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Purple Sunset of Fire

THE MOST amazing colours of some cities come out as the sun sets.

I had hoped to see others from my group here, but I thought we were catching a boat further up the river at the port. Perhaps they were up there. Perhaps they were waiting for me there. There was no time though for me to walk up there though. Their boat would have long departed by the time I reached the tentatively agreed rendezvous point.

The surface I walked on was rough gravel, having been dug out and compacted ready for new paving. The boat driver met me and we negotiated a good price. He then led me up a rather precarious plank onto the two levelled boat. The lower deck was covered in, and the upper deck was without a roof.

The upper deck had been painted white and was furnished with a long wooden table painted sky blue with unattached plastic garden chairs surrounding it towards the front of the deck. There were small potted golden cane palms along the railing. The back half of the pale green patterned lino deck didn’t have any furniture at all – just more pot plants around the railing. A small flag flew at the front of the deck, and there were two miniature street lights mounted on the railing only centimetres above the top of my head. The boat looked like it had seen many years of service and definitely wouldn’t meet Western safety standards, but I was by now used to the low standards here in South East Asia. I was the only passenger on the top deck, but there were now a few others on the lower level.

The boat cast off and we were quickly pulled by the strong current of the receding flood waters. Phnom Penh was strategically located at where the Tonle Sap and Bassac Rivers meets the Mekong. There were now many clumps of vegetation floating past. Hopefully we won’t get any stuck in the propeller like we experienced at the delta of the river a few days ago.

A barge sailed past, with the sides of the boat barely about the waterline. I wondered how often these get flooded and sink to the bottom of the river. After all this one was loaded with gravel. Once water starts pouring in, it’s straight to the bottom. Perhaps the bottom of the murky river had many of these wrecks which would be used as reefs by any fish brave enough to live in the polluted water and crafty enough to have evaded the myriads of nets and fishing lines I could see from the many people who lined the banks of the river catching dinner for their families. I imagined what it would be like during the dry season with the water level was twelve metres below what it is now. Perhaps some of these wrecks would be exposed making navigation rather treacherous here.

The boat continued sailing out amongst the floating plants. I was by now used to this being perfectly normal. The water was brown and the current was carrying the floating masses of vegetation downstream. They were all the same broadleaf plant, and the same as what I had seen at the river mouth near Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. I wondered where these ended up. Sure a lot of them would get caught in amongst the trees along the banks of the river, but what about the many plants that ended up going out to sea? Did the salt water kill them, or did they float across the sea to settle somewhere like coconuts do? I imagined the former was true.

We motored downstream, passing the palace in the dull late afternoon sky obscured by storm clouds. We continued downstream to where some high rise hotels were being built, dwarfing the buildings in the rest of the city. A couple of them had already been completed blocking off the rest of the city looking out of place in the sea of poverty and opulent temples. One of the hotels had a Buddhist turret matching the ones in the palace, though it didn’t seem to suit the otherwise boxy hotel. Obviously tourism is really taking off here. The huge hotels seemed a bit surreal and totally out of place against the otherwise traditional city consisting either of palatial buildings or derelict apartment blocks on the verge of collapse. All the hotels had the characteristic Buddhist style roofing with the elephant trunk finials.

As we headed downstream, the boat motored slowly out across into the middle of the river, until we were eventually a long way offshore. The thick grey cloud came over us and heavy rain suddenly started falling. I hurried downstairs before I got too wet. The lower deck had the same pale green lino along its length. There were a couple of long tables with red table cloths running along the length of the boat, with red plastic outdoor seats along the railings. The ceiling was held up by sky blue wooden columns appearing a little bit too narrow. There were basic railings, and the outer columns had plastic curtaining tied to it, ready for unfurling in stormy weather. Although the rain was falling heavily, there was no wind preventing the need to pull the curtains. There were three other passengers and a couple of crew members sitting here in the rather dark cabin. The heavy rain fell for several minutes before suddenly clearing as quickly as it had started.

I returned to the upper deck, cautiously negotiating my way around the wet and slippery planked lino decking and seats. The sun got lower in the sky and began to set, radiating a small area of orange fire in the otherwise purple grey clouds. We were now two thirds of the way across the river, and we reached a large barge with netting across the rest of the river. This must be a very large commercial fishing operation.

The area of pastel yellow blazed across the sky directly above the palace. Then suddenly the palace lit up with an array of lights over the roof and outer walls as the clouds turned a deeper shade of purple and the yellowness increased.

This was the start of what will be one of the most amazing sunsets I have ever seen.

I watched in awe as we approached a couple of similar boats. One of them had four people waving out in my direction. Then I recognised them. They were from my group. They had caught one of the other boats. I had hoped to meet them at the wharf earlier in the evening, but Sot had taken a bit long on the cyclo, plus I had not seen them at the port. In fact the boat I had caught was a bit further along the river. Oh well at least we had caught up now even if about thirty metres of water between the boats separated us.

The sunset continued to intensify as the sky began to darken. The clouds were a strong purple colour with large pink patches both highlighted with fiery oranges and yellows. They stood layered magnificently as storm clouds in various stages of conception in a towering backdrop behind the illuminated palace, with the reflections ruffled metallically in the flowing water. Small purple grey clouds hovered high over the city, moving out like a flock of sheep escaping the encroaching storm. Part of the cloud cover parted to reveal patches of pale blue sky letting even more sunlight in to create one of the most colourful evening displays I had ever seen.

Gradually the highlighting colours faded with the clouds transforming into an angry dark grey colour, one particularly band of grey cloud was sweeping towards us with the threat of rain which never came. By now all the street lights were on illuminating the city with warm welcoming lights which were now beckoning the boat back towards the city.

Now I had to work out a way of rendezvousing with the others, or perhaps Sot was still there. After all I hadn’t paid him yet. I recalled how faithful the tuk tuk driver had been when he had taken me to Phnom Wat early this afternoon. Surely Sot would be loyal enough to be waiting for me.

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