Batakliev's Bloc

Travelling from place to place, one hardly allows oneself to get attached. I did. I got attached to Siem Reap . Upon leaving it, I felt a strange heartache. The heartache of being severed from a location of love. It must have been the hypnotising splendour of the Angkor Wat temples. A parallel universe where the sun always shines and the birds always sing to exhilarate the wanderer. Or was it the beautiful stranger lying next to me in the massage salon close to the Old Market ? We never spoke to each other. We only stared at each other's feet while they were being skilfully massaged by tiny animated hands. And then there was Sok Ban. The owner of the tiny animated hands. I couldn't get enough of her massages. And I couldn't get enough of her melancholic dark eyes. One evening, on my way to the Angkor Palm restaurant, I dropped by the massage salon to say hi to Sok Ban. "Where do you eat?", I asked her. "I eat market.", she answered quickly

"Go, Go, GO", the profusely made-up Asian lady at the reception desk instructed me. "First massage, pay later". I didn't know what awaited me at my hotel's spa. It was a fairly satisfactory hotel and I expected a fair degree of satisfaction. A short amiable gentleman in a beige uniform ushered me into a locker room and directed me, by means of gestures, to take off my clothes. Then he furnished me with a blue satin gown and a pair of over-sized satin shorts. The silky fabric soothed my skin. I could smell the sweet scent of repose. An eager hand, attached to an obedient body in a beige uniform, opened the door to a waiting room of sorts. It was a spacious circular chamber, dimly lit and decorated with Egyptian motifs which seemed to be projected onto the walls and the vaulted ceiling. Astral Asian vocals trickled down like angelic irrigation. Cool conditioned air was seeping into every opening of my silky outfit, causing my body to shiver gently and str