Saturday, July 02, 2005
Sounds of Phnom Penh
I'm off to travel in Vietnam tomorrow so this will be the last post from Cambodia for a while. It's hard to believe I left Australia exactly 2 months ago. I have really enjoyed being in Phnom Penh and the couple of trips around Cambodia but am also very keen to hit the road and experience the new sites, sounds, smells (well maybe not keen for all the smells) and tastes of Vietnam.
To give a bit more of a picture of Phnom Penh, I will try to describe some of the interesting calls and sounds I hear everyday from inside and outside the house. There are many street sellers here and many of them have a unique cry to alert potential buyers. A ubiquitous call is what sounds to me like 'bung bung'. This is the bread man on his bicycle. We sometimes like to buy his fresh baguettes and delicious sweet bread in the mornings but the problem is he thinks he's competing in the Tour de France and by the time we fumble around for money and gate keys he's a hundred metres down the road. Anthea sometimes chases him down on her bike.
The next most often heard cry sounds to me like 'ot chey' which is the people collecting bits and pieces for recycling. I should make it clear that this is NOT because Cambodia is such and environmentally friendly place and they are trying to entice Ian Keirnan to orchestrate a clean up Cambodia campaign... it's a place where the road/footpath etc is the rubbish bin. It's just people trying to eke out a living. Often the children and babies will travel with the scraps in the wooden carts that are slowly pushed along.
Then there's the ice cream trolley. We are not talking 'Streets' here, it's ice cream on a stick sitting in little metal moulds. A treat I will probably not risk trying here. However, just like the 'ice cream van' of my childhood, this one plays music but instead of greensleeves (is that what it was called??) it plays the Lambada. Anthea told me the other day that some reversing trucks also play the Lambada. Not a very safe double-up for the hungry distracted child I would have thought...
My favourite sound of all is our washing machine at home which plays 'here's comes the bride' before AND after the wash! What's the message there? And if there's not meant to be a message - What the??!
There's also the guy on the pushbike with a stereo on the back who you give money to to play your favourite Khmer tunes so you can listen to 20 seconds of it as he rides off down the road... (as you can tell I haven't quite figured out how this one works). There are also various horns and bells to signal the coming of items I haven't worked out yet. Of course there are dozens and dozens of other street sellers on foot, push bike, or more sedentary, who don't use music, sounds or calls... they sell anything and everything like noodles, sweets, savory little pancake things, tiny snails with chili (very popular with the locals), fried fish, unidentifiable things to drink, brooms, sarongs, bath mats, plastic bowls etc etc etc. There are even people walking around with a set of scales you can stand on to weigh yourself for a small fee.
The other obvious sounds of the streets are constant beeps - just to warn other vehicles that you're there, and, especially if you are a foreigner, the cry of moto, motorbike... but my thoughts of and experiences with moto taxis are the subject of a whole other blog!
I just want to finish with one story which I love from my flatmate Stewart. He works for Oxfam and very often travels to remote villages in the provinces. He gives his spiel to the villagers about the work he does and the Oxfam project in the village then asks if there are any questions. Inevitably there is one question for him. 'Are you married?' Cambodia can be a sweet place!
To give a bit more of a picture of Phnom Penh, I will try to describe some of the interesting calls and sounds I hear everyday from inside and outside the house. There are many street sellers here and many of them have a unique cry to alert potential buyers. A ubiquitous call is what sounds to me like 'bung bung'. This is the bread man on his bicycle. We sometimes like to buy his fresh baguettes and delicious sweet bread in the mornings but the problem is he thinks he's competing in the Tour de France and by the time we fumble around for money and gate keys he's a hundred metres down the road. Anthea sometimes chases him down on her bike.
The next most often heard cry sounds to me like 'ot chey' which is the people collecting bits and pieces for recycling. I should make it clear that this is NOT because Cambodia is such and environmentally friendly place and they are trying to entice Ian Keirnan to orchestrate a clean up Cambodia campaign... it's a place where the road/footpath etc is the rubbish bin. It's just people trying to eke out a living. Often the children and babies will travel with the scraps in the wooden carts that are slowly pushed along.
Then there's the ice cream trolley. We are not talking 'Streets' here, it's ice cream on a stick sitting in little metal moulds. A treat I will probably not risk trying here. However, just like the 'ice cream van' of my childhood, this one plays music but instead of greensleeves (is that what it was called??) it plays the Lambada. Anthea told me the other day that some reversing trucks also play the Lambada. Not a very safe double-up for the hungry distracted child I would have thought...
My favourite sound of all is our washing machine at home which plays 'here's comes the bride' before AND after the wash! What's the message there? And if there's not meant to be a message - What the??!
There's also the guy on the pushbike with a stereo on the back who you give money to to play your favourite Khmer tunes so you can listen to 20 seconds of it as he rides off down the road... (as you can tell I haven't quite figured out how this one works). There are also various horns and bells to signal the coming of items I haven't worked out yet. Of course there are dozens and dozens of other street sellers on foot, push bike, or more sedentary, who don't use music, sounds or calls... they sell anything and everything like noodles, sweets, savory little pancake things, tiny snails with chili (very popular with the locals), fried fish, unidentifiable things to drink, brooms, sarongs, bath mats, plastic bowls etc etc etc. There are even people walking around with a set of scales you can stand on to weigh yourself for a small fee.
The other obvious sounds of the streets are constant beeps - just to warn other vehicles that you're there, and, especially if you are a foreigner, the cry of moto, motorbike... but my thoughts of and experiences with moto taxis are the subject of a whole other blog!
I just want to finish with one story which I love from my flatmate Stewart. He works for Oxfam and very often travels to remote villages in the provinces. He gives his spiel to the villagers about the work he does and the Oxfam project in the village then asks if there are any questions. Inevitably there is one question for him. 'Are you married?' Cambodia can be a sweet place!
