Fish you were here

Ajay and I used to be neighbours in a high rise apartment block in inner city Sydney. Busy work lives swallowed our time and minds up so that we rarely saw each other except at the lifts rushing in or out of the building. We became friends just as I was leaving for Cambodia after being at that address for 10 years. Ajay came to the last party I held on new year's eve in 2013.

On the 31st of December just gone, we saw in the new year together again, this time in Phnom Penh where we both now live. We are almost neighbours again; our apartments are a couple of streets apart near one of the main avenues, Sothearos Boulevard.

He invited me to dinner last night and asked me to meet him at the fresh food market near his place so he could walk me up to his apartment through a maze of alleys. He didn't think I'd be able to find it or enjoy walking through the abattoir in there. I've been in there before and seen the chopped off fish-heads on the ground, animal carcasses and blood. The glimpses are fascinating even if not all pleasant, the smells are pungent and it's part of living here.

The BBQ stand in the photo is run by a lady who sets up her stand in the same spot daily. Ajay bought grilled tilapia, a freshwater fish from her. Tilapia was a sign of rebirth in ancient Egyptian times and is depicted in hieroglyphic art. I'm due to leave Cambodia soon and move countries once again, so it seems fitting. It's a time of renewal and the birth of a new chapter in my story.

We ate the tilapia on the rooftop terrace adjoining Ajay's apartment along with a Massaman curry he had made. Looking at the night sky and glimmering lights, we counted the new buildings in Phnom Penh. The city which was mostly empty of towers until only a year or two ago is now getting a skyline. The tallest building in south east Asia, rumoured to be 400m high is slated to go up near the riverfront soon. Apparently Sothearos Boulevard wasn't even a tarred road until ten years ago.

I wonder what Phnom Penh will look like in another ten years. I'm glad I'm here now while there's a raw pulse, authenticity and an unpolished edge to it and that the city hasn't yet morphed into another metropolis which it will do inevitably.

When Ajay walked me back out to the street market after dinner at about 10:30, the fish lady's stand was still open. Apparently she's there until late every night and back in the early afternoon to set up. In between she goes back to her home on the outskirts of the city and in those few hours, lives the family life that she works so hard to be able to have for the rest of the day.