Siem Reap is full of markets: The Old Market, The Central Market, Psa Lou Market, the original Night Market plus the batch of new ones that seem to keep cropping up every year. But the first Saturday of every month has a new street market dedicated to all things made in Cambodia. It ‘s not very big, just the length of one short street beside the Shinta Mani Hotel, which plays host, but it’s full of beautiful crafts and artwork.

The organisers of the market have given space over to various NGO’s, including Anjali House. I was happy to be there to help out with this first market, and it was rather amazing, if not a bit frightening, to see how my experience hawking my books at all those readings and book fairs came to good use. By the end of the day, thanks to all of us working together, we made over $200.

Setting up our stall

A monk blesses the fair

Khmer Scouts add some music and hoopla

A map of Cambodia as London Underground

And while I’m at it, here are a couple of more photos that made me giggle when I saw them:

An interestingly named construction sit

I’m off to Phnom Penh tomorrow. I haven’t been there in two years, and I really am looking forward to it. I’ll only be there for three days so I have a heavy schedule of meetings with various NGO’s and people who can help me with my research for the last novel in my Cambodian trilogy. I’m also hoping I can get a better handle on the growing arts scene in the capital and see if I can connect with some Khmer writers. But if nothing else, it will be good to be in a place with somewhat more reliable power sources. You can read the sad tale of Siem Reap’s huge power outage here, but check out the huge news from a couple of days ago at my guest house: