One PhOtO a DaY FeBrUaRy 2025

FEBRUARY 1st A: is for architecture. I adore these old buildings in the city and have long admired this one and wondered how long it could survive in such a highly sought after location. Now it is condemned…. Still a few residents holding out for a better resettlement offer it seems 

FEBRUARY 2nd B: is for blessings and Bhutanese beauty! We did an Asian, pot luck feast today for Chinese New Year and everyone selected their own blessing for the year of the snake 

FEBRUARY 3rd C: is for chillies. These are local produce and a delight for the chilli lover

FEBRUARY 4th D: is for docking and disembarking. At the ferry point on an afternoon walk just before peak hour sends it into a complete frenzy 

FEBRUARY 5th E: is for elephants. I do love them and now have seen them in two different locations here in Cambodia so these are a few little trinkets for people in Oz when we head home for a visit later this month

FEBRUARY 6th F: is for ferns. Surprisingly they seem to thrive in this environment and I spotted this one walking home today

FEBRUARY 7th G: is for glasses. I’m amazed it’s even in focus since I’m not wearing them

FEBRUARY 8th H: is for hat. I actually wore this one today when we went out too

JANUARY 9th I: is for intersection. This one is visible from our terrace and in long exposure. The streets of PP are a frenzy of activity

FEBRUARY 10th J: is for jigsaw. With just days until we return to Australia to visit family and friends we are accumulating uniquely Cambodian gifts

FEBRUARY 11th K: is for Kampot. A lovely little nook in the art deco hotel we love, great vibes and the best meals in town

FEBRUARY 12th L: is for Laneway Life. This was the shortcut we took today to keep out of the sun on our way to the bank. A T-intersection in a busy little laneway with vendors everywhere. This is also the topic of the blog I am currently writing and a subject matter I am very interested in

FEBRUARY 13th M: is for Monks. We often spot this group of monks on their morning alms walk and this morning was no different

FEBRUARY 14th N: is for noodles. Lo Cha is a short, dense, rice noodle unique to Cambodia, as far as I know, but either way I love it and order it whenever I’m sure it’s veggo. She’s also wearing orange! How to resist??

FEBRUARY 15th O: is for orchid. This one we have nurtured for over two years and it is finally flowering for the first time 

FEBRUARY 16th P: is for passports. For the first time in my life I had to carry two today. My cancelled one contains my entry stamp to Cambodia and therefore needed to be sighted. The new one now has my exit stamp and my entry for Thailand. One is now officially retired 

FEBRUARY 17th Q: is for Qatar Airlines. Having spent the whole day in airports I was hoping for a Qantas plane but they are light on the ground here, so Qatar it is. Not that that’s our flight or anything. See you in the morning Adelaide

FEBRUARY 18th R: is for relaxation and recreation. We have finally arrived in Australia and after several days of travel the holidays starts now

FEBRUARY 19th S: is for sundial. A quick stroll in the neighbourhood reveled this gem this afternoon

FEBRUARY 20th T: is for tarts. These fabulous, French tarts at the Central Market this morning looked way too tempting

FEBRUARY 21st U: is for understory. We are on the bus to Mt Gambier today and it was pretty dry out there as there’s a drought right now. Great to see the understory on the road side verge regenerating. The last time we saw it just over two years ago, the Murray River was in flood

FEBRUARY 22nd V: is for vista. We arrived in Mt Gambier yesterday and today we beelined to the most iconic sight of the Limestone Coast region - the Blue Lake

FEBRUARY 23rd W: is for wildlife. We spotted this Brush-tail possum out during the daytime and begging grapes from tourists today even though they are actually nocturnal creatures 

FEBRUARY 24th X is for the letter x. The blades of the wind turbine in one of the Coonawarra wineries today looked like an X to me

FEBRUARY 25th Y: is for yucca. This one is spineless yucca the plant app tells me and they are such a great plant for the driest state of the driest continent on earth

FEBRUARY 26th Z: is for Zoncello. An addictive discovery I have made since arriving back in Australia, thanks to a great friend who knows me too well 

FEBUARY 27th FREE CHOICE: A selfie of me pottering about inside an antique shop this afternoon. That’s something I haven’t had a chance to do for so long and I’m proud of myself for buying nothing and just enjoying recognising things we used and know from childhood. I guess that officially makes me an antique

FEBRUARY 28th FREE CHOICE: We took the coastal route back to Adelaide today and I snapped this view of the Coorong out of the bus window just after seeing a pelican in flight- only a few reflections from the bus in the sky 

PROMPTS

Our community in the laneways and back alleys.

There was a time before we lived in Phnom Penh but did live in Cambodia, when we would visit once every two or three months. Those trips introduced us to the city and the lifestyle we now embrace as well as providing entertainment, eateries and supplies unavailable elsewhere . 

I can clearly remember looking up at quirky little balconies, decaying exteriors and wooden shuttered residences and wondering how you even entered those buildings. Now I notice the street side entrances and visualise the spaces and stairs concealed within. 

The hunt for an apartment showed us the many configurations of those entrances and exits and yes there are sometimes two. The alleys and laneways are the clue to it and many interconnect. Shortcut communities. 

In that initial search, I’m not ashamed to say that I found many of the entry points both daunting and confusing. It was confrontational wandering past someone’s open, front door in a stairwell landing, or seeing the bathroom and toilet across the hall from the front door of the residence and even wandering past a commercial kitchen serving the front room restaurant space to access the stairwell to four apartments above. 

That is to say nothing of the crumbling walls and mouldy, life stained surfaces of entrances that are smack up against glittering, glass and chrome skyscrapers or lead to dimly lit mazes of more interconnected alleys and stairwells, or ritzy, recently renovated, old, colonial buildings that have become world class, five-star hotels. 

Now, I love the laneway action. I stare down them and if there is light at the end of that dark tunnel of buzzing activity, I’ll happily stroll through. I enjoy the interactions of young kids doing their homework, playing or shouting, “Hello, hello.”

 There are also elderly residents playing cards, sipping tea or eating bowls of noodles from tables with plastic tablecloths with the pattern worn off. 

They are served from carts, or by vendors with mobile, food and drink stands wedged in the limited available space or carried through on shoulder poles. 

Youth sit perched on their parked motos or on the steps. Women of various ages happily gossip and have their toenails painted by mobile beauticians, with nothing more than a stool and a basket to carry to the next customer. The stairs are also a whole other world. 

We live off one such alley with at least three sets of stairs leading off it to structures facing the same number of directions and now our front door is mostly open so anyone on the landing can peer in and people often do.

It is a hive of bustling activity with a semi-permanent fixture of free standing, charcoal fired, clay pots for cooking massive vats of rice and woks full of boiling oil for frying dishes to be delivered to street stalls in the neighbourhood. All that gets packed up and put away at the end of trading every day. Exactly the same cooking arrangement operates from the third floor hallway with the same folk selling from street or market stalls. There are at least two front rooms, at ground level that are shops selling cold drinks, cigarettes, snacks and household basics all day and half the night and that room doubles as a family bedroom too. Another operates as a hair and nail salon. Children play, dogs roam, neighbours gather, recyclers, knife sharpeners and bread and snack vendors ply their trade in these confined spaces. On weekends a traditional, Khmer strategy game like chess, sometimes gets set up around a table and stools emerge when a tour guide leads in foreign tourists to introduce them to the game.

The population evolves but there is a stable community of residents, locals and a few expats like us, who smile, greet each other and interact several times a day. With minimal shared language and a healthy sense of harmony, understanding, acceptance and belonging, we look out for each other and help each other to feel comfortable, welcome, safe and secure, not just in our hidden enclave of the city but also when we spot each other on the streets or in the markets. It’s magic. 

I have not forgotten those early laneway experiences and warn any prospective guests that the alley is dark, twisting and often filled with motorbikes or scooters and then it’s a four-storey, stairs only climb crossing from one building to another at an upper level to reach our front door. To say nothing of the stairs themselves being treacherous despite the efforts of a few of us to renovate and stabilize them. Most guests are up for the challenge and thus far after over two and a half years of living here, only one friend has ever been able to return to our front door without being met at ground level and led up again, after just one visit. Most get the hang of it after a few visits and some never want to return I’m sure, but they don’t tell us that. Nonetheless it’s home for us and we hope it stays that way for a good while into the future.  

This sense of community seems to be long gone in most places so we treasure it and it is for us, just one more thing to love about Cambodia.