FILMSTAR!!!

Last night I went to a place called the Riverside Cafe. As the name suggests it is on the the main drag beside the Tonle Sap, on Sisowath Quay; an area largely frequented by tourists from all over the world. It is a managed/owned by a German couple and is similar, I suppose to the Waterfront on Plymouth Hoe. The food is exceptional, albeit a bit pricey for Cambodia and the uniformed bar girls are both attentive and certainly easy on the eye!


I talked to a Belgian guy at the bar who has been coming to Cambodia for the last ten years and he told me how things had changed drastically in that time and become more expensive as the Khmers cashed in on the dollar rich Westerners.


A band from the Phillipines serenaded four Chinese tourists; Doug from Austin, Texas, arrived and ordered German sausages with fried potatoes; I played pool with three Swedish girls; an Argentinian ageing hippie talked loudly and drunkenly to himself whilst the German owner threw out a very drunk Khmer soldier. A cosmopolitan bar without a doubt.


I ate a beef curry and rice, washed down with an ice cold Angkor beer. Replete and rather tired after a very long walk earlier in the day I decided to go to the Zeppelin Cafe to see Mr. Jun and listen to some decent music for a while. It was now about 9.p.m. so I decided to get a moto to take me there. The moto is my preferred mode of transport at this time of the day; it seems a bit safer than in daylight hours and when approaching one of the many crossroads the driver can usually see any other traffic that might be heading his way. Of course there is a bit of an added problem when the drivers don't turn their lights on, and that, believe it or not, happens often! The moto drivers are incredibly persistant to the point of being damn annoying sometimes. It never ceases to amaze me how they operate. I am convinced some of them never sleep; at all hours of the night they will be strategically placed outside the night life hotspots ready to ambush you as you walk out into the dimly lit streets. Normally they hunt in packs of seven or eight, all sat in a line. As you walk toward them one or more will ask you, "Moto Sir, you want massage, lady". I always smile back at the first one and decline the offer. Then the second one who is literally beside me and has obviously heard me say no, asks the same question! This is repeated all the way along the line and on every corner and junction of the streets. Even as I get off the moto that takes me to the Zeppelin Cafe, before my feet have touched the ground, another driver will screech to a halt and ask if I want a moto!!! Crazy!


Two Dutch guys are at the bar and have requested some Neil Young, so we listen to Rust Never Sleeps followed by an hour of Budgie! It is quiet tonight so I decide to go and meet Sreivon from work at the Golden Vine. She has phoned me to say that she will finish early. All the girls are contracted to work until 2.a.m. but if they pay the owner a $5 'bar fine', they can leave at any time after 11.p.m. She is hungry so we have a snack at one of the countless roadside eateries and get a tuk-tuk with Mr. Fixit back to my hotel.


Something is obviously going on as the roads aroung the Dara Reang Sey hotel are all blocked off and a crowd of one hundred or more has gathered at the intersection right outside my hotel. It is very dark and difficult to see exactly what has happened but we manage to push our way through the crowd and start to walk across the road. Well imagine a scene similar to that of a prisoner trying to escape but being lit up by two huge searchlights; we stop in our tracks and are blinded by the lights as a man holding a clapper board emerges from the shadows and starts shouting at us in German!! I look up and see a film crew on the first floor balcony of the building next to my hotel and then realise that we have literally, walked onto a film set! Franz, the clapper board man ushers us back across the road and seems to think that we are part of this film/documentary. I can now see about ten or more moto and tuk-tuk drivers that I know, who are laughing hysterically and saying, "Hey, Mr. Peter, you Hollywood". I can't convince Franz that I simply want to get to my hotel and he is trying to direct Sreivon and me to cross the road again holding hands! I am wondering how many Angkor beers I have had and whether I am actually dreaming all this but am woken from my reverie by the woman director, who looks a bit like Rosa Klebb from, 'From Russia With Love' and who is obviously not to be messed with. My ribs are aching from the laughter and the assembled Khmers are really annoying Franz because they will not shut up when he is trying to do a take! Well, things continue in this vain for about half an hour. Sreivon and me walk across the road countless times and Hollywood chants get louder. Eventually we must have walked the walk correctly and escape to the hotel where more moto drivers are crowded around the doorway cheering and clapping as we walk in. Crazy, mad, comical and typically Cambodian.


I then ring Helen to tell her, have an Angkor beer and go to bed still laughing. I have no idea what was being filmed but this morning when I left the hotel to write this, the moto men are still laughing !!! It's tough being a filmstar!