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Walking with beasties

The artist takes delicate hold of a paintbrush that’s been dipped into a big pot of metallic green paint. With a gentle inclination of the head, as if to say ‘Wait until you see this,’ she takes a graceful swipe at the canvas, depositing an arc of bright, wet colour. She snorts, returns the brush to its pot and selects another, this one slick with red. Another swipe. Another splash of colour. The canvas instinctively leans back, giggling. The canvas in question is me. The artist: an Asian elephant.

Having a t-shirt painted by an elephant called Lucky while you’re wearing it (the shirt, not the elephant) is one of the comedic high points of the new Close Encounters tours at Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre. Here, to help meet the staggering costs of feeding and caring for upwards of 1,200 weird and wonderful rare beasties, the doors are being thrown open on a world to which only professional zoologists are usually privy.

And what a world it is. Scaly things; winged things; things sharp of tooth and claw: no animal in need ever gets turned away, according to Wildlife Alliance, the result of which is an ever-evolving menagerie housing some of Southeast Asia’s rarest creatures. Here, for a donation of $100 or more, you can spend the day behind the scenes as a keeper under the watchful eyes of the experts, holding hands with gibbons; playing with infant macaques; dining alongside the world’s only captive hairy-nosed otter and even swimming with elephants (at least one of which does a nice sideline in abstract art).

If such a chance seems rare, the things you can expect to encounter are even rarer. Take the wonderfully named hairy-nosed otter, for instance: it was believed to have been snuffed out altogether until 1997, when one of the elusive creatures – once widespread throughout Southeast Asia – was found killed by a car in Brunei. More than a decade later, in 2010, experts were able to confirm that an image captured by a camera trap the previous year in Malaysia’s Sabah state was in fact a live specimen – the first spotted there in more than a century.

Then there’s the pygmy slow loris. Deceptively doe-eyed, it’s a solitary night-walking primate which can fit inside a large coffee cup. But don’t be fooled by its come-hither look. “Lorises have a gland near the elbow which oozes a strong-smelling substance whenever the loris feels threatened,” says Vietnam-based loris expert Dr Ulrike Streicher, of Fauna and Flora International. “The loris licks this liquid, which, when mixed with saliva, turns toxic. Because of this, the loris’ fierce defensive bite can induce anaphylactic shock in its victim.” Funnily enough, the gates to the loris enclosure at Phnom Tamao stay firmly locked during our visit.

What doesn’t stay locked, however, is the keeper’s side of the tiger enclosure. Here, where saner mortals might fear to tread, these magnificent predators lie prone on cool, shaded concrete barely a whisker’s length from your face. Hot breath rolls over skin as each overgrown puss strikes an at-leisure pose no different than that of your average house cat. On the other end of the feline scale, in their temporary home at the centre’s nursery, two orphaned leopard cat kittens squeak as they nibble your fingertips.

One of the most surreal moments of the day comes when a cream-furred gibbon politely requests a massage. Presenting her thick, lustrous mane and occasionally peering over her shoulder to monitor progress – imagine the product of an unholy union between Star Wars’ Yoda and Chewbacca – she leans back against the mesh, moving only to change which part of her it is you’re massaging. Rehabilitation is a core part of the regime here and another gibbon, this one a male with cataracts and awaiting surgery, gently reaches out to take my hand in his, not letting go for a full ten minutes.

There’s a reason creatures such as these are eyeball-to-eyeball with extinction: the illegal trade in endangered species is believed to be worth up to $30 billion a year, 25% of which passes through Southeast Asia. In 2011, Noor Mahmood almost achieved the unthinkable: about to fly first class to Dubai, the 36-year-old United Arab Emirates national calmly deposited his hand luggage on an x-ray scanner at Bangkok Airport. As the case trundled past security, not a single member of staff noticed the marmoset, gibbon, Asiatic black bear and four leopards – all drugged and less than two months old – packed tightly inside. And the volume is increasing, according to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature’s regional office, but so are efforts to stop it. Among those efforts is this sprawling 2,500-acre ‘safe house’ for exotic creatures rescued from the clutches of would-be smugglers.

Prostrate next to a large inviting pool, a row of Siamese crocodiles with jaws slightly ajar soak up the sunshine like prehistoric solar panels. Believed extinct until Phnom Tamao discovered several pure-blood specimens within its own perimeter, they have a special place in Khmer history and can be seen carved into the ancient walls of Angkor Wat. A few enclosures on, enormous pythons have curled themselves into giant coils. Back in the elephant enclosure, we watch as Chhouk’s prosthetic foot is given the once-over in a series of gracefully choreographed manoeuvres.

“Whether we’re making a global impact or not I don’t know, but certainly we’re touching Cambodia,” says Wildlife Rescue Director Nick Marx, who oversees Phnom Tamao. “The people that know us, they know we’re doing a good job. They can see what can be done with a little bit of money and a lot of hard work and passion. I have always loved wild animals and always will. What people are now doing for wildlife populations is catastrophic: reducing many, many species to extinction. This has to stop. If I can play my little part in helping to stop that, then I reckon my life’s been worthwhile.”

WHO: Aspiring wildlife experts
WHAT: Close Encounters Wildlife Tour
WHERE: Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre, south of Phnom Penh; 095 970175; evansv@nullonline.com.kh
WHEN: Now
WHY: This may be your last chance to see these magnificent beasts alive

The voice

Striding onto the catwalk in an emerald-green dress crafted from recycled water bottles, a seemingly endless train of fabric spooling over the stage behind her, Rhiannon Johnson embodied the very essence of Glamazon 2.0. Born in Barbados to English parents, and having spent her formative years in Kenya before graduating from London’s much-admired Central St Martins University of the Arts, this elegant chanteuse cuts quite the dash on the runway. But it’s what’s underneath – namely, her vocal chords – that really quickens the pulse. The Advisor cornered Rhiannon offstage to talk Caribbean culture, crippling shyness and what it’s like fronting Cambodia’s rowdiest funk band.

Where on Earth did you get those vocal chords, madam?
Music in Barbados is a big deal. In the Caribbean, it’s a huge part of their culture. Once a year, we’d have this big festival to celebrate the end of the crops and sugar cane; it’s called Crop Over. Listening to the radio and singing was always a huge part of my life, but it wasn’t until I got to school in Kenya that I got the chance to focus on it. It felt great: it was me coming out of myself. I’d only ever sung by myself in the shower. I’d get really nervous doing open mics in shopping centres and my best friend, who’s here in Cambodia with me now, would listen to me sing in the toilets before I went on and say: ‘It’s OK. You’re going to be great!’ Now she’s here in Cambodia, at the front of a Durian concert, clapping and shouting. It’s so serendipitous. And I feel very grateful to have parents who have always said: ‘You have to do whatever it is you love.’ Both of my parents are very creative.

How did you come to find yourself here?
I had no concept of Southeast Asia or Cambodia at all, but my mother and best friend – who are all here – were on Skype saying: ‘If you come here, you’ll find something. Why not just come along?’ I said OK, quit my job, shipped all my stuff, brought my brother with me and now we’re all here. What are the odds?

That’s the universe telling you something.
I took a while to figure out what I was going to do here. I remember singing at a few open mic nights and I was so shy. I sat on the chair with my legs crossed and kind of went like this… [mimes curling up into the foetal position]. It took a while for the music thing to kick off and then it took a while for me to get comfortable and into the groove of the whole thing. Then a friend took me to meet Euan Gray and GTS. Euan’s very good and very practiced at encouraging people to come out of themselves and to sing and be musical and try different things. I think he can see it in people. He’s very good at getting them to own this gift they didn’t realise they had and to use it. It was very easy for him to get me singing again. He was doing a duo at The Quay and asked me to step in while Louise Norup was away for six weeks. It was a really nice way to get started; to get accustomed to the sound of my own voice out loud.

From civilised beginnings at The Quay, you’ve since gone on to front Cambodia’s dirtiest, low-down funk band, Durian.
I’ve gone through all these phases. I started out with Euan, which was mostly pop/soul stuff, then Phil & Ritchie got in touch and we did a gig together at Red Apron. They’re both hilarious; great company. That was mostly jazz. Then there was the trio with Euan and Charlie Corrie. Then Chris Rompre approached me, saying they were thinking of putting Durian back together.

Funk: that’s a very different sound than what you were doing before.
It’s fun! It’s very melodic, good fun. At the time, it was just what I needed. I’ve gone through a lot of changes with music. I was terrified, because I’d seen their last gig and the energy. I’d seen Jess [Knowles, former lead singer] just throw herself into the gig, with sweat flying. That energy! I love funk music but I’d never really sung any before. Then I realised I’d never really sung any of the other stuff before either. The earlier stuff was very laidback, very mellow. The sheer amount of energy I had to put into funk music really intimidated me, but feel the fear and do it anyway, right?

Absobloodylutely!
I already knew I was going to be surrounded by great people who were going to be really supportive and it just carried on. I put so much into our first gig that I sweat more than I ever have in my life! I went into Equinox’s toilet to change my dress and actually wrung it out. It was stuck to me! I was totally spent at the end of it but it was great fun. I’m really sad that it’s come to an end for a while, if not permanently.

What’s the story?
Our trumpet player and our guitarist have left Cambodia for good, and everyone else has gone away for two to six months. They’ll be back, but we’ll need to find new members. But we didn’t even know there was going to be a Durian 2.0, so we’ll see. I am going to miss it. What do I do now with my Monday nights?! Monday nights are long. What do you do?!

So what’s next for you?
Greg Lavender, the drummer, who’s a very dear friend of mine and plays with Durian as well as everyone else, he said ‘Why don’t we put a thing together?’ Our quartet has now done a few gigs at The Village.

And this quartet is called…
 [Laughs] The Rhiannon Johnson Quartet! I’m so sorry. We struggled for so long on that one. Stephane is a genius with the word play and he came up with so many fantastic names, but we didn’t want to come across as pretentious. It’s so hard with these things, as you know. You come up with a name and you’re like, ‘This is brilliant!’ Then you look at it again and it’s, like, you just can’t.

Pun fail!
And my name is WAY too long for a band name.
I was going to ask you whether it’s a stage name.
Are you kidding?! It’s WAY too long!

It’s an awesome name. You just kind of sigh it: ‘Rhhhhiiiiaaaaanon Johhhhhnson’…
[Laughs] You’re so full of it! So that’s the quartet. We’ll see. The funny thing is, for the past year… stuff just comes up. When I first got here I panicked because it was so new and I fell in love with singing. I hope it continues. That’s the wonderful thing about Cambodia: you can do anything.

Howzabout a funk-punk duet?
[Looks nervous] Yes. Absolutely. Um… Cambodia has taught me to trust that things will happen and to trust myself and others. I work with amazing, talented musicians and they’re wonderful. They’ve taken the time to sit down and teach me things and made me feel I do have something to offer. I get really nervous, but then I get out there and it’s wonderful.

What do you listen to during your down time?
Musically, I don’t listen to anything like what I sing.
Metallica? AC/DC? You’re listening to Slayer, aren’t you?
[Laughs] Not Slayer, no, but I do love a huge range of stuff. There are a lot of jazz songs I would hum or sing on my walk to work in London and now I’m performing them. I remember standing on stage singing Cry Me A River and thinking ‘I can’t believe that a year ago I was singing this on my way to work and in my bedroom and doing the laundry.’ I recorded it one night when I was at home on a Saturday on GarageBand, only because there was no one else there to hear me. All of a sudden I’m singing it in front of people. And they’ll turn to you with a big grin on their face and start mouthing the words along with you. At home, I listen to stuff like Lord Huron and James Vincent McMorrow. It’s mostly easy listening; pop and rock. It’s very mellow, but then I put a play list together for a party on Saturday night and it was all Earth, Wind and Fire; Motown, funk. I love that stuff and can listen to it all day if I’ve got my groove on.

WHO: Rhiannon Johnson
WHAT: Silken vocals, from jazz to funk
WHERE: Various exotic locations in Cambodia
WHEN: We’ll let you know, so Watch This Space!
WHY: If you weren’t at Glamazon 2.0, ask anyone who was

 

& into the fire

You know you’re onto a winner when the road is clogged up by a maze of bikes belonging to the crowd of diners inside. That pretty much sums up the scenario outside Sovanna’s every night as both Khmers and expats pack into the bustling and restaurant to tuck into the mountain of dishes on offer on the extensive menu.

And if the obvious signs of its popularity – let’s not forget Sovanna II is just down the street – aren’t enough to lure you in, then the smell of the Khmer restaurant’s legendary grilled meats wafting from the sizzling barbecue at the entrance is sure to get you through the gates, salivating as you go.

Inside, it’s alive with the clatter of plates and chatter from large groups of diners huddled around the many tables. Outside is a tropical garden with giant trees separating tables, vines creeping up the walls and plants scattered about. Despite the constant stream of people, there always seems to be an abundance of friendly waiters poised to show you to a table that is swiftly cleaned before you’re seated and handed a menu. And what a menu it is.

It could easily take hours to decide what to eat. In fact, this beast is the dining equivalent of War And Peace, with a healthy smattering of the weird and wonderful thrown in for good measure. Some of the more unusual dishes I’m too scared to try are grilled heart beef (20,000 riel; $4:80), bull stomach (25,000 riel; $6), fried stomach with red tamarind (23,000 riel; $5:50) and roti frog (23,000 riel; $5:50).

Promising to be more adventurous next time, we skipped these and went straight for large helpings of the restaurant’s renowned grilled pork (large: 16,000 riel; $3:80) and roasted beef (large: 20,000 riel; $4:80), fried mixed vegetables with oyster sauce (large: 15,500 riel; $3:60) and the grilled whole fish (25,000 riel; $6). As soon as we’d placed our order, the Cambodia beer girls appeared at our table armed with as many bottles of ice cold beer as they could carry and a bucket of ice.

First out was a complementary tray of lettuce, cucumber, tomato and carrot covered in ice to keep it fresh. Next was the pork and, yes, it lived up to its reputation. Delicately thin slices were cooked to perfection, the barbecue giving them a delicious smoky flavour, and there wasn’t a scrap of fat to be found. The beef was also cut into thin slices and was surprisingly tender, but not quite melt-in-your-mouth, and the full fish was a fancy feast and came sizzling on a hot plate with lemon, garlic and vegetables adding to the flavour.

Even though there were three mouths to feed and the food was exceptionally good, we struggled to demolish the plates and ordered the bill. Including too many beers to count and far too much rice, the total came in at the bargain price of 98,500 riel – the equivalent of about $23:50. And it’s that kind of value that keeps me coming back to Sovanna time and time again.

Sovanna, #4 Street 21; 012 398 281

 

Ingrained minds

Chan Rothana has several ‘magic’ tattoos drawn with incense onto his skin by a monk. “They are protecting me even if you do not see them,” he says. “And it seems to be working” At 27, he has fought 80 times in the ring and never been knocked down. He knows over a thousand moves that his father taught him when he started learning the Yukatun Khrom martial art 10 years ago. Being the son of Kbach Kun Boran Khmer Master (Kru), one of the most recognised masters in Cambodia, requires discipline, belief and strength. “People call it ‘Bokator’, but that’s not the right name. It’s an art; not just a sport.” He smiles. Rothana’s name is legendary among fighters. People say his grandfather used to train with bags of sand and stones thrown at his jaw to strengthen it until he could endure every strike.

Tired of people watching Yukatun Khrom like a TV soap opera without appreciating it as part of their culture, Rothana decided to open a club to teach not just the technique but also the spirit of the art – a philosophy he shares with Apsara dance teacher Sen Pitch: “We both want to keep the culture alive.”

Sen has been teaching the secrets of Apsara moves for the past year to both Khmer and foreign students. It’s an unconventional path for Khmer arts: Apsara dance is supposed to be the preserve of the elite. But Sen fights for her culture the same way she once fought for her life. Like Rothana, she grew up in a refugee camp on the Thai border. “You simply do not forget that,” she says. At the age of 13, she started to practice during the weekends as a way to keep her Khmer identity.

The more her body softened, the more she practiced, until at the age of 14 she danced for the late King Father. But on what became the most important day of her life as an Apsara, she danced in front of Princess Bopha Devi – one of the chief guardians of Khmer classicism: “She came to see me after the show to tell me I was dancing beautifully and bringing back to her a bit of herself when she was young.” When the Royal Apsara troupe’s patron and the most prominent daughter of Norodom Sihanouk gives you a mirror, you look at it and lose your fears.

Rothana and Sen each have one floor on which to perpetuate the moves of Apsara and Yukatun Khrom among interested locals and foreigners alike, as the incense from which Rothana draws his strength burns and give wings to the Apsara’s prayers. ‘Unite, inspire, share’ has become the motto of Selapak – a place where, symbolised by the two wings of a mythical Cambodian bird, Aspara and Yukatun Khrom now have a new home.

WHO: Selapak (‘Living Arts’)
WHAT: Bokator and Apsara classes
WHERE: #117 Street 110
WHEN: From mid-June
WHY: Master the ancient Khmer disciplines of fighting and dance

 

Fever pitch

“Doors-inspired Vox and Farfisa organs swirled around raging buzzsaw, fuzztone guitars and wild man of Borneo drums. This psilocybin soup was garnished by ethereal voices singing what sounded like Sanskrit chants invoked by Krishna and Radharani themselves run through a broken Echoplex reverberation machine. I played that CD until every cut was acid-etched into my cerebral cortex.” – Brad Warner, suicidegirls.com

THE KINKS’ RAY DAVIES hailed them “a cross between Led Zeppelin and Blondie”; Matt Dillon asked them to record a Cambodian version of Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now for his directorial debut, City Of Ghosts. Metallica’s Kirk Hammett picked One Thousand Tears Of A Tarantula – homage to legendary chanteuse Ros Sereysothea, forced by the Khmer Rouge to strip naked and sing under the merciless Cambodian Sun until she dropped dead from exhaustion – for the number two slot on his Rolling Stone magazine Best Music Of The Decade ballot.

Dengue Fever, the Los Angeles-based sextet who take ’60s Cambodian psyche rock and stuff it through a blender, are at risk of becoming accustomed to such high praise. The LA Weekly declared the band Best New Artist; Mojo counts them among its Top 10 World Music Releases; their songs have featured on everything from CSI: Las Vegas to True Blood. And now, 18 months after they last appeared in Phnom Penh, Dengue Fever are bringing it all back home.

The band’s beginnings on a dusty road en route from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh in the late 1990s have long been the stuff of legend. Farfisa organ player Ethan Holtzman, a Californian hipster backpacking through Southeast Asia, had hitched a ride in a beaten pick-up truck along with a friend who’d contracted the viral disease from which the band ultimately took its name. For eight hours, Ethan caught the captivating melodies of ’60s Cambodian rock wafting from the radio every time he poked his head through the window to check on his friend’s condition.

By the time Ethan returned to LA, his suitcase crammed full of Cambodian cassette tapes, his brother Zac had discovered the genre on his own while living in San Francisco. Zac took lead guitar and Ethan keys, adding saxophonist David Ralicke; drummer Paul Dreux Smith and bassist, Senon Williams. Chhom Nimol, their alluring frontwoman whose father sang with the great Khmer pop singer Sinn Sisamouth, was discovered at Dragon House in the Cambodian-American enclave of Long Beach. “When we first witnessed the power of Nimol’s voice filling the hall,” Ethan has said of that moment, “my brother and I were floored. We knew that she was the one.”

Nimol initially took a little convincing, not least because Zac boasts a beard worthy of an Orthodox rabbi and/or ZZ Top, and the journey has not always been smooth. Disaster nearly struck when Nimol was arrested in San Diego in accordance with stringent post-9/11 immigration policy: she’d arrived in the US on a two-week visitor visa and simply stayed on. She was thrown in jail for 22 days and it took nearly a year for the band’s lawyer to secure her a two-year visa (his fees were paid through benefit gigs).

But today, this extraordinary ensemble – whose sound is defined nowhere more eloquently than by Brad Warner on suicidegirls.com – is chiefly responsible for introducing global audiences to a lesser-known Cambodia; the Cambodia long obscured from international eyes by the pall of murderous Maoists. As Mark Jenkins writes in The Washington Post: “Imagine relaxing in a dive in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, circa 1965, brushing elbows with off-duty soldiers, local gangsters and Western diplomats as a hip band plays a mix of rock, soul, jazz, surf music, traditional Cambodian tunes and Henry Mancini and John Barry spy-movie motifs.”

Powerful stuff, not just on the global stage but where it all began – as evidenced in the documentary Sleepwalking Through The Mekong, which charts Dengue Fever’s first visit to Cambodia as a band back in 2005. During one sequence, filmed in The White Building where the band jammed with residents, a music teacher turns to the camera and says in Khmer: “When I saw them performing with my students I was just in awe. Nothing could compare to it. I knew they were foreigners, but when they played all these Khmer songs there was no class difference. We were all equal.”

With Dengue Fever setting their compass for a return to Cambodia this month, The Advisor caught up with impossibly tall bass player Senon Williams – who once told The New York Times that “underground people are getting hip to world music, and the world music side is getting hip to how you don’t have to have a dreadlock wig and Guatemalan pants to be cool” – to talk beards, psychedelic dreams and what it’s like being a moving déjà-vu.

Two burning questions I think everyone wants to know the answers to: what year was it when Zac last shaved and just how tall are you, really?

I would say Zac last shaved probably before he was conceived, so it’s got to be some time in the ’60s. [Laughs] It’s funny. When I first met Zac it was some time in the ’80s and he had long hair and no beard, so it had to be some time in the ’90s when he turned into The Beard Master.

 

Wanderlust

Scott Bywater blows a loud raspberry. “Don’t go writing about me being a beautiful soul! That would be extremely embarrassing…” This musician/writer/ nomadic spirit is nothing if not a trifle shy, especially when it comes to his poetic musings. “I had great parents. I still have great parents! Mum has lived in Cambodia for more than 20 years; they were both librarians. The house was always full of books and music and cinema. I was lucky enough to be brought up in an environment where these were the important things. We didn’t have a television while I was in high school; it broke and we didn’t get it fixed. I wasn’t too impressed at the time.”

Now sporting hair flecked with silver, the Tasmanian author of two recent volumes of poetry – A Certain Flow and One Sky, Many Skies – has since had a change of heart, spurred on by his first experience of poetry-as-performance – an experience about to be repeated. “There was a poetry evening organised at Java at very short notice and some friends of mine were playing music in the background. I said: ‘Look, I know we haven’t rehearsed this, but why don’t you just sort of play in behind what I’m doing? That could be interesting.’ And it was actually an epiphany for me, to be playing with live music being improvised behind me. There was a guitar, bass, tro (traditional bowed string instrument native to Cambodia). I thought: ‘Gee, I’d like to do some more of this.’ The original intention was to have Khmer instruments, but then I thought about more soundscapey stuff – big synth pads, things like that.”

And so it is that Bywater, with a little help from his friends Warren Daly, Alex Leonard and Hal FX, will be bringing his poetry to life against a backdrop of live music and visuals at Equinox for Triptych this week. “Three major themes have come out of the work I’ve done over the past couple of years: there’s Phnom Penh; there’s what I call ‘the art of travel’ and what I call ‘the art of living’, which is the more philosophical stuff. Triptych seeks to draw out these themes and images through sonic, harmonic, rhythmic and visual expression: collaboration at once structured and improvised.”

Here, Bywater shares a few of the poems that will feature on the night and what each of them means to him.

The last night at Snow’s

it was always worth crossing the bridge. 

for the lights and the bells

and the mirrors and the masks

the pinks and the blues, the shimmering silver

on the balcony for the last time

what became a familiar view

of the riverside turning incandescent as the night falls

to the rhythm of the floating life, the ferries and barges and dredges.

They will continue

but unobserved from this railing

it will be different

they dance swing to the blues

pushing tired feet against these wooden boards

because they won’t get these boards dusty again

the ghost of gigs past

in a place where each and every gig was a good one

(which is hard to say of many places)

the white shirt resplendent

his body willing but fatigued, the smile still as wide

it’s been a long few days

and then the announcement, for the last time:  out of beer

for the last time,

the lights and the bells

and the mirrors and the masks

the pinks and the blues, the shimmering silver

it was always worth crossing the bridge

“Snowy managed to find himself at the centre of these major events over the last ten years. One was the bar itself, which was actually called Maxine’s – named after his daughter. It was across on Chroy Changvar; an amazing building, really quite something. The poem seeks to bring the essence of what it was like to be in the place. There were lights and bells and mirrors and masks and art. Without being a pretentious arty kind of place, it just was an expression of him and that leads onto one of the other major things: when Dengue Fever first came to Cambodia, there was a famous gig played at Snowy’s and you can still see photos of them there from time to time. There’s some footage of that in the documentary Sleepwalking Through The Mekong, which was about that tour. He wasn’t an arty farty type. The place was just full of things he liked: the interior, what went on, who went there. It was the right place at the right time, for a number of reasons. On Sunday afternoons, they used to have swing dancing there, which was really nice. The gigs were always good there; the sound was always good there. You’d have crappy equipment, but there was something about the configuration of the room that would work. I played there a couple of times with the Cambodian Space Project. The place was always in danger of falling into the Tonle Sap, so people had to wait outside for other people to come out. I was there on the last night and that’s what this poem is about: Bayon Blues had played and the swing dancers had been there. Then there was an open mic and I think I played a few songs. I had a sense it was all going to disappear. It’s one thing for it not to be there any more, but there’s a certain sense that you got going there – everything I have to say about it is all wound up in the poem.”

Berlin in February

Andie McDowell in a public bubble,

David Beckham in his undies,

Whitney Houston in the news,

Cambodia in the cinemas,

Tobacco smoke and Sweet Home Alabama in the bars…

snow/snow and grit/wet grit/more snow and grit/more snow, with tough, flash, sensible automobiles,

and rampant bears and subzero joggers,

and sledding and skating on Sundays like Bruegel biscuit tins.

a metro with no gates;

a town with no hills;

a vertically flattened world that pushes for the sky.

“This is also a funny one because it has a Cambodian link in it. I was living in Montpellier at the time, in the south of France, and I got it in my head that I would go to Berlin for the film festival because Davy Chou’s film, Golden Slumbers, was playing there and I’d just been to see the premiere in Phnom Penh but I was extremely jetlagged and saw maybe a third of it. So I got on a bus and travelled for a day and a half and arrived in Berlin. This poem is an impression of what that moment was, not having been there before; not having been that cold for a very long time. Whitney Houston in the news: that was her death. It was this surreal experience of figures like Andie McDowell and David Beckham and Whitney Houston, but at the same time it’s freezing cold and I’m watching all these crazy, weird ‘60s Cambodian films late at night and then walking out into a snow shower. Very strange.”

and let us

and let us

allow each moment

to build on

each moment,

creating the next instant,

for an instant

(and repeat)

and let us

hold in our hearts

the places we could also be,

without wishing away where we are

in favour of where we were

(there are so many places to be,

and yet only one)

and let us

move, or drift,

with poetry in our soul,

the better to understand;

(and logic in our pockets,

for emergencies)

“This is about the food part, which is what I call the art of living; that thing that poetry is supposed to do: ‘Why don’t you think about this?’ This is also something that’s quite pertinent to the theme of travel and movement. There’s no great trick to unlocking this one: it’s talking about being in the moment, and particularly trying to enjoy what it is you have in front of you without thinking: ‘Oh, gee. I wish I was somewhere else.’ Living in this spirit, but also you’ve got to keep the logic in your pocket, just for emergencies – you can’t discount all that stuff. Yin and yang: fly, but take a map!”

A Certain Flow and One Sky, Many Skies are available from Monument Books or from under Scott’s arm on the night. Read more of his poetry at thesilverpepperofthestars.wordpress.com.

WHO: Scott Bywater, Warren Daly, Alex Leonard and Hal FX
WHAT: Performed poetry in soundscape
WHERE: Equinox, Street 278
WHEN: 9pm May 10
WHY: “Yin and yang: fly, but take a map!”

 

Myanmar’s forgotten people

In the Western media, nowadays at least, the word ‘Myanmar’ rarely appears far from the cosy little phrase ‘former military dictatorship’, and barely a day goes by but we aren’t privy to a picture of President Thein Sein, peace prize nomination in back pocket, glad-handing with Washington big-wigs and signing Chinese free-trade agreements with a flourish. It’s as if the ’88 revolution, the imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi and 60 years of military dictatorship were generally things which, for the incumbent Burmese leader, were unpleasant little hiccups which happened to other people.

Some of those unfortunate other people are the Rohingya. Members of Muslim minority resident in Myanmar for almost two centuries, the Rohingya are nonetheless denied Burmese statehood and are subject to a campaign of government-sanctioned hostility so intense it has been described by Human Rights Watch as ‘ethnic cleansing’. Accepted as citizens by neither Myanmar nor their originary homeland of Bangladesh, the Rohingya have become increasingly isolated in the desolated hinterland between the two countries, living day to day in refugee camps yet denied refugee status.

For seven years, US photojournalist Greg Constantine has travelled between the countless camps on the mountainous Burma-Bangladesh border, documenting the plight of the stateless Rohingya. And he’s coming to Phnom Penh soon to present a slideshow of selected photographs from his new book Exiled To Nowhere: Burma’s Rohingya.

Shot in bone white and black, Constantine’s photographs recount the stories of the tens of thousands who have fled to the border region to escape violence only to find themselves adrift and alone, corralled in no-man’s land. Myanmar’s forgotten minority, they are, as the book title suggests, exiles to nowhere.

Constantine returned to the Burma-Bangladesh border area eight times between 2006 and 2012, capturing life in various camps with an unswerving gaze. They are not easy to look at, these images. There are close-up portraits of grandfathers, confusion and distress cross-hatched into the grey skin on their temples. There are men more skin than bones staring resignedly, or children carrying heavy burdens. Mud is the over-riding landscape feature. Weirdly, as with much conflict photography, Constantine’s lens somehow renders the Rohingya’s misery uncannily beautiful.

Accusations of photo voyeurism or, worse, conflict pornography sometimes haunt photojournalists. The best shots are the most likely to raise eyebrows the highest: a Vietcong being executed at point-blank range, eyes screwed shut; a Somali stoning. There’s something taboo about looking at someone else’s suffering and then walking away. But Constantine raises the experience above that of mere viewer or voyeur by interspersing the images in his book with interviews with the Rohingya of the photographs, contextualising their experiences as exiled and abandoned people. His Meta House presentation will achieve the same effect through the photographer’s retelling of their stories and his own, giving a voice to Myanmar’s forgotten minority.

Exiled To Nowhere is part of Nowhere People, a larger project in which Constantine documents stateless peoples from countries around the world, including Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Nepal, Bangladesh and Ukraine.

WHO: Greg Constantine
WHAT: Exiled To Nowhere: Burma’s Rohingya slideshow and presentation
WHERE: Meta House, Sothearos Blvd.
WHEN: To be confirmed (Watch This Space!)
WHY: The Rohingya may be exiled, but they’re not forgotten

 

Not-so-ugly duckling

Notable numbers of restaurateurs have been migrating to Phnom Penh from around the world to take a bite of what looks to be a boom in the fine dining market. One such restaurateur is Dah Lee, whose 30 years worth of experience in the industry has been put to practice on Sothearos Boulevard.

Dah Lee’s three-week-old enterprise, The Duck, sits opposite the White Building, an endangered living space which many of Phnom Penh’s dancers and public sector workers call home. The glass façade means that diners can look onto the distinctive building – and the building’s residents right into The Duck.

A surreal moment: two potential customers saunter past the window, stop to look at the menu and discuss their options. Where did they come from? How did they come by The Duck, as if by accident? Where would they go if they didn’t go here? It’s as though a piece of London or New York, including the pavement, has been cut and pasted into Phnom Penh.

That said, The Duck does not seem out of place. Simplicity, Lee remarks, is the start and end point. The décor is muted, the music cool and the staff quick-witted (don’t ask them why duck isn’t on the menu unless you don’t mind being embarrassed in front of your date).

The menu follows the same standard. “Three things on a plate is enough,” says Lee. “The casual fine dining experience is about the ingredients: where they come from, what the animal is fed on.” What the animal is fed on is right: Wagyu Scotch fillet steak is a delicacy one would hardly expect to come across in Phnom Penh and tops out at $39, although the tenderloin, $20, comes up beautifully too. In fact, meat lovers are in their element in The Duck, especially those who enjoy lamb and beef.

Lee arrived in Phnom Penh with 1,000 bottles of wine in his trunk. The wine list is pleasingly long: about double the length of the food menu. His choices are exquisite and his knowledge broad. You can pay as little as $4.50 for a Chenin Blanc, or $12 for Champagne. Whatever you drink, rest assured it will be a treat.

The backbone of the menu is French cuisine, but Lee is keen to stress his dedicated awareness of the major chefs of the time, where they work, what they are cooking, how they are presenting it. The main thrust: to be contemporary, to make a space in Phnom Penh which would be equally at home in Singapore, London or LA.

So does that mean Lee envisages The Duck as a flexible concept, which might change over time? The menu, he says, will always maintain reverence for the classic dishes. Although there is something to be said for a seasonal menu in some climates, Lee is keen to be consistent, to be timeless.

 

The Duck, Sothearos Blvd (next to Trunkh, south of Sihanouk Blvd).

 

Song from on high

THERE ARE NO SHARP EDGES anywhere at Ragamuffin House. Desks, stairs, shelves: all have been carved into elegant, sweeping curves. Sunlight pours in not through windows but through port holes; crisp white walls glowing with natural light. On the top floor, in a tiny studio muffled by chunks of grey soundproofing foam sprouting from the walls, Euan Gray fluffs up a drooping bean bag.

This impossibly tall, soft-spoken Australian has taken up residence in Ragamuffin’s impossibly Zen space dedicated to creative arts therapy. Here, among the many instruments, sheets of music and seats from which it’s almost impossible to get up once you’ve sat down, the saxophonist is creating a place where people can come to heal. “I have a lifelong commitment to the spirit of music therapy,” he practically whispers. “The Ragamuffin Lighthouse Studio will be many things to many different people. There will be two main streams: a professional recording studio for musicians, plus a therapy space for healing through music for anyone from us, who get healing just from playing and recording music, to kids with trauma.”

Introduced to Ragamuffin House by the Khmer-Australian girlfriend he moved to Cambodia in pursuit of last year and is marrying on May 4, Euan is better known in his native Brisbane as frontman for The Rooftops – here for the wedding and playing at The Village the day after. Drawing heavily on soul, jazz, reggae and pop, The Rooftops – four-year residents at The Bowery in Brisbane, where Euan first met his fiancée – are synonymous with the sort of uplifting dancing-barefoot-in-the-streets sound only those who grew up on sun-drenched coastlines can create.

The grooves are feet-friendly, the storytelling soulful – some of it inspired by Euan’s long-term love affair with Cambodia – and the vibe is reflected right here in his blossoming studio. “What I was always trying to get at through the band is that feeling of unlocking ourselves and the audience into new experiences, new release and positive vibes. Coming here and taking it right back to basic stuff – getting up the courage to perform – you realise that unlocking is actually much simpler than doing a big gig and having a famous band and getting a hit record. That’s actually quite far removed from the heart of what that process is.

“My whole experience of recording, almost, is committing to spending a lot of money and a lot of stress and a lot of rushing around. Going to the studio and knowing you’re paying $500, $800 a day. The whole point of you being there – to express yourself and to give the best possible version of your song – is sort of put to one side and you’re just going through the ropes.

“A Hundred Different Lives was recorded in a big studio and had that pressure always around it. That was also the one Darren Percival produced. He’s now famous in Australia because he came second in The Voice. He’s truly amazing and I really felt like he foregrounded the meaning of each song: ‘Let’s get into this space. What does it mean? Let’s get into the emotion before the technicalities.’ That was a bit of an eye opener, but it was still in this context of stress and money and time, so we recorded our last album, Everything to Everyone, in our little home studio in Brisbane and it was so much better – more relaxed, because it was our time and our agenda in our space. That’s the kind of philosophy I want to replicate here at Ragamuffin House.”

From shrill horns emulating the trumpeting of a lumbering pachyderm on the upbeat reggae of Monkeys And Elephants to the haunting melancholy of In The Morning, The Rooftops’ most Cambodia-centric songs form the core of their set list for The Village, with a smattering of other material, new and old. “In previous albums I’ve tried to approach bigger issues that aren’t my issues, including stuff about Cambodia. Big things, like war. Everything to Everyone was definitely more personal: relationships; self-realisation.”

WHO: The Rooftops
WHAT: The grooves are feet-friendly, the storytelling soulful
WHERE: The Village, #1 Street 360
WHEN: 7pm May 5
WHY: The sort of uplifting dancing-barefoot-in-the-streets sound only those who grew up on sun-drenched coastlines can create

Lest We Forget

Clean Dirt

We built it in the jungle

So if we go the jungle will grow

If they come searching

Only we will know

We’ll wait a thousand seasons

When the trouble’s gone maybe we’ll forget

To remember

Maybe that’s the best the gods can get   

“It’s about leaving Angkor Wat to the jungle; about trying to understand what it would have been like as a worker building this thing. Why are they building it? It’s not for the gods. It’s reducing it to a single lifetime: they built it and then they had to flee when the Thais were coming and the capital was moved. You know what? It’s better to leave it to the jungle. ‘We built it for our own reasons: not for the king, not for national sovereignty. We built it out of a sense of devotion to our own gods and our own families. And you know what? It’s better in the jungle; better than having all these tourists crawling over it.’

“It’s one of those things: you try to understand what it was like for people you don’t know and it ends up being a song about yourself. My personal Angkor Wat is the structures you build around yourself thinking that’s what you want and need, but what you really need is no structure, no walls; something that’s about being yourself and valuing the people around you. You don’t need a big temple to prove you’re devoted to God or whatever. I just need a small structure. This studio on the top floor of Ragamuffin House is my Angkor Wat and look, the trees are already reclaiming it!” [Laughs and points to plants engulfing balcony] 

History of Beating Hearts

Clean Dirt 

If looks can kill, then it can’t hurt

To wear a simple T-shirt

A golden star on a background of red

Sold with her tourist smile

Another one gone from the pile

In a past this colourful

It’s just one thread

But she’s old enough to know

Revolutions come and go

So the irony is on my chest for all to see

“I wrote this while I was in Laos but it just seems to be the story of this region. It’s basically the commoditisation of a culture, like when they sell a T-shirt with a gold star on it and people walk around wearing a Communist star on their chests like an idiot, not knowing what it means. That’s interesting but what does the woman who sold it to you think about it? What does she know about it? That’s not the real history here – we just sold it to you. The real history is the history of beating hearts: history is created by interactions between people, not this surface ideology stuff.”

Rice

A Hundred Different Lives 

In your dreams you see machines

That clean away our ways of living

They take the place of working hands

And the land is warm and willing

But of your mechanic wonderland

We see only two

The speaker blasting out your lies

And the car that will get rid of you

Still we can sit for hours

Powerless in the sun

We’ll rise and shout what you tell us to

But will not be overcome

“I’ve been so fascinated with recent Cambodian history. I’ve read all the books the kids sell. Living here it seems to be such a background thing, but as a tourist and thinking about Cambodia from afar, I was just so captivated by the stories. Rice is the story of an actor in The Killing Fields who went through the same experience everyone did, even though he was playing someone else in history. It’s the story of his starvation and struggles. The constant theme in all these books is people just wanting rice, just wanting to be fed; this idea of remembering the times when you used to eat rice together. That’s where the title of that album comes from: a hundred different lives flashing before his eyes as he’s being tortured. But after all these things, all he really wants in life is some rice. It’s a large story: unpacking all those things into one desire that’s not met.”

Rain Gamblers

Everything To Everyone

Swear I saw them yesterday

Same the day before

Silhouettes of ghostly men

Maybe twenty, maybe more

Standing still as weathervanes

Searching in the sky

Counting minutes, counting clouds

Silent statues, empty eyes

Swear I heard one whispering 

But it could have been the breeze

Spreading like a rumour

The colours changing in the trees

At the distant sound of thunder

I thought I saw one grin

The first drops of the season

Falling like money down on him

“Someone sent me an article on the rain gambling that goes on in Battambang and I found it so evocative: these people standing around on rooftops with their CB radios. I don’t know anyone who gambles on rain, but I have known people who have problem gamblers in their family and the trouble that creates. So this evocative image turned into an exploration of how problem gambling can manifest through generations, which is really what I’m interested in: the heart of everything; how these things end up manifesting.”

Monkeys and Elephants

Everything To Everyone

They say that an elephant never forgets

But if mine’s in the room I would happily bet

That you would never even know that he is there

He breathes like a rock in the weathering sun

Moves like a river that has already run

He’s the mountain, I’m the mountain air

If it’s true he can carry anything that I know

I would happily pack it up and happily go

If I knew it wouldn’t tumble down on me

And with an elephant benevolently helping to show

The strength that I need to shoulder my load

I know I’ll be alright 

“Monkeys and elephants are the guardian angels of a Cambodian person I know and they have led a life just as hard as anyone. I could list the number of times they’ve nearly died but they haven’t because of their guardian angels, monkeys and elephants. This is a guy whose English is excellent; who knows about business and science and reads Western papers every day. He knows what it means to say you have guardian angels in the West, but he still believes it.”

In The Morning

A Hundred Different Lives

In the ocean of crimes

I’ve saved but a handful

And to look into the past is to die

So all that I ask

Cos you sure can’t forgive me

Is to leave me in the hope

That you might

“I started to write a song about Duch [Kaing Guek Eav, head of Khmer Rouge interrogation centre S21, convicted in 2011 of crimes against humanity, murder and torture] because I’d read some of the things he said during the trial. I quote him in the song: ‘All that I ask, because you sure can’t forgive me, is to leave me in the hope that you might.’ I thought that was huge so I wrote the song and it turned out sounding like a forgiveness-in-a-relationship story. I just put the word ‘Baby’ in and all of a sudden… you know? It’s exploring the idea of forgiveness: how do you forgive the unforgiveable? How do you forgive yourself? How do you forgive your partner? What is forgiveness? In some ways it’s much more obvious in a trial because there’s a guilty person and that’s it, it’s done, but when there are no lawyers, no judge…”

Everything To Everyone is available on totherooftops.com
Storm Season, Clean Dirt, and A Hundred Different Lives are on iTunes

 

Quick crusts

Noticed how hot it’s been recently? Suddenly, grabbing a bite to eat in your local market doesn’t seem so appealing; the heat increases with every step into the furnace. Luckily for you, you’ve stumbled upon a list of some of the hottest (in the ratings sense of the word) places to grab a pastry and a coffee in Phnom Penh. Forget where you are for a few minutes and enjoy the light breeze or conditioned air.

The Shop, #39 Street 240:

It may be obvious to anyone who has lived in Phnom Penh for more than a month, but the Belgian-run café bearing the postmodern name The Shop is one of the most popular places to pick up a pastry and quality roast. Its popularity is thoroughly deserved: the pastries are freshly baked, generous in size and fair in price. Coffees are some of the most reasonably priced in the city, cheaper than most major brands.

There’s no wifi in The Shop, which means that eating here constitutes a genuine break from work, from Gmail, from Facebook. Take a book and sit alone, assured that you can do nothing but read during your escape from the office. If there’s just no time, don’t feel guilty about grabbing your drink or lunch to take away because, unlike most other institutions, the packaging here is biodegradable.

Will’s Brunch Café, #23 Street 294:

Recently opened, Will’s Brunch Café lords it in one of the fastest developing areas of the city, just east of Norodom Boulevard towards the White Building. Sitting alongside the new Vego’s, opposite a vintage clothing shop and a wine bar, it’s one of the many places popping up in Tonle Bassac which can make you forget where you are.

Walking in feels like entering a café in provincial South England. Yes, that is remarkably specific but you will know what I mean. Décor is ’70s-inspired and the menu is extensive, but not to the degree that you lose faith in the quality. Each dish is inspired by geographical location. So actually, you could be anywhere in the world, including here.

Pastries are freshly made on the premises and the coffee is some of the best in town. Prices aren’t cheap, but the feeling you’ve escape the city – even if just for a moment – is priceless.

Nak Louk Nom Pang, everywhere:

The travelling bread and pastry sellers, who can be found pretty much anywhere, are convenient and cheap: expect to pay less than a dollar for sweet bread. They may not have seats or air con, but for pastry that passes right by your door, you can’t get that service for less than $5 from most coffee houses. However, make sure you know what you’re ordering or be adventurous. You might bite into your baguette to find it’s filled with something unrecognisable.

The Coffee House, #82 Street 155:

Cambodian-owned café The Coffee House is located in the Toul Tom Pong (Russian Market) area of the city. Fast-becoming one of the hotspots for local and small independently-run businesses, The Coffee House and its partner bar, Apros Pub, are established drinking houses for Russian Market locals. The Coffee House offers a much-desired break from the intense, sweltering heat of the dining area in the belly of the Russian Market. The menu is limited, but the pastries are wonderful and very reasonably priced, particularly the muffins, which make a great breakfast-on-the-run.