After a bit of banter with the local kids at the music school I work at, here in Phnom Penh Cambodia, I followed up on a dare one of them set me. They didn't think I would do it...
After arriving at the Wat Kean Kleang Temple 10km outside of the bustling city, I went about to see who was in charge, to ask if I could perform a quick song and dance in front of the Golden Pagoda. haha
It was early in the afternoon and deathly quiet, nobody was around but I eventually spotted a monk walking around to the far side of the temple.
But it was quite the opposite actually. I greeted him, jested an air guitar movement and pointed over.
He just smiled and shook my hand and carried on his duties.
I quickly wheeled my motorbike to the entrance of the temple and set my portable amp upon the back seat and leaned the camera against it. I took a few trial runs of the song to see if it looked ok but I couldn't see shit on the camera screen because the sunlight was reflecting so strong.
During the second test run, the local kids showed up. Of course, chuffed to see a smartly dressed English ginger bloke with a guitar n gear randomly turn up on their turf... They couldn't stay away, so they jumped in and jammed it out as well. Stoked they were part of the process :)
After 6-7 takes of blindly playing to the camera, sweating my ass off in dangerously hot heat, I finally called it a day after I started slurring my words on the introductions.. headache was kicking in fast too, so I swiftly packed up and said my goodbyes as I knew I had a challenging drive back ahead of me.
Cheers,
Jeff
