Welcome to the Wild West

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The Cambodian Frontier

I came to the Thai/Cambodian border at Hat Lek around 6pm on the 22nd. My visa was due to expire in a few hours, but the border was supposedly open until 8pm, giving me plenty of time.

Rain was pouring down like I hadn't seen since the end of the monsoon, and everyone on the Thai side was huddling under shelters as if the drops of precipitation were gonna kill them. But Nic Nakis is from the rain, and sending him into a storm would be just like sending him home.

I went across the border solo, which never happens in this part of the world, and that meant I got mobbed by all the hungry motorcycle and taxi drivers that would have normally had a whole bus full of people to feed on. I made it through intact, however, and I never let anyone else carry my bags. After dealing with some seriously shady Cambodian guards in the back room--public servants who remove their uniforms at work if they get hot, but never remove their gold watches and jewelry--I haggled for a cheap ride and I was freely into the Kingdom, headed towards Koh Kong: wet and apprehensive.

What I found was 100% Wild West.

The first road I was on was asphault--paved, but not marked or lit--all of the others in town are dirt or chunks of rock. The town is all built around two or three of these roads extending from the waterfront, where fishermen come and go and the ferry stops once a day, but most of the town's activity centers around a small open-air market.

The town proper is also home to a small collection of expatriot-owned bars and guesthouses, but just on the edges of town, you'll find a small Muslim village that holds cockfights and a chicken farm lined with all-night brothels.

Most of the people in this country are under the age of twenty, so you see kids everywhere. Preteens and teens pack the poolhalls in the daytime--gambling away the money that they won gambling yesterday--and they hang out in the bars each night until midnight or one. Anyone over 18 probably has a job or a racket, so they're usually in bed early and up at dawn.

Dirtbikes and scooters have replaced horses here, but cars and trucks haven't really come in yet. The law says to drive on the right side of the road, but people drive wherever the hell they want to and use their horns to tell one another to make way.

The keepers of that law are more like mobsters in this province. In order to run a business, there are certain neccesary bribes to be paid. The bribe-takers also have their own ma-and-pops, fronts, and scams on the side. You don't want to run into them, even in the midst of a crowd at the ferry docks.

That's a rough sketch of Koh Kong, anyway. I spent 5 nights and 4 days there. It was unique and eye-opening and exciting. And I loved it.


I Hate Games

This place is so wild because there's been civil war and corruption in Cambodia since the late 70s, when the Khmer Rouge took away all of Cambodia's doctors, engineers, scientists, and teachers, as well as many politicians and monks. In other words, they took away this nation's knowledge. Still today, the Khmer people need to re-learn how to build, how to farm, and even how to cook. They do most of these things ass-backwards.

Some things they've given up on learning entirely and have just developed their own new and unique ways to do. Like playing chess.

I learned how to play Thai chess on my second day in Thailand, and though I rarely win a game against a Thai, it all makes some strange sense to me. But Cambodian chess makes absolutely no sense. Neither do any other Cambodian games of skill. And all the places in Koh Kong where I got to play skill-games were filled with laughing little kids that just couldn't believe how sorry of a case I was. Kids can be really harsh, and this made me feel just about 3 feet tall.

I have a lengthy list of things to despise about games of skill, but high on the list is that very word, "skill." Winning at a game of skill does not require much in the way of general physical or mental fitness, and it doesn't really require any widely-applicable skillsets. No, in fact, winning at games of skill requires only skills that are very specific to the game being played and the rules being played by. You win a game because you are good at that game, not because you are good at games.

So, when I get beat day after day at Cambodian chess, it probably doesn't mean that I'm an idiot and a sad tactician, but it probably does mean that I DON'T GET THESE RULES!

Will someone please tell the Cambodians that?

They also laughed at me when I lost at snooker.

I first saw this game played in Thailand at an out-of-the-way spot just down the road from the Tiger Zoo. This place was plastered with softcore porn pinups, and the rugged Thais who played there threw insults and wads of money around the room late into the night. I thought they were so cool.

So, when I saw a snooker hall in Koh Kong, I decided I had to learn the game. Then when I went home, I could hang out with those guys and be just like them.

It happened to be that an obnoxious moto-driver (motorscooter taxi) had been following me ever since I left my guesthouse for a leisurely stroll around the town. He was still there when I passed the snooker hall and I figured I might as well do the guy a favor by hiring him to teach me the game--then at least he'd be off my back after.

I learned the game, and I hated it. It looks a lot like pool, but the table is about the length of a football field and they use really long granny sticks with tiny tips (great-granny sticks) to hit tiny little balls around it. You have to sink the balls in a very specific order and there is a fickle, complicated scoring system to go along with it. Needless to say, my teacher whooped my ass at more than a few matches.

And then on the way out, I saw them placing bets on Cambodian pool, which they play with a deck of cards...


Crazy Ex-Pats

I was only able to make the transition from Thailand to Cambodia by the graces of Koh Kong's ex-pat community.

Koh Kong isn't home to a lot of foreigners, but there are a couple dozen of them there. It's mostly middle-aged or retired white men, a lot of them with Thai or Khmer wives. They typically have to own some kind of business to stay there, but I met at least one who was living on his pensions and retirement.

They drink all day and they tell stories and they crack jokes. They all help prop each other's businesses up by buying beers and sharing supply-orders and trading assets here or there. Their friends from other towns come through for a day or two at a time to join the party and catch up on things. This place is home to a thriving community of outcasts and wierdos, and they're all really cool characters with a lot of experience and wisdom and a universally laid-back attitude about life. They also like to function from day to day as completely alcoholic, stoner whore-mongers.

Almost all of my time was spent hanging around with these guys: shooting pool, watching Vietnam War movies, wandering the town, and discussing whatever-it-was for hours on end. It all pretty much came to nothing but vague, smiling memories of time well-wasted.


The Waterfalls

I spent my first couple of days in Koh Kong just lying around, doing Sudoku puzzles, and watching cable (mostly stolen HBO). Some severe food poisoning contributed to this laziness, but I think I'd picked up the inclination from relaxing in Sriracha for so long, and I was just having a tough time getting back into travel-mode.

I did it, though, on day four: I got up early, rented a motorbike and driver, and headed out to see the little known (but highly regarded) Koh Kong waterfalls.

Part of the reason that Koh Kong is the way it is stems from the lack of roads connecting it to the rest of the country. There've been dirt roads heading east towards Sihanoukville and Pnhom Penh since time immemorial, but they are interrupted by dozens of rivers which must be crossed by primitive ferries. Now, however, the Cambodian government is in the process of constructing a paved highway out to this remote provincial town. The highway will form another connection between the Cambodian capitol city and the economic overflow of Thailand. Prime Minister Hun Sen has employed engineers from amongst his friends in North Korea, and their work will probably turn Koh Kong into a glorified truck stop over the next few years.

Anyway. What we have today is a long, windy road through the mountains. Most of it is pot-holed red dirt, but occassionally we get to a section that looks like the bombed-out ruins of Germany just after WWII: rubble and rock and stagnant water collecting in holes the size of swimming pools. These areas usually border the zones of current construction, where the handful of vehicles crazy enough to drive this far are forced to weave in and out amongst the bulldozers, steamrollers, and backhoes. In between these worksites, we're rewarded with smooth, fresh, asphault and the open road. Then it's back into the work and the ruins and the dirt and the ruins and the work and more pavement, etc.

Along the way we saw many amazing views: gorgeous rivers, sweeping valleys, shiny lakes and shadowy jungle-covered mountains. The road workers have settled near their jobs, as is the local custom. But, as they finish a section of the highway, they seem to abandon their homes and move on. All along the way we saw mini ghost towns of these abandoned home, and occassionally found one still inhabited by some crazy soul.

We were pretty far out and the pounding sun was starting to get to my head, but I guess it got to my driver worse than me, because he lost all sense of direction. We were turning around, turning off side-roads, and stopping a lot to ask for directions.

At some point, we parked the bike to help a guy push his bike up the hill. It was stupidly-laden with huge bags of scrap metal and his engine was scraping along the ground. We passed him again going the other direction--as we didn't have a clue where we were headed--and he scowled at me.

Somehow we found the proper road, and paid a toll to the beggar family that lived at the head of it (they had a rope strung across the road, pitiful, yes, but we showed them pity). Then we got lost down the road.

It was tedious and bumpy and my ass hurt, so I'll spare you all the details of our quest through the jungle trails. Eventually we found a waterfall.

And it was spectacular.

This was the "Second Waterfall" that all the foreigners in town had raved to me about. It was farther out than the First and they said it was worth the trip. Luckily for me, no one else thought this way and the only people at the falls all day were my driver and I.

We swam in the mellow pools at the top, and stupidly swam against current in the raging pools at the bottom. We climbed rocks, saw a falcon, took some pictures, and sat and soaked in a cool little water-shoot.

Before I knew, the sun was dipping behind the jungle trees and it was time to go home.

But not so fast...

I still wanted to see the "First Waterfall". A few miles back down the insane highway (now more crowded with construction vehicles returning to base from distant parts and with country farmers returning home from town packed ten to a pickup truck), and we came to another turn-off. This time the falls were easy to find.

The first clue would have been several dozen motor-scooters. Then you could have just followed the laughing of the children. This waterfall--actually a set of small falls--wasn't impressive to look at, but the locals used it like the community swimming pool. There were probably a couple of hundred people here in the afternoon, eating and laughing and jumping in the water fully clothed.

This made for a really fun atmosphere, but I didn't know if I should trust the slow-moving water with so many kids peeing in it. Sadly, the crowded areas were also horrifically littered with glass bottles, platic bags, uneaten food, and styrofoam containers.

We took a hike up to the very last of the swimmable pools, found a like-minded group of young Khmer, and tried to one-up each other with our silly dives.

I was glad for our time at the big falls, because it got dark pretty fast here. My guide and I picked our way along the fields of sugarcane and pineapple, returning to our bike and returning to town.

It was a pleasant and beautiful day. Even though my guide and I didn't share a single word of common language (no joke, not one single word), we'd enjoyed one another's company and had a really great time.

I paid him at the end of the day and he went home to his family while I took a shower. I never did figure out the guy's name.


Visit Cat Koh Kong Guest House

The place I returned to for my shower was the Cat Koh Kong Guest House (CKK). The Cat part is named after John the owner's Thai wife, she runs the place and he just put up the money for it. The KK part is a remnant of the previous owner's name for the place.

You see, Cat and John just purchased the place a few months ago when John (from England) moved to Cambodia permanently after spending close to two decades in Australia. The guy who sold them the place was an American who'd probably been here for ten years. He called his bar and guesthouse the "KKK".

Yes, a shitty American with a business named after the KKK--it could only happen here.

Anyway, John and Cat didn't share his racial politics, and they didn't want to feel the rage of any black Americans who might be travelling through. They changed the name to CKK and it was definitely good for business.

The joint also had great rooms. Air conditioning if you need it, fans if you don't. Cable TV in almost every room. Hot showers for cheap. Free soap and shampoo and condoms on the bedsheets. Mini-bar. And all this in a town where they need to jury-rig a satellite to the roof in order to call someone twenty miles away on the phone.

They kept it packed the whole time I was there, in contrast to the other empty guesthouses found around town, and in spite of the constant insanity of the place. You see, John and Cat never stop fighting. They scream and they yell and they drink from 6:00am until 2 in the morning. About twice a day I'd get scared that someone was about to kill their spouse, but it was mostly just light-hearted comedy ala the "Honeymooners".

This scared guests away, of course, and the restaraunt didn't do much business. But their two stooges show was a big draw for the town's ex-pats and friends from out of town. They keep the beers flowing and that keeps the John and Cat show in town.

At some point, I guess I turned into the third stooge. I was up at dawn hollering at John and fighting over the remote-control, scared for my life if I said a cross word to Cat. I managed to offend a guest on my last night there. He left upset and John and Cat welcomed me to the team. Sadly, I was on my way out.


Happiness in the Strangest Places

I enjoyed myself here, obviously, enough to spend almost a week. But, I was decidedly in the minority amonst "barang". The other foreigners I encountered were all passing through, spending one night in a guesthouse before moving on quickly to Thailand or to the bustling tourist-town of Sihanoukville. Either that, or they were boozing, whoring ex-pats twice as crazy as I am (see above).

I suppose what kept me here were the smiles. As an introduction to Cambodia, Koh Kong is pretty effective. The Khmer people have gone through a lot of hell in the past few decades, and so many of them continue to be corrupted by greed and pride and power. The result is a populous plagued with poverty and all its associated ills. However, most of them are able to find great amounts of happiness in the most desolate and depressed places. They shout and laugh as they swim in the falls, they giggle as they beat foreigners at stupid games with wacky local rules, they dance and party to loud music at a funeral.

I'll miss those smiles.

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Comments

[Gemma(irish girl from bangkok)]

wow...cant believe i found your blog,it reads like a Jack Kerouac/Bill Bryson novel! Well done on getting rid of the backpackers bible. it sounds like your having an incredible time,hope that nomadic spirit stays strong. make the best of every second you have traveling,western civilisation with all its "comforts" will never compare to the infused smell of spices,sewage,body odour and insense and the roar of 7people in a 3man tuk-tuk!! please have a beer chang for me if you get back to thailand!

[Nicholas John Nakis]

Gemma!
I'm excited you found it (and liked it). Please write me an email: [e-mail]

[Aaron Brown]

it's interesting..I was talking to a friend a little earlier- it seems I was envisioning other countries (namely central american) as being clean and relatively untamed, comparably to where I'm from- but I guess a lot of such countries may be worse off in areas like pollution since they don't have any regulatory structures in place. Is that styrofoam supposed to be in the 'bamboo crab pots'?

[Nicholas John Nakis]

"imagining"
You were "imagining" that these places are clean. To paraphrase a quote I heard the other day, the real value of travel is to temper your imagination with reality. In fact, Cambodia has the worst pollution I have ever witnessed. It's quite sad to see such a beautiful place willfully ruined by it's own inhabitants with so much litter and waste. LDCs in the Americas might have some of the same problems, but I don't know.

[Chani]

Question
Nic, Everywhere you've gone you have access to electricity? You're writing daily and I guess I just wonder how remote are these remote places? How close to main cities? What's the infrastructure like, etc.?

[Nicholas John Nakis]

Answer
Actually, I haven't been writing every day, not nearly. I write the blogs when I get access to a decent internet connection (often rare) and just back date them to reflect the time period they're referring to. Most places have had power, but a few have had to pull off of generators. I occassionally come across somewhere with just campfires and candles, like I did in Laos.