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Published: August 27th 2012
Cambodia May 2 2010. Touched down at Phnom Penh airport in a hazy monsoonal mist around dinner time after a great flight out of Vietnam on a beautiful little prop jet operated by royal cambodian airlines. Lovely airline, the pilot was so proud of his new plane he happily swung open the cockpit door to show me his high tech office. Time and dates are a funny thing in Cambodia, they dont seem to have any relevance. Real life happens here, serious in your face life at its rawest and cheapest and most determined and courageous. Nothings sugar coated. Cambodia has and will eat up the weak or stupid, not because the people are cruel, but because thats the way it is in Cambodia.By the time ive had a pee at the airport Malcolm's found a tuktuk driver who we would remain with/property of our whole time in Cambodia. We called him Can Do, because whatever, and i do mean
whatever you want, Can Do can do in Cambodia.
If you asked him for a firetwirling double amputee dwarf prostitute with a side order of M60s and drugs, he can do. Hes a great guy, and would kill you without second thought if you crossed him. I asked him if he had ever shot an M60 at the shooting range (also the army barracks, yes, the cambodian army hires its weaponry to tourists) to which he smiled and said "when I was in the army". I thought it best not to ask which army.So Can Do takes us to the Casa hotel, our room looks like it hasnt been touched since the evacuation when Pol Pot took Phnom Penh and emptied it of all life. The beds big and comfy, the rooms are huge and very 60s faux french colonial with lots of faded lime green chintz. After the hustle of Vietnam we're buzzing so we decide to venture out and find a restaurant as soon as we'd organised the room and had a shower. The Khmer people are lovely, smiling and staring coyly and laughing then hiding their faces as we walked
past. After all, its not every day a big WWF wrestling star 'on tv cambodia many times' comes to Phnom Penh. By the time we had walked up France Boulevarde we had several people tell us Malcolm was indeed, apparently, a big star on Cambodian TV. A champion wrestler. Now, to Khmer eyes I suppose he is big, at 6'5 and a gym junkie with a lot of muscles and a bald head and tattoos. Hes also 52 years old and continually whining about a bloody this or the other joint replacement!. We spotted lots of people in the Touk Soup restaurant who all fell silent and stared at us in amazement as we burst enthuiastically through the door. They all went back to eating (messily) with the odd person walking up for a closer look and a hello and a smile. With a bit of sign language we got a menu and ordered with a bit more sign language and pointing at menus we enjoyed a great feed and because everyone else in the restaurant was doing it, we threw our napkins on
Sambo and the Giant
Sambos story is inspirational..check it out on youtube. Shes the only elephant to survive the KR in Phnom Penh.the floor to signal we had finished. Or at least thats why we thought everyone else was throwing food and napkins and cutlery on the floor. We wouldnt have liked to offend anyone so took part in what seemed to be the local custom and threw shit around and laughed a lot.While we were throwing shit around and laughing, the rain started. When John Fogarty sang Have you ever seen the rain? he was talkin about this type of rain. Not your usual rain, monsoon rain, big fat furious rain, coming down like a giant bucket of water over Phnom Penh had suddenly been tipped over. But it didnt stop. Suddenly they all left en masse out a back door, a girl in a white dress holding hands with a smiling young man, shit we had just gatecrashed a wedding. Maybe its auspicious to have a giant show up at your wedding in Khmer culture? Who knows?The rain didnt ease up, and it wouldnt until we opened our
Bubbles for Orphans
Never has a man stood so tall as when he has stooped to help a child...we finally got to the orphanage. eyes the next morning. It got fatter, harder, warmer and the sky crackled with forked lightning and thunder bursts that made me leap in the air as we were walking home much to the amusement of a lady hurriedly pulling a tarp over her fruit cart.A walk in the rain sounded romantic, it was, lovely, hilarious, in fact one of the funniest walks home ive ever had. By the time we stepped outside, France boulevarde was now a canal with the wind whipping a current across its surface. So we waded back to the hotel, knee deep and drenched through laughing like fifteen year olds stoned for the first time, the Khmer people peeking out from any and every shelter from the rain they could find laughing at us laughing at ourselves. One little boy found it so funny he leapt down into the street and danced a jig while screaming with laughter in the floodwaters.We eventually made it back to the hotel where the staff also laughed their bums off at us but didnt offer us a towel or understand our requests for one, so we dripped sheepishly through the lobby still laughing our heads off and stumbled into our room to watch the storm over Phnom Penh and the amazing electric light show the city had turned on to welcome us.
Day 2: HES NOT A FAMOUS WRESTLER!! I open my eyes staring up at the ceiling haphazardly patched with what looks like papier mache in the bright morning light. We'd fallen asleep with the curtains wide open so we could watch the lightning. I wriggle out of the headlock I always seem to end up sleeping in trapped between Malcolms giant biceps and watch him yawn, open his eyes and say what he always says the moment he wakes up - I need food. We dress and head down to the Casa's restaurant for breakfast. One 6 egg omelete and one normal omelete and a watermelon shake and our bellys are full. Malcolm needs to find a gym. Can Do is not meeting us at the Casa til 11am so he asks the hotel bellboy for the whereabouts of a gym. Within seconds hes perched on the back of a 125cc motorbike puttering off to some gym just around the corner. As he walks in the whole gym falls silent. Its not going to stay that way for long, within minutes a crowd has gathered to watch the famous wrestler pumping iron. Never one to let an opportunity for his ego to be massaged pass him by he pulls off his shirt and starts doing some chest exercises with every weight plate that will fit crammed onto the Khmer sized bar. The crowd is now so big those who cant fit inside are pressing their faces against the window.
A gaggle of girls are asking him if they can love him long time, no no me me me love you longer time. He tells me he said no I have 'wife'. One 'lady' asks where is wife. Back at hotel. No problem, love you long time here. Easy. I later found out he pulled a lat muscle in his display for his adoring crowds - serves him right.
While all the action is happening at the gym, Im wandering around France Boulevard looking at strange fruit and wierd meat in street carts and dingy little shops. One of the tuktuk drivers approaches me and asks if i am wife of wrestler. I try to explain he is not a wrestler. He assures me he is, the tuktuk telegraph is working well because this guy knows he is at the gym lifting weights. More tuktuk drivers walk over and tell me they see him, many times, cambodia tv, big star. I am trying to keep it together and not laugh too much when one very serious looking little man steps forward and proclaims in his best english - "He TV star. He come Phnom Penh one time before". I try and say this is the first time he has stepped foot in Cambodia when the earnest little man says with sage like wisdom - "No, he come one time before......and he will come again". Its too much, i sit down on the kerb and disolve into fits of laughter, just in time to spot the wrestling star shirtless and covered in sweat make his exalted arrival back at the Casa on the straining little bike. We have another watermelon shake comparing stories waiting for Can Do to arrive. Like magic he appears right on the dot of 11. We climb into the tuktuk and he looks around and tells Malcolm he have to buy shirt. Cannot have no shirt. No problem, Can Do will find him shirt to buy. As we set off through the streets of Phnom Penh on our way out to the shooting range negotiating the crazy Cambodian traffic we are pointed at and waved at many times as bicycle riders grab onto the side of the tuktuk and hitch a lift. There doesnt seem to be any rules of the road and hitching is perfectly acceptable. Im dying of embarassment while Malcolm is leaning over fishing through the baskets on the front of our cling on bicycle riding friends and making mock movements to grab their brakes. I tell him to grow the hell up and act his age. I know theres no hope of this at all.
Suddenly all the traffic stops. Nothing moves. The police have blocked the street off. Can Do turns off his bike and pulls out a cigarette. We ask him whats happening. Parliament are coming from the airport so no move on streets until they have passed. Everyone else has turned off their engines if they have one and pulled out a cigarette. Everyone and everything coming to a stop in Cambodia seems to be not that uncommon an occurence. Nothings rushed here but everythings rushed until everything stops, then the rush starts up again. Eventually a procession of black Pajeros with blacked out windows passes and everything can start again. Were on our way to get Malcolm a shirt and off to do some shooting. We stop at a little stall out on the airport road and Malcolm is trying to squeeze himself into a shirt, any shirt, just one that fits. Im making small talk with Can Do and mention that I had heard Cambodia has a bad drug problem. He assures me it is no problem and tells me he will show me later on. Later on I was to find out how trippy Cambodia actually is.
I am NOT shooting a duck with an RPG! [youtube=
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We detour off the main road and hit a bumpy unsealed pot hole filled road. We bounce around in the back of the tuktuk for another 20ks, dodging the odd cow and picking up hitchhiking cyclists as we make our way to the Royal Cambodian Army Barracks. This is the shooting range. Like something out of an old war movie we get to a barricaded laneway with a guy sitting on a stool. Can Do says something and he lifts up the barrier and waves us through. Over the top of the wall we can see planes that will never fly again, choppers that will never chop again and razor wire jumbled like perverted lace spilling over the wall. Finally we turn into another short laneway and are waved in by a young guy with an assasins face dressed all in black. He waves us over to a plastic seat where he produces the Menu. Its a gun menu. Flipping through the pages I see AK47s, pistols, light machine guns, heavy machine guns of Russian, Chinese and American origin and survey the prices.
I get to the page of grenades - $30 USD for one grenade - and turn the page to see the chefs special - the RPG, rocket propelled grenade launcher. $350USD a shot. For this one, you need to be driven out to another shooting range, understandably because we are still within the city limits and I assume Phnom Penh has had more than enough of RPGs going off in the city. For more USD you can buy a cow to shoot with the RPG. Or you can buy a duck if your cash strapped. Im giggling at the absurdity of shooting a duck with a shoulder mounted grenade launcher when i catch sight of the teenage assassins face, and he aint smiling.
I get serious and select the Russian K57 belt fed 7.62ml armour piercing machine gun as my weapon of choice. Teenage assassin wants to convince me to shell out the $350USD and soon realises im not going to be able to afford that and quickly loses any semblance of friendlyness and abandons his sales pitch and adopts a lets get this over with attitude.
We walk into a concrete bunker with the far wall stacked with tyres and sandbags and a paper target of a human pinned up. He throws me a genuine Cambodian Army jacket and a set of ear muffs and tells me to lie on the floor. The K57 is mounted on a bipod stand. As im trying to lie down on the floor in a thai silk handkerchief hemline dress and the Army jacket with as much elegance as I can hes barking out instructions. He gets down on the floor with me and shows me how to hold the beast. My $85 US has paid for 25 rounds. Teenage Assassin feeds the belt into the gun and with some final adjustments I squeeze the trigger. The percussion pounds in my chest. Malcolm is (wisely) somewhere behind me filming. Ive only let off one shot when the old girl jams. Teenage Assassin looks mildly annoyed and grabs a cloth and cocks the weapon again. This time I let off a few bursts. I can feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins as the sweat pours down my face. This thing is seriously intense. Again I let off another burst. The gun jams again. He cocks it again. I pull the trigger and a volley of automatic weapon fire shatters the silence. I am feeling like Rambo now. One more jam, one more cocking and feeding the belt through and finally I get a serious burst out before the ammo is all gone
While my heart is still pumping, teenage assassin is on his feet ready to get me out of there and onto the next customers - some british army guys who arrived just after we did. I roll over and look up at the Camera and say....."Thats for not doing the dishes". All i need is a K57 mounted on the benchtop in my kitchen at home and I will never have to ask twice for the dishes to be done. Can Do is trying to coax Malcolm into shooting something as its clear he gets a kickback for each tourist he brings who shoots. Malcolm is trying to coax teenage assassins lookalike twin into selling him some army pants. No problem, can have, except the only pair that fit him around the waist are about five inches short of his ankles. Realising they are not going to make any more money off us the assasin twins hastily shove my target at me (I killed him dead, real dead) and turn their attention to the british guys.
Still on an adrenaline high we're back in the TukTuk and Can Do lights up another smoke as we head towards our next destination......the killing fields.
The Killing Fields..where dreams died
I think back to last night at the restaurant and ask Malcolm if he spotted the clue to what happened here. He looks at me blankly until I point out there was no one over 45 in the restaurant. An entire generation are missing. Gone. Executed or starved to death in Pol Pots agrarian utopian dream that went so horribly viciously wrong. Madness and Insanity happened here. Not that long ago. In the late 70s while I was watching countdown and had TNT blaring from my pride and joy cassette recorder the evil that man is capable of manifested itself here.
As Can Do pulls into the Killing Fields Genocide Museum and parks up I take a glance at Malcolm. His face is somewhere between curious and nervous. A landmine victim hops up to us on his crutches as we walk towards the entrance and asks for money. I steel myself and ignore him. In almost perfect english he says - "Well if your not going to give me money what about some gunja?".
Here we are. The Killing Fields. Id imagine fields of the corpses of hundreds of thousands of citizens slaughtered would be hidden away, not on the outskirts of the city. Not just here either, there are fields such as this all through Cambodia.
Can Do tells us he will be waiting as we dodge the gunja or money seeking amputee and enter the Killing Fields Genocide Museum and part with the $20USD fee, observing the signs for Quiet we make our way to the centre of the Killing fields, the temple where 7000 human skulls are arranged in order of age and gender. These skulls are those that have been recovered from this 2 or 3 acre patch of grassy ground where people begged for death to come quickly. Many more lie here, those in the temple are simply those skulls that the soil washed away from in the rains that lay exposed. Further along theres a mass grave of 166 victims without heads. Teeth and bone fragments are still coming to the surface here, in the shady green field where insanity took over. We remove our shoes and buy a flower and a stick of incense each as a mark of showing our respect for the victims. I look down at the soft lush buttery yellow chyrsanthemums and remember Ive missed mothers day. My own sons would have been recruited by the Khmer Rouge, they prefered their soldiers as young as possible, so the memories of a capitalist life were not too strongly embedded and their young minds could be moulded into machines. I wouldve been one of the first to be executed as a lecturer. All the teachers, lawyers, doctors and educated people were obliterated along with all freedom of thought - the one thing that the human spirit needs.
The black holes of the skulls eye sockets stare down at us, row after row, tier after tier of them, holding us in silent contemplation. Do they judge us for turning our backs? Do they stand as silent testimony to what happens when freedom is a word that existed only before the Khmer Rouge Regimes year zero. They emptied out the city of Phnom Penh in 48 hours, forcing those who could work out into the collective fields to grow rice to pay for Chinese arms and they turned the page of life to the Year Zero. These skulls with their silent eyes glow a soft rosy colour in the afternoon light streaming through the temple. Skulls pierced and shattered because a pick axe or a shovel was cheaper than a bullet. As we walk around looking at the skulls taking the odd picture theres a metalic taste in the pit of my stomach, because, this is real. Im not googling anything, dorothy, shit went down here and it was very very evil shit indeed.
We walk from the temple around the mass graves. The signs are chilling. Here a mass grave of women and children. Another of headless victims. Many more hollows in the grass where the innocent lie unknown and unnamed. Estimates that 2 - 3 million people died during the KRs reign ring in my head as I try and get a scale on how impossible the job would have been in trying to find your sister, father, child who disappeared. The family trees in cambodia have limbs sawn off.
We walk past the killing tree. Here executioners beat children to death. Swung them by the ankles shattering their tiny skulls against the tree. Its a beautiful healthy big tree. The grass grows right up to the base of the tree, grass that once drowned in blood until nothing but mud and tears remained. I hope the birds nest here now.
We walk past the singing tree and the executioners toolshed, following the narrow path between the pits that hold ever more bodies. Butterflies float past as we walk in silence around the lake reflecting the cloudless sky with hundreds of beautiful lotus blossoms floating lazily on the surface. The irony of the lotus being the symbol for peace isnt lost on me. The silence is broken by two little boys clinging to the fence asking us to take their picture. Before I can warn him Malcolm snaps a shot and instantly the older boy begins repeating a well practiced mantra.."You take my picture, you give me money, I will share with my brother, Mister you take my picture, you give me money"...he follows us reciting his pitiful chorus until we turn the corner and he finds another tourist. A sign explains the purpose of the lake. It is to drain away the rains so the grass over the graves doesnt turn into mud unearthing more remains. We pause again at the killing tree and look up. Birds are busily going on with life up in its verdant branches.
Perhaps the people who lie here, and in all the other killing fields scattered throughout Cambodia finally have found some peace. I hope they have. Perhaps with the death of the KR and the death of Pol Pot there came some peace, when there was no one left to blame. I wonder if the victims saw the eyes of those who took their lives so brutally as their life was extinguished.Its time to leave this place now. For all the horrors and obscenities that happened here, there is a feeling of serenity and an air of tranquility that pervades, and that soon disappears the moment you walk out the gate. We are mobbed by child beggars. Im scanning the area for Can Do who is over with some other tuktuk drivers smoking cigarettes when Malcolm heads in the other direction looking for him. As soon as I shout out his name the begging kids begin calling out Malcolm! Malcolm! Moneyyy Moneyyy you give us Money. Can Do is heading towards the tuktuk and our rescue when we spot him and jump in the tuktuk. The kids are trying to climb in, still pleading Malcolm, Malcolm, you give us money. As we are struggling to keep them out of the tuktuk they spot the two bags of toys intended for an orphange that we have lugged through four countries. Overwhelmed with guilt i reach down to the top of the toybag and grab out a handful of empty cardboard party favour boxes and hand them to the kids. Im one bag short but cant open up the bags incase they see whats in there and we know they will grab everything they can and flee, leaving us nothing for the orphanage. As one boy on Malcolms side pleads for money a little boy on my side who didnt get a party favour box begins to admonish me telling me I am not a nice person because I no share and not nice to not share and he have nothing. Im just about coming undone and Malcolm is faring no better as we urge Can Do to hit the road.As we speed off to our next destination the little guy on Malcolms side is running along begging for money. His last ditch effort is to grab Malcolms hand and make a grab for the $3000 diamond and gold ring. As Can Do hits the throttle the last sound we hear is ' Just give me your ring!'
As we leave behind the shooting range and the killing fields and ask Can Do to find us an orphanage he pulls over a couple of times and answers his mobile as we head down hillier, rougher unpaved roads between tin and wooden houses cobbled together with whatever can be found. The few people out in the hot afternoon sun stare curiously at us as we wind deeper and deeper into the urban tangle of Pnom Penh's seedy side.
The poverty here is way down to the bone poverty. The scars of what happened here are still raw.
Some Heroin to go with that Madame? We eventually bounce to a stop in the backyard of a concrete house, an upmarket dwelling for the area I guess. Im looking at Malcolm and were both thinking what the hell is going on here, this isnt an orphanage when Can Do turns and says -"See no drug problem, Can Have" - when right on queue a guy in his 50s wearing black jeans and no shirt strides slowly out of the house to the tuktuk. His eyes are devoid of any emotion. Theres no smile on his face. I feel a tingle of aprehension down my spine as Mr Gangster leans down and stares me right in the eye and in a perversely cultured voice enquires -"Would Madame like some Heroin?" I realise im in the shit here. I politely decline saying Madame is too old - he asks if I have ever tried - I tell him I have not tried Heroin and he ups the ante on his sales pitch - "Is very nice Madame, you try, will like, i give you some, you try". I politely nod my head and smile trying to keep things cool when he asks "You like some Ice?" no thank you "Cocaine?" no thank you "Gunja?". I know we are not going to get out of there without a drama without parting with some cash. I make a decision to buy a small amount of gunja to keep Mr Gangster happy and hopefully get out of there. I part with $30USD and he opens his wallet, filled with US $100 notes. He and Can Do have a quick conversation in Khmer then he turns back and with that same threatening politeness asks if we would like guns. I say no and explain I cant get them through customs and he turns and walks off. Giant has sat in the tuktuk through the whole accidental drug deal like an easter island statue, not moving a muscle....I guess his thinking at that time was..you got us into this, you get us out of it.
I breathe a big sigh of relief and look down at the bag of gunja in my hand and think....shit, how am I going to get rid of this. Visions of Banged Up Abroad are dancing around in my head. I really do not want to get caught with this in any country, let alone one as corrupt as this one. When Can Do said he would show me there was no problem with drugs in Cambodia, I hadnt really countered this scenario in as a possibility.
Can Do kicks the tuktuk into life and sets off to find us an orphanage. We head further and further down roads that are rapidly turning into nothing more than hole after hole on dusty dirt tracks. We come to a junction in the track and I spot a guy with one arm and one leg sitting in the dirt leaning against a wall. I catch his eye and throw him a big bud. With the agility and speed of a cobra his one arm reaches out and catches it. If he had more arms and legs he couldve made the football team.
We scoot around the corner and see a steep hill before us going down to the Mekong. Were exhausted and after our little visit to the drug guys house are totally brain fried and lost. I can only hope this time we do end up at an Orphange not some other den of some other sins. We bump around a bit more before stopping at a shop. Can Do gets out and lights a cigarette, I light a cigarette, Malcolm lights a cigarette and the people in the shop light cigarettes. He talks to the lady running the shop and comes back and tells us "No give money, only rice, $40US full bag I get" ... the rice I dont have a problem with buying so I hand over the cash and ask if the Orphanage is close. He languidly points down the little road as he lumps the sack of rice into the gutsy little tuktuk. Whats 40 kilos more when you have a Wrestler on board? As we bump off towards the orphanage i glance down at the two bags of toys we have lugged through Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam for the kids. Finally we pull up at the orphanage. Its been a long day already and its going to get even longer.
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Dancing Dave
David Hooper
RIVETTING READ
I used to watch World Championship Wrestling every Saturday morning on TV as a kid...then WWF when it came to Sydney...how lucky are you...Malcolm's a mega-star! Really enjoyed the blog...my kinda holiday...extreme mixed emotions.