Rooftop dinner in Phnom Penh

Monday 13th August, 2012.

 

The riverfront of Phnom Penh has many restaurants, some of them on the rooftops, so we decided to try one.  There were so many steps up, it wasn’t a case of “Let’s have a look and see if we like it”, but more a case of “Now we’re here, we’re here.”

The river in front of the restaurant, and indeed a large part of the city, is the Tonle Sap.  Where you can see the little island, on the left hand side of the picture, is where the Tonle Sap enters the mighty Mekong. 

 

From our restaurant, the Frangipania, we had good views up and down the river and of the broad walkway where locals and tourists alike would stroll each evening, after the sun had gone down.  The people on the left of the picture were part of a large group who would gather every evening to do a kind of line dancing to recorded music.

There were street vendors, groups of people playing various games, families enjoying an evening meal beside the river, and courting couples.

It was the most pleasant time of day,and it was wonderful to see people out relaxing together – except of course for the street vendors, who seemed to work constantly from morning until well after dark.

 

As it grew darker, the lights of the passing boats were reflected in the water.  Phnom Penh was once known as the “Pearl of Asia”, and was considered one of the loveliest French-built cities in Indochina in the 1920s.

Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge in 1975. All of its residents, including those who were wealthy and educated, were evacuated from the city and forced to do labour on rural farms as “new people” by Pol Pot, who sought a return to an agrarian economy and therefore killed many people perceived as educated (including anyone who wore glasses), "lazy", or political enemies. Many others starved to death as a result of failure of the agrarian society and the sale of Cambodia's rice to China in exchange for bullets and weaponry.

The Khmer Rouge were driven out of Phnom Penh by the  Vietnamese in 1979, and people began to return to the city. A period of reconstruction began, spurred by the continuing stability of government, attracting new foreign investment and aid by countries including France, Korea, Australia, and Japan.

 

Gradually, it grew dark.

 

By the time we were prepared to tackle the stairs down, the Frangipaniana had turned their lights on.

 

We walked home past where street vendors were cooking on the footpaths.  The centre dish contains cooked ducks and sparrows (I think).  Not too sure about the others.

 

Even after long days cooking beside the dusty, noisy roads, the street vendors continued to cheerfully and persistently spruik their wares.