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Published: December 14th 2006
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I've been reading a book lately called, "Off The Rails in Phnom Penh: Into the Dark Heart of Guns, Girls, and Ganja."
I picked this one up on the street from a kid selling all sorts of bootlegged, photocopied titles about Cambodia. It's by an Israeli-born American called Amit Gilboa, and it looked to be a lot more fun to read than any of the other offerings (mostly about Pol Pot).
Then and Now Although the book is an older one--covering a period exactly ten years before now--I was surprised to see how little of Cambodia's capitol city has changed. The place is still brimming over with poverty. You can still find two dollar hookers and copious firearms and illegal drugs in the marketplace. The government is still corrupt and ruthless and unaccountable to anyone.
The major difference is that there are now a lot more people coming here. Most of them-- having read books like Gilboa's or heard similar accounts from friends and ex-pats and from their guidebooks--are actually coming here to revel in the city's dark side.
So these are the new 'rails' in Phnom Penh: you come in from Thailand or 'Nam,
you stay in a guesthouse with a crowd of backpackers and wierdos, smoke joints and pickup desperate prostitutes, you pay a nod of respect to the sites of genocide, then go to the shooting range. That's basically the course that Gilboa laid out and most visitors seem to be staying on it to this day.
I wasn't feeling it. That particular itinerary sounds to me like a shameful set of cliches. Every pushy tuk-tuk driver that asked me if I wanted to take a trip to a whorehouse or the shooting range got an emphatic, "NO!"
Instead, my visit would have been better subtitled, "Into the Beating Heart of Markets, Monks, and Music." I chose to really go off the rails: walking everywhere, visiting genuine cultural sights, hanging out with monks, and opening my eyes to how these people really live.
24 Hours I came into Phnom Penh on a cheap bus from Sihanoukville. It was noon. I planned to leave the next day on another cheap bus, also at noon. I had 24 short hours, and I decided to start with a sprint of visits to important post-KR sites.
After visiting the Killing
Fields at Choeng Ek, however, I was in no shape to see another site. I had the driver take me back to the guesthouse.
After getting severely ripped-off by my driver and getting into a shouting match, I was in no shape to even be outside of my room.
I retired for the afternoon, cried, thought about Chelly and my Mom and Dad and all the other people I'd rather be with than be where I was. I fell asleep for a few hours.
Feeling a lot better when I woke, I went out to the lobby and had a great curry while watching "Team America, World Police" with a roomful of backpackers (none of whom came from America).
It was quite strange to see this particular film in this particular context. A movie mocking America's relationship to world politics. With a group having overwhelmingly negative opinions of the U.S. and no real understanding of the place. In a country with it's own pressing political problems, that neither the U.S. nor these people's nations have ever given a damn about.
It was wierd, fun, but depressing. I needed to go for a walk.
Strolling
out to the alley, I passed a dozen drivers who were wither shocked or offended at my disinterest in hookers and guns and drugs. The alley poured into a main drag. Crossing the big road put me on a large stretch of greenbelt, dotted with small trees and massive monuments.
I heard music and I followed it. The greenbelt bordered a little park. They were holding a Khmer classical music concert there. It was fantastic.
These things are almost like going to a drive-in movie, with crowds of people mostly sitted on their motorscooters all around the yard. They've got a stage with the main act up front and all the other performers waiting their turn at the back. There's a crowd of kids sitting on the grass near the front, and there're dozens of vendor carts selling food and drink all around the place. They seem to assemble completely spontaneously, with no fences or ticket-takers or sponsor banners or official vendors. People drive away as soon as they get tired of an act.
I enjoyed it and it made me smile. I was uplifted to see this thriving culture and community in a place known to
outsiders only for it's ugliness.
After the concert, I wandered past more monuments to a little internet cafe. I called Chelly on one of the worst phone connections I've ever had in my life. She missed me.
I was sitting down to check my email when an orange-robed monk started up a converstion with me. He was a student of English. He lived in a monastery nearby. He invited me to come to the monastery and help he and his fellow monks practice the language. I jumped.
The next several hours were spent in a dorm room at the monastery, chatting with bald Khmers in orange robes. The Cambodian monasteries also have a large population of homeless young men who stay within the walls working as temple boys and attending school. I helped these guys practice their English as well. We exchanged phone numbers and emails and I helped some of my monk friends do their homework. It beat the hell out of a gun range.
The monks walked me home and I went to bed early.
That meant I was up early the next day, eating breakfast and watching the BBC news. I hate
the news. None of it was good.
I left for an early-morning walk around the city, discovering that the very greenbelts and parks I'd visited the night before were also homes to throngs of homeless beggars. Right behind the massive monuments and alongside the walls of the Royal Palace lived hundreds of homeless Khmers with nothing more than rags and hammocks to their names.
I couldn't be brought to pay the fine at the gate to the palace when there were people starving right around the corner. So, I took a picture from outside and went for a walk along the quay.
Phnom Penh is a mixed-up, crazy, vibrant city by day. Old French colonial buildings are mixed with graceful Khmer architecture and the slipshod structures of a hastily developed capitol.
I wandered and watched.
I gazed across the wide banks of the lower Mekong, the same river that I'd merrily ridden down in Laos looked quite different here.
I visited the city's central temple of Wat Phnom, the place where the city was founded in 1373. There were a lot of monkeys there: savage and greedy (I saw one attack a child for
a piece of fruit, he was then descended on by several others who were after his prize). There were visitors from all around the country and outside of it.
Then I saw the side of the hill where foreigners pay $10 to ride a tormented elephant through crowds of silently-suffering beggars. I had to leave.
I went to the Central Market and bought my mother some fabric. It was huge and it defied understanding. There were piles of dying ducks covered in oil in the parking lot. There were shops outside the official market packed together so tightly that you couldn't see the sky and you had to duck to avid brushing against goods. The inside was a smorgasbord of jewels and clothes and fly-swarmed meats.
I picked up a nice long-sleeve shirt for visiting temples. I bought a bus ticket.
By noon, I was on my way out of town.
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Vanessa
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hey you....
What's up nicas, Happy 25th birthday wherever the hell you are! Ha!!!