oasis

As darkness fell it brought with it a sense of loneliness. I had been to Siem Reap in Cambodia over three years ago when it had felt different. The roads were dustier, the people more… well visible and the town was a sleepier one. It’s different now. Or at least it felt different to me. People from the streets have been cleansed out to make the town more attractive to tourists who come in hordes to visit the glorious Angkor temples next door. Just too many new bars and lounges and nightclubs have mushroomed as hotspots all over town providing a haven for tourists and prostitutes.. What I felt at night was a stark contrast. Between the empty, strange and eerie streets where I’d seldom come across shadows of humans and animals, and even those that I came across, I found them enveloped in a certain strangeness. The empty butcher shops where the meat was missing from the hooks. The blurred visions of the streets at the twilight before the first break of light. And then there were these hotspots that provided refuge from the loneliness that came along with the night. I wanted to document the strange contradictions of a night in this sleepy town through the perspective of a lonely outsider.

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