The fetid heat has started to crush the lungs of Phnom Penh. The monsoon wind rushes into the streets and squabbles with itself lifting dust and grit into unwary eyes.

The sky is stained with inky black clouds that loom and send spears of lightening into the sprawling city and thunder rolls around the skies. The Tuk Tuk drivers quickly tie plastic covers over their cabs and don their thin orange or pink raincoats. It’s a colourful season.

The thick plopping rain starts. Dry concrete is temporally decorated with wet leopard’s spots suddenly obliterated by the soaking deluge.

The locals a week or so after the September full moon visit the temples to make offerings to the orange and maroon clad priests at the gold Buddha’s feet. Old women offer packets of Paracetamol to the Buddha for the priests who like the rest of this city have spiking fevers and dry coughs.