a street 51 christmas

From Christmas in Cambodia

A Street 51 Christmas. Street 51 is one of the bar streets in Phnom Penh, and features the infamous Heart of Darkness night club, Zeppelin, a bunch of girlie bars (the Black Cat, Shanghai), and Howie's, the place where I spend most of my non-working hours. I went there on Christmas night to get a Christmas kebab for Christmas dinner since I Christmas didn't-feel-like-eating until then.

From Christmas in Cambodia

There are 3 24 hour dining kiosks along this strip and they are all delightful once it get pasts 11:00 PM. The chicken shwarma kebab had french fries in it. And garlic sauce. And stuff kept on falling out of it, delicious stuff. There are also what I term "weird Cambodian burgers" on offer. They may not be weird, but the only time I ate one was at 4:00 AM on a particularly interesting Friday, and I don't really remember anything about it other then a single, truncated frame of me eating it with lots of ketchup and thinking, "Well, this is odd spicing."

From Christmas in Cambodia

Something about Santa Claus hats is a cultural universality. It's like Mickey Mouse and Michael Jackson. There are probably people in the backwaters of Papua New Guinea who own Santa Claus hats. Here, they're all the rage among the hip young things out for a night of larceny on Street 51. I mean, I own one.

From Christmas in Cambodia

The Heart of Darkness wishes you a Happy Holiday's. This is the club where they had that shooting a while back, but you know about that if you've read anything about Phnom Penh nightlife. Hailing from New Orleans, nightclub shootings are nothing particularly exotic in my eyes, and the Heart is a pretty standard nightclub with thumpy-thumpy music, overpriced cocktails, and lots of people making out with each other. I like going there to dance poorly on occasion, but the creeper-to-me ratio is occasionally rather high and sometimes I run right back outside again. The female security guard is lovely: last time I walked outside to wait for friends, she let me sit on her chair, did my hair into braids, instructed me on how to do a Khmer "wai," and had a discussion with me about boys.

From Christmas in Cambodia

They had an absolute winner of a tree in the mall opposite the Heart. I find myself becoming a bit of a connesuir of Cambodian Christmas trees. Sort of like a wine snob, only a thousand times more esoteric. The Ultimate Hipster, in a way. Maybe I'll produce a guide no one will read.

Oh, wait. Already doing that.

	From Christmas in Cambodia

Happy Merry Christmas, everyone.

the star that rose in the east (great deals on soy drink)

From Christmas in Cambodia

She's a pretty girl.

From Christmas in Cambodia

The 24 Hour Shop employees are all wearing staff-issue Santa hats. They're playing Christmas carols at really high RPM in the shop too. A group of Cambodian schoolboys were in there today, drumming off-beat on the counter top along to what sounded like a Vietnamese (in English) cover of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Some people have said that this is the most Christmas they've ever seen in Phnom Penh. Guess they'll know all the words next year, too.

man with tree

From Christmas in Cambodia

He looked up at me a second later. He gave me a, "Why the hell are you taking a photo of me why I am eating?" sort of look, an inquiring sort of look.

The only logical response was, "Well, I'm this weird girl who takes pictures of random European men eating dinner in front of a particularly sparkly Christmas tree in Phnom Penh and I'm not judging your lifestyle at all, and I mean, you made the tableux just about perfect, so thanks, you're a mensch, and..."

I in fact just made a weird face and scurried away. But the thought was there.

santa in orange

From Christmas in Cambodia

Santa as viewed through the orange hue of urban devastation. Santa expresses the hope-and neuroses-that commercialism and the Western "Christmas" concept can bring, a wry commentary on the day to day lives that Phnom Penh's overwhelmingly Buddhist-and overwhelmingly poor-population lives. What ironic urban artist erected this little monument? What mirth lies beneath the dark, whispering heart of this growing Asian metropolis, this nightmare-within-a-dream of a city?

Or, you know, someone put a cardboard cut out of Santa on their door under an orange light.

Sometimes I think I should become a modern artist so I could write shit like that all day.

david bowie and christmas lions

From Christmas in Cambodia

The Lyon d' Or French restaurant on Street 110 has, not surprisingly, a bit of a lion-themed decor scheme. The lions are appropriately decorated for the holiday. Something about the juxtaposition of dubiously produced and gold-colored lion statues and sparkly Christmas regalia pleases me immensely. I'M GOING TO RIP YOUR FACE OFF WITH HOLIDAY CHEER, he is saying to you. Cheerfully.

From Christmas in Cambodia

This lion reminds me of David Bowie. I think it's the stenciled-in eyebrows.

From Christmas in Cambodia

Standing guard over someone's bicycle. I need to purchase a bicycle. I was debating between buying a really good zoom lens for my camera or a motobike for Christmas. I ended up concluding that a zoom lens was somewhat less likely to kill me then a moto. I just have this vision of getting the moto, having a few celebratory drinks, forgetting about my new toy, then getting on it and driving it straight into the river in a wide and glorious arc. Now that will draw a helluva crowd.

From Christmas in Cambodia

The wide, staring, blue and vaguely Asian eyes are what really make this Santa for me.

Actually, he reminds me of David Bowie too. It's the gold sparkly aspect.