April 13, 2001

Cambodia: where do i start... to see the sights, a moto driver would sell it to us as being on a "good road". meaning that the road was paved, partially paved, or dirt without huge potholes. that conviced us to see the off the beaten track sites. we crossed the border from vietnam to cambodia and from a paved road to a dusty, rollercoastered road under construction all the way to the capital at Phnom Penh, 6hours+ away. most of the time we were riding off the road to avoid backyard-pool-sized holes in the middle. our guide on the minibus named this road "dancing road" and we had a "dancing bus". and also nicknamed "tired bus" because we all could not sleep because of the bumpyness and had been awake since 5am to travel overland to the capital. "when road finished", he said the bus will be "sleeping bus". but that will be a long time. at least his sense of humor made it more laughable, until the next pothole.

Got into Phnom Penh at night and it started to pour. we ducked into Capital Tours/Restaurant/guesthouse corner and ran around looking for a room with a window! not a "cubicle" cheapie style crash pad. we later, had learned from the motocycle drivers/taxis outside, that Capital has monopolized on the backpacker services scene and pushed out the small, local cambodian run places. "they are chinese owned and just want to make money". a moto guy told us. "they offer tours everywhere and take business away ffrom taxi drivers to see the sites." i agreed, but also as a foreigner in a new country, it is hard to figure out who is honest and what a real price to get to a site is and figure this all out in a short visit in a city. these backpacker "complexes" make it easy for us gringos. i want to support locals, not chinese, but walking around with a heavey pack in the pouring rain doesn't make it easy to shop around. severl days later, we were pulled aside by a taxi driver who told us how hard it is to make money and that we could help him by staying at his recommended guesthouse in Siem Reap (Angkor Wat town) and that he would get his commision and then we could move to another place the next night if we didn't like it. as a backpacker, you don't want to get "touted" into a place because they charge a bit more to compensate the commision fee they have to pay out, and we loose bargaining power. so, we said ok this tme to help a guy out and would move it we hated it. but later felt like we were reeled in for the same old scam and it was too much work to move to another place - it sufficed for our stay.

an hour after arriving in Phnom Penh, we got asked by an energetic expat if we wanted to stay and teach english for $8/hr in a school. since, we had just arrived, we thought we should see if we liked the place enough to stay a month and teach. the city had a kind of lawless air about it. didn't really sense it until after being there a bit. easy to get pot, to smoke or even on a pizza at Happy Herbs restaurant. traffic is hillarious. the expat guy told us if a foreigner rents a motobike, then he will probably get stopped by the traffic police and fined for some law that no local abides by. and besides driving in rush hour is a patenice test. everybody cramms into the middle of the intersection and waits till somebody else, hopefully a big car, (to make more room for more motos) moves a bit. nobody gets mad or yells, but they just all wait till it lightens and clears. lasts about and hour, but a funny sight to watch. the idea of right of way, or traffic cops to keep a flow doesn't really mean much to them. then if you want to make a left turn,you just go into the oncoming traffic lane and merge diagonally to the right lane. best to let the moto drivers do this. crossing the street is a bit hairy. drivers don't slow or swerve like in vietnam, they just kkep going at the same speed and hope you start running across. merging into oncoming taffic is easy for them, but giving pedestrians right of way is out of the question. our minibus guide warned us of not walking at night on unlit streets. usual rule of thumb in cities, but he really meant it. and so did two other articles we read in expat mags. don't take cyclos at night, because they are slow and you can be mugged. motos faster. you dont' feel threatened walking around in general, but it's just a precaution. so we befriended some moto guys to give us round trips around dinner time.

The city and the country in general is ridden with people who had lost limbs to mines. we saw more amputees here than beggers in india. it is true that there are still mines not far off paths in the suburbs and country. we stayed close behind our guide in the jungles. we saw the main sites in the city : King's Palace, National Museum, Killing Fields, Tu Long Prison (a former highschool, turned into Pol Pots torture chamber used to hold people before dieing in the Killing Fields). Since the PP regime history is so recent, you can still sense the horror and ghosts in these now tourist sites of the horiffic things he did to change his country and wipe out the past and culture of eveybody's lives. Nothing made sense in his regime: he was educated in china and abroad, but later killed anybody who was educated. he killed engineers who knew how to make bridges, then had to guess how they were made by enslaving thousands of people to "make it by hand", as be later saw in a damn in Battambang. we were getting a first hand tour of the countries horrific history and it certainly had more impact than reading in a book.

Trying to put all this in the past, the people have a great sense of humor, are friendly and easy going. we noticed this as soon as we crossed the border from vietnam. we got held up for a bit on the vietnam side since we, and two others, had gone over our vietnam visa a day or so. it looked like the officials were debating whether to fine us or not, but just processed everybody else and had us wait. they let us go for free with a stern face. after walking through no-mansland (about 500meters of land not owned by either country), then, into cambodia, immigration was joking with us about our photos with a big smile. we were asked to show our international vacination cards, which i had never needed until now. of all countries we visited so far, cambodia is worrried about not bringing in diseases! that surprised us. jon couldn't find his buried in his bag, so i vowed for his health "we married and have same doctor, so same shots" with a smile. they let us go with a smile. the country is 90% fudned by international aid. most of the products available are imported toothpaste, soap, etc.. and across the river,where no there is no building, two neon signs dominate the investment statement: Sharp and Suzuki.

After wandering around the hot, noisy city, we opted to check out the beach at Sihanourkville about 4hrs drive southwest. this was a very good road and made the bus ride a breeze. they showed the movie "The Killing Fields" on the bus, but not very uplifing while going to a R&R place. These beaches were more pine tree dominated than palm tree lines. so lots of pine needles lay on the sand, making for as prickly place to lye down. Victory beach near our guesthouse, was a bit trashed, so next day we rented a moto to check out the other beaches. after chilling on a better beach, more mellow and a bit cleaner, we found out we had a flat rear tire. probably a slow leak that gave in. asked around and found the local, 1km away, tire fix-it man to come by and hopfully at least give us air to get home. he ended up doing a full fix:, patched and filled tire all from his mobile, wooden, fix-it station at the turnaround with a Jeff Koons gold Lion statue in the center. we were set to explore the main beach and get some chow. this nice beach was for the tourists and with reason. cleaner, more food options, and more sand. the others, had shallow beach fronts and trees that were uprooting and looked like they were about to fall. but it was too late, and we just opted to get back before our front tire got a flat in the dark. basically, a trip down to Sihanoukville was a chance to get some rest and quiet. did just that. first day, slept all day and read. much needed after several loud cities and running around non-stop in vietnam to cover alot of territory.

went back up to Phnom Penh to catch the fast express boat to Siem Reap for the following day to do a photo-fest of the temples of Angkor. this boat was expensive ($22 each) , by local standards and i figured, comfortable enough for that price. reality was quite different!

to be continued...