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Published: April 11th 2009
Well, we’ve made it as far as Phnom Penh, and I’ve been writing blog entries in my head for two days, so perhaps it’s time to see if I can recall any of the creative and brilliant thoughts I think I’ve been having lately…
We spent our last day or two in Siem Reap doing last-minute “last time” things. Last BLT sandwich at Home Cocktail Restaurant, last drink at the Island bar, last time for Jaz to take the kids on a walk, etc. Lori took us out for a lovely dinner at
Carnets d’Asie, a lovely French/Khmer place where I ate a delicious goat cheese salad, curry calamari, and profiteroles for dessert, along with fantastic cocktails made with watermelon juice, lime, and vodka. We brought home ice cream to have with the whole family and Lori used that opportunity to have everyone in the family write a little something for a “time capsule” that will be sealed in as the construction finishes.
On Friday morning, I got up and took my final bike ride, exploring a corner of town that I hadn’t explored much before, and I went far enough for long enough that my butt was more ready to get off the bike seat by the time I returned. I'll miss riding a bike regularly, I like knowing that our bikes will now get regular use by some students who have a long way to go to get to school.
Packing was a more time-intensive and challenging endeavor than I anticipated. I brought quite a few books that I knew we would be leaving behind, and thought I hadn’t bought very much here, but discovered how much those little things add up. Unfortunately, I bought more books than we’re leaving behind - a good number of books to help us learn a little Khmer if we choose to pursue that - so our luggage is no lighter than when we started. Jaz bought quite a number of things, having taken orders from her friends after she posted photos from the market on Facebook, so she has an entire extra backpack stuffed full. I hate schlepping so much stuff, but there isn’t much choice. (I briefly investigated shipping some things home, but the cost is too much and will far exceed any overweight baggage charges we’ll incur with the airlines, so schlep we must. Lesson learned, I hope.)
When booking our bus ticket to Phnom Penh, Ponheary asked if we wanted the “regular” bus or “VIP” bus. Hearing that the VIP bus cost $10, I figured it would be worth it, and after having spent almost 6 hours on it, I will say that I would hate to see the “regular” bus! The bus seats were all on an upper level with narrow stairs to climb, and I assumed that the lower level was for luggage. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case - I still don’t know what they carry down below - and we had to drag our embarrassingly large and heavy collection of bags up the narrow steps and throw them in a pile at the front of the bus. Again, lesson learned about carrying too much…
I should know better than to make assumptions about anything by now, but old habits die hard, so I had assumed that the VIP bus was used primarily by tourists. It turned out there were a half dozen or so other Westerners on board, and every other seat was filled with Cambodians, including several crying babies, and for every passenger, there were at least a handful of mosquitoes. Well, at least the air conditioning worked. Almost.
Do I sound like I’m complaining? I must clarify that despite the conditions, the bus ride was fine. The scenery was great, as usual, and the onboard entertainment was quite amusing. Buses tend to play Khmer karaoke videos at high volume, and in addition to that typical entertainment, we also watched a couple of Khmer slapstick movies. We couldn’t understand a word, of course, but we found it hilarious to watch the Khmers react - the whole busload would laugh uproariously at every pratfall and prank on the screen.
Actually, even the karaoke videos are entertaining. They seem to follow the same theme: they appear to be love songs of a sort. They always include a man and a woman, many longing looks and silent tears trickling down cheeks, there’s always an appearance by a cell phone and a text message, and while it is obvious that the videos are about falling in love and break-ups and reunions, there is never any physical contact between the man and woman on screen. As the video plays, the words scroll in Khmer across the screen, and one song included references to a variety of American places, whose names appeared in some version of English: they mentioned
Chicago,
Tanzes (we’re not sure if they meant Texas or Kansas,
Chorcha (possibly Georgia?),
Longbech, and my favorite:
Mariyosota. (I have to remember to look and see if those are all places with large concentrations of Cambodian refugees; I believe Long Beach falls into that category.)
After our long bus ride, we arrived in Phnom Penh to be greeted by a throng of tuktuk drivers, all eager for our business. We randomly chose one from the three who were immediately in our faces, and ten minutes and two dollars later we were deposited at the Manor House guesthouse, and Australian-owned “gay- and straight-friendly” establishment with a small salt-water swimming pool, excellent, wifi, and a shower with an actual shower curtain! We slept well and woke up to strange silence at 7:15 - no construction noise, no street noise. It seemed very odd.
We spent this morning seeing a couple of the obligatory Phnom Penh sights: The S-21 Toul Sleng Detention Center, where 17,000+ people were detained and killed, the
Choeung Ek Killing Fields just outside the city, and then the Russian Market and a brief stop at the Sorya Shopping Mall, where we ended up accidentally when I was trying to tell the tuktuk driver we just wanted to stop at a supermarket. The Russian Market is a typical Cambodian market crammed with hundreds of stalls selling everything from meat and produce to souvenirs and fabric. We stopped at a food stall there, where we pointed at grilled meat on a stick (pork, I think) and baguettes, and washed it down with fresh-squeezed orange juice. After eating, I handed over $5 and waited to see what we would get for change. (We got back a little less than a dollar.) The Sorya Shopping Mall is a western-style shopping mall with a food court and jewelry and clothing shops, DVD shops, and the usual mall fare - though no American chain stores, thankfully. The two shopping experiences were sharp contrasts. We had gelato at the Sorya.
At the Russian market we were approached several times by beggars, a rare occurrence in Siem Reap but quite common here. Women carrying babies, old women, and amputees all thrust their caps or tin cups at us, clasping their hands and murmuring with a pleading look in their eyes. I had a small supply of 1000-riel notes in my pocket and generally gave to most who asked. At the Sorya, I had a very different experience. While walking through the air-conditioned mall, q woman reached out as she passed me and put her hand on my camera, which was hanging around my neck. She was older, very clean, dressed mostly in white, and wearing wire-rimmed glasses. Once I determined that she wasn’t trying to take my camera, I was confused about what she wanted. She murmured something with her hand over her mouth, smiling at me. “Sorry, I don’t understand,” I said. She clasped my shoulder, tugged on my camera a little, then reached out and fondled my earring, still smiling and murmuring. I was completely baffled. Was she a Buddhist nun? They dress in white…but no, her head wasn’t shaved. Did she want me to take her photo? It didn’t seem so. Finally, she pulled out a few small bills from her pocket and gestured at me - she was asking for money. While she looked far better off than any beggar I had ever seen, it seemed that handing her some riel would be the easiest response, so I reached into my pocket and made the mistake of pulling out a few bills in order to select a 1000-riel note. She let out a small joyous exclamation, and snatched a dollar bill out of the wad in my hands, now quite delighted and smiling even more broadly. It all happened so quickly, and I couldn’t quite react except to stuff the rest of the money back in my pocket before she helped herself to more. Rather than make a quick getaway, she now shook my hand and hugged me like an old friend, then reached out to hug Jaz as well. By this time, I managed to whip off my lens cap and snap a photo of this moment, and then we walked on, amused by her novel (and lucrative) approach to begging.
By 1:00, the heat was wearing us down and I was facing the prospect of needing to rearrange all our belongings in the new duffle bag I just bought, so we headed back to the hotel. Along the way, we had an almost-accident in our tuktuk, and the only thing surprising about that is that we haven’t seen a hundred accidents already.
Phnom Penh is a big city, with big-city traffic. It has wide boulevards, with two lanes of traffic going in each direction, and surprisingly few traffic lights, so at some intersections you have four lanes of traffic coming from each direction with everyone turning every which way as the opportunity allows. It is amazing how well it seems to work - though there are occasional bottlenecks when a vehicle (a moto, a tuktuk, a car, a vanload of rice, whatever) gets caught halfway through a left turn and isn’t able to cross the final lane of traffic for a few minutes. Horns are used, but not in that impatient “get out of my way, you idiot” style we see at home. People honk just as a warning as they’re coming up behind or beside you, just to make sure you know they’re there, and when everything grinds to a momentary halt, the horns cease while people extricate themselves from the tangle. No one yells, no one shakes their fists at each other, there is no road rage to be seen at all. Our near-accident happened when we were driving through an intersection in the tuktuk and a woman in a car (who actually had a red light, but that’s only a mild suggestion that stopping might be advised) came at us from the left. Our tuktuk driver expertly skidded us to a sideways stop just in time for her to swerve and miss us. She stopped as well, and he pointed out to her calmly that we actually had a green light. She clasped her hands together in a gesture of apology from behind the wheel and then we all went on our way. Fascinating.
So now I sit by the pool and Jaz is relaxing in our room, and I still face the prospect of how to repack all of our stuff. I spent a little time refreshing my memory about our luggage allowances on the various airlines we’ll be flying between here and home, checked into stored luggage facilities at the Bangkok airport, and wondered when I’ll ever learn not to buy books on vacation.
Later we’ll go out for some dinner and perhaps a stroll in the park near the Royal Palace. Despite the amusing antics of mall beggars and Phnom Penh drivers, the day has been a bit somber considering our morning excursion. I may post more information about S-21 and the killing fields later; it’s not amusing, but such an important part of this country’s recent history that it deserves a few minutes of attention.
Photos will also come later - I’ve fallen behind on organizing those. Writing and posting the blog entries isn’t nearly as time-consuming as getting photos uploaded and arranged, and since I keep getting hints about how I shouldn’t go too long between blog posts, I thought I’d post this now and polish it up later.
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Hi, Hmmm, no road rage, I gotta work on that. I don't know how you find the time to blog, but glad you do. LOVE, me