Cambodia is REALLY Cool

Date: October 2003
Location: Phom Pen and Siem Riep Cambodia

As most of you know, I love to travel. Since I don't get to as much as I'd like, I devour books and stories about other people traveling. Bill Bryson, Michael Crichton, anthologies, the Sunday travel section, and PBS shows. Michael Palin (of Monty Python fame) does the best travel shows ever--as you can imagine, never a dull moment. Anyway, my most recent purchase was an anthology of Americas Best Travel Stories of 2003. The book was okay, but the preface really spoke to me. I don't have it in front of me, so here is the gist in my own words (I only mention the book so I don't feel guilty about plagiarizing the ideas). True travelers are motivated by the idea of experiencing the sublime, whatever that may be to them. They are, however, inspired by the everyday they witness in search of the sublime. I know from experience how rare the sublime is--but once you embark on your journey, your motivation is no longer relevant, only your awareness matters. This is why I hate packaged tours on buses, and don't think I'd find a cruise very stimulating. Enough on that--he's the trip...

Phnom Penh: (Capital of Cambodia)
My dear Paul reads slow, I read fast. He bought 2 bootlegged books. Paul is morally opposed to bootlegging, and passed by the $1 CDs and DVDs with nary a glance, but the books proved too much for his will power. He handed me the "academic" book on Cambodian History to read, and kept for himself the book entitled "Off the Rails in Phnom Penh, Guns, Girls and Ganja". The book highlighted things to do in the city, most illegal, but some not. Had he given ME that book first, we would have been able to use the information. Since Paul didn't finish the book until we'd left the city, the following is a list of things we DID NOT do in Phnom Penh, but very much would have liked to: 1. Visited the North Korean Embassy to look at the ever-changing photo display of the Jonger posted outside the gate. North Koreans apparently have a different sense of what constitutes a good picture, because many of the photos are reported to have the jong-myster sneezing and looking confused. 2. Gone to the street where you can get prostitutes for $2. I probably would have cried, but seeing other people's situations makes you more compassionate, and may inspire you to do something about it. 3. Fired a Rocket Propelled Grenade for $30 at a range near the airport--now that's just plain cool (although the proximity to the airport worrisome). None of this stuff was in our Lets Go book either. "Lets Go" sucks.

Here is what we DID do: Toured the national museum, saw the King's palace, shopped in the markets, where I bought a lot of silk, and went to S-21, the high school turned Khmer Rouge torture/execution center. Only a few of the biggest streets are paved, the rest just rutty red dirt (this is the CAPITAL CITY of the nation). Since there isn't any public transport, and our other option was riding helmet less on the back of scooters, we hired a driver--$20 for the day. Scooters would have costs us about $2, but our health and the AC in 90-degree weather was worth the money. Lanes here are purely notional, and half the cars are left hand drive Toyotas, the other half are right hand drive Toyotas, which makes it worse. They don't run stoplights here, because there aren't any. There aren't many cars, just scooters, rickshaws, and horse drawn carts. One night at dinner, we saw a family of five on a scooter, that was impressive! It happened to be the King's birthday, so there were lots of free concerts and fireworks. From my boring book, I learned the King is not a very nice man, despite how jolly he looks in the 20 million posters of him plastered on every inch of the city. The country is still very much isolated. I heard no western music the entire time, which is fine, as Cambodian music is beautiful, their voices sliding up and down the scale in a way that put a spell on me. I wish I had bought a CD. I still may, although I don't think it will be the same. Actually, I did hear western music. Every time we got in the car, our driver popped in a badly dubbed cassette of Lionel Richie, just for our listening pleasure. "We are the World" was somehow also on the tape.

This country has been on a giant "hold" from the outside world for so long--it’s just since '98 that they've been normalized into the international community. I think culturally, they must have picked up where they left off before the "revolution" of the mid 70's, and now they're into the early 80's. My hypothesis is based on two things: 1. Our driver's tape, and 2. The prevalence of "Connect 4". It’s all the rage. One night as we drank G&Ts at a bar by the hotel, we watched a sensual game of connect 4, which I can't say I EVER thought I'd see. The man was French (the French controlled Cambodia from 1850-1950, and are really the first ones headed back in) and I'm pretty sure the "waitress" was trying to get hired for the night. There were seven tables at this bar, and nine waitresses in "other than" traditional Cambodia womens wear. You be the judge. It was dark, the moon out, by the river, sultry air shifted only by the three bladed ceiling fan. They would drop a chip, fingers lingering suggestively, take a drink, flirt a little, drop another chip, look longingly at each other, ect. Paul and I preferred "speed Connect 4". The cries of "faster! faster! I win! I win!" echoing through the still night were probably not appreciated.

In spite of the grandeur of some of the buildings (and the once-was or never-was grandeur of most of the others), our favorite part of the city was the old market, where people found their everyday goods. Cloth, pans, radios, jewelry, flowers, manicure and hair cutting, everything all crammed in a little shanty town of stalls. The food section I didn't like, the ice keeping the fish cold ran onto the ground making a mud pit. At least the fish was kept cold...everything else just hung there in all its glory. The smell was horrifying, as there were buckets of skinned frogs and other rodent and insect looking things (beetles and crickets according to Paul who ate them during survival school). The last thing we did before leaving was a trip to this market. As we walked away, I was accosted by two very naked kids. I didn't have any change, but they weren't asking for any. I had my breakfast (a fresh baguette) in my hand, and that is what they wanted. I gave the little one a piece, and he ate it whole. I gave the big one a piece. The little one wanted another piece, and I gave it to him, and to be fair, I gave the big one a second too. The little one asked for a third, and the bigger one hit him, and I guess told him not to be greedy. I walked away stunned, still holding 1/2 the bread. About 30 seconds later I was overcome by a compulsion to buy a bunch of loaves (12 cents each) and find the kids, who ran away in the maze of a market. I didn't. I wish I had at least given them the whole baguette.

Siem Riep (Angkor Wat) (35 min flight or 5 hr boat trip north of Phnom Penh)
This was the sublime motivating the whole trip. The Wats (Temples) are incredible, you should all go. That said: I had visions of sunset at the temple on the hill, and sunrise at one of the others. I rode an elephant to the top to see the sunset, which fulfilled another, elephant riding vision. Unfortunately, when we got to the top there were 1,000 tourists already there. The Koreans on cell phones and the fact I couldn't see through all the people really spoiled the whole thing. We ditched the sunrise idea. The temples really are amazing--on the scale of the Mayan ruins in Mexico. You need to go NOW, before it gets any more crowded, and the 9-year-old vendors that mob you at every site with Buddha key chains get any taller. If you do go--get your driver to take you out to some of the outlying temples where the tour buses don't go. There is also a place nearby where you can get a massage by blind people for $3/hr. Best massage I've EVER had--even with the rickety wooden table, and without new-age music and aromatherapy candles.

We saw a small advert for boat cruises to the Vietnamese floating village. Sounds cool, lets go! We couldn't find anyone else who'd been, and it wasn't in the Let's Go guidebook, which by the way, I can't remember if I've mentioned, sucks. Our driver, Bun, said he'd work out the details to see the "houseboats" (and take a cut for himself). We drove out of town, along a tributary river. The benefits of tourism stopped abruptly. Houses were one room shacks with two, maybe 3 walls. They were on stilts to deal with fluctuating water levels, and all were open to the road--we could see everything happening inside, which was mostly people napping on the ground. Garbage everywhere, kids naked and skinny, mangy animals in the streets. Apart from the empty coke bottles, there was no indication the 20th century, let alone the 21st ever hit this place. We got to the river, and got in a very rickety old boat with a bunch of chickens underneath. It was okay, because we can both swim. We headed down the river towards lake Tonle Sap. Houses on stilts went from towering over us to level with us as we went further. We hit the river proper, and there were nothing but tree tops sticking out of the water (the river rises and falls about 6 miles between wet/dry seasons—hence the trees in the middle of the river and houses on stilts). Then we came upon the Vietnamese village--it was indeed floating. It was really just hundreds of boats--not houseboats, just boats used as houses--15ft by 4ft wooden boats with whole families living on them, eating on them, doing laundry on them, sleeping on them. I'll try to send pictures, because I just can't describe it. People in smaller boats filled with coke, water, soap, ect. paddled (no motors anywhere) by selling their wares. Pigs and chickens in floating pens went by. The people are really Vietnamese—they wear the big hats and everything, and there is no mixing with the Cambodians. They've been here as long as anyone can remember. The most surreal part of this otherworld experience was all the boats had battery powered TVs. They wash clothes on one side of their boat, do their business on the other, but have TVs. The most popular boat was the blue Catholic Church (Jesuit, of course). About 50 kids were piled on squealing and doing back flips into the river.

On the way back to town, we passed some restaurants along the river. They were on stilts, with bamboo floors over water, and had hammocks instead of chairs. STOP! We told the driver. He was confused as to why we wanted to get a drink here, when we had 20 nice Air Conditioned tourist bars to choose from in town. We invited him to come with us and we ordered drinks and a HUGE plate of fresh shrimp. We laid in hammocks peeling shrimp and dropping the heads in the lake to watch the fish come gobble them up. We stayed there for a really long time.

Accommodation prices range from $5-$500. We went for the $20-$30 range, which got us A/C, private bath, hot water, and picked up from the airport. The food was SUPER, and Paul and I could BOTH stuff ourselves for under $5. One night we splurged and went to one of those shows frequented by tour busses--A buffet of traditional food and a traditional dance performance. That set us back a whole $30 (including a bottle of wine). Frogs were on the menu. The Korean tourists were making them dance and taking pictures of each other eating them. I don't think American tourists have a bad name--it’s the whole tourist class, regardless of nationality.

Stay tuned next week for our adventures in Thailand :)

PS-Andrew, you were right about the Connect 4 and the hiking boots. I ended up buying a $9 pair of Teva wanna-bees. We'll never doubt you again!