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“Rain, ATM’s and countryside”

bigshow — Thu, 2 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Destination Angkor, December 2, 2007

“Rain, ATM’s and countryside”

I decided to make one last trip up to the town of Seam Reap and the massive complex known as Angkor Wat. The Cambodian government through a momentary stroke of genius, long ago limited the number of vehicles allowed to enter the park. Not just anyone can enter with a vehicle, your have to be registered as a guide and or a driver. This has forced the majority of tourists to come in either, big tour groups, with personal guides, rented car and driver (like the rich) or as most of us budget travelers, riding on the back of moto’s or using Tuk-Tuk’s. I had driven a rented motorcycle from Phnom Penh to Seam Reap, taking about 5 hours over mostly submerged roads from the biggest rain storm in the history of my motorcycle adventures. I swear this rain storm had water coming from all directions at once and it was a good thing they provided the motorcycle with a snorkel. I had a really good poncho and after making double sure that my laptop and camera were safe, I did a series of relays, from one rain shelter to the next. I would ride until the rain hurt, then dive into a thatched roadside food stand for a break. I think I actually got bruised on the legs not having any leather pants or boots. Needless to say the rider, the bike and all but the electronics remained wet the entire trip. I dared not even bring out the camera for fear of getting water in the bag. One good testament was the Lowepro Stealth Camera bag, not a drop got inside and it was only under the poncho. After finding a relatively nice hotel on Wat Po Road. I spent rest of the evening drying out. I arranged for a Tuk-Tuk to take me in and out of the park each day as riding in them was easier than riding on those tiny moto seats. OK for short rides around town but not on any extended trips. The cost of a three day pass was 40$ and add to this the Tuk-Tuk with driver at 10$ a day, and you quickly see why most people spend 3 fast and furious days trying to visit as much as they can. The main route for most people is called the Grand Tour. That route takes in the main ruins consisting of Angkor Wat, the biggest and grandest of the three, the Bayon second largest, but this is the one with a hundred towers that have the 4 faces pointed in the cardinal directions. Most people think of the faces as that of the Buddha, but in reality, they are of the Leper King who ruled godlike and were Hindu based. Then there was everybody’s favorite and known to many because of the Angelina Jolle movie, “Tomb Raiders”, Ta Phrom is the temple where the trees were found growing in and among the ruins and left there. The trees are called Banyan’s and considered scared and belonging to the sprites in the afterlife. To cut them down would incur the wrath of the long dead who live in and around them. Anyway, having seen the Grand Tour two times before, I opted for the ruins located on the outer limits of the park and one or two actually outside the park boundaries, most surrounded by jungle and only reached by driving through a few remote villages and hundreds of rice fields. To my surprise I was not alone at these outer ruins, there were a great many thinking the same thing as myself to avoid the masses on the Grand Tour. Out here the picture taking was easier than the Grand Tour would have been. On the Grand Tour the picture taking is about group shots taken in front of other groups standing beside another group. Gone are the days when you could wait 5 minutes and the one group would pass and you could get a shot in between, now the groups are almost continuous. The next day started out with an early morning pick up at the hotel 0500. If I had been staying at a real good hotel, the staff would have made coffee or hot tea before I left, but being budget minded I just stopped off at one of the hundred small Khmer road stands. For 25 cents, I got a black coffee with sweetened condensed milk in the bottom of the plastic cup. This was ok as long as you didn’t stir up the milk. It was way too sweet to drink mixed, if you work it right you can sip out the black stuff in between the bumps and not get too much of the sweet stuff. The ride into the main park was only about 20 minutes too show your pass and then on to the outer ones about 1 to 2 hours with some breaks for food or picture taking enroute. Once at the ruins, picture taking was a hurried affair with the light getting hotter as the morning progressed. Usually by 1000 the light was so hard and hot the picture quality was minimal at best. After taking in the ruins, we would look for some breakfast from the many have food and drink vendors clustered about the entrances. On arrival they will call out and say “Suh, Suh, wan Cold drink, Suh?” and if you don’t buy right away, they say “OK, buy me when come back, remember you I speak you fust!” I always bring my own water, but the food would spoil fast with out ice and the only electricity here abouts consisted of 12 volt car batteries for the lights or TV’s . I try and pick the food vender that the Tuk-Tuk driver use’s as this always gets him a free meal for bringing me by. Being a westerner usually means eating from the menu and costing more. The locals are very surprised when I asked for my food with out a menu. They are surprised because they also know it’s cheaper, but then are also quite pleased that I have taken the time to learn their language. Most people coming here don’t have the time to spend learning the lingo other than “Hello or Thank you”, so they are very used to everyone dumbing down and speaking the pig English most everybody tends to use. It goes something like this, “Me, food eat!” and “Looky Men-nu?”, “U speaky English?” (duh, what country am I in?) or “Beer, Me one!”, and my all time favorite, “Is water Purified?”… I long ago learned, no matter the country, if you eat from the food stands, you always take the chance of food poisoning and or the at least being contaminated by the local bacteria. Even in the best restaurants your chance’s here are tripled at best. As a rule, get to a new country, eat as clean as you can for a week or so before you start venturing out to the street food and you will have a better chance than most at holding off the dreaded backpackers disease, (severe stomach cramps and a guaranteed to lose ten pounds case of diarrhea)… Oh, and when and if you do come here, you gotta try the frogs. It a considered a delicacy here and this might be rough on some of you, but, to keep the frogs as fresh as can be, they skin them alive and then leave them until the costumer is ready to eat and then stir fry them still kicking in the pan from the heat!! (I can hear everyone groaning from here!) Well alrighty then, on the final day of a trekking into these remote sections, I developed a severe case of heat exhaustion and I think it almost turned into heat stress. Forgetting where I was, I tried to do too much, too fast and did not drink enough water. (I always thought beer counted!) All the walking, the climbing, the jungle heat and riding to and from the ruins in the open sun, then add the humidity combined with poor physical conditioning and overweight, well, you get the drift. I came down with all the usual symptoms, cool clammy skin, a massive head ache, feeling slightly nauseous and faint, I was so weak I could barely lift my arms. On the way back to the hotel I had my driver stop off at a Star Mart and buy me 2 gallons of water and something similar to Asian gator aid, he then drove me straight to the hotel, no stopping off for beers today. Pulling up outside the girls working there saw me literally slither out of the Tuk-Tuk, the driver telling them I had fainted or passed out coming back. They rushed over and helped me stagger to my room, which thankfully, was only one floor up. The girls took me straight to the shower and even brought a small plastic chair so I could sit under the cold water, drinking and re-hydrating. The girls kept a constant watch on me the first night, stopping by to check my temperature and bringing as much water and tea as I could drink. I started feeling better almost right away. I had a Thai restaurant just across the street deliver some hot soup and there was an Apsara Mart (Khmer for Nymph Mart) right around the corner with more gator aid, and 2 days later I awoke still feeling a little weak, but most of the symptoms were gone and I felt none the worse for the wear. “Doctors, I don need no stinking Doctors!!!” anyway, here’s to my good fortune and the help of strangers!

The town of Seam Reap that supports Angkor Wat with hotels, restaurants and the most ATM’s in Asia, used to be a sleepy little village supporting the various Archeological Teams sent by the various countries to helping to restore the ruins. When I first got here in just 5 short years ago there were only one or two little Chinese restaurants. The Red Piano Bar (Angelina’s favorite place), a Happy Herb’s Pizza, (home to the famous marijuana laced pizzas) and an oddity of a restaurant called the Dead Fish Guest House. The latter’s logo advertising that “We don’t serve, Dog, Cat, Rat or Worms” and seemed to serve as a testament to the quirkiness’ of Seam Reap. There was only one “Zanzi” Bar that catered to girly needs and the usual Vietnamese courtesans casting about and a scattering of small coffee bars/pubs where the “teams” would often meet after hours. The streets were dirt, and most of the buildings made of wood with some remnants of the old Indochinese Architecture. Now most all the older wooden buildings are gone and replaced with square concrete structures having little or no flare other then artsy names like the Angkor What Bar, or some Japanese style neon lights or the drab looking backlit sign mounted on the roof or to the walls. The only street with any style left is Pub Street, so named years ago when it was lined with those small café’s and pubs reminiscent of Paris or Rome. Now they are even dividing the city into, “the French Quarter” or “China Town” to reflect the new owners. The name Seam Reap it self means Siam Defeated, I guess a time long ago they won a war with Thailand near here and named the spot accordingly. I have mentioned earlier that the old market part of town is starting to resemble one of the pavilions at Epcot Center in Disney World with the Angkor theme redone in concrete and rebar. Here everything has the name Angkor associated with it, Angkor Massage, Angkor Market, Angkor, Angkor, Angkor... Even my hotel was named “Angkor Thom”… About the only thing left that is real anymore are the beggars still wandering around making upwards of 10 to 20$ a day from the misguided tourist thinking they are “just helping out”. You know the teachers here make less than 35$ a month, and the cops even less than that. Hell, why work at all if the tourists will pay you 300$ a month to just hang out and beg!

After the hurried trip through Angkor, I spent the next few days recuperating in a small town along the southern coast called Kampot, and even took a few rides out and into the countryside. Take any road out of town and when you are far enough out that you begin to see the rice fields and cows, take another right or left down any of the small rural dirt roads and the real Cambodia is ready to slap you in the face. Crossing into the countryside is like time travel. Gone are the trappings of modern day accoutrements, here things go back to the basics of survival as fast as flipping a light switch. On the farms and out in the fields, the chores are a constant, water must get to the fields, the pigs must “food eat”, the cows tended and these chores mostly done by the men, leaving the actual harvesting to be done by the women and older people. They work fully covered head to thigh in their sarongs under a conical hat and scarf for protection against the sun. Looking closely sometimes you can only see their eyes and the long black hair knotted in a pony tail. Children not in school usually work right along side the women. Seeing me they all stop and marvel at the passing stranger and wonder why he is taking pictures of something so ordinary. Here a good house cleaning means sweeping the dust back into the surrounding fields. It’s easy to see why the customs of leaving your shoes at the door are prevalent in these settings where everything is dirt, clay, mud or some kind of dung. Most houses are on stilts, taking advantage of the cooling effect the wind has when it blows under and around the house, drawing out the heat and in the rainy season keeping it afloat. The ground floor also serves as the cooking and living area, with hammocks strung betweens the posts and the ever present “dto”, a bamboo/rattan like table where they sit, sleep, eat and read. When you first drive though the rice fields, you can’t help but wonder at the beauty, the hundred differing shades of greens and yellows from rice fields mixed with the reds and browns of the many paths or roads like a pastel painting come to life. The color of the deep blue sky against a horizon of green, dotted with sugar palms or coconut trees, and the workers homes serving to break up the endless pattern of square rice paddies. I think on any given day when you drive through the countryside, you can bank 2 hundred hello’s an hour and over a thousand waves from those to distant to shout. The children would sing out the word “Hello, Hello” until you’ve either past or answered back with a “Hello” in return. It’s probably the only foreign word they know and they just love having the chance to say it.

On one my drives out and about, I happened upon a small elementary school on the same grounds as a working temple near some “Killing Fields” (Google Khmer Rouge). As I was walking around I could hear the kids in a classroom reciting the alphabets. Not wanting to disturb the class I stayed back out of sight and worked my way closer to better hear them. The school was old and dusty, having the same Indochinese bureaucratic yellow colored walls everywhere, now faded by years of neglect and brown up to the waist from the dirt of thousand dusty children leaning against it. No lights in the classroom just what ever natural light spills into the doorway and windows, a chalk board and small wooden tables and benches for the students to sit and write on. As I inched closer to the classroom, I could just see a young boy about 8 or 9 holding a long pointed stick in his hands and as he would tap and recite each letter or vowel on the board, the entire class would then repeat it in unison after him. Altogether, the effect was like that of a song, the boy in the lead and the children behind him acting as the choir. All this time, waiting patiently out in front of the classroom was a little girl of about 4 or 5 years old. I could only guess, but she must have been waiting for her older siblings to finish class and take her home, but here she sat patiently waiting, singing the same words as the class only singing them quietly to herself, still dressed in her school uniform, hiding just out of sight under an open window. I sat close by under a shady tree on a small wooden bench and quietly just let it all just soak in. To hear the kids in the background singing their lessons was as beautiful as any opera or concert I’ve ever been to, with the only other sound anywhere a puff of wind through the trees and maybe a bark or two from a dog down the way. Sitting there, at that moment, I felt almost totally at peace sitting there. Hell, I think I even levitated, a real Zen moment for me and to think, people wonder “Why” I travel…

Off to Vietnam in the morning, got my tickets and have managed to shed another 10 pounds of ballast (clothes and fat!) So, look for more notes in a couple of weeks.

George

“Mantras, minefields and memories…”

bigshow — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 08:05:00 GMT

Destination Unknown, November 28, 2007

“Mantras, minefields and memories…”

Landing in Phnom Penh I found the weather to be on the cool side for Cambodia. Hovering around 76 degrees and very windy, the Khmer were complaining and shivering in long sleeve shirts and down jackets. (Gosh, I wonder who else I know that thinks 76 is on the chilly side?) Compared to past experiences here it was very comfortable for me. I got through Immigrations with a minimum of fuss, just make sure you remember to bring extra passport pictures for the Visa’s and you’ll breeze thru. I packed lighter than usual this time, not having a clue to where I would be going and or doing this trip. I guess it’s no different then any other trip but on this occasion I wanted to leave everything to chance and packed accordingly. Flip flops, sandals and walking shoes, two pair of long pants, four pair of shorts, 10 t-shirts, 1 shirt with a collar, two pair of socks for motorcycling, swim trunks and miscellaneous toiletries. Along with the clothes now add one laptop, one camera body, two lenses, the camera bag, two baby hard drives and I felt ready to tackle any voyage. Coming over on the flights I had divided up most of the clothing into the checked luggage and the electronics as a carry on, I can buy more clothes if I have to, but try to replace your toys on the road and the vacation is ruined. After getting to the hotel I re-sorted the gear and made up one bag for short two and three day trips and the other for trips two weeks and longer. Taking only what was absolutely needed on the short trips and re-stocking as needed for the long ones. Just as a side bar, I am in the digital world of photography, and have been for a good while now. Long since have I come to grips with the amount of wires and cables I need to accomplish the transference and data management needed to take 500 pictures or more on a daily basis. Gone are the days of having to pack film, but now that’s been replaced with USB cables, adapters, chargers, cable locks, hard drives. I swear I am carrying more nowadays then back in the days of film. I guess that’s the price you pay for the instant gratification of being able to see your pictures when and where you want. Hell, I can download and do a slide show in less time then it would have took to process 1 roll of film. So here I am in the middle of one of the poorest countries of the world, sitting in a ten dollar room hooked up to the internet with WiFi, listening to “Tibetan Buddhist mantras” on my laptop while downloading my pictures and writing in my journal. Hell, when I’m finished and before going to the Landmine Museum this afternoon, I may take a nap or just watch the latest Hollywood Blockbuster until the Tuk-Tuk arrives @ 1500. Anyhow so begins the latest adventures of a traveling vagabond and so, so photographer.

I had already booked a room at the California 2 for a week and arrived just in time for a lunch of deep fried pork rib’s with rice, home made French fires, a cucumber salad and a liter bottle of my favorite, Beer Lao, the girls at the hotel even remembering to bring the my usual condiments of lime, crushed black pepper, salt and chopped up chilies that you mixed in a small bowl and then liberally soak everything in. Most the usual Expats were there already working on their second beer. There was Russell, an ex Australian Vietnam Vet. He looks the part of a Vet, scruffy beard, has that long stare when in deep thought and has let his hair grow uncut going on twenty years now, he developed post traumatic stress right after the war and after major rehab was able to keep a job as Longshoreman long enough to retire. Now Russell pops down for lunch and drinks by noon, he only drinks beer and he boasts that he hasn’t cooked a day in his life, but has learned how to open tins of soups, beans, the occasional spam. Bill is another Aussie who also survived the War and is also living here full time. Bill is more energetic though, he will fast walk from his apartment here have lunch and then fast walk back. He does this every day and it takes just over three hours there and back again. Bill is also the part time day manager of a girlie bar here called the “Walkabout”. Bill says working there helps keep the mind sharp working out all the games people play with him and the staff. There’s also Mark, pipeline mechanic from Prudue Bay, Alaska. He lives here full time now, is sixty nine and his girlfriend is Vietnamese, gorgeous and about twenty two years old. I gotta wonder how he does it. The cast of characters would not be complete without Dangerous Dave. Dave is a retired Seaman and got his name from his driving abilities. Always getting around on his motorbikes, he drives everywhere. Once up in the Cardoman Mountains, as the story goes, the motorcycle pack was moving along slowly and too slowly for Dave, he charged past and when the pack arrived at a huge minefield that was in the process of being cleared, they could see his tracks going right through the minefield. No one being brave enough to follow, they all diverted around and it took them the rest of the day to catch up. When they finally asked him about the minefield, he said he had arrived just as a local was letting down the flagging and just followed him through. Now that took some balls, anyhow, it was good be back, sitting in a sidewalk café and bar, getting drunk with this truly eclectic crowd, and listening to their latest exploits.

Mostly I had worked out the sleep schedule before leaving Salt Lake (Going to bed in the AM and trying to stay awake all night.), but I was still tired and what the hell I’m on vacation so I retired early and slept almost through the night and only awoke after hearing two cats fighting in the alley around 4 am. Granted 4 am is early no matter what country you are in, but here life starts before the crack of dawn. Already I can hear the distant beeps and honks that tell me the Khmer are already out and about. I wandered down the stairs hoping someone from the hotel staff was awake and to my dismay they were all still sleeping and not scheduled to open before 0700. I tip toed passed the sleeping night attendants and let myself out for a quick walk along the riverside to find some coffee. Stepping outside I found the streets deserted with the exception of a few going to work. I headed north and stopped at one of the small restaurants catering to the early morning backpackers headed out by bus or boat along the Mekong or Tone Le Sap Rivers. The bus station had not yet opened and the boats were still dark as well. Sitting there in the first coffee shop, cloaked in shadows and tending to warm a cup of coffee, I watched as the backpackers slowly appeared out of the darkness, some still half asleep. Backpackers have to be quite mad sometimes. Imagine for a moment the need to get up at 0400 in the morning, and then walk for miles, sometime through streets clogged with people sleeping along the sidewalks, stepping over and around them, trying your best not to wake them in passing, or wondering if you’ll be robbed around the next corner by a man wielding his AK 47… Anyway, the morning was spent doling out information to the many backpackers who also stopped in for coffee and breakfast. “How long?”, “Which boat?”, “What time?”, the questions are always the same, quickly passed along to the newer arrivals and then would come the sorting, the queuing, and always the last minute packing of food and drinks for the trips, strapping the shoes to the outside to get that last bottle of water inside, spending a last minute attempting to repair the bigger rips and tears in the packs or just binding it off till later. I found myself dearly missing those days.

I can remember walking alone to the bus station in the Lacandon Jungle along the border of Mexico and Guatemala, in a market place of some unknown village with no street lights at 0400. Having to feel your way along the wall to a patch of dirt they told you about in the light of day and hoping either the bus or the sun would come soon. At first all that was visible was the glow of a small cooking fire set back in the wall of what looked like a small alley. I made my way along the wall and saw the wrinkled face of a very, very old woman stooped over a fire and cooking something that smelled foul. I was standing there in the dark and thru the flicker of light I spied another “white” face crouched in and behind the old lady. Slowly I moved along the wall entering the alley and when close enough to whisper, I asked if this was the bus station? He moved over a bit and motioned me over and quickly whispered back “ Yeah, I think so, hold out some money and this lady will give you coffee!”… Just like that, in the dark of night, over a tin cup of sweet, black coffee, two backpackers meet and then travel for the next few hours, days or weeks until their paths diverge. Exchanging addresses in the hopes of seeing them again some day, but also in an attempt to keep the adventure alive in your mind. Saying to yourself, look this really happened, here is the piece of paper that says it’s true, it has an address on it and they were with me when it happened. It was not a figment of my imagination, it was real… This happens more often then you would think on those roads less traveled. Things used to be, that backpackers “chose” to travel the cheap and less traveled routes, trading time for dollars and the chance of real adventures. Now a day’s, it seems that those roads are disappearing fast, and with it the sense of adventure. Those roads less traveled are getting harder and harder to find, as the world grows smaller and smaller…

Well, I have just returned from a week at Angkor Wat. I am sitting in my ten dollar room typing away and coming up with a plan, sort of. The next few days will be gathering some supplies, doing laundry and then on the third day riding out to the beach. There I will take the time to say hello to some old friends made last year and unwind from Angkor. I swear that place is getting more and more like one of the Pavilions at Disney World. What used to be Pub street

is now one of those Artsy Fartsy places you find at Pearl Streetin Boulder or Underground, Atlanta complete with Starbucks like coffee shops. I don’t think I would ever go back willingly. Anyway, after the beaches I will begin my trip up the coast of Vietnam. I still have no clue as to how I will enter and which way I will go, but like the old days of backpacking, maybe I can find some adventure still out there on those roads less traveled…

Traffic, Dalat and Mouse Stew

bigshow — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 08:19:00 GMT

Destination Vietnam, 12-21-2007

Traffic, Dalat and Mouse Stew,

I crossed the border on the 8^th of December and stayed in Saigon for a week, sampling some of the hustle and bustle it’s famous for. On the first day in town I hired a cyclo to pedal me around while I sat and took pictures, poor guy only got a 1.50$ out of me and I know he was straining every time we started from a dead stop. Traveling by cyclo gives you the time to see people unfettered by car windows and or the need to watch where you going. Also you get a good feel on how the traffic moves in general. In Saigon most tourists find that simply crossing the street can be a major achievement. The shear number of motorcycles, bicycles and cars will astound even the most hardened traveler. Basically, to cross a street you have look in the direction of oncoming traffic and then stare down the closest motorcycle or car and hope they will veer to the right or left you as you slowly walk forward, never run as this will only throw off the timing. The closest I can describe it would be like crossing a river and the traffic is the water and it slowly flows around you as you cross. I am a big guy and it’s hard for them not to notice me, so I don’t wonder that when I cross the street, I have many people in my shadow using me as the lead. There are many accidents here involving other motos or bicycles, but very few involving pedestrians. Sitting on one busy traffic circle I watched as two very young children about 7 or 8 walked hand in hand across this huge traffic circle with 40 to 50 vehicles flowing around them like water. The one little girl only screamed when a car darted out scaring her, then seeing the children it veered off. I will post a picture of the drama when I get the chance but this happens millions of times every day all over Saigon. Once over the traffic shock, Saigon will dazzle you with some of the best food in Asia, and shopping compared to any city in the west, the real stuff or any knocked off you can think of, fashions, electronics, trinkets, art. One of the biggest sellers on the streets are the “real weather beaten Zippo lighters” and “dog tags” left over from the war, complete with year in country, platoon nickname or company logo. The Vietnamese have banned all motorcycles bigger than 175cc from the highways. Not to say there aren’t any in Vietnam, because I have seen a few running around. One was this 750 café racer, and another a Harley Davidson 883 and most of the police drive 400’s. There are a group of guides here called the “Easy Riders”. They are a collection of drivers with funky Honda 125’s and Russian Minks or Urals that offer trips from Saigon to Hanoi and anywhere in between on the back of their bike. Don’t know if I could stand being “guided” everywhere I went! I muse because I will be leaving the world of motorcycles behind for the ignoble means of transportation called buses, boats and trains again. Although the “Open Buses” (Tourist class with open ended tickets) are second to none, it still requires the queuing, assigned seating, and limited access to the countryside we will be driving through. A stewardess, movies, food and water is a luxury still un-afforded by a multitude of the masses, so I guess I can make an effort to endure. Imagine if you will, all the normal seats in a bus taken out and then a two story platform of metal isle’s welded to the interior. This metal platform has two aisle running front to back with a small staircase at the front and back for the upper level passengers. There is one window aisle on either side of the bus and one center row. Basically, three abreast front to back, upper and lower. The seats are almost as wide first class seats and lay back perfectly flat to make a bed for sleeping on those longer overnight trips. Two or threes of the legs here are 11 and 12 hours long. You can buy the tickets in a variety of route combinations, one example is Saigon->Dalat->Nah Trang->Hoi An->Hue->Hanoi or one 15 differing route possibilities headed north or coming south depending on time and need. When using these tickets, you simply book the seat the day before you travel and off you go, Stop at any city, stay as long as you like and then when you are ready to continue, book another seat one day in advance and there you go again. I booked my ticket and it was all of 22$ for the above mentioned trip. Anyway, other than the buses, I have the option of trains, they mainly follow the coastal route and are not a versatile as the bus and then lastly there is Vietnam Air. The cost to fly from Saigon to Hanoi is around $75. A flight to Hue is only $35 one way. Right now I will plan on going to Hanoi overland and then will have to decide if I will take a train or fly back to either Saigon or Phnom Penh..

One thing that does get tiring here in Saigon are all the street vendors, known in Asia as “Touts”, these are the people trying to sell mostly junk at inflated prices sometimes as much as 500%, books, lighters, manicure kits, hammocks, constantly badgering you to buy there wares and it’s seems never ending. I thought Bangkok was bad but the Vietnamese put any Thai Tout to absolute shame in their boldness and dogged persistence. They even try to sell to you at the dinner table while you are chewing a mouthful of food, walking right up to the table forming a line of people waiting their turn for a “No!” One of the locals showed me how he deals with them and it involves looking away from them and then raising your hand as if to wave and then shake it side to side, then you try real hard to ignore them, as much as possible anyway. If the touts are bored, as they usually are, they will keep trying to wear you down by shear determination. On more than one occasion I have seen a local westerner politely grab a tout by the hand and pull them on down the street a few meters and then return to the table to continue their meal, it can get down right brutal sometimes!

It’s Sunday, the 16^th of December, I am currently in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, writing from a corner Café, in a city called Dalat. Dalat meaning “place of the river people”, here used to live seven or so clans of indigenous hill tribes called the Hmoong, the same ones who aided the US Special Forces in its war with the north. These days the Hmoong people live nowhere near the city. They have been assimilated into the Vietnamese cultures and pushed far out in the surrounding mountains sides. All the kings of ancient Thailand, Cambodia and Laos used to come here and hunt or capture elephants for their kingdoms but now there’s nothing but tired old elephants trudging through the jungle and forests with tourist on their backs. Unlike Thailand, here they don’t get to retire back to the jungle when they reach sixty years of age! Most of the wildlife was hunted to extinction long ago, but legend says there are still a few Tigers running around. So as “Chef” from the movie Apocalypse Now said “Never get out of the fricking boat man, never get out!” None the less the city and the surrounding mountains are absolutely beautiful, first “found” and then inhabited by the French as early as 1850 and continuing until their defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The city itself escaped the war with a mutual agreement by the Viet Cong and the Americans, leaving it almost entirely unharmed and used as a playground when on leave or R&R. The Americans occupied the center and south leaving the Viet Cong the north side. They still have at least 2500 old French Villas still in use here and strict laws as to anyone restoring them. Some of the villas were small and quaint two and three bedroom chalets, while a great many are very ornate with gated walls, gardens, some with 50 rooms or more, servant quarters, and heated swimming pools. The villas were used by the French as a retreat and Dalat looks very much like a town built in the French Alps complete with narrow winding streets and roof tops ready to shed snow. Almost every intersection is a traffic circle and it amazing to see how efficiently the traffic flows through them. Dalat is also famous for its beautiful forests and cool weather, bringing both Vietnamese and some foreign tourists escaping the heat of the Low Countries. Most Vietnamese coming here delight at the chance to wear fancy wool scarf’s, fashionable sweaters and tailored jackets, with the college kids and “old guys” still wearing the French berets. During the evening they will stroll around the banana shaped lake cutting through the middle of the town just as the French of olden times. The lake is lined with a nice sidewalk complete with Oaks, Willows, Pines and there’s even small paddle wheel swans for rent as you woo your girl. Even the main huge communications tower located on a hill overlooking the lake was built to resemble the Eiffel Tower in Paris. As luck would have it, I arrived just in time for the Annual Dalat Flower Festival, great for sightseeing and photography, but also meaning that most of the hotels were full. After looking around desperately for an hour or so, I was able to find a single room just off the lake for 15$. The room had a huge vaulted ceiling, king size bed, a real tub with brass feet, hot water and a small balcony overlooking the street, how lucky can you get… I wandered down the street and just a few hundred meters from the hotel found this small western owned restaurant called “V”… The prices were a bit on the steep side, a glass of Vang Dalat red wine going for 1.25$, a home cooked meal of oven baked pork loin with mashed potatoes and fresh vegetables costing all of 4.5$. The waiters were dressed in the classic French uniforms and a had tinge of a French accent. I had gotten used to only paying 2$ for a Cambodian or Vietnamese dinner and the bill never topping 3.5$... I guess I can afford to splurge once in a while! On another note, Dalat is known for it’s delicious red wines, but they also have a dam good home brewery going on as well. I just found this local restaurant up the street call “Big Man Beer”… The three beers they offer are all on tap with, Yellow beer the cheapest at 35cents a pint, the Red beer for 60cents, and the best being the Black beer complete with a frothy head, also for just 60cents a pint. Needless to say it’s my first stop before going out to dinner every night This town also has hundreds of small “Café’s” serving only drinks. Tea’s fresh juices, shakes, sodas and the most prevalent being the “Ca Phe” as the Vietnamese say it. There are a almost as many different Ca Phe’s as there are tea’s, One I like in particular is called a Vietnamese Ca Phe, using locally grown beans and concocted in a tall glass with about a ¼ inch of Sweetened Condensed Milk at the bottom of the glass and then served with the Ca Phe maker/filter on top of the glass. Another specialty here along with the hundreds of white, yellow, red and black tea is Asparagus Tea, this made from the entire plant after being dried and ground. I have had a few cups and found it to be very tasty, but don’t add sugar, they say it ruins any health benefit of the tea. Again here you don’t need air conditioning you need a good down jacket, the average temperature is hovering at a daily high of 75 degrees and a low of 55, hot water is the main concern for everyone. As I was walking around the next morning I even saw the farmers heating water in a big black pot for bathing. Speaking of farmers, Dalat is also the salad bowl of Vietnam. Here in almost any open space not forested or covered with habitation they grow every vegetable imaginable, lettuce, (8 different varieties), all kinds of fruits and berries, spices like chilies, black pepper, oregano, basil, you name it, and all to be found at this huge semi enclosed market right in the center of town. The market is surrounded by the biggest and best hotels, while the cheaper backpacker hotels are up and over the hill. I spent many hours just walking around talking and photographing all the people coming and going, buying and selling. It was a virtual maze of food stuffs. Ripe fruits, dried this, pickled that, food everywhere, one corner was for seafood, one for meats, inside was the rice market, while the second and third had a food court and clothing shops. I sampled some here and there, and the locals were always trying to get you to try this and that. To this day I know not what it was I had eaten some good and some very bad. Then in the heat of the day when you’re hot from all that walking around in the sun, go to the food court and there they will make you any fruit or vegetable drink you can think up for only 25cents.

Vietnamese food has to be some of the most diverse on the planet. Here, everything is on the table. If it can be boiled, baked, fried, grilled, sautéed or stewed, they will eat it. Most higher class restaurants and even a great many smaller ones will have aquariums filled with fish, crabs, mice, ( yep, ordinary field mice) frogs, snakes, eels, squid, crocodile, octopus, kangaroo, ostrich and all displayed and ready to be eaten. Just walk over, point out which one you want, show them how you would like it cooked, and viola, dinner is served. I met this Finnish guy the other night and we went to dinner at a local restaurant where nobody could find a English menu for us, so we opted to take a chance and point at the food we wanted and then animating how it was to be cooked. The restaurant’s “Mama san” was very helpful and even went as far as taking us back to the kitchen to see how the food was going to be prepared. I chose something simple and had this clay pot filled with shrimps, garlic, tomatoes and these little red hot mouse poop chili peppers. The clay pot had handles on each side and then all the ingredients were stuffed into the pot and then placed onto white hot coals until everything inside was simmering in a kind of tomato sauce. My friend the Fin was into adventure, he ordered the mice, he pointed out 4 or 5 big fat ones and then the “Mama san” suggested serving it as a stew. Remember, all this was done with out the benefit of a menu or English!!!

Well, my dish was spectacular, served over a bed rice and it was delicious. The mouse stew was a novelty for the both of us and we wondered how it would be served. As it turned out the mouse had been skinned, then mostly the legs and arms and breast meat made it into the stew along side potatoes, carrots, green beans, onions and a curry like sauce, it smelled great from my side of the table. When ever he spooned up a piece of the mouse, he decided to just finger it and eat as you would a chicken leg. I, by the way, could not bring myself to try it! Maybe next time I’ll muster up the courage and have bite of the crocodile…

I am now in the beach town of Nha Trang, (NA Chang), here I will sit for a few days lazing about and then it’s off to the Ancient City of Hoi An, 12 hours to the north. I hope this finds everyone doing well and do write when you get the chance, seems the internet here is faster that Cambodia and I will also upload some more pictures in the next few days… Tam Biet (good bye)

George

Jungle riding, third world ferries and river roads…

bigshow — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 02:54:00 GMT

January 18, 2007

Jungle riding, third world ferries and river roads…

Sitting around the beach was getting tame after the trip to Vietnam and sitting around Sihanoukville for a week made me feel the need for some speed! I needed some adventure! I quickly spotted the route after talking with some fellow riders and started planning a trip to one of the last wild mountain chains in Cambodia. I got four riders from Sihanoukville (Swedes) and a quick phone call to Phnom got us four more riders, 2 Brits, 1 American and an Australian all bored, laying around the Hotel California doing nothing but getting drunk on cheap 75 cent beer. The plan was to meet in a small town called Sri Ambel and then all make the 240 kilometer ride as a group. The first part of the trip would take us through an almost tamed jungle road leading up to the town of Koh Kong. Then after holding up there for a night we would start out early in the morning to find where the real jungle road started and then go 120 kilometers through the jungles and rivers of the Cardamon Mountains ending up in a city that was the last stronghold of the Khmer Rouge close to a town called Pailin. From there it was to be a series of short day rides in and out of the mountains heading east and then south back towards Phnom Penh. Sri Ambel was the first port city for Cambodia back in the days before the French built Sihanoukville and is now just a fishing village, but some of the charm is still retained with all the buildings, restaurants and stores hanging out over the river on stilts. About the only real reason we met there was that fact that it had the last “real” gas station before we got into country where finding a barrel filled with gas was a considerable prize. The usual “gas stations” found in the back country were small stores selling just about everything and gas was found in old 2 liter Coca Cola or Sprite bottles. Gas here costs about 1 US dollar a Liter, and my bike has a tank bigger than most, full I can carry 15 liters. That translates into roughly 300 to 400 kilometers of range depending on how hard we push the bikes. You also learn to only buy from the Coca Cola bottles because it has clear glass you can see through and even then you keep a small t-shirt in your kit to filter the gas as a last resort! The last thing you want is to be cleaning out your fuel pump on hot and steamy jungle road with a zillion vampire mosquitoes trying to turn you into living zombie! Anyway, all that aside, the ride up to Koh Kong was absolutely beautiful, all the culture of Cambodia spread out before us and the road was actually a fun ride. On the road to Koh Kong there were four additional rivers crossings that had “real” ferry boats, albeit some only worked in one direction, pull on head first and then because the front ramp is broke you have to back off once reaching the opposite bank. Not to bad if you were on a motorcycle but quite the trick if you had a truck or van. Trying to describe the jungle is impossible, lets just say it’s beautiful from a distance and “thick” up close and personal! I tried on a several occasions to walk in the jungle off the road to save being embarrassed by a passing car or truck whilst relieving myself, but soon found that even a short walk was a very sticky proposition. Better to be embarrassed on the road, then to get tangled in the brush, meet a snake or mess with some of those 8 legged creatures. I have asked this before but; “Do you know what the difference is between a jungle and a forest? No? Well, you can walk through a forest!!!” The Cambodian government is trying to build bridges from Sri Ambel to Koh Kong and there are four bridges soon to be completed. In 2 years or less the ferries will be gone and open will be the jungle road to traffic from Thailand and spoiled the vast beauty that is the Cardamom’s. At the least I will have had the chance to see it relatively pristine despite the present intrusions of man with its constant need of the resources. In Koh Kong we stayed at this very nice hotel with the best beds in the whole wide world. I stayed here last year and have not slept anywhere better since then. I liked it some much, I even bought a top sheet to take with me they were so nice. Anyway, I was sitting outside having a beer that evening and heard what sounded like thunder rumbling down the road. All the motodops (motorcycle taxi drivers) lazing around the hotel also looked up in amazement as this monster of a bike pull into the parking area. I had seen a KTM before but only on TV winning the Paris to Dakar Rally or on the internet while dreaming away the bored times. What a bike, 990 cc’s, massive 18x140 inch off rode tires, duel exhaust, digital readouts, space age fairings, 21 liter duel fuel tanks, and a Swede driving who just spent the last 3 months crossing 14 countries to reach Cambodia. Most of us were on the local Japanese bikes, puny in comparison, I and 2 others had a the Suzuki Djebel 250, there was one Yamaha 250 something, and the rest were all on Honda 250 Baja’s or Enduro’s. After talking for a while I told him what we were doing and where we were headed and he asked if there was room for one more! What the hell, the more the merrier and I invited him along. To sweeten the deal he also taught Enduro riding at his motorcycle school back in Sweden. It would be good to have a professional Enduro rider along as well because even us “expert” riders can always learn some new tricks. Another thing the KTM rider brought to the group was an excellent tool kit built right into the seat frame. Riding 20000 kilometers was to not be left on the road side for lack of a screwdriver! With his tool kit we could change almost any part if need be. Most of the riders that I had gathered were only beginner to intermediate riders. Two other riders and myself considered ourselves to be advanced and maybe even expert riders with thirty plus years of biking experience under our belts. We were always taking the lead or having one of us hang back to bring up the rear in case someone had trouble. How to brake on gravel, when to shift gears, how stand on the bike and let the suspension do the work, how to use the front brake to shorten the bike on inside turns, how to stick your butt off the back of the bike when down hilling, this was not something you learned in a school room, this you learn from doing, real on the road training, if you will. Watching how the one ahead fell was to teach everybody else how to avoid that line and then go to school from that mistake. Alas adventure riding is not for the meek!

Not to much left of the Rouge these days although they still had a small camp or village on the outskirts of Pailin and on the very road we would be riding on. Part of the road is almost non-existent, since they had blown all the bridges and culverts years ago to prevent the Vietnamese or Cambodian Armies from sneaking in through the back door. I think there were about 30 crossings spanning creeks, wash outs and ravines and not to mention 4 substantial rivers. The creeks and washes all had some sort of foot bridge, usually built by people living near by that needed to cross with dry feet, but most would not support a bike and rider, so the main gist of the ride was the bunching up at each crossing an watching everyone attempt to get to the other side! On some occasions this can be a real gas. There is always a grouping of houses nearby and hearing the noise we make would bring out all the local spectators and one time we even had to wait because a pair of ducks decided to have a mating session on the opposite bank while we were trying to cross. At least 3 rivers had boat ferries of a sort and did not pose to big a problem unless it sank with us on it! Most of the ferries here were just 2 or 3 boats lashed together and then wood nailed on to form a floating platform, some even had a small market on board. Seeing the little market on board reminded you of the fact you may not get another chance to buy some good old sugar flavored koolaid, moldy fruit or everybody’s favorite, smoked frog, or maybe some shrimp flavored hydrogenated flour balls. One of the ferries turned out to be just a canoe and four men walking the bike to the other side in chest deep water! You could opt to either ride on the bike up-right in the canoe, or sit in the canoe and hold the bike steady as they pushed you across. Needless to say I took the third option and in the heat of the day just waded across by myself in my swim trunks holding my camera bag over my head!

Most of the people we met on the roads were the friendliest you could possibly ever meet. They would stare and laugh in amazement as we all pulled up in a seemingly endless stream of noise and dust whenever we would enter their worlds. I imagine it was the third world equal of the movie “The Wild Bunch!” The store owners were the most happiest, to have 9 riders all of western size stop at her store was to have the rest of the day off, even if we all just spent a buck or two! Invariably a beer was the cheapest (60 cents) and always coldest thing in the cooler. They have very little to no electricity out here. Everything depends on ice. The earlier in the morning you buy a cold beer or pop, the colder it will be having spent all night in the cooler. Ice was usually delivered mid morning and added to what ever was left from the day before. Hence, drink and re-hydrate in the morning with the beer and pop and save the warm water for the road or wait until later in the day once the new beer and pop has had a chance to chill properly!!!

Anyway, back to the ride. By evening the first day we had managed to cross 8 creeks/ditches and one river to end up in a small village of unknown namesake? The maps we had were all old US defense maps and the names were meaningless, how does a satellite know the name of a river crossing??? The one book we had, Adventures Cambodia called this sleepy little town along the banks Puoch, and then a sign we passed called it Prey Dtai. Nobody seemed to know or even care, so we wwere happy to just called it “pooch” in honor of the little puppy that greeted us on arrival. We asked one owner of a bar the village name and he just shook his hand from side to side and said “Aut”! This in a way could mean I don’t know or I don’t understand your question or just no! We had been warned of this area in particular by other riders. The locals log the forests here and they don’t want anyone knowing about it! You can see the logs on the trucks, but for all intents and purpose they don’t really exist! Hear no evil, see no evil and mostly speakee no evil!!! If you ask directions here you are more likely to be told a lie then truth, even if it’s no where near the area they are logging in, so it’s best not to even ask directions. Many think we are with some Non Governmental Organization (tree huggers) or the Cambodian Police (spies, they’r everywhere!). They don’t seem to care where we go as long as you leave them alone and don’t ask questions, and once they had established that we were not spies, they warmed up to us rather quickly. Rice wine and Mekong Whiskey for everyone!! Politely we refused and stayed with our beers. We know where the beer was made and it was cold and the town was hot and very, very muggy. We did manage to find a Guest house of sorts. They had huts floating out of the river for rent. The guest house also had a small restaurant out front on the dusty road with little teeny tiny plastic chairs. The huts cost 5 dollars each, and came with five cots in each of them along with places to hang your hammock. There was no bargaining and the meal was what ever was set in front of you! I think we had a fried “meat” and some white rice topped off with some fresh cut vegetables, some limes, salt, pepper and a few chillies in some kind of soy dipping sauce . I would hazard a guess that the meat was chicken, what the hell, everything here taste like chicken, right? So it must have been chicken. After about 5 or 6 beers we were all in agreement, it must have been chicken! By the way has anybody seen that cute little puppy that was just outside? The next day turned out to be a good day, up at dawn with the chickens and pigs, there was a lotta squawking and grunting and that just from the guys holding their heads from to much beer the night before! There was no need for a breakfast, the stomachs were grumbling too much for that and the communal toilet had no seat! What a bummer, I immediately walked over to the store and bought a week old Khmer newspaper to use as a seat cover, and thinking because I had just bought a Khmer paper I surly must be able to speak Khmer, the store owner started trying to relate to me a story on page 3c! I just said “baat, baat Kin num jool!”, which meant “yes, yes I understand” and promptly headed back to the toilet. I often find myself trying new words in Khmer, and then always being corrected by the locals. Now I don’t mind this one bit, believe me when I say this but I really want to learn their language, and sometimes it’s just frustrating. I can never seem to get the correct pronunciation, this is probably because I can’t hear the words correctly in my old age, but every now and then, if I pinch my nose with two fingers and then say the word they instantly say “yes, yes, very good!” and I just shake my head. I am never going to get this down if I have to say every word with my nose pinched! Ok, back to the ride! The day would always be remembered as “The day of river crossings!”. Not only did we have to cross 3 major rivers on these raft/canoe like ferries but all the little creeks had water in then from recent rains. Dry season my butt, we stayed wet for most of the ride that day. Then after much pushing and shoving trying to get some of the weaker riders thru the crossing’s, we were able to make it all the way to Pailin that evening. For all the moaning and groaning though the ride was absolutely beautiful! We found the river gorges the most fascinating, with steep hills rising along both banks and the small river roads snaking it way along the river. Houses dotted the banks when ever there was room enough to build something. Then there were stretches where you would not see anybody for miles. On one of these legs we passed this very small hut. It looked sturdy enough and quite nice for the surroundings and standing out front was these 3 little girls, rag tag clothes, hair all a mess and wide eye in amazement at the spectacle of these huge monster sized men on big motorcycles. The lead rider had stopped and turned around to pass out some candy bombs and seeing this I also decided it was time to give some second hand clothes as well. I pulled over and walk a few feet towards the house and called out for the mother and getting no response I walked closer and just then the older of the little girls tugged on my hand and shook her head and waved her hand saying “aut”… Again this word can have multiple meanings but talking with the guys it seems that there was no one at home but these little babies. The older of the girls could not have been more than 7 or 8 years old and the other two about 4 and then 6. We all started talking about how amazing this was. To find these kids “home alone” like this would not happen in our worlds back home, but here it was just a fact of life. Both parents were needed to work so food made it to the table and out here there was no schooling! Anyway, I grabbed the biggest bags of clothes we had off the Swedes KTM and opened my goodwill store. These little girls were basically in rags, the ferry crossings was likely the biggest store they had ever seen as well. At first they were a little scared when we stopped. I guess most people passing just waved and they would wave back not expecting anyone to actually stop. Once they had there mouths full of candy, I placed the bag on the ground between me and them and they all stood motionless while I untied the bag. When the first shirt came out the eyes, oh the look in their eyes was a sight to behold. I had red shirts, green shirts, little pink shorts with frilling leggings, dresses, I think I found at least one dress apiece and amazingly enough we had sizes that looked like they would grow into. I got one of the guys to take a few pictures, but this kind of thing does not need pictures to the have the memory imprinted into your brain for life. I even think I saw one of the guys shedding a tear or two from the look on the little ones faces!!! Clothes in hand the girls walked back to the house and all jabbering happily between themselves. As for the guys, some had never had the chance to be around something like this and they did not know how to feel. Those of us that had just said “Hey, lets go find a beer!” as we wiped the “sweat” from our eyes…

Not much exciting happened when we passed the Khmer Rouge Village, but we did get these strange looks from some guys in what looked like old military fatigues and what could pass for hunting rifles on their shoulders. I am glad we in a big group and I purposely took the lead and kept the pace slow and kept everybody in a big bunch when we passed the village. I know it does not seem like much, three days and two nights in the jungle, but believe me when I say it’s exhausting. The combination of heat, humidity, dust and the stress of staying the right track can really wear you down. Now here we are in Pailin, nice comfy hotels, somewhat ok restaurants and quite a few Casinos for the Thai’s who cross the border since gambling in illegal there and that makes for some nice freebies for those in the know on this side, hence the reason for bringing at least one of the weak riders along as he knows all the cool hang outs here!!!

A most boring to finish but I’ll have more on the ride later, until then stay warm!

george

Getting drunk in Phnom, Second hand clothes and Bliss

bigshow — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 03:08:00 GMT

Cambodia, November 23, 2006

Getting drunk in Phnom, Second hand clothes and Bliss…

Phnom Penh called the Paris of Southeast Asia, just as Bangkok is to Venice. We arrived right at the beginning of the Water Festival. Mostly the festival is about communities and businesses from around Cambodia competing in boat races, eating lots of food, shopping and/or just coming to see the big city. The original people to inhabit Cambodia were called the Chenlia, from the North (China) and then giving way to the Funanamese (Indonesia/Indian). Most sites and records pre-date Christianity, and show both India and China as trading partners. This in contrast to the Angkor Period dating between 900 and 1300 AD, although old in the sense of a civilized culture, they inherited many of their customs from the those earlier societies. The ancient Kings used the numerous water ways through out South East Asia has roads, moving both people and supplies to sustain their Kingdoms and to supply the armies trying to hold on to these empires. Most recently these same waterways were used by the Vietnamese against the US during the “American War”. I have seen towns and villages out in the rice paddies where the ancient ruins still support today’s modern structures at the ground levels. Bridges built 2000 plus years ago still used by modern trucks over these same waterways. Ancient city walls stills used by the people living there as part of their homes. These races honor that that heritage.

Most of the western restaurants and hotels are located downtown Phnom Penh, right along the river front park. On any day you can walk along the river and find it packed with Khmer’s (Native Cambodians) having a bit of free time, enjoying the breeze or sitting in the shade and enjoying some Khmer snacks. The boats were beautifully decorated and are basically canoes with up to 100 people rowing them. It takes at least 3 people steering at the back to keep it straight and one or two drum beaters seating in front to call out the cadence. Some of the bigger boats will also have an Apsara (Nymph/Heavenly female) Dancer in costume trying hard to keep her balance while dancing at the very front as the boat raced past the crowds at speeds close to 15 miles an hour. They mark out a course in the river with buoys and then for the next three 3 days eliminate the slowest until only a select few remain for the last day and the timed trials. Those of us sitting on the shoreline had not a clue about what was going on except that they come by us really fast, then cheer upon crossing the finish line. I think they cheer mostly out of joy for not swamping the boat or drowning. The newspapers also say that over 1.5 million people packed themselves into Phnom for the 3 day event. Anyway, to make a long story short we mostly got stuck at the hotel for the daytime events as they block off the roads to motor traffic. During the evening the foot traffic was the heaviest, and escape to the bars was not till after 11pm. Just 5 years ago, driving around Phnom Penh at night was considered quite dangerous. Back then we would only do so only if in a large crowd or in a taxi. Back then guns were still very prevalent and armed guards the norm. More than once our taxi was stopped by people in military uniforms demanding some compensation as we watched the big 50 caliber gun in the back of the jeeps swing in our direction. These days personal safety is only a minor consideration. Most of the bars are only 5 minutes by moto-taxi and at night the price for a ride double to a buck. There are as many bars in Phnom as restaurants or hotels, I would guess there are about 100 bars that are just bars, although they do serve food, the main business is drink and girls! The restaurants while as high in number mostly serve food and the drink is a sidebar on the menu. There are also a lot of hotels that double as both restaurant and bar, but are only tokens of the real thing Legendary names like Martini’s, Sharky’s, the Walkabout and the Heart of Darkness, are all run by westerners for westerners. I may have mentioned this in the past but there are a lot of people moving about the differing countries in Southeast Asia and Phnom is one of the major stops along the all too numerous to mention routes. The bars all offer different themes to entice the visitors, tourist and locals alike. By locals I am referring to the local westerners, not the Khmers. The Khmers have their own selection of Karaoke’s and Khmer style discos. Some of the western bars have pool tables complete with ladies racking the balls, other are more like sport bars with nightly re-runs of American Football, Soccer, the latest movies and all served up on the latest big screen plasma TV’s. Others like Martini’s offer up dancing on floors and stages rivaling anything found in the movies, the Khmer girls on one side and the Vietnamese girls on the other. Then there are the girly bars, the lonely hearts bars, the pick up bars serving nothing but infinite varieties of flesh to please any hedonistic fantasy. There’s even one called the Snake Pit run by the Russians with a swimming pool and complete with “swimming girls”! Most everybody here use’s the “Out and About” guide books offered everywhere for free. They detail the ambiences, the draws, the specials and happy hours. For those travelers and locals not interested in pagan idolatry or hedonism, you can use the booklets to find many bar/restaurants just offering buffets or all you can eat BBQ’s and even internet right at the bar or wireless in one of the many balcony tables overlooking a view of the river’s. The “locals” here are made up of a very eclectic group of peoples. Military, Ex-Military, journalist’s, Ex- journalists, NGO’s (Non-Governmental Org’s), Ex-NGO’s, business people, Ex-students, teachers of English, Ex-teachers of English and many of life’s drop outs from all points of the globe. These differing groups, mixed with the large number of travelers, both Ex-pat and tourist alike will make an interesting conservation no matter which bar or restaurant you end up in.

Anyway, back to the nightly trips to and from the bars during the festival. Most nights we would usually meet up at the Hotel California and watch the crowds, the fireworks, have a few drinks and around 11pm head out as most of the Khmer’s bedded down for the evening along the streets, parks and alley ways. Most of the Khmer people from out of town had not the monies for hotels, campgrounds are unheard of here, so most just bedded down on any open piece of sidewalk available. Small cooking fires dotted the streets, smoke drifting around to give the streets a eerie, surrealistic feel, like some kind of dream world or forgotten battlefield. As we past into the night shadows moved about the dark, murmurs and voices drifting in and around the edges of light. There were no street lights except on some of the major through fares. For blocks in all directions, there were people huddled on street corners, on the grass beneath statuary, football fields and playgrounds overflowing with humanity, some spilling out onto the main boulevards, some using bikes to form walls so those sleeping with-in were protected from passer-bys and any stray people or errant moto’s with drunk drivers. The Khmers from out in the countryside do not use to mattress’s, their custom is just a straw sleeping mat. They just place these on the ground and “viola” a bed just like home, only they slept with nothing but the starry skies overhead. As you can imagine when we set out to go bar hopping on these few nights it was by picking and weaving out way thru the peoples camping/sleeping everywhere. Our regular drivers from the hotels agreed to stay with us on these nights. We all agreed on a price (4$) to keep them handy and waiting for us if and when we moved bars or wanted to call it a night. A designated driver of sorts, you can get as drunk as you like and there’s good ole “Sayha” patiently waiting when you finally stagger out.

My friends had planned to fly to Thailand on the 10^thof November, and I instead, would be heading out to the coast for a few weeks of relaxation on the beaches. Another part of my plan was to buy second hand clothes and have it shipped out to the hotel I would be staying at on the coast. On one morning just before leaving Phnom, I took one of the girls from the hotel as translator, hired a “tut-tut” (3 wheeled moto/taxi) and went to a market I had found called Boeing Keng Kong (The Everyday Clothes Market???). I had drove past it on the way to Martini’s one night and saw all the clothes in massive piles on the sidewalks. One pile was for adults, one for children, and then some I had not a clue, rags maybe. After some heated bargaining with six different vendors I was able to purchase 6 one hundred kilo bags of clothes for around US5$ each. The clothes while nothing we would ever wear, are very welcomed here by peoples who on any given day may only have the clothes on their back. I remember the villages I had evaluated last year and there were no closets or dressers in most of the homes I visited. As a side note 84% of the Cambodians still live in the countryside. In other words they do not have much! When I traveled around the Spanish speaking countries, they did not like being called “Los Poveres”, the poor. Instead everyone used the term “El Que non tene mucho!” Those that had little… These people have very little. I sometimes used to say that most Khmer families lived on about a dollar a day for a family of four. That was a little skewed from reality. There are still many who have to fish every day for their meal. Then it becomes the rice that they must somehow purchase, trade for or grow to get the carbohydrates lacking with just eating fish, frogs or lizards everyday. So, monies spent by the Khmers on clothes are secondary to eating. They will normally pay about 25 cents a shirt, 50 cents for pants and, well, you get the picture, when it’s a choice between rice and a shirt for little Johnny, the rice will win out the day. The bags of clothes were enormous. I could not move one with out help and then only by dragging them. Jim at Hotel California agreed to keep the bags for 1 night in a room off the lobby and I had to promised to have them out by the following morning. The next day I hired a truck to drive me and the clothes to a beach town called Sihanoukville, so named for the King Norodam Sihanouk who helped Cambodia gain it’s independence from France. By 7am the next day, I had hired a pickup truck and with the clothes loaded I was off to the beaches. The driver spoke not a word of English and trying to explain what I was doing was next to impossible, instead as we past a group of peoples looking like the ones from the poorest villages, I would have him pull over and I hand out some of the clothes right there on the side of the road. The driver was beginning to understand without a word being spoken. As we drove the four hours out to the beach he would often point out other groups of the poor and we would pull over and repeat the hand outs until the first bag was emptied, then boogied on to Sihanoukville.

I had called a friend from last year before leaving Phnom. A Swedish guy named Henrick. He runs The Small Hotel and also is the field manager for “helpthecambodianchildren.org”. The last few years I had used his hotel as a base for the rides into the countryside and points in-between. He was very happy to hear

I was coming and it was like returning to an old neighborhood. People you have ridden with, swapping information in the lobby over morning coffee, drinks at the bar boasting of adventures, or just fellow travelers lazing around the beaches. Like I mentioned before, you never know who you will end up sitting with in this part of the world. The bar and restaurants here, while not as famous, are just as plentiful. Kampong Chom as the locals call this town was built as a port city by the French back in the fifties just before Indochina’s independence. Not a very big port as ports go, but the bulk of the Cambodia’s imports is funneled thru this town. One of the big draws for tourists are the beaches, white sands, sun, deserted islands and beautiful waters. There are no real reefs to speak of, only rock formations with some aquatic life hanging out in the surf zones. I would not include this place for a major dive trip. Lets just say it’s here if you are a real hard core diver and want another log in the book. The French had built some villas here in the 30’s and they were mostly for the owners of the Palm Oil and Fruit plantations, pineapples, limes, passion fruits, dragon fruits, and bananas just to name a few. The plantations still exists but gone are the days of colonialisms with the guys in white suits lording over the peasant workers like some movies classics on TBS. With independence the lands where taken over first by the politicians and then re-sold and bought countless times again with money given by the European, American and UN charities to feed the poor. As you drive around the town and beaches you can see the remnants of the villas and the patch work of roads that used to connect them. Now a days, the Westerners have come in droves, first the Ex-pats from Thailand, Aussie, French, Swedish, and you name it and you will find a bar or restaurant run by them, most came looking for a place to hang out while on a visa run, or just wanting to see fresh ground as Me and Mike also did. Many stayed on, and opened restaurants, bars and hotels and once established and in the guide books, this drew the backpacking crowds and with thems follows the rest of the world. Slowly but surely, “Snookyville” is growing. Many Khmers are even now replacing the French and building there versions of villas and plantation life. Another aspect of business here is the race to have the best beach restaurants. Local Khmers have set up shaded huts, awnings, umbrellas, massage tables, hammock, anything you can possible think just above the high tide marks and for just the price of the drink and food, you can sit, lay, lounge, or swim all day. There are even small rooms being added for the survivor types who long for nights spent in thatched huts with mosquito nets and hammocks instead of a bed. The more popular beaches are closer to town and most you can walk to. The beaches all have names, Independence Beach, Hawaii Beach, Victory and on and on. I found one called Otres Beach 4 years ago. Mike and I did motorcycle trip out here and were amazed that they had this beach and absolutely nothing on it. The only things visible that was man made were the walls and fences used by the politicians to divide the lands fronting the beaches. Some had even improved the roads a bit to get the sand and gravel for stockpiling, but on the beaches there was nothing. The only thing lining the beach were the trees planted in the 40’s and 50’s and some primitive huts built by local fisherman to shade themselves while waiting for the next tide and a nights fishing trip. In four short years, that is now gone, here now is a collection small restaurants, no electricity or city water, just the odd well hand pumped and shared by neighboring restaurants. No different than any going business, they all try and come up with that certain something that will draw in the visitors. I head out to the beach in the morning by motorcycle, drive almost straight there with only a couple of minor roads hazards, a badly rutted road , an errant family of pigs or cows and very a steep hill. Once there the I am greeted the by family running that patch of beach called Vanny’s and then lead by the hand to the best seat, while the waitress (cousin # 1) hurries over with a iced water and a menu. I have been saving this place for my breakfast everyday. I usually get up around 0730, go downstairs at the Small Hotel, have a fresh brewed Vietnamese or Loa coffee and chat up Henrick about the news and or any planned outings. Then after a leisurely stroll thru the local market for any items of need, lotion, batteries, or miscellaneous sundries it’s off to the beach. Bliss is the only word available to me to describe the feeling of laying around in a hammock all morning with nothing to do but eat, sleep, listen to my music, eat some more and swim. You know, I actually found time to finally read a book. I have not done that in years. The kids of the family make for great waiter and waitress’s and are very attentive. They range in ages from 3 to 15 and are always practicing their English skills and helping us learn Khmer. My favorite breakfast so far has been what they call “Sach Cheruk Ang, Bar Sor, with five or six chilies chopped up in a small bowl with salt, black pepper and lime. The dish in English is just a BBQ pork loin with unknown spices and a bowl of white rice and a salad. Not usual breakfast as eaten in the west, but I’m on vacation and I eats what I like! The restaurants are not connected to electricity, but they do have a small generator that they turn on when they need to run the blender for fruit shakes but for the most part everything “chilled” is kept in coolers. They have ice delivered every morning. This is used for drinks and to keep the meats cold. All the vegetables are bought in the market fresh every morning. On my morning strolls thru the market I will see them there gathering supplies for the daily menus. Usually they will ask if they is anything special I would like for lunch? They will show me around the market and point out some different dishes and concoctions I could not even begin to guess at. I usually just keep it simple and point to stuff I know like beef, pork and vegetables. I will try and convey this “bliss” in picture on the next upload. Til then, Leea hi (See you later’s)!

On a final note, to any of you who would like to do something to help the children, please go visit the site I am working with, www.savethecambodianchildren.org and read what you can do. If you do not trust or like that idea and maybe want to help more directly, let me know. I am planning on buying more clothes and schools supplies. I will also post pictures to let you see where and how the monies is spent. As an example, I took a drive down the beach one day and found this very small beach restaurant. Working side by side was this family of 4 hauling sand in buckets from the beach up on to the grass to help beautify the restaurant (hut actually). I went down to the end of the beach road and turned around and decided to stop in and have lunch. I just got the motorcycle shut off when these 2 precious little girls ran over to me, grabbed me by the hand and pulled me into the shaded seating area. The seats were these tiny little children stools (see the pictures) and I felt like I was squatting the entire time I was there. The man and woman fell all over themselves to serve me some water and tea, while I perused the menu. Drink the tea, leave the water! The tea most likely had been boiled and who knew about the water. After ordering the most expensive item on the menu, (shrimps for $2 and some beer) the woman headed into the back to begin cooking and the girls simply stood off to the side and stared me in amazement. I reached into my camera bag and pulled out these gelled ink pens I brought from the states. As soon as I did the older of the 2 grunted in a way I had heard before. She was mute, and it turns out she had lost her hearing about 2 years ago to a fever. The family not having any money, never took her to a clinic and she simply lost the ability to speak because she could not hear the sound anymore. I began asking questions of the little girl and watched as the father used a sign language they had made up! The little girl who was only 3 years old was just learning to speak herself and used acting to speak with her older sister. I was heartbroken, this little one needed intervention or things would just get worse. After leaving I drove straight to the Goodwill School that the above links supports and started inquiring about books on sign language and any free clinic’s available here or in Phnom Penh. I was quickly able to find a school for the deaf near-by and drove there After finding the teacher of the deaf classes and using a sign language of my own I was able to get a book. The book was a first grade book complete with Khmer alphabet and numbers. Another bonus was that the school was very close to the road the parents would be taking to the market every day so the teacher also had me give a form with instructions for free enrolment of the little girl. I returned to the little restaurant the next morning and showed the father the book and enrollment papers. They were very pleased when I was finally able to show them what the book was for and they had no idea that there was a school for the deaf. The little girl picked up on signing very quickly. She had this notepad and had drawn a fish on it. After a few flips of the pages she found the sign for fish, made it using both hands just like in the book and then pointed to her own fish in the notepad. Need I say more! I have been stopping in at the restaurant once in a while and the girl is “speaking” again. One last thing, I also tried a very simple test, I took my Ipod and placed the earphones into the girl’s ear, I then turn on the Ipod watching for a reaction. Almost instantly, her head popped up when the music started. I hit pause and she looked at me and signed for more!!! I tried this using different sound levels and found her still able to hear some sounds. When the music was fast she was bob her head with the beat. I am not a doctor, or a very capable med tech, but I think they can do something for her with the right treatments. I am looking into sending her with “Lip”, her Papa to Phnom Penh. The clinic they have is free and I only have to pay ($30) for the trip there and back. I will let you know how this ends in the next email…

BigShow

Dirt bikes, water holes and beer…

bigshow — Sat, 5 Jan 2002 03:50:00 GMT

Cambodia, January, 2005

Dirt bikes, water holes and beer…

I was able to rent a good bike from Phnom Penh Motorcycles, at 16 dollars a day with insurance. I got a 250cc Honda Baja, it came complete all the usual trip computers, electronic gages and a brand new talking Japanese GPS, what it was saying I will never know, but at least it was good for comic relief. I would stop at a street corner and it would be trying to tell me something in Japanese and the people next to me would stare in amazement. The word on the street says most of these bikes are “freshly stolen from Japan” and then broken down and sold as parts and the ever resourceful Khmers re-assembled the parts here in Cambodia like new. At eleven hundred dollars per bike, I wondered why they were so cheap! They say insurance is a good thing in case you dump one into the river and can’t fish it back out or worse yet, crash and burn on the highways. There’s no insurance for the rider, but if you crash and burn, at least the bikes not a liability. Parts of the ride were on paved road with the majority being dirt, and some were nothing but bombed out buffalo trails. I actually got to ride one very small piece of the Ho Chi Ming trail up near the Vietnam border. The roads and trails often merge as one, you never knew if you were still on the road or if you had accidentally veered on to a buffalo trail. I did end up one hour north of the town of Sen Monorem, and it was aptly named the Death Road. I was only there by mistake, and damm glad of the GPS and it’s on board compass. Since the wars end, the government DOT has yet to reach the outlying provinces. You can be riding along and suddenly find yourself in four foot of water. The bomb craters fill up with water and you can’t distinguish the rice paddy from the road, or the bomb crater. Crossing the craters affords someone the pleasure of walking along the edges looking for the trail or roadway. Yeah, everybody has yelled “boom” a few times just to get some reactions while watching them slog around in the muck. To old to do the tricks I could as a young kid, but still able to stay on and take the occasional jump or two, the dry bomb craters were a “blast” to jump over. To be able to stop when you please, to venture off the road and wander down a lazy looking dirt road, is to do what you cannot on public transport. The major draw back for me was the inability to take as many pictures as I would have liked. When I rode with just one other rider, I was able to take loads of pictures but, riding in a big group, the only pictures were taken at the gathering points. When I rode with eleven other riders on the trip up to Mondulkiri, one of the remotest and photogenic in Cambodia, picture taking was minimal with the need to keep up more important. The idea on a big ride is that the fastest bikes take the lead and make their way to a gathering point and only stopping at major intersections if needed. The following bikes then string out with 15-minute spacing some paring up, others braving it solo. This spacing is supposed to allow the rider some chances to stop and take pictures along the way and never be left behind. The main problem with this is that everyone tends to bunch up, with this is comes the dust and that makes it very hard to take pictures. The other problem with such a big group, is that the lead riders would get to the next gathering point and almost always find a restaurant or store with beer and would then proceed to knock back a few while waiting. Knowing this prevented us in the rear from stopping to long for fear that the main group would drink them selves senseless. Anyway, I resigned myself to staying with the group and just enjoying the ride. I will be back and then can plan for some longer stays out here devoted to picture taking.

The manager of the California 2 Hotel (Jim) decided to take a ride. (on google, search “Surf Cambodia” and see photos) He was California Highway Patrol is his younger days, now just a dirt bike rider and adventuring off road here is his passion along with photography. Three years ago I showed Jim how easy it was to go digital, and have been sharing and comparing with him ever since. When the word gets out he is going on a ride, riders will come out of the woodwork to join in. This time he initially just invited a few camera buffs like me along, and the original plan was slowly ride our way north and east into the countryside. Well, on the appointed day at 1400 hours, there were a total of eleven bikes parked out front of the hotel and more calling up to find out what time we were leaving. Thankfully, only one additional rider showed up and his bike crapped out waiting for the ride to begin. Also, one of the original riders showed up and had a flat. Jim, not wanting to wait, told the stragglers where to look for us, and we did a quick gear check and hauled ass before any more could show up. The first thirty kilometers getting out of Phnom was exhausting. The traffic was massive and unrelenting. It took over an hour (less than 15 kilometers) just to clear all the taxi’s, trucks, moto’s, vans, buses, you named it and it was on the road that day. The road system here is very conducive to dirt bikes. Passing on the right shoulder around a slow moving forty ton truck is considered normal. The driver and passengers will often wave you around the right when they see it open ahead. The dirt shoulder also presents you with an endless stream of living traffic, you know, very small children playing on the road or building sand castles in the dirt, cows idly munching on a tether and those magnificent herds of ducks that just seem to wander about aimlessly from one side of the road to the other. The ducks will halt traffic for miles sometimes. They fail to realize that they are considered food here, and some drivers don’t stop unless they can kill a few. The road side food stands will also crowd themselves right up to the asphalt. These can be quite the challenge to see and avoid because they have camouflaged themselves with shade trees and bushes. The worst hassle about driving here is the oncoming traffic, it does not respond to a motorcycle like they do in Western countries and here it illegal to drive with your headlights on in daylight (and just the opposite at night). Here a dirt bike is treated the same as the smaller, lighter step through moto’s. If an oncoming taxi, bus or whatever is passing, it will do so regardless of what is coming and even run the other smaller cars off the edge of the road and onto the dirt shoulder. No yielding or right of way afforded the small guys. They will also try to push the bigger motorcycles if you let them. The trick is not to be intimidated, hold your ground in the middle of the road and even push the bike closer to the middle if possible. Then as the passing car approaches, start flashing your headlights rapidly as if to warn them of something important in or on the road behind you. This is the normal method for warning oncoming traffic of obstructions in the road. With this trick, they think you are just being a good citizen and will give way and pull back behind whatever they were trying to pass. Kinda like a game of chicken though, you have to hope the oncoming driver sees you flashing, and all the while you are scanning a way out if he doesn’t. Usually you can dive off to the side and onto the shoulder at the last instant hopefully dodging any of the living traffic on the shoulders as well. Now this may seem like a hair-raising way to venture down the road, but after just a little bit of trial and error, you get the hang of it and then you even find time to look off the road and enjoy a little scenery along the way. I also began to appreciate why the faster bikes were always stopping for beers.

On the first day of the trip, the group split up for a couple of hours with the main group taking a looping drive into the county side on a series of dike roads following the Mekong River. These dikes divide the rice paddies and are one lane with just enough room for two trucks to pass if they do so very slowly and with guides helping. These same dikes also make for excellent bike riding. Diving off one edge and then riding back up with speed you can actually jump and clear an on-coming moto or small child on a bicycle. Little oncoming traffic, beautiful scenery and little family run stores at the every crossroad. Jim wanted to deliver a batch of pictures to a family he had photographed a couple of months back. The family is the caretaker of a temple and has some old Ankorian ruins on the same grounds. The main fascination was the watering hole that the surrounding families used for the drinking, bathing and small family gardens. The hole had been dug during the Ankorian Period. Anywhere they built a temple they also dug a well for water. The very center of the waterhole/pond is where the well is located. They build a dike around the well as it fills up during the rainy season and thusly store water for the dry times. Here the communities share water selflessly, without which they could not survive. The one day Jim had visited they were busy watering a melon patch. The girls would have a bamboo stick about two arms long on their shoulder and would hang two water buckets balancing on them on either side. They would then walk out a submerged rock walkway into the middle of the waterhole kneel down and let the buckets fill with water, then stand back up and walk back out of the waterhole. One of the girls was used in a advertisement for the hotel and Jim was kinda paying them back for allowing him use of the pictures. From the looks on their faces I think the pictures may have been the first ever taken. Jim photographed the water girls and took a nice series of the family together with one group shot framed as a gift. We were allowed to wander around the huts while Jim talked with the family. This family being the caretakers of the waterhole and temple also had the luxury of a concrete floor for the two main sleeping huts. The huts were on stilts as all houses here are but, usually the ground underneath is dirt. To have a concrete floor was very unusual. We learned after talking with the family, that the other families who shared the water hole, helped with the floor as a form of payment. As with many countries in the world, the surrounding families will unite to help each other in the making of things to big for a single family. Here, it is still possible to see an entire community gather to build a home for a newly wed couple. The same principles apply here only for use of the waterhole. They had no electricity, no TV, I did see a small radio high up on the shelf, but other wise nothing electronic at all. The kitchen was right out of the 18^th century located on the concrete pad with no roof, just a small rain cover to keep the fire lit. A small adobe oven was in the center, and on the left a small fireplace with a wooden spit and hanging cast iron pot. Off to the right one of those amazing hibachi’s made of clay and old tin cans flattened and stuck to the sides of the clay to help retain heat. With these simply tools they could cook pretty much anything they wanted. The sink consisted of a big metal tub and a bucket to fetch water. The kids also showed me how they bathed in the big tub. Once they get to big for the tub, the people will use a pond. river or a well and bath communal style right out in the open. They showed me a place reserved for bathing at the watering hole. The men will walk over from as much as a mile away wearing a checkered sarong and the women are allowed a more colorful sarong with flowers or stripes. These sarongs are tube like and made of cotton much the same as a sheet. The men wear it waist high and the women will cover what ever is modest for them, most will wear it the same as the men. Then while wearing the sarong they then proceed to bath. The best time to bath here is late afternoon, the sun is warmest and there’s no need to bring a towel. If more then one family is using the same bathing area, it becomes a social gathering. Some families will even bring snacks.

The goal for the night was the town of Kam Pong Cham. The best hotel in town was only ten dollars a night with air conditioning and a view of the Mekong River, hence the name, the “Mekong Hotel”. We all straggled in about the same time, once checked in, and showered we all drove over to the only restaurant in town catering to Westerners. The bar is called appropriately, “the Mekong Crossing” since it’s next to the only bridge crossing the Mekong for a hundreds of kilometers in either direction. The place is run by an expat named Joe. Joe is a double-mastered drop out from San Francisco. I think he said one degree was in English the other in History. He took a job teaching in the Philippines fifteen years ago and has not returned stateside since. He ended up here after marrying a bar girl in Phnom Penh. He wanted to get away from the rigors of a big city and is now quietly living a good life as bar manager/tour guide and a teacher of English to local kids. We pretty much invaded the place. The few backpackers in the place were awestruck by our presence and there were the usual three or four local expats sitting around rolling joints. I don’t think the backpackers expected to see this many white guys in one place anywhere in Cambodia and riding dirt bikes to boot. Eleven guys, all about the same size as myself, some taller, some less heavy, but all big guys. We must have resembled a biker gang right out of a Hunter S Thompson novel. The food here was excellent, he had trained his cooks well. I had a Boss Hog burger. That’s a half pounder with cheese, bacon and smothered with Jalapeños. To make it even hotter, his wife offered me a hand full of chopped up Thai chilies. Other main dishes included a real good spaghetti with meat sauce, a delicious curried chicken, and even fish and chips using local Mekong catfish for the two Brits among us. Along with all this food, there was more beer. The group could not function with out everybody in the bar having a beer in front of them. The backpackers loved it, as it helped further their budget having us buy a few rounds. I felt sorry for Bruce, he’s almost seventy years old and trying to cut back on the drink, and the rounds just kept coming. Anyway, after good eats, we inquired about any other drinking establishments, one group of houses was mentioned. They were located just around the corner from the bar and being good westerners, instead of walking, we all hoped on our bikes and drove over. Now we numbered over twenty, a few other guests having decided to tag along for the fun. The establishments as it turns out were a series of “houses”. Each house had three or four girls sitting out front and loads of those ubiquitous plastic chairs. We always asked for wooden chairs when possible, the plastic ones often breaking from the size of our western frames. We all drove past the houses with lurid thoughts on our minds and then congregated at the end of the street. Did we really want to invade one of these “houses”? The group as a whole decided to stop at the house with the most girls sitting out front and then see what happens. Then like a bad “B” movie with Marlon Brando and the Wild Bunch, we took over the first house. The people did not have a clue as to what we wanted. We just drove up, grabbed all the wooden chairs we could find and set them in a rough circle where the girls had been sitting. We then made motion for them to bring us beers. Now the lights started coming on for the house proprietors, money to be made, Ka-Ching, Ka-Ching! The girls sat around watching as we proceeded to drink the house dry. The girls from the adjoing house also wandered over to see the show we were putting on. I am thinking, the last time this happened must have been when the Japanese engineers were here building the bridge that crossed the Mekong. After only an hour or so, the owners ran out of beer and had to go down the line of houses borrowing more beers to keep us happy.

Now here I should add a word edgewise. The sex industry here in Cambodia was not invented by us expats or westerners. The Cambodians created this for themselves a long time ago, and only let us use it while we visiting. There are rules they have for using the establishments aforementioned. They and we all know the rules, its of the be nice and kind variety and also that the prices are fixed, no bargaining is allowed once the Mama sans has set a price. The local Khmer youngsters will save for weeks to be able to pool the money with their friends and come to these houses about once every two weeks or so. To them three dollars is a lot of money. Especially when it’s not being used for food or school. They will pool the money, and one pays for the beer, one for the room and one for “the girl”. For the next two hours or so they have a girl, some beer and a private place to share one of life’s great experiences. Most boys still live with their families well into their twenties or thirties and privacy comes with a price. Most of the western countries will view this as wrong or sinful and legislate against it, but to the Khmers it’s just another fact of life. How simple they make it seem. No games, no artificial rules, no entanglements. The culture that nurtures this industry is not far from most western values, they just don’t glamorize it like we do. If a boy here has sex with a partner, compensation is the rule. The girl expects something in return. In the west, the girl expects it before it is given. Like a prize for surviving past third date! Here it’s kept simple, we each are expected to give something in return for the pleasure. Nothing more, nothing less, when it’s all said and done, it’s just sex…

Anyway, at first the girls were scared to death, they assumed that we were there for the same reasons that most Khmer boys come, you know, one girls shared by all! They were very worried we only wanted one for the group. As it turns out, we only wanted a place to continue drinking. By eleven thirty we even ran them out of beer. Now picture this, twenty guys on motor-bikes, now mostly drunk, riding around town, trying to find another place mentioned by a local expat on the back of one of the bikes. Go this way he said, half heard him the other half did not. OK, now it’s ten riding this way and the other ten riding that way. All in all we were having a blast riding around and completely losing track of everybody. I got separated from most of the group and decided to make my way back to the river. Once there I saw two others with the same notion. We all parked across the street from the hotel at a still open street vendor and sitting on the curb drank one last beer as we waited for the rest to show up. Sure enough, in fifteen minutes time most of the riders were back although I could swear there was one or two missing and if so I could not imagine where they would have ended up!!!

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