The Old Market, Phnom Penh

I decide to check out the Old Market. It's on the way. I am headed to the supermarket. Then to the Central Market. It's a "do nothing" day. I see what appears to be a market down some side streets. I take a look.

This is a street market. No umbrellas. No indoor building. It is hot. Piles of gravel in the middle of the street make perusing this market difficult. Road will be paved soon. No other tourists can be seen. I don't mind. A woman tosses vegetables into her bamboo baskets. Some hit their intended target. Others bounce out into the gravel. They stay there.

A child grabs my leg as I tread over the gravel. She is merely passing. A woman is furiously scaling fish. It looks like a potato peeler. Scales flying everywhere. Some fish are still alive. One jumps out of the steel bowl into the gravel. A desperate attempt.

Piles of eggs on tables. White. Brown. Fertilized. A man chops meat on a small butcher block in the street. Bits flying in all directions. It is hot. I wipe away the perspiration again. A child passes in the opposite direction hauling a bucket of chicken juice and bits of meat. Chicken "broth" perhaps.

The smells are assaulting my senses. And the heat makes it worse. Live chickens are tied in bundles on tables. By their feet. Slowly blinking. Lying inches from their defeathered friends. They await their sad fate.

Gastric juices rise in my throat. There is nothing I want to buy here. There are things I don't want to see here. Take me away. Take me to the tourist market.