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Published: September 4th 2009
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From Battambang, Gabe and I traveled southeast to Phonm Penh, Cambodia’s capital. Our five-hour bus ride featured crying babies, puking young women and screaming loud television programs.
Phonm Penh is a big, crazy city packed with people, motorbikes, cyclos, bicycles and a few cars. Cyclos are little one-person carriages hooked up to bicycles, usually powered by an ancient Cambodian man. We looked at half a dozen hotels lacking cleanliness or good price before finding a nice one with a fan, two twin beds, a TV and an elevator for $7.
We spent the next few days walking all over the city, exploring. Here, for the first time on my trip, I saw a huge economic divide. I saw very rich Cambodians and I saw incredibly destitute Cambodians. There were locals living in beautiful, modern apartments, shopping in expensive clothing stores, driving imported cars, dining in fancy restaurants. Teenagers acting like typical American teenagers, relaxing with friends, hanging on ‘the’ strip, going out for ice cream, performing motorbike tricks for each other. And I saw many, many penniless locals, often begging, frequently missing limbs. There were huge slums, filled with trash, sludgy open sewers, wild dogs and homes devised from
scrap metal. One of the saddest things I saw were cyclo drivers sleeping on the side of the road at night, a mosquito net slung over them asleep in their carriage. Working all day, they still did not make enough money to afford a place to sleep at night. Forced to be in their cyclo all day, they were forced to remain in it at night too.
People here spoke very little English so unfortunately alot of the things I wondered about I couldn't figure out. For instance, a man on a bicycle with a trunk full of eggs often rode by shouting announcements into his loudspeaker. What was he saying? Maybe, "Eggs, I've got your eggs. Brown eggs, white eggs, goose eggs, duck eggs". Despite the language barrier, people here were very friendly and didn't mind me taking photos of them.
My favorite way to drink the incredible coffee was with crushed ice in a plastic bag. This is a common beverage carrier throughout SE Asia, as it allows the seller to keep the precious refundable bottle. I personally think it's hilarious to walk around drinking coffee from a straw in a sandwich bag. The only problem
is if you want to put it down before you're finished. That's a tough one. You’ve pretty much got to hold it until you’re through, though sometimes they‘ll put the bag in another bag with little handles, so you can slide your wrist through for easy carting.
The traffic here is crazy; everyone runs red lights, four-way intersections lack stop lights or signs, every vehicle has twelve more people than should logically fit, and people actually walk in the streets because the sidewalks are full of motorbikes and bicycles. A beep means, "I'm driving here, I'm passing you, I'm driving fast, I'm on the wrong side of the road driving, I have 6 people on my motorbike"...and so on. There is a copious amount of beeping.
While visiting the lovely National Palace grounds, the ticket lady accidentally gave me back double my change (which happened to be $34). I considered telling her, but guessed that this entrance fee was probably collected and kept by the very corrupt government anyway. So, I decided we would personally redistribute the money to ensure it went to a good cause. Though I won't deny, we did our charity in a way that
was also pleasurable for us.
Our first stop was a blind massage parlor, where all the money goes directly to the blind masseuse. These blind massage parlors, quite a surprise for us at first, are actually a very common site around Cambodia, as many people have been blinded by land mines and this is one of their few possible career paths. Supposedly, charitable people train the blind in Swedish massage and then sometimes assist by helping to run their parlors. My massage was a little bit painful, a little bit pleasurable. The cost was $5, plus a $1 tip. This parlor had a seeing receptionist but I have actually been to one that was run completely by a blind couple. Incredibly, they knew when someone was at the door, when someone came in, where all their supplies were. Although, they did have a seeing four-year old daughter helping them. She counted the money.
We then went to a locally famous restaurant called Friends. This restaurant supports a huge program for street kids in the city; the program reaches out to kids living on the street, provides them a safe place to stay, gives them clothing, food and an
education and trains them to find jobs in the hospitality industry. In Phonm Penh, sadly, there are a huge amount of children living on the street. This program apparently reaches out to some 4,000 street kids a month! The Friends restaurant is staffed by former street kids in their final level of hospitality training. This same charity also has another restaurant, staffed by former street kids in their intermediate level of training. The staff were all in their teens, so I guess the training takes quite a while, and were all trying very hard to perform their jobs as waiters, hosts, water-pourers and chefs. All very, very sweet kids and a wonderful program.
Receiving the extra money back was a blessing because we wouldn't have eaten here otherwise. The meal cost 25 times what our average meal in Cambodia cost and we were on a tight budget. The meal was $25, our average meal, $1. All the money made at the restaurant goes back into their programs, while all your tips go straight to the kids. So, we got to eat there and we got to leave a big tip; it was a seriously great night.
Side note:
Does this personal redistribution of the money make sense? I don’t know. Maybe the money collected at the National Palace does all go to public works projects. I had a split second to decide and based on everything I’d heard about the level of corruption in the country, I decided to keep the change. Now I can’t take back that decision, I can only share the experience.
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