Dai Vaughan continues his Cambodian diary. His adventures, complemented by the atmospheric paintings by his wife Jenny, are chronicled in From Pollokshields to Angkor Wat (published by Art-Works, Glasgow).

         KAMPOT

Saturday 31st December

So here we are in Kampot

On New Year’s Eve

The place is crazy

Down by the riverside

Thanks to the French

There’s a boulevard

Planted and elegant

Tonight it’s packed with people

Families mostly sitting on patterned mats

Eating drinking chatting together

Some are cooking

Some are putting up small tents

Children everywhere

It seems that every inch is taken

The only thing to do

Is cross over the road

~

Sitting tonight

On the balcony of where we’re staying

I can see through the archway

Beams of white light

Criss crossing at random

Across the sky

It reminds me of my proposal

Many years ago

That beams of light

Should be markers of our city

A city encircled by light

Later I realised

That only three beams were needed

One from the top of Camphill

In Queens Park

One from beside the statue of John Knox

In the Necropolis

And one from Govan by the river

The site of Glasgow’s first church

Only these three are needed