With defenses down anywhere, bad things can happen

We dodged heavy rain inside part of the NagaWorld complex before our unfortunate encounter.

As the tune will do after hearing it, ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” stuck in my brain.

I was humming it to myself when we left the NagaWorld complex, where we had caught an otherwise forgettable free show of singing and dancing on a Saturday night in order to outlast heavy rain.  The hour-long spectacle ended with the cast cavorting in the aisles and performing the Mama Mia hit.

So was I only faintly aware of

You’re lucky to see more than two stars over the capital

At the edge of a slim park dividing Sihanouk Boulevard, an advertising sign insults most views east. It obscures the top of Independence Monument, which commemorates a modern achievement and is a two-minute walk from the sign. One end of the NagaWorld complex lurks above the trees at right.

They are immense, nearly blinding in intensity and grotesquely damaging to the experience of living in Phnom Penh.

They are advertising displays mounted on brutally big columns, except in the case of the NagaWorld casino and hotel complex, where

Exercising or eating, Cambodians throng parks nightly

Players use various smaller or professional-looking footballs. Most of their goals lack nets, which can be as informal as a couple of sandals or the jerry-built one in the photo above.  

They are a hive of a disparate activities, two adjacent parks close to the center of Phnom Penh.

Divided from each other by a busy avenue, the L-shaped expanses near Wat Botum and Independence Monument in Phnom Penh comprise more pavement than greenery and escape neither the din nor sight of traffic.

Weekend evenings are naturally the most popular. Yet they attract Cambodians of many stripes every night, though I sense none from the small class of elites.

Those who do frequent the parks seem variously to be students and office workers, proud lesbians, gays and transgenders, kids and their parents, beggars and monks.  Many purposefully stride the length of the area with Independence Monument at one end to get or keep in shape.

They may be