{"id":4386,"date":"2015-11-23T02:52:22","date_gmt":"2015-11-23T02:52:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=4386"},"modified":"2026-05-12T20:35:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T19:35:39","slug":"a-small-encounter-in-a-restaurant-in-phnom-penh-cambodia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2015\/11\/23\/a-small-encounter-in-a-restaurant-in-phnom-penh-cambodia\/","title":{"rendered":"A Small Encounter In A Restaurant In Phnom Penh, Cambodia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"
The Cambodian Royal Palace in Phnom Penh<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

There we were sitting at a table outside a small restaurant in Phnom Penh, trying to have a conversation and waving away every street hawker who tried to peddle their wares. Even after all the times I\u2019ve travelled in Asia, I still find it difficult to ignore, or say \u201cno\u201d to the constant stream of hawkers. I\u2019m sure most of them need to sell something to be able to feed themselves, or their families, but you really can\u2019t buy from every single one of them. It just seems so rude to wave them away, without a glance, as if you\u2019re swatting flies. But this evening one small girl made a sale.<\/p>\n

She could only have been about nine years old, and with the usual holding of goods in the air in front of us and the plaintive \u201cYou buy, you buy, please, you buy\u201d, which we were managing to ignore, she then added \u201cWhere you from?\u201d Okay, I\u2019m a sucker and it never works, but in the hope of just a short conversation which might make us seem like nice people; you hope they might perhaps then go away. I turned to her and said \u201cAustralia\u201d, to which she cracked a smile, stood up straight and announced the following in a perfect Australian accent: \u201cG\u2019day mate\u201d, \u201cAussie, Aussie, Aussie, oy oy oy\u201d, followed by \u201cThe dingo ate my baby\u201d. Our eyes lifted and we absolutely cracked up laughing; it was hilarious, and she was brilliant.<\/p>\n

I told her she had earned a sale and \u201chow many bracelets for a dollar\u201d. \u201cThree\u201d. \u201cLet\u2019s make it four?\u201d \u201cNo, only three\u201d, she said with a very concerned furrowed brow. There wasn\u2019t going to be any bartering now, having told her she had earned a sale. So she let me pick three colours I liked, and then wandered off down the dark streets, in the hope of finding more\u2026…. Australian customers to perform to. I hope she gets on okay in life.<\/p>\n

\"Artwork
A small section of a painted wall in the White Pagoda Phnom Penh<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  There we were sitting at a table outside a small restaurant in Phnom Penh, trying to have a conversation and waving away every street hawker who tried to peddle their wares. Even after all the times I\u2019ve travelled in Asia, I still find it difficult to ignore, or say \u201cno\u201d to the constant stream […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-snippets-of-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4386"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8255,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4386\/revisions\/8255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}