Frogs on the menu in Phnom Penh

BATS were flitting through the trees as I watched a group of aging Europeans with serious cases of waist-slippage drink Angkor beer and dine on slim frogs at a pavement restaurant by the riverside in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

The river is a tributary of the Mekong and there was exotic river traffic to watch besides the bats and the diners. A large bird flew over the canopies of the Night Market. It was almost certainly an owl.

The night, as usual, was humid and the fumes of a thousand motorcycles and tuk-tuks (jaunting cars attached to motorbikes) wafted over us, along with other Asian odours. The heat, the smells and the noise were a heady mix — and yet, Phnom Penh was a very relaxed city, less ‘driven’ that Bangkok, less humid than Kuala Lumpur, whence we’d arrived earlier that day. In KL, one dripped constantly, and downpours happened every afternoon, a regular feature of February in Malaysia.