I was on my way home with my friend, Yoseph, and three other guys, one of whom was a charming Cambodian young girl, his best friend. We had just finished our two- hour nice dinner and chat in a Cambodian restaurant in the outskirt of Phnom Penh. It was about eight p. Yoseph and I were dropped next to the railway station and we decided to walk along the main road, wanting to have a sightseeing and exercise.
Motor dob riders slowed down when passing us, keeping asking if we needed a ride. The two-way main road was wide and quite busy. Pavements of about four meter in width were on each side. Motor bikes, private and public, were passing in a low speed and many were with more than two persons on them.
But the pavements with Cambodian flower trees, as they are called in Indonesia, were lonely. We both were the only passers-by. A young lady who was sitting on a chair on the pavement greeted us, smiling. Yoseph spoke a bit Khmer to the girl, and she seemed to understand what he said. Three ladies were having dinner on a bed in the living room, and another girl was watching tv. Smiling, they offered us the dinner in Khmer.
I just smiled and shook my head saying no. One lady then led us to the back part of the house where three beds were there on an open room. Yoseph opened his t-shirt and lied on the bed.
The young girl, who kept smiling and spoke Khmer, prepared tools for the chop massage. She took a bowl with about 30 small glass cups and asked me to lie down on the other bed. She was a talkative and friendly girl. I prefered to sit on the bed, watching how she worked. She lit a fire to a stick with a round cloth on it after putting it into a glass with some petroleum. She then put the fire into the glass within a second and put the glass, upper part down, on the back of Yoseph.
