Bowling, bumpers and 1960s Khmer rock (oh, and a whole lot of teasing/hairspray)

So for the past week there's been a pretty cool event going on in one of our favourite bars in Phnom Penh - a Khmer film festival featuring some very rare remaining copies of films from 1960s Cambodia, which, by all accounts, was a pretty rocking place after the French left and before the Khmer Rouge came and destroyed anything they saw as a threat to their ideologies, including anything vaguely 'cultural'. (You can actually read ABC coverage of the event here)

I'm not sure who this guy was (guessing he's in the youth arts collective that were behind this whole project) but the outfit, and the dance moves in particular, were awesome!

The culmination of this festival was a bit 1960's Khmer Rock n' Roll party, complete with live band playing music from the period itself, and a bunch of super cool Cambodian locals dancing up a storm in the gallery section of an old Chinese House on the riverfront.

Not my best photography but you get the idea...inside the Chinese House.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves but I have to say it was a heap of fun to really make a night of the event. We started early by getting $5 hair and make up jobs (when its that cheap to play dress-ups, it would be criminal not to go all out) and hitting the local bowling alley and bumper car joint, much to the amusement of the locals.

Who needs bowling shoes when you've got $1 platforms sourced from the Japanese thrift store (you do realise when you put your clothes in those 'charity' recycling bins at home that half of them end up being bought by NGO volunteers in shops here, right?)

Bumper car madness. Thankfully there was enough hairspray involved in the $5 'do to avoid any significant impact damage.

Given none of us really drive here - this was a bit of an outlet for all our Phnom Penh road rage, complete with 1990s gangsta soundtrack. I have to say I never really saw the purpose of seatbelts on the ones at home, but given all the bruises I've got on my knees from being thrown around here, I'd say that yes, probably they are a wise thing.

It was then time for a massive Chinese seafood feast at a place where (thankfully) we weren't the most merry table in the restaurant...no, that honour went to the Chinese guys breaking chopsticks on each other's heads across the room.

Gotta love a country where you can BYO hard liquor to a restaurant and just plonk it on the lazy susan without the waitress batting an eyelid...

Tuk tuk shenanigans...

When we finally made it to the party, the place was in full swing. I can't say I've ever really danced to 1960s Khmer pop music, but it was a hell of a lot of fun, and really one of those 'there's no way I'd be doing something like this in Sydney' moments!