Some of you may know that I recently took a trip to Cambodia
for various reasons, primarily pertaining to matters of visa renewal,
sightseeing, and relaxation. I accomplished all of my objectives as planned.
This is the first of what will likely be another 2 or even 3 part tale of my
travels, so you better read it so you’re not behind when the next one comes out!
That is how I grow my readership: unintimidating threats, lightheartedly
delivered! Let’s do this thing:
October brings with it a month long semester break for
schools, similar to that which we call Winter Break at home. So, as a teacher,
I also get some time off, and decided to take a trip to Cambodia, a bordering
country which is very much on the South East Asia Backpacker Trail, and boasts
some beautiful scenery, fascinating culture, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site
in Angkor Wat. I decided to go check it all out, and while I was at it, I could
fly back in to Bangkok on the return trip, renewing my visa for 30 days rather
than the 15 you get by land (my visa situation is a very long, boring story, so
just trust me that the trip was beneficial and let’s move on to excitement).
I left Chiang Mai on the over-night bus to Bangkok at 9pm
on Monday, and after a series of buses and taxis, I was in Siem Reap by 4pm the
next day.When I arrived in Siem Reap, I couldn’t get dropped off
directly at my hostel because of flood water. Lots of it..
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| What Atlantis looked like, before things got bad... |
(Find out if I eventually found my way or not after the jump)
Eventually I found my way, and settled in, happy to be
finished with my travel half-marathon (full marathon undertaken on the return
trip). After dropping off my stuff I went out to scope out the town and the
much talked-about “Pub Street” in the Old Market area just a 3 minute walk from
where I was staying. I did some good scoping, ate a little very late lunch, and
decided to chill at the hostel for a bit and come back around 8 when things
started to pick up.
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| This street brought to you by.. alcohol! |
Things definitely picked up later, and I ended up having
one of the best nights of my entire trip.
When I went back out, I decided to take advantage of the
availability of cheaper bread & cheese options and get a pizza, which cost
$4, cheap even by Thai standards, and complimented it with a couple beers, at
$0.50 a pop, also crazy cheap. After my dinner I was feeling up for a night out
of sorts, so I checked some of the spots on the Pub Street and had a few more
$0.50 beers. After creeping on a pool game long enough to know that I would
likely not be included, having not yet received an invitation, I decided to go
by the Fish Massage place I passed earlier, where a nice and polite Khmer kid
had offered me free beer with purchase of “massage.” (QUICK BACKGROUND: all
over Siem Reap there are little tanks, full of little fish, with
benches above them, where people sit, legs dangling, and have fish eat the dead
skin and other junk off their feet and legs. Sounds weirder than it is)
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| The "Please Take a Look" seems a bit unneccesary... look taking is an obvious prerequisite to sign reading... |
Unfortunately I only had a dollar, pronounced “dahllah”
by Cambodians (you hear them asking for them A LOT in Siem Reap), and as the
massage costs $3, they told me I could sit there for maybe 10 or 15 minutes.
I think I was there for about an hour. It was SO much fun
hanging out with those guys. I learned names, GAVE nicknames, learned about
some of their histories, and we laughed together about a Ladyboy Fish joke. For
a really long time. They’re so open and welcoming if you take one second to
smile and talk to them, and I loved getting to know them.
I decided to run back to the hostel to grab my camera,
and as I was beginning to consider the safety of my walk back during late night
hours, I started passing through groups of Cambo dudes lurking in dark places,
and started getting cautious, if not yet nervous. Once one of the drunker ones
seemed to be following me from in front of me through a dark empty alley, I quazi freaked out, as much as
an ice-cold bad ass like myself could freak. I had my phone out as if that
would protect me, but it ended up not coming in to play, and I got back to the
hostel without any sort of altercation. False alarm.
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| Pub Street: Land of $0.50 beers and questionable alleyways |
When I arrived I sat down to calm my nerves and watch a
little TV with the Khmer guys that work at the hostel. As I began talking to
one of them, he asked if he could see my phone. I obliged, and a minute later
he had figured out how to use the radio setting on it. He flipped through the
channels and eventually settled on some very traditional sounding Asian music.
I asked if it was Khmer music, and he confirmed. In talking about the song, he
explained that this one was “maybe 100 years old.” I asked if there is new
Khmer music, and he explained that there is indeed, but “our love for the music
is fast, only for short time. The old music we hear many times, we will love it
forever.” This seems a universal theme in many different types of music, and it was a truly beautiful moment enjoying a piece of timeless art with
a member of the culture that it was created and beloved by.
While we listened, he explained that the artist that
performed the song had been dead for a long time, killed in the genocide led by
the Khmer Rouge in the 1970’s. He said “If you important, if you have a face,
they kill you. If you have no face, they don’t kill you, but if you have face
they kill you.” Pol Pot wanted the Khmer people to be easily controlled, so he
killed anyone and everyone of distinct influence or intelligence, eventually
killing about 1/3 of Cambodia’s population. This is not some story from the
distant past, in fact any adult over 40 would have at least some recollection of
life under the regime. It’s a truly horrific part of our world’s history &
this nation’s recent past.
I can’t say for sure, but I think one of the Khmer kids
from the fish massage place drugged me..
One of the sketchier bros was trying to get me to come
out later to a club, “Khmer club, just Cambodian people” (sketchy) and
eventually arranged a time to meet, which I was not planning on following
through on. Just after this, I got a bottle of water and shared a bit with the
sketchy dude and a goofy tuk tuk driver named Joy. After I left to get my
camera, I started feeling increasingly weird, more than a few beers would
warrant. By the time I had watched some of a crazy Jackie Chan movie and
listened to the Khmer music, my head was really spinning. I went into the
bathroom and saw that my eyes were more bloodshot than I’d ever seen them in my
life, and when I looked around it seemed like my vision was in consecutive
still-frames, rather than continuous. I decided to sleep, as I had no idea what
was going on, and the feeling persisted throughout the night any time I woke
up.
As I said, I can’t say I was drugged for sure, but if so
it’s nobody’s fault but my own for sharing my water with strangers. It raises a
startling point though, that one minute I could be connecting so meaningfully
with a person, and the next minute I could suspect them of trying to rufie me..
This may seem odd or simply naïve of me, but it’s a function of the context we
were in: the poverty in the country is serious and widespread, and for many,
taking advantage of naïve tourists is one of the only means of bringing in sufficient
funds. Many of these people come to a place like Siem Reap not just to support
themselves, but also to support their direct and even extended family members;
a great deal depends on these people and while we can shake our heads and look
down our noses, it is impossible to say what we would do to make a few “dahllahs”
if we were in the same situation. It is wildly humbling to think about how much
differentiation there is within the Human Experience, and how lucky many of us
are to have been given the experiences we’ve been given. Even a teacher making
around $800 a month can be seen as a gold-plated ATM in Cambodia.
SO there’s night 1… tune in next time to hear a BRIEF
description of my Angkor adventures, and my favorite pictures taken there. There
will be less reading required of you, I promise.
ian
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