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 18th 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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