Somewhere there is a posting from Phnom Penh floating in the i-ether. Here's the second attempt.
The Pavilion is a beautiful old French mansion next to the Royal Palace. Floodlit tropical gardens and long pool, continuous food supply next to the pool in an open counter (but with Western prices) and a wonderful feeling to the whole experience. A verandah with table and chairs overlooking a pagoda, a third bed and lounge area are available for $US80 (ask for Room 15). Pretty well sheltered from the local noise and hustle, I came to regard it as an oasis in a city in which road rules do not exist, garbage is everywhere and probably the nicest people on earth exist.
Certainly, this is true of Para and his 23-year old uncle, Jake. They have been like mischievous chipmunks. No wonder Janet fled to the temples and palaces to get her fill while I took the boys downtown and bought some English textbooks at prices that were rock-bottom.
Phnom Penh's tuk-tuk drivers have a complete disdain for personal safety (and that of their passengers), making U-turns into the face of traffic thundering along 4 lanes straight for us. Unbelievably, the tuk-tuk driver then decides the centre lane of this oncoming wall of traffic belongs to him and what looks like certain death becomes exhilarating as the traffic parts, cruising past us on both sides and regrouping. Tired of living, the tuk-tuk driver then decides that a road he has past on his right, or left, is where he should be so, with no warning, we turn to be at right angles to traffic from both directions and present such a resentment to the swarms in every direction that you can only throw your hands and fate to the winds, hoping for a quick death and not be made into new road surface material.
Tomorrow, it's to Geraldine's orphanage if we can get the driver we were told knows the way so far out of town. His phone was not answering tonight, but who cares, nobody seems to worry about anything in this tropical steam, punctuated with ice-cold drinks, swims in the pool, beautiful smiles, sadder and more beautiful eyes than Arctic sea pups, and all set into a backdrop of golden temples, exquisite women, garbage overflows, tooting traffic, a constant carpet of motorbikes and strange vehicles pushed by thin Khmer survivors. It's a city I adore. Para and uncle Jake hold on to me as if I were being escorted back to the shock therapy room, laughing at my discomfort. Janet has them convinced she's a person of great importance as they respectfully bow before her and shake her hand. She has the theatrical presence suggesting she's quite used to this behaviour, even in Australia.
