Siem Reap - Things to do in the evening

Apsara Dancers

Apsara are mythical beautiful women spirits in Hindu and Buddhist mythology and are one of the most, if not the most common image seen at in the Khmer Empire temples. In the 1940's the Queen of Cambodia started a dance company to create/recreate classic dance. The moves and costumes are all stylized, and the women move with slow graceful movements. Plus they can bend their fingers backwards into a variety of classic finger poses that have to do with lotus flowers and have meaning. There are a number of hotels that have dinner shows, I went to the Angkor Theatre (just around the corner from my hotel) for their dinner performance. The venue was special, everything was beautifully presented, the food was excellent, and the music and dances, some of which were based on classic Hindu mythology, were mesmerizing.

Angkor Theatre by torchlight

Traditional musical instruments

Very elegantly set up

Grtting ready for the show - the table is like in Japanese restaurants - there is a well (filled with mosquitos) into which you can put your legs and feet. Required additional application of Eau de Deet

Dinner!

Check out the costumes - and the fingers. The fingers on the carvings on the temples look just like this. Apparently it takes flexibility training from a young age to get them to do this!

A classic story with pretty girls, demons and heroes and monkey kings

Good triumphs in the end

Shadow Puppets

Things I never knew - apparently the Javanese lived where Vietnam is now, but the Vietnamese (or their predecessors) moved in from the north and the Javanese fled to Indonesia. And that's why both Cambodia and Java are known for shadow puppets that are intricately cut out of leather and move about on a series of sticks. The performance I went to was in a restaurant and was but on by children in an NGO program called Krousar Thmey  which provides support for disadvantaged, particularly  blind and deaf, children The proceeds  of the performance go directly to the charity.

There were two shadow puppet stories, with interesting story lines. In the first, there are two monkeys and one is bad and one is good and the good one gets fed up with the slacker cheating bad one and they get into a monkey fight and as such the bad monkey is taken to the monk, who speaks secret monkey language and who convinces him to mend his ways and they all live happily ever after. (Or something along those lines - there was a lot of Khmer dialogue as well as some rather dramatic music!) The second story had to do with a woman and a man who each had a buffalo and one talked the other into getting their buffalo to fight (and presumably they bet on it which is illegal in Cambodia) and one buffalo killed the other one and then ran off, so both parties were buffalo-less and unhappy and got into a fight and a policeman came and arrested them both and no one lived happily ever after (except maybe the escaped buffalo).  You really had to be there.

There was also some excellent dancing by hearing and non-hearing dancers who had a woman similar to an orchestra leader at the front signalling the time  for them. They did an apsara number as well as several very excellent folk dances, with one really rousing one where the dancers stepped in and out of two long poles that were being clacked together and apart in rhythm to the music. All in all it was an excellent performance.

The musicians

The monkeys fighting

A farmer (the duck-guy on the left) bringing in the monk (actually maybe the abbot) to sort out the monkeys

Two people and their buffalo, before it all starts to go wrong

Apsara -style dance

A folk dance - the dancers are hearing impaired

A dance about fishermen trying to flirt with young women

Phare - Cirque de Soleil a la Cambodge

Phare was developed in 2013 - a circus but in the Cirque de Soleil style - music, acrobatics, costume, and storytelling. This project developed out of Phare Ponleu Selpak  - which is turn was started by 9 children and an arts teacher who survived the Khmer Rouge time and set up a training and school program, which has grown and continued to support underprivileged children.

I took a tuktuk to the event, and had one of those moments where I started to wonder if things were going to go badly. We drove out of town, which was right, but down smaller and smaller laneways until we were on unlit dirt alleys with nothing but spare lots and an irrigation canal beside us. In retrospect, my tuktuk driver was a bit elderly and I probably could have outrun him, if not actually beaten him up, but it turned out he was just lost. After asking a woman who came by on a moto for directions, we found our way back to civilization (which was actually really close) - I think we were both relieved. At the end of the evening, when he was taking me back to town, we both had a laugh about (I think) his misdirection on the arrival route.

The circus is held in a smallish big top, with bench seating in risers around 2/3 of the circumference. Fans are handed out on entry, so its warm in there. The show was fabulous - a team of musicians - one woman playing several traditional instruments and three men playing drugs - naked to the waist and absolutely dripping with sweat. It lasted an hour and there were a number of skits, accompanied by acrobatics, miming, striking costumes and creative choreography. The opening scene was reminiscent of a big caterpillar putting its sections together, and there were some interesting scenarios with brooms that looked like horses heads and strength acrobatics, and a long story that involved a bully getting his back in the end and then being forgiven, but with lots of drama and some humour and a lot of pretty amazing stunts. Definitely a world class performance.

The musicians

And then there is always Pub Street in the Old Market

The only thing that I can think of that comes close to Pub Street at night is Bourbon Street in New Orleans. There is noise and colour and motion and music. The streets are full of people walking and eating and shopping, and there are endless bars and restaurants. I would say 90% of the population is under 35, mostly tourists, and people are here to see and be seen. Its quite something. I have no idea what time things actually wind down as I only made it to 11 PM, and that was a stretch.

The night market on the other side of the river near the old market

Fairy lights on one of the walking bridges reflected in the river

The market on my side of the river

How is this for the ultimate street food - take one peeled potato and cut into very thing spirals, stretch out on a long bamboo skewer, deep fry, and dust with whatever topping you like - cheese, chili, lime, BBQ. How could anyone resist? I couldn't

Pub Street, in all its glory