Born To Be Wild

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If you really want to find freedom and adventure and sexiness and that kind of thing, you can get it in all in one place with the ultimate ticket to cool: a motorcycle. (I guess what we had was a motor scooter, but that still counts, right?)

I had the keys to magic in Sihanoukville. I also had some of the lyrics to Seppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild" stuck in my head. It was these ones:

"Get your motor runnin'
Head out on the highway
Lookin' for adventure
And whatever comes our way
Yeah Darlin' go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space"

And these too:

"Like a true nature's child
We were born, born to be wild
We can climb so high
I never wanna die"

I suppose I should tell you about my adventures.


Sihanoukville

After an unadvisably-long stay at the Cat Koh Kong guesthouse, I caught an over-priced ferry to my first of Cambodia's big travel-destinations: Sihanoukville (properly called Kampong Saom).

Sihanoukville is Cambodia's answer to the world-renowned resorts of Thailand's central coast and southern islands. It's the shabby Khmer version of a Gulf of Thailand beach town, with aggressive hawkers crowding the sands and scrawny cows sleeping in the streets at night. I really couldn't stand it at first.

Day one saw me make a feeble attempt to avoid my fellow foreign travellers and tourists. I spent most of the day in the guesthouse healing from sunburns, losing at pool, and watching cartoons on TV, when I could have been walking the litter-strewn beach or eating psychedelic pizzas in a bar around the corner. I spent the evening on the phone with Chelly and online answering emails, when I could have been at a second-rate whore bar getting tromped at snooker, or at the sketchy casino around the way losing my shirt. I guess I wasn't making a very good effort to get to know the place, but I wasn't too intrigued by the local attractions.


Cool Banana

I'd spent the four hour ferry ride into town in a fevered sleep, awaking ever so often to find myself drenched in sweat with a new travel companion beside me. I was met at the port by Kem, a friend of John and Cat's who was to be my driver. Kem took me to his Australian boss Paul's place, the "Cool Banana."

It was a cozy, clean guesthouse with little bungalows, reggae music, and a great western menu--just like you'd find on any popular Thai island. The rooms were cheap but there were none available. I'd be spending my first night in the storeroom.

This wasn't so bad, actually. There was no sink, but there was a fan. And a bed. Trouble was, I'd have to wait to use the bed until the nightshift bar-tender was through sleeping off his hangover. That's how I ended up spending my afternoon orbitting the Cartoon Network and a green felt table.

And at some point in that afternoon, I met a true American Asshole. (I don't mind saying that publicly because it's true. If he finds this blog, I guess it'll be his wake-up call.)

I think his name was John (almost everyone I met in my first week in Cambodia was named John). He was from San Diego. He'd been around the world doing this and that and it all sounded like a load of B.S. He was a blonde, whitebread surfer dude and some kind of extreme right-winger, but maybe he just preffered to make waves rather than ride them. He got really passionate about saying controversial and offensive things, like statements of support for Cambodia's ruthlessly corrupt Prime Minister Hun Sen, and bigoted comments about Native Americans and Mexicans.

I first met John by the bar. He was with a gal from England who probably never even got an opportunity to tell me her name amidst all his racket. He was really dissappointed that I wasn't drinking a beer or smoking a joint. I thought of something I had to grab from my bag in the storeroom, and when I came back they had fortuitously disappeared.

But, while returning from the internet cafe that night, John saw me and I was roped into another painful "conversation".

I can remember so much about him because he never stopped talking about himself. Literally, never. If someone else spoke, he'd carry on like they weren't even there. Each thought ran into another and another and it probably all sounded so ridiculous because he never got a chance to actually think them before he said them. The only opportunities that the English chick and I had to share our thoughts were when he was away at the bathroom or getting another beer.

I think it was while he was belittling and denigrating the Native American tribal attempts to enrich their communities through legitimate gambling businesses that I broke into a shouting match with him. It blew over quick and John got really flushed and embarrassed, but continued to argue this and many other assinine positions. Eventually I retired to the bar and they went home to her hotel.

It's one thing to be a jerk at home, but to act like this guy halfway across the world was unnacceptable, especially in front of an international crowd already carrying poor impressions of Americans.

I was beginning to feel justified in my antisociality.


Craig

That changed the next day when I got a cool breath of fresh air from a genuine Good American.

I was sitting at the bar in the early AM, watching a live broadcast of the Seattle Seahawks' Monday Night Football victory over the Green Bay Packers. I'd rarely been so excited about seeing American pro sports. This was my home team--last year's Superbowl contenders--going up against a team their own head coach had brought to the Superbowl twice. Our billioniare-owned upstart franchise against one of the oldest teams in the league, and the only non-profit. A team with one championship appearance up against the team with the record 12 NFL league championships. And it was snowing in Seattle (conditions our team is not used to, but the Packers definitely are).

It was a pretty big deal. Live on a Tuesday morning. My breakfast was getting cold.

And pretty soon I noticed I had been joined by another. Craig is an American from the midwest, but he hates the Packers. He's an adopted Korean-American and he's been living in the motherland teaching English for three years. He was as enamoured with this slice of home as I was.

We talked furiously between plays, and were cheering when the clock ran down with the Seahawks in a ten-point lead. Afterwards, we traded victories in a series of games of American poolhall-rules 8-ball (a huge relief for me after losing day after day to Southeast Asians and their rules).

I was pretty stoked to find someone who got my jokes and followed my lingo. Even though Craig's a lot older than me and we're from different parts of the country, it was like hanging out with a buddy from home. We decided to go in fifty/fifty on a motorscooter.


Get Your Motor Runnin'

Kem had a friend that rented out little Honda motor scooters for $4.00 a day. I gave him my passport, he gave me the keys, and we were off.

I remembered driving a few of these things into trees when I was a delivery driver for SUBS near the University of Washington, and I figured I could still pilot one with only a modicum of incompetence. Craig was planning to drink at some point, so it was settled, I was the driver.

We had a shaky start, but made it down to the local filling station: a cardboard shack with a few old Fanta bottles full of petrol selling for $3.00 a liter. I took a picture as the guy used a funnel to pour gas into our tank one liter at a time. Then we merged out into the traffic circle and picked a direction at random.

It was a brilliant idea and we ended up finding parts of Sihanoukville we could really enjoy. Our journeys gave us intimate knowledge on the layout of this place that in no way resembled its maps. We discovered open countryside, empty beaches, busy ports, a boarded-up casino that looked like it'd jumped out of a Scooby Doo mystery, cows grazing in front of backpacker bars, and a few private resorts.

While eating wierd egg-pancakes at the farthest end of the crowded beach (Victory?), I had a Khmer girl custom make a bracelet for Chelly that I was gonna give her when I got home. This was also the place where I was greeted and handed a menu by the most adorable little girl, a toddler who didn't know any words, but she had the sweetest smile.

We saw pottery sellers on the side of the highway with overburdened carts that wouldn't have been out of place a thousand years ago.

We watched the sunset from two different beaches, sharing a bottle of Cambodian wine with some Khmer guys at the second one under the shadow of a Dragon's tail.

With the wind blowing through our hair, we got lost on some side roads and found a bar and restaurant full of live snakes. We decided to return later that night.

We were lookin' for adventure and I had that damn song stuck in my head all day.


The Snake Pit

After decompressing and taking showers, we were ready to see some snakes.

We went back to the Russian-owned Snake Pit and went into the restaurant for dinner. I snapped off about a million pictures of poisonous snakes (most of which were crap and have been deleted), we settled in and ordered some hamburgers.

In addition to poisonous snakes, a collection of aquariums of exotic fish and cages for exotic birds added to the cool atmosphere of this place. It was all wood, and a lot of it was growing. There were also a lot of weapons on dispaly: from the mines and grenades in their little shrine, to the functional Kung Fu spears upstairs. Craig and I were the only diners in the place not speaking Russian.

I ordered another hamburger and we went to check out the bar. It was in total contrast to the restaurant. Where snakes would have slithered, ugly go-go dancers slid down poles. Where weapons would have been displayed, the Fashion Channel was projected against the wall (FTV, staple viewing in Asia, will be coming to the U.S. soon). Where Russians might have sat to chat, cheap hookers waited for Johns and stared with hungry eyes. Where the room full of tropical birds and fish could have nicely sat, a swimming pool and micro-gym had been crammed.

Craig ordered a drink and let some girls cluster around him. I did some bench press, hit the heavy bag a few times, and jumped in the pool.


Eilogue

We'd had a really great day and we were in for more of the same the next. The Cool Banana upgraded me to a real room. Paul let me borrow a book about the Rockefellers for my downtime.

I was enjoying this place and I was feeling a lot less antisocial. I guess I'm just born to be wild...

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Comments

[Aaron Brown]

I wonder how this city got the name of “ville”- isn’t that german or something? Colonization I suppose. So, the unnamed English chick actually liked this John dude? By the way, that plate of lobsters- supreme health food right there. Assuming it’s relatively fresh. “Our journeys gave us intimate knowledge on the layout of this place that in no way resembled its maps.” Cartography not up to speed there?

[Your Boss]

Eh???
Just a shot in the dark but perhaps "Ville" comes from the French word for town. Another shot in the dark that there is an outside chance that the French colonisation of Cambodia has something to do with this towns name. You never know...

[Nicholas John Nakis]

sihanoukville explained
Sihanoukville is actually just a nickname for the town. it has a different Khmer name. "Sihanouk" is the name of the king, and "ville" comes from the french. That is all.