Sketching Cambodia: Waiting for inspiration in Siem Reap’s night market.

I am about as unmoved by Siem Reap’s Noon Night Market as it gets.

It seems scattered, and repetitive – a section of stalls selling souvenirs here, another covered section selling the same trinkets there.

Just about to call it a night, I wander back out onto a street that is called, rather understandably, Night Market Road. A large neon sign hangs at one end, and lights have been strung down the way, giving the market a suddenly festive air.

It’s an interesting scene, at least, with a few tuk tuks parked on the side and a food cart down the way that would be good to add. I wonder if it’s a scene worth sketching if only because it didn’t move me at first.

“Let the inspiration come later,” I tell myself.

As always, I search for a place to sit – in the best case scenario, a café or restaurant. Here, my only option is called the Ababa Curry House. I stand by its two outside tables, positioned with a perfect view of the street, and gaze at the scene for a while, trying to see how it all comes together.

“You are waiting for somebody?” the young waitress asks – so young, I’ll later learn she’s still in high school.

“Well,” I pause, and decide to say it how it is. “I’m going to sketch, and I’m trying to see if this scene is right.”

And with the offer of an old Indian favorite – dal makhani – on the menu, I decide that perhaps, after all, it is.

Some fifteen minutes have gone by when a guy walks up. He’s thin, with thinning brown hair, and wears loose green trousers, the kind they sell in the market.

“Is the food good?” he asks.

“It’s delicious, actually. I recommend the dal makhani.”

He sits down at the table next to me, and soon I feel like I’ve known Josh my whole life. I learn he’s from Berkley, was a linguistics major, and that he has been living in Thailand for the last six months, on an agricultural exchange program.

“I’m not a farmer,” he says, “but I might be one. One day.”

He talks about studying abroad in West Africa, and about the many poetry workshops he took as a student, but he likes creative non-fiction, too. He flips through his Moleskin in search of his own sketches, but all he comes up with are words. “These are just five pages of notes for a book I’ll probably never write.”

Scooping up his own dal makhani with pieces of naan bread, he looks over at my sketch. “Wow, you really got the whole scene. I wouldn’t know where to start. I only sketch faces and coffee cups, as I usually only sketch in coffeeshops. Would it be weird if I sketched you?”

“I think that’d be meta,” I say, to have someone sketch me sketching.

Josh tuts to himself frequently while he sketches, and at times he throws his Moleskin down on the table. “It’s not the right tool,” he says, scorning his beautiful ink pen.

I glance over and am reluctant to agree with him – my nose is remarkably beaked, and my hair looks as though it hasn’t been washed for months (for once, I can confirm that is not true).

“I guess it was worth a try,” I say.

“Well, you’re not a coffee cup.”

“That’s very true,” I say with remorse, as though I’m somehow at fault.

“Do you like baking?” he asks.

I’m thrown off by this abrupt change in subject. “I prefer cooking, really.”

“I was going to get your advice. I can only find rice flour in Thailand, but I’ve only ever made scones from wheat flour. I want to build an earthen oven, and then make scones from rice flour, coconut oil, and milk. And mangoes.”

We stay until the curry house closes, when the entire street itself closes, and the rattling of metal gates being brought to the ground echoes from side to side. We walk in opposite directions, back into the Siem Reap night, the tuk tuk drivers calling out to us and the massage parlors still open for business.

The many little details of Josh’s life bounce around in my head for long after we say goodbye, reminding me that we never know who we’ll meet, and where.

Good luck with the scones, I wish I’d said to him – as always, inspiration had been worth waiting for.