Problem
What can you wear that's cool in a hot country?
Answer
In Thailand, Singapore and Cambodia you can buy Fisherman's pants (trousers) from clothes shops and market kiosks. In Cambodia they are known as traditional pants and Cambodian pants. They look like culottes but wrap around with overlapping sides down the outside leg.
I had bought several pairs in Singapore for the novelty and because when looking for a long skirt I sometimes found a delightful fabric was bell shape pantaloons and the shopkeeper persuaded me to buy them by making a reduction. I am a sucker for bargains. However, I never wore them for about ten years. They didn't look right in London, too happy, nor in Singapore, the land of the cheongsam and miniskirts.
However, when I arrived in Cambodia in 2017 in stifling heat my first thought was I should have brought loose pyjama bottoms for night wear under my long night dress to keep off mosquitos.
And by day, maybe not pyjama bottoms. How about protecting my legs from flying insects with long pants or trousers as we say in England. Then walking around Ankor Wat I saw lots of tourists wearing fisherman's pants and regretted not having brought at least one of my pairs with me.
What are the advantages of fisherman's pants? They look like culottes but they are even cooler at the sides. You can walk up stairs safely without tearing the seams of tight jeans or trousers.
They are not tight on the crotch. They are flexible with two pairs of ties, front and back, to fit you as you expand in the heat or when you overeat.
They flat creating a cool breeze.
You look like a local in Cambodia.
We passed a kiosk on the path up to the entrance to the Sras Srang Royal Pool (like a huge square lake). I could not resist asking the price. The red and blue trousers, a print on a material similar to cotton although probably synthetic, no label, was three dollars. I then looked at a fancy oscillating colour wine fabric pair (used to be known as shot silk, or Thai silk, now mostly admitted to be synthetic but still very attractive and elegant, five dollars.
I called over my travel companion for advice. We had run short of cash because the tickets for the wats are sixty dollars for thee days and the office takes only cash. Three dollars.
Agreed. I had not tried them on but hoped they would fit. That's another advantage. Like wrap skirts, so long as they are not made for midgets, they fit any size.
Back in the hotel I tried them on. They were cool and they fitted. Bargain of the year. I think I must have paid three times the price in Singapore.
I had reckoned that if they didn't fit I had enough material to make something else, such as a skirt or bolero or scarf. As they do fit, I can use them as a template to make any leftover material, such as a spree length, into a fit me anytime, or fit anybody, pair of fisherman's pants.
Trousers and Toilets
I have now worm mine successfully in Cambodia. Any disadvantages? Yes. They are not ideal for quick removal and replacement in toilet cubicles which do not have spotlessly clean floors. You have to practice which pair of ties to remove and how to pull them between your legs quickly and tie them up again.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.
