DAY TRIP TO ANOTHER WORLD

On my overnight trip to Kuala Lumpur, I picked up a copy of Silk Air's in-flight magazine. Listed in the back were a selection of easy getaways from Singapore. In an effort to continue to discover as much as possible on this side of the planet while I'm here, I combed through the suggestions for anything that was two hours away or less - which is how I found myself crawling out of bed a six a.m. on a Monday morning to hail a taxi in the pouring rain to take me to the airport for a flight bound for Phnom Penh in The Kingdom of Cambodia.

THE GOOD

Foremost, I looooved my hotel, The Blue Lime. The all-cement theme might be a bit too austere for some, and those not used to a tropical climate might find the mold stains off-putting but I was terrifically impressed with everything. My room, with private swimming pool, cost $75US for the night, a  kind of luxury unattainable in most western countries. The whole place is immaculately clean, the staff are extremely friendly and very helpful. (Oooo...and fresh passion fruit juice for breakfast !)

Instructions in Khmer, emailed to me by the hotel

in case the taxi driver didn't know the address.

Welcome tray

All cement room

Private pool

Enjoying private pool

The Cambodian people are lovely. Their smile is wide, honest, engaging and comes quickly and easily. The smiles I received were the exact opposite of the glassy-eyed, open-mouthed stares I witness from service staff in Singapore. I felt that when the Cambodians said, "Thank you, sir", they expressed actual gratitude. Those same words spoken in Singapore sound meaningless and false by comparison.

There is a new Cambodia emerging, barely. Scattered here and there are shiny new government buildings and the odd office tower. These structures seem cold and lifeless next to the many temples who's elegant, golden spires reach to touch heaven. The new buildings hide their people. The temples embrace them and teem with the wild, joyful chaos of life. Solemnity is reserved for business. 

 The National Museum

The Royal Palace which I was unceremonious hustled out of after

a brief tour, because the King needed to pray before

the national holiday the next day.

I thought, "Well, it's his house, after all."

Some random observations...

-All dogs in Phnom Penh have fleas. There are a lot of dogs.

-Horn honking is a second (or third) language. It is rarely aggressive though. It usually means, "Hi, I'm here beside you. Don't change lanes or we'll both die".

 Airport transportation

-Traffic lights are merely a suggestion. There are only a few, after all. If the coast looks clear, please feel free to charge on through.

-Crosswalks are nonexistent. On the smaller streets, this is not a problem, but the wide, busy avenues require you so summon your pedestrian courage and step bravely into the road, timing every step and weaving through the traffic with millimeters to spare. Or, you could wait for the Cambodians, who tend to cross in groups (safety in numbers) and hide behind them.

-It's hard not to stand out as a tourist. The white skin is kind of a dead give away. Children and adults alike will wave at you and say "Hello". Even passing by on their motorcycles they will shout a greeting.

I found this sign so incongruous that I couldn't resist photographing it

-Three on a motorcycle is not uncommon. In fact it is almost as common as two on a motorcycle. Or two and a kid on the handlebars. Or two and a basket of chickens (dead or alive). Or two with a 12-year-old driving.

-If you see a young Cambodian woman in high heels and a tight dress, she's a hooker. Unless she's wearing flip-flops and tight shorts, in which case she is also a hooker.

THE BAD

Perhaps because I've been living in squeaky-clean, rule-bound Singapore for so long, I found the profusion of garbage, dog shit and stink more than just a little overwhelming at first. My survival instinct told me to hide in my hotel room, but I pushed myself into the streets, determined to discover what lay beyond the filth.

As the stand-out-in-the-crowd-white-guy, you are at the mercy of the touts. The tuk-tuk drivers are the worst. Step one foot outside the hotel and you are surrounded by shouts of, "Tuk? Tuk?". And a walk down any street is constantly interrupted by random motorcycle drivers pulling over to ask if you want them to drive you somewhere. 

The Cambodian Riel is, literally, not worth the paper it is printed on. $1US = 4,000KHR. American dollars are the preferred currency, but no coins are used if change is given. Instead, you will be given the equivalent in Riels. I tipped my breakfast servers 19,000KHR ($4.60US) just to get rid of the wad of Cambodian bills.

THE UGLY

I had many offers from tuk-tuk drivers to take me to the infamous "Killing Fields", the site of Pol Pot's brutal executions carried out by his Khmer Rouge. I admit that I had to think long and hard about whether I should go and what I might gain from being there, other than just to say that I was there. In the end, I realized that I did not want to feel the pain of this country's past in a place where the bones of 10,000 dead still push themselves to the surface after a rainfall. Instead, I wanted to live the resilience of the place by being among the living.

The soul of this place has been beaten and crushed and almost defeated. But, phoenix-like, it is being reborn. It expresses the anguish of it's growing pains in the shit and filth of poverty, but it also expresses it's joy and energy in the sparkling eyes and disarming smiles of it's people. For what is a country? It is not a place, it is the people who inhabit it.

Phnom Penh changed me in a way I can't describe. I'm larger somehow, as though when I opened up to it, it gave me part of itself. It is not a place for everyone, but it does have something to offer to anyone. Something unique. Something beyond words. Something given, as a gift, to those who are willing to step into it's arms.

THE EFFING F1

Singapore's Formula One racing event is upon us. This is a massive event and crews have been busy building barricades for weeks with the worst of the road closures going into effect as of yesterday. Since a huge chunk of The Central Business District actually becomes the race circuit, traffic has become an even more snarled mess than usual as drivers try to navigate their way around the blockades and detours. Being a pedestrian is also much like being a rat in a maze since crosswalks are closed and bus stops are unusable. Guests of the Ritz-Carlton, which is right in the heart of the track, must enter the hotel through the underground car park of the hotel next door !

Since our theatre is a mere stone's throw from the grandstand, we are practically in the heart of the chaos and getting to and from work has become a grand adventure. In the evenings, after the show, I quite enjoy the walk around Marina Bay Lagoon or, as we call it, 'the long way', but in the afternoons, I just want to get to work already. You'd think the locals, who have dealt with this for three years already, would have a game plan, but not so. I was very entertained last night as everyone stood outside the stage door trying to figure out how to get home or figure out where their bus stop had been moved to. 

 Marina Bay Sands lit with a racing motif

It's not only a challenge for us to get to the theatre, our audiences will also have to  find a way in. I'm pretty certain that as the week goes on and we draw nearer to the big race on Sunday, our curtain will be going up exponentially later with every performance. We are, as yet, unsure about the sound-proofing of the theatre. It's a definite possibility that the constant buzz and drone of speeding cars will seep into the Savannah. 

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The Mid-August festival and my new-found love affair with mooncakes, have come and gone. One of the dressers, Justin, took me to the huge, annual mooncake bazaar at Takashimaya dept. store. 

He is a self-confessed mooncake junkie and it was fascinating to have him lead me around the various stalls explaining the different regions and ethnic styles of mooncakes. 

After dozens of samples, we eventually settled on our choices. I decided on a very traditional baked mooncake filled with black sesame paste. Justin opted for a mixed box of snowskin style cakes comprised of two green tea flavour and two chrysanthemum flavour. To our surprise, they made the snowskin cakes right there as we waited.

 The flavoured paste is first rolled into a ball

then wrapped in snowskin

 The ball is then pressed into a wooden mould 

and banged out onto the counter

Happy shoppers

Part of the mooncake allure is the beautiful packaging

 We traded with each other 

(just like baseball cards)

so that we could both have one cake of each flavour

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Ramya, my Tamil makeup artist, has been passing along her knowledge of Indian cooking to me. I've attempted my first home-made lime pickle. Not a 'pickle' in the traditional sense, as in vinegar, but a preserve using salt, spices and oil. 

The tiny limes have to be quartered, salted 

and sat in the sun in a jar for around two weeks.

Then the spices are added, and the jar is

put back in the sun for a few days.

The final step is to cook mustard seeds in mustard oil, mix the whole mess together and put it back in the sun for another week or so. Problem is, we've had an endless series of cloudy, rainy days here, so my whole pickle schedule keeps getting pushed back. Sadness.

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Claudia, in make up, knows that I have an intense aversion to all things 'cute', so she insists on lining up her 'adorable' stuffed toys on her mirror. She even went so far as to move the cutsie circus onto Ramya's mirror so that I could 'enjoy' it more fully. Of course, I could not let this flagrant assault on my sensibilities go unpunished, so I took some of her stuffed family out on a day trip and sent the photos to her phone.

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Singlish just never stops being entertaining

...FACE THE FINAL CURTAIN....

Or, to quote another well known tune, "...its the fiinal countdown ". We received official notice yesterday that Lion King Singapore will give it's final performance on October 30. By that point we will have done 285 performances and played to over 300,000 people. We have set the record for the longest running show in Singapore history and changed the theatrical landscape forever. But now, it's time to go.

Though there is certainly a melancholy that comes with the announcement, the spirits of the company are high as people start to think about the idea of "home" and returning to all that is familiar.

Six weeks to go...