Cambodia; Shoes, Thieves and Explosive Diarrhoea: Part 1

The beginning

So it is a pleasant Saturday morning. I am having a lie in, recuperating from the late Friday evening. For once, the source of my Saturday laziness was not my Friday night intemperance, but was rather due to a series of events including; a power cut at work on Friday afternoon, which in turn led me to Psar Toul Thom Poung, which in turn led me to several DVD stalls and several purchases.

Friday night was just a few beers early evening in one of the grimier French owned bars near Psar Chas, with a pizza – well, Calzone – being delivered in by one of the most expensive pizzerias in Phnom Penh (remember that fact for later on.)

After which, I was feeling somewhat tired, Friday is a long day, so it was home to lounge around on the sofa and watch several hours worth of new DVDs, in fact, I was up until around 02:30 watching them.

So anyway, there I was dozing on a quiet Saturday morning, through the bedroom window I can hear the soft swish, swish, of a Khmer broom and the general noises of cleaning coming from outside, peering through the internal bedroom widow I see Srai H doing the cleaning. Fair enough I think, back to the dozing and general lazing around.

”Ah, ah, ah, Jowl, jowl, jowl, other blah, blah, blah in Khmer at a high volume, jowl, jowl, jowl !!!!” came the cries and the shouts from my front balcony. Pulling on a robe and a frown I headed out to see what all the fuss was about.

It seems that somewhere between; me dozing off at around 03:00 and Strai H turning up to dust and clean the flat at around 08:00, some thieving gypsy bastard had scaled the gate and razor-wire, tiptoed along the tin-roof of the flat below and had made off with all of my shoes from the balcony outside.

What kind of fucked up country spawns the kind of thief that would steal all of a man’s shoes from outside his own front door?

– oh, wait a moment, do not bother to answer that question, we all know?

And this is not a front-door on the ground floor, but on a spacious balcony outside an exclusive penthouse several floors up. Grrrrr.

So, taking stock of my losses, I realise that I am missing; a pair of almost new Church’s black leather oxfords that I had arranged for a friend to recently bring out from the UK, a pair of brown suede Timberlands (also from the UK) and a dirty old pair of black trainers (Psar Thmey US$3)

Out of all this I was most upset about the oxfords -my ‘work shoes’ – others in the past have accused me of being exceptionally fussy when it comes to shoes, but this is not true, actually it is the complete opposite of the truth, I am completely unfussy, I want no silly designs, no square-cut toes, no protruding soles, no silly metal bits anywhere – just a basic, simple, pair of black leather oxfords, that is all. No Fuss, No Muss.

While I was coming to the conclusion that I was going to have to go to the market barefoot, to buy replacements, Strai H was running around like a headless chicken gossiping – sorry, chatting – with the neighbours as to whether they had suffered a similar loss or not.

Upon her return, she informed me that they had not had any shoes stolen. But they had only left cheap plastic flip-flops outside – which I guess is a polite Khmer way of telling me that I am an idiot.

She then asked if I would be going to the market to buy them back?

Whoa, what, wait a minute. Did you just say that I should go to the market to buy my own shoes back ?

Just then, a red hot knife was thrust into my stomach, or so it felt like. I doubled over in pain, then swiftly dashed for the ‘smallest room in the house.’

As I sat there pondering what was going I remember thinking that the Calzone last night had a raw egg – or at least a half raw egg – in the middle of it. But this was from one of the most expensive, if not the most expensive, pizza restaurants in town…. hmmm.

Later, upon my returning to the balcony, I asked Srai H what she had been talking about. She then informed me that it would be best for me if I went to ‘the thief?s market’ and repurchased my shoes from there, it would be cheaper than buying new ones.

”What?!? Who?!?! What?!?!?” was, I think, my erudite reply.

She then further explained that there was a second-hand street market in Phnom Penh that was notorious for selling all the stolen merchandise from around the city.

So, swiftly dashing to my moto, only stopping to visit the bathroom twice more, we set off, with her giving directions, for this Aladdin?s Cave of Phnom Penh, with all its hooky goods and moody gold.

Playboy

Tomorrow: Part two, The Thieves Market