Phnom Penh is dancing to its own beat

Wedged in a window seat for the short hop from Bangkok, I am joined by a maroon-robed monk. “Good, that’ll be calm company,” I think. As the plane taxis away from the gate, however, the holy man begins raucously chanting into his palm-leaf fan. He continues through take-off and up to cruising height.

While settling into my Phnom Penh hotel room, Cambodian music videos pop up on the television, songs of lovelorn girls and heartless men with on-screen lyrics for those wishing to join in the musical melancholy. Ah, so much cheerier than the monk or 24-hour news regurgitation.

The next day I tour the National Museum, an imposing building of crimson sandstone styled like a Cambodian Buddhist temple, with multitiered roofs and curling finials. As I admire pre-Angkorian statuary in the first gallery, a little old lady sitting nearby begins singing to herself. The Hindu-inspired stone figures take me back into Cambodia’s ancient past while this lady lilts me into the country’s folk memory.

Next door, in the Royal University of Fine Arts, students have parked their mopeds around a statue of folk musicians, who seem to be serenading the riderless bikes. Out in the street, a vendor passes on a bicycle, hawking his wares through a little speaker with pre-recorded calls that croak out rhythmically, like a bullfrog on wheels.