When I go out running in a strange place water draws me to it like a magnet. On our last full day in Phnom Phenh I got up at 6am and headed for the Tonle Sap, a tributary of the Mekong. After two days in the city I'd got used to the traffic, which behaves more like a crowd of people than vehicles. When we first arrived we took ages waiting for a clear space to cross the road, until we realised you just have to launch yourself into the flow and vehicles weave around you like water in a rocky stream.
Dawn is a good time to see the city as lots of people come out in the cooler air to stroll, run or take part in group exercises to pop music, doing a kind of cross between yoga, tai chi and line dancing in slow motion.
When I reached the river embankment in the city centre I ran along the wide promenade and headed for the pleasure boat dock. I carried on along the river back out of the city centre, past increasingly grubby workshops and shophouses until I reached the main road bridge, where I climbed the steps and took this picture.
Looking upriver I could see that the Tonle Sap was lined with shanties as the City petered out into a flat, paddi filled plain. Then I began my steady jog back to our hotel, where Sue was still sleeping peacefully as I crept back into our darkened room.
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