A swimming pool, wedding party and a traffic jam

Well the subject of this entry sort of sums up the long weekend I just had (long in the sense we had Monday off work for a public holiday… not in the long and tedious sense…)

I spent a lot of Saturday lazing by a very nice pool, overlooking the river (lovely apart from a mild fishy smell) and doing some swimming, resting in the Jacuzzi, and reading… then home to play with my new blender… ooooh the blending possibilities are endless… so many fruity combinations… it even crushes ice…

Then Sunday was the day of the wedding… actually I didn’t go to the wedding, just the wedding party. It was very bizarre… for starters most of the wedding parties in PP (well those of people with money) are apparently held at this great big wedding center… imagine the scene, a humongous carpark filled with more cars than I thought existed in PP, next to the carpark was what at first looked like a shopping mall/center (depending on if you’re American or English). There were several entrances to the building and each was clearly labeled with a illuminated letter (ie A, B, C) this was handy as we didn’t want to end up in the wrong wedding party… no fear we were greeted at entrance ‘D’ by the bride and groom… think princess… there were tiaras and glamorous is an understatement…. After being given what will in future be used as a silk star shaped Christmas decoration, we proceeded upstairs to eat.

There must have been about 500 people in the room all eating… to me it seemed more like a restaurant, you sit down, wait for your table to fill up and then you’re served a huge diner (cold meats, rice, noodles, chicken soup, prawns etc etc) food is yum but the singing blaring out of the PA system makes it too hard to hear what anyone is saying…and then after eating most of the guests leave… very odd if you ask me… I mean no speeches, no toasts or anything… but I suppose the ceremonies had been going since 4am…however we stuck around and the dancing started… Khmer dancing at a wedding entails shuffling round a table with an ever diminishing pile of fruit on it, waving your hands in a sort of graceful manner… not too tricky for me the dyspraxic one… alas after that sort of dancing comes weird line dancing… eeek… this helpful (?) khmer man tried to show me the moves, but I couldn’t get it… oh well… it was fun… oh yes another random thing all the women look like they’re at a ball or high class evening function.. the dresses are amazing, and most people I spoke to had been to a hairdresser to get their hair and make up done… however the men on the other hand… well some were sort of smart (they wore a shirt) but in comparison to the women they looked trampish (not that I can talk)..

So that was Sunday… then today I went to the central market. A huge art deco/nouvoux (never sure which is which) domed building which stocks everything… I bought a little radio… at last I no longer have to endure CNN news and can listen to the BBC.. horay and god save the queen.After that some friends (yes I seem to have acquired a couple) and I went off to the countryside (sort of)… we went to a cool pond complex where there are lots of ponds and nice gardens with pretty flowers, and little huts suspended over the water where you can lie and relax and eat yummy food and drink and talk. It was great… then we drove home and got stuck in the nastiest traffic queue ever… either related to

a) Chinese new year

b) an accident

c) stupid Cambodians driving all over the bally road (ie trying to fit 5 lanes of traffic into a 2 lane road) or

d) all of the above…

needless to say it was very very slooooow, however for me the novelty of people sitting on the roofs of busses or 5 people riding on a motor bike or wooden houses sitting on stilts or just the dusty concoction commotion of people has not worn off so I was happy just watching.