Okay, now that I have the pictures back from our traditional Khmer photo shoot, I'll tell you a little bit about it. As I mentioned, I arrived in Phnom Penh late on Saturday night. Then Noman and I went and met up with some of his classmates from Brandeis University who are doing their internships here in Phnom Penh also. Apparently one of his classmates who has been here for a few months found out about these photo studios all over town that you can go to to have your pictures taken in traditional Khmer (Cambodian) clothes.
So we hopped in a tuk tuk and met up with 3 of his classmates at one of the studios in town, which from the outside just looks like a hole in the wall place where you print pictures from your camera, or copy CDs.
When we got there, I was thinking, 'okay... interesting, interesting...'
Then we walked through the shop back into this narrow hallway and into a room where there was a wall-sized mirror, racks and shelves full of costumes, wigs everywhere, hairspray, make-up, piles of photo albums you could browse through to choose your outfit, the whole nine-yards. So I'm still thinking, 'okay... interesting, interesting...' ;)
I was still half asleep, jet-lagged, and hadn't had anything to eat, so I wasn't feeling all that decisive about which outfit to choose. BUT, apparently that didn't matter because when a girl asked me which clothes I wanted and I said I don't know, she just grabbed me anyway, plopped me down in a chair and started going to town on "beautifying me".
Now, just to clarify (leave it to me to clarify, right? haha!), this beautifying process was... well, let's just say 'extensive!' First came the powder/base, then the glue to hold on the fake lashes, then the poking process of putting the fake lashes on, then the permanent marker which posed as eye liner (and trust me, there was enough of that to make me fully look like a raccoon!), then the eye shadow, etc. Of course, a photo shoot wouldn't be complete without a mound of hairspray, a big, old curly wig, and enough bobby pins to stab the heck out of my scalp. I just kept staring at myself in the mirror, wondering how in the heck this would turn out well...
Then after about 1 to 1 1/2 hours of make-up and hair work, I was shown a ton of different outfits, chose one, and then was squeezed into this outfit like nobody's business! Noman was given an outfit to match, which took him no more than 1 minute to put on (why is it always so much easier for men anyway??) and there you have it folks!
Check out the photo to see the finished product :) Day 1 in Cambodia and here we are, Khmer-ified! Of course, it did take almost 2 days to fully scrub the permanent marker off my eyelids, with many of my eyelashes being killed in the process, but I guess that's the price to be paid ;)
