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$) to keep them handy and waiting for us if and when we moved bars or wanted to call it a night. A designated driver of sorts, you can get as drunk as you like and there’s good ole “Sayha” patiently waiting when you finally stagger out.
My friends had planned to fly to Thailand on the 10th of November, and I instead, would be heading out to the coast for a few weeks of relaxation on the beaches. Another part of my plan was to buy second hand clothes and have it shipped out to the hotel I would be staying at on the coast. On one morning just before leaving Phnom, I took one of the girls from the hotel as translator, hired a “tut-tut” (3 wheeled moto/taxi) and went to a market I had found called Boeing Keng Kong (The Everyday Clothes Market???). I had drove past it on the way to Martini’s one night and saw all the clothes in massive piles on the sidewalks. One pile was for adults, one for children, and then some I had not a clue, rags maybe. After some heated bargaining with six different vendors I was able to purchase 6 one hundred kilo bags of clothes for around US5$ 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…
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