The Thirty Nine hundred Steps

 

Street 109 Phnom Penh, our home away from home.  Why don’t you join us and come up from the street to our loft ?

Our welcoming street entrance…

 

 

The electrical system – mind boggling in complexity.

 

 

This knowing cat stops halfway, aware of the heights yet to climb. We step over her gingerly, inhaling the heady pervasive aroma of many, many cats that scents the corridors.

Turn right where the green tiles turn red

Then follow the red tiles all the way to the end.

A touch of Alice in Wonderland (or am I suffering from altitude sickness) ?

Past the sometimes plaintif and sometimes saucy graffiti.

 

 

Almost there as we make our way over the hurdle carefully avoiding the rusting barbed wire, past discarded wrappings, plastic bottles and old shoes (common areas looked after by no one it seems)

Up another flight,

And another,

And another.

Last one !

Not criticising but as an artist perhaps could work on her calligraphy…

Palatial cold-water outdoor en-suite.  Most refreshing.

 

 

Bold use of orange proving her artist’s cred.  3 nights here.  After the initial shock ( where are the liveried minions in Nehru jackets salaaming and bowing ) ? We came to quite like the place.  Even as we type there is the chip chip chip sound of a worker and a faint but very pleasant (perhaps because it is faint) gamelan down on the street far below. Yesterday it was a call to prayer followed by an Asian Shirley Bassey.

Here is that street.

 

That’s our place right at the top.  Yes, we made it to the top, thus proving the Christian Brothers and Dominican Nuns quite wrong.