent - it really is quite stunning. Even in this low season Angkor Wat and the Bayon were pretty crowded, but outside those two it was still possible to see the real magic of these places.
Our pattern was very early starts ( 6.30 am) and then stopping by about 10 -11 and starting again around 2.00pm. Managed to avoid the hill climb with hundreds of others to view a non-sunset (cloudy) in favour of just sitting at a quiet temple listening to birds and crickets and trying to spot squirrels (& we were the only people there)
That was a delightful way to end the first day. Siem Reap itself is turning into a classy resort town - fancy shops, bars, restaurants and hotels abound - just as well there's no beach!
Pictures will be coming when I've had a good sort
through the hundreds that we took during the week. Hope to get something
posted over the weekend.
Love to you all,
Chris
Dear All
Back at the pool at lunch time ... after a busy social week & weekend. The highlight was a Saturday trip to a silvermaking village about an hour north of Phnom Penh, Four of us plus a guide/translator travelled there by tuktuk, which with its open sides was perfect for provided a slightly dusty, but nicely breezy journey on a hot day.
Most of the silver is plated over copper and the basic shapes are made using moulds (I think) and then the details are added by hand. there were lots of little boxes in animal, bird and vegetable shapes as well as a little bit of jewellery. Its not a place that sees large numbers of tourists, so we were able to watch the making without there being too much hard sell. I even did some fruit and veg. shopping while we were out there.
Saturday night was the Phnom Penh Players production of The Real Inspector Hound. I'd never seen the play before and enjoyed it a lot. The whole thing was very 'ex-pat' Sunday was a real out and about day. I was out very early on my bicycle doing a bit of roundabout practice and exercise. Then breakfast of passionfruit and mango shake plus lemon honey crepes at a local cafe, with a friend. Later in the morning I walked to the French Cultural Centre to see a Portuguese movie. After that I took a long circuit home, window shopping, meeting people at another cafe, going to the supermarket and an internet cafe... Sounds a bit like Wellington really doesn't it? Except for the 30 degree heat and one or two other little differences...
Two farewells this week. One was a VSA volunteer - there was a welcome dinner that was also a kind of farewell. Lots of people came and it was a great evening. We're such a busy lot we don't often get together as a group and it was fun.
That was Friday night and then last night (Monday) I had dinner with Grianne, an Irish researcher looking at reconciliation. Its been fascinating talking to her with all the recent news here about the membership of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. Work continues to be incredibly busy and very satisfying. I feel as though I'm making progress and the projects are building up thick and fast.
My Khmer lessons are being extended to
include book and library terms so that I can use them at work. tomorrow there's
another movie, Thursday there's another dinner out and that's just about
another week gone! Next week Clare and Pete come to visit and we're going to
Siem Reap and Angkor so I may delay the next email until I get back from there
on the 21st.
Love to you all
Chris
Dear All
A rainy Anzac Day semed to bring out the correspondent in a number of you and it was great to hear from so many people.
I'm sitting at the 'elsewhere' bar waiting for my gin fizz, 3 friends and later a movie (Drowning by Numbers). There's some kind of soft African music in the background and I can hear little squeaking noises that are either the last of the day's swallows or the first of the evening's bats.
This year I attended my first Anzac dawn ceremony. It was at the Australian ambassador's residence and all Australians and NZers were invited. My poor moto driver had to ask a friend to translate when I asked him if he could pick me up at 4.30 am! Then it rained as well, so we were both wet by the time we got there. We all had candles and stood in the garden (in the rain) for what I guess is a standard service - hymns, readings, short speeches, prayer, Last Post and flag raising + a feeble rendition of the NZ national anthem followed by a more rousing version of the Aussie one. Then the social bit - sit-down breakfast at the fancy hotel next door (bundaberg rum in the coffee!)
There were other VSA people there, plus some of the scrabble players and other people I've met here (+heaps more I didn't know of course).
I've moved on and it's Saturday and I'm by the swimming pool at the hotel across the road from my house. I've signed up for a month's use of the pool as a way of getting at least some exercise in a climate where it really is too hot to walk far.
There's a thunderstorm right now, but only a little rain, so the sky looks very dramatic with dark grey tumbling clouds, thunder and flashes of lightning. I'm having a quiet day around home today, a bit of housework and reading and sorting out a little bit of work stuff. Meeting a friend for a beer a bit later on and that's about it. It's a long weekend this weekend - May Day is a public holiday here.
Next week there's a film festival at the French
Cultural Centre and that will fill up the week just nicely I think.
Love
to you all
Chris
Hi All
After the highlights of travel in Cambodia last weekend, things are a littler quieter now that I'm back in Phnom Penh. Yesterday I took my new bicycle out for a spin. Didnt go far, just down to the VSA office and then the nearby local market, but it was just great being able to load up the basket and pedal away. I'm getting used to riding on the right-hand side of the road, but having to look in all directions at once, because of all that erratic traffic, takes a bit of getting used to! In the meantime I think I'm probably riding the quietest streets in Phnom Penh! The market is still a delight and still a combination of shopping, khmer lesson and mime practice.
This week's success story was buying a little metal grill to put on top of my gas burner for my coffee pot. It took a bit of arm waving, but we got there - I don't know who was more surprised - me or the stallholder.
Last week I played scrabble for the first time in years. There's a group of women who meet weekly at a cafe and play. I'm a bit low on short words which include the letter 'x' but it was a lot of fun and they're an interesting bunch. One of the women at scrabble was involved in organising an annual fundraising "wine and cheese" which happened to be last Friday, so I also went to that. It was at Le Royal and definitely a 'dress-up do' and I realise that it's time I hit the dressmakers here ...
Had a great time - I had met quite a few people already, including Mike and Mel who introduced me to the delights of High Tea. I was not that great at picking the wines, but at least I did get the one NZ one (a sauvignon blanc - surprise surprise) and the food was delicious.
Work continues to be enjoyable and I feel as if I've made quite a lot of progress this past week. We've made some changes to the cataloguing databases and I start a formal training programme with a small group of staff who haven't done cataloguing before, so that will be a lot of fun. The people at the library also continue to ply the volunteers with food! On Friday, the director came in after lunch with the most delicious dish of rice pancakes with beansprouts, pork and herbs filling for Beth and I to try.
Last night I met up with the newly-arrived VSA field rep, Sue. She is living nearby so we had dinner at one of the local restaurants.
Tonight I'm meeting
a couple of friends from Picton who are passing through with a group tour,
so the social whirl continues. Hope all is well with you all
Love
Chris
Hi All
Good Friday evening was rather special. 10 of us (Thonevath and 8 of his friends) joined a local New Year party just outside Kratie. We were ambling back from watching kids New Year games at a temple and were invited to join a party. All ages, lots of loud-ish music and all kinds of dancing from traditional Khmer to standard Western. We all joined in the dancing and had a great time. It was made even nicer by the presence of many of the kids we had been with at the temple earlier in the day.
Then a quite magical walk back to our hotel - the town was almost completely quiet (around 10.30 pm) so we wandered down the middle of the streets with the most amazing lightning and thunder playing out all around - a spectacular sky. The sound carried in strange ways and we walked in a long straggling group, sometimes talking, a little laughter, the occasional song, it was quite magical.
On Saturday I parted company with the group and returned south as far as Kampong Cham. A larger town, but still very quiet in the town itself, although it did seem that 90% of the population were hurtling about the countryside on motorbikes! On the bank of the Mekong drinking beer on Sunday. Not the most salubrious location, a pretty scruffy spot, some wizened chickens rustling around in the rubbish below the paved area where I'm sitting - but the larger outlook is very nice. A long, tiring, but very interesting day out in the countryside on a motorbike.
Through rubber plantations, visiting a 150-300 yr old (depends whose version you trust) teak templ, then a weaving village - although few weavers working today, crossed a small river by wading through it, cheered on a sack race, was showered with talcum powder (but spared the accompanying water) saw the tail end of a brawl at a fair in a temple grounds (lots of drinking today), also lots of karaoke and loud pop music from portable sound systems set up in the villages.
Most of this was on dirt roads and as it rained last night, it was more like red mud and we travelled slowly. It was very green, lots of coconut and sugar palms, mango trees, banyan trees and tamarinds. there's a mosque on the far side of the river and I can hear the muezzin calling. And today I was a lotus eater!
The final treat was a visit to some lotus fields, where I went for a wander, eating fresh lotus seeds - seemed kind of fitting after such a lovely few days.
Now I'm back in Phnom Penh. Yesterday morning I met Dave and Socheat from Thames in the hotel at Kampong Cham and they may visit me at the Library next week. Phnom Penh still seems very quiet, and I think it will be next week before things return to normal. However I will go in to work this afternoon. Hope everyone had an enjoyable Easter break
Love Chris
Hi All
New Year began this morning at exactly 6.48am and we lit candles and incense and placed them at the base of a tree on the banks of the Mekong - just beside the table where we were having breakfast. The need to see in the New Year was not quite as compelling as Belinda's sharetaxi to Banlung, even further northeast - collecting her shortly after 7.00am.
So our party of 6 met for a Cambodian noodle breakfast to farewell her. We had all travelled together from Phnom Penh, Belinda, Thonevath (a colleague from the National Library) 3 of his friends and me. The journey was long, but comfortable and interesting.
Our first break was one of Cambodia's more idiosyncratic roadside food stops. On offer were pineapples, pomelos, fresh cashews, stickyrice, fried frogs and spiders cooked in oil and garlic! Needless to say we stuck to the rice and fruit. Also travelled through rubber plantations, cashew nut plantations and an area where they were drying peppercorns by the roadside.
I had heard about loud Karaoke music on buses and was apprehensive, but it turned out we had a dud CD player, so the volume was completely bearable. We got to Kratie in mid-afternoon, found a nice hotel quite quickly and Thonevath organised motorbikes to take us to the place where the dolphins can be seen.
Just getting there was a delight - about 10km along a narrow road, through small villages, the road lined with palms of various sorts and a wonderful assortment of traditional stilt houses, little pony carts, ox carts and tiny kids yelling out "Hello" when they spotted the foreigners. At the river we could see the dolphins from the shore - just surfacing and then disappearing, but Belinda and I chose to take a boat out to get a little closer. The boat was poled out and then we drifted around waiting for the dolphins to come into view.
It was so peaceful - late afternoon, beautiful light and that lovely effect of sound across water and then the occasional snuffling/puffing noise as a dolphin surfaced. They're a pinkish colour with a rounded head and a very small dorsal fin and there were quite a few of them in this particular part of the river. Eventually we went ashore and stayed to watch the sunset and more dolphins, silhouetted against the late afternoon sun - a truly stunning way to end the day.
Then back into Kratie (which is a tiny little town) to dine on the banks of the Mekong - an openair restaurant across the road from the hotel. I have to say it's not exactly jumping here and I'm very pleased at my choice for the long weekend. This morning we went for a stroll along the riverbank to a temple where lots of New Year festivities - mostly involving bringing food, having it blessed and then eating it - were going on. We of course attracted a crowd of kids which was a lot of fun. Again the heat makes a leisurely pace almost mandatory so we sat under the trees and just watched the comings and goings for a while.
The guys then went off to join a friend for lunch and I decided to return to town and have a rest. Well in fact I've just had a haircut - seemed like a good idea at the time, and the result is okay so far. In the heat of the day everything is very quiet and I will shortly get some lunch and then return to the hotel for a rest until later in the day when things cool down.
Tomorrow I go to Kampong Cham, about half-way
back to Phnom Penh and will stay there for a couple of nights and
then return to Phnom Penh, probably on Monday. Hope everyone
is having a relaxing and enjoyable Easter.
Love
Chris
Dear All, (Monday)
There's just a slight slowing down at this stage, but Khmer New Year - which coincides with Easter, is the major holiday of the year and lots of people take leave to return to families in teh provinces. The result is apparently hectic everywhere except Phnom Penh, which almost shuts down. I'm just starting to notice shops closed, and 'rush hour' tonight was anything but. Many of the ex-pats I know have 2 weeks off and are leaving the country.
I plan to travel north to Kratie to try and see the river dolphins and then back via Kampong Cham - Cambodia's 3rd largest city - more on that next week. The garden centre visit last weekend was most successful - I bought a 4-grafted bouganvillea, a small frangipani and another bush with white scented flowers. The landlords then donated 2 large potted palms and the balcony is in business. Last weekend I also went to the arts festival on Saturday and Sunday nights. Saturday there was a stunning group of acrobats/jugglers who did a play about a city boy returning to his village. It was very funny and the acrobatics were breathtaking.
The musicians were also great - starting out playing traditional instruments and switching to electric guitars and a drum kit half-way through. This was followed by shadow puppets - with a fire behind the screen providing the backdrop.
Sunday night it rained, but I went anyway - joined a group of Australian volunteers - all of us with umbrellas. It was fun, but Saturday was the stand-out night. It's now Thursday and today the library had its New Year celebration. That meant that late yesterday afternoon the back terrace became a kitchen and all the staff prepared food for several large soups and stews for today's lunch.
Today began with the arrival of a very cheerful monk who lead prayers, with the staff and their families all on mats in the reading room. Next up were speeches from Vibolla and Ministry representatives and a farewell speech for Louise. Then came the highlight - a performance of a new dance, in classical style, by students of the University of Fine Arts, choreographed by Thonevath who works for a German aid agency. It was just so beautiful. At one point the group of eight dancers came in, each carrying something from one of the library's collections.
The event was a first for the library and very very successful. Most guests left after the dance and the staff and families or close friends stayed for the sumptious lunch. Fish soup, chicken and beef curries, noodles, bread and lots of herbs, bean sprouts and other garnishes, followed by sweets wrapped in banana leaves. Then the karaoke machine was turned on!
I had my second Cambodian dance class - I can do the steps or attempt the hand movements, but can't get both going at the same time yet! Louise's farewell continued last night (Friday night) with the 3 volunteers (Louise, her successor Beth and me) going to the Elephant Bar at Le Royal Hotel for Singapore Slings. le Royal is one of Phnom Penh's grand old hotels, now owned by the Raffles group and very very fancy.
Sounds like another week of treats doesn't it? there was a real downpour while we were there and the streets were awash when we left. We got a tuktuk to drop us off at all 3 houses and he only just made it down a couple of streets as the water was so deep. At one point he was barely coping and we all (including the driver) gave a great cheer when we reached higher ground. A foretaste of the rainy season. Louise's final(?) farewell is at a bar tomorrow afternoon and the rest of the weekend is pretty quiet for me. I hope to send some pictures for the website later today - it's too slow at the moment, but I may try later this afternoon, so keep an eye out in 2 -3 days or so if you're interested.
Love to you all
Chris
Hi All
The rest of last weekend was pretty busy. After the indulgence of High Tea on Saturday I went out to dinner with a friend, so no shadow puppets. Sunday I explored the local market and found the 2nd-hand clothing section. A $2 skirt was apparently way too expensive! My khmer numbers are coming along a treat and I'm also good at times now as I'm routinely arranging to be collected by motorbike.
The "traffic dance"of Phnom Penh is pretty amazing. First there's the variety of vehicles: cars (lots of 4WDs) motorbikes, bicycles, tuktuks cyclos and hand-pushed carts (usually mobile food stalls). There are pedestrian crossings, but they are completely ignored by everyone. Indicators are used a bit, but are pretty unreliable. People mostly drive on the right, but if there's a shortcut involving driving against the traffic, then it will be taken.
Crossing the road is a bit of an adventure as you always need to keep an eye out for the rogues driving the wrong way! The saving grace is that everyone drives slowly, so it's a kind of gentle weaving around of vehicles - a little bit of horn-blowing, but nothing aggressive, and certainly no shouting. For those of you who've been to Paris, it's a bit like driving round the Arc de Triomphe, but in slow motion. Everyone just plunges into the mix and someone always seems to give way or move at the last second.
I wear a crash helmet on the motorbikes and am now very comfortable riding side saddle as the local women do.
Work continues to go well - I'm busy and am keeping a few of the library staff pretty busy as well. So far they're very enthusiastic so it's really rewarding for me. It's now Saturday and the last two evenings I've been to watch traditional dance and theatre outside the National Museum - part of a 4 day arts festival. Beautiful dancing and some very fine slapstick comedy as well. Last night one of the librarians was there with her daughter, so I joined them and tried fresh lotus seeds, a common snack, for the first time.
After the dance Marylin and I checked out a new Spanish
restaurant - pricey, but nice - and then went to a bar near my house where
we met 2 English women and an Australian who all live in the streets nearby & have
lived here for several years. Tonight and tomorrow I'll go back to the festival
and later this afternoon I'm catching up with Grianne, a young Irish researcher
I met 2 or 3 weeks ago now. Tomorrow I'm seeing Marylin again adn hope to
get to a garden centre as well. Now it's time for the supermarket and the
bakery.
Love to you all
Chris