New country, new city

Uncle Ho, Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam – The difference between countries becomes almost instantly apparent when we cross at the Bavet/Moc Bai border, four hours east of Phnom Penh.

Vietnam is more ordered, less trash-strewn and the traffic less hectic than Cambodia. The road is in better shape too. Which is a blessing since my fellow travellers and I are crammed into a mini-bus designed for slight-framed Asians, not beer bellied backpackers.

HCMC seems to stretch almost to the border as most of the two hour journey into town is spent passing shops and factories rather than the flooded paddie fields of Cambodia.

Once the bus dumped us in the city we all split in separate directions like turtles with giant, nylon shells. Jacq and I checked a couple of musty rooms before settling on an upmarket guesthouse room on the first floor above backpacker central. Upmarket in that it cost US$14 instead of the US$8 price range we had looked at.

We’ve quickly realised that trying to avoid backpacker ground zero in any Asian city is a futile exercise. It’s where the cheap bus tickets are sold, the memory cards burnt to CD and the best beers chilled.

Outside of these areas its a bitch to navigate, communicate or find decent accommodation. Instead we make Pham Ngu Lao our base and leave every morning to see the sights, only returning in the evening for beer, food and sleep.

I like the city already. There are less touts. There seems to be enough enterprise and jobs for the Vietnamese to get on with their lives rather than seeing us as their next client. There are boulevards and they are tree-lined. And there is bia hoi.

Little bia hoi stalls set up in the arvo with tiny tables and plastic chairs and dispense crisp, cold beer from the keg for a 3000d a glass, or less than AUD$0.20.

Not that I have bought it by the glass. Whenever I approach the Bui Vien bia hoi stall the old lady running the shop sternly points me to a seat and then fills up a 1.5L jug of beer without even being asked.

I’ve realised that dropping into bia hoi for a ‘quick one’ before dinner is a risky affair. Either eat early and resign to drinking the rest of the night away, or arrive at dusk and snack from the passing food vendors and let mama san do the rest.

Backpack Storybook tip: We bought a US$6 ticket from Phnom Penh to HCMC. On the Cambodian side we travelled in a shitheap bus owned by Narin. We changed at the border (a relatively hassle free, though confusing exercise, 1-2hrs) into a Happy Tour bus. Very small but brand new. Seven hours all up. Mekong Express does it in five hours, no bus change. US$12. Worth the money.

So long Cambodia

Otres village, Sihanoukville

Phnom Penh, Cambodia – As glad as I am to get back on the road for the next part of our adventures, I will also be a little sad to leave Cambodia.

It’s not on the way to anywhere, and, having seen the major sights, it’s unlikely I’ll come back to the country in this lifetime.

With that in mind, I realised that for the fortnight or so that we traversed the country top to bottom, I really started to get into the swing of Khmer life. I learnt to ignore the dust, the heat and the constant attention from the moto drivers and hawkers and enjoy the country and the people

Despite the poverty and the dark past, the Cambodians I met were friendly and ready with a smile. They reminded me a little of the Balinese in that way.

Like Ban, our moto driver up in Siem Reap, who sat stock still upright on the scooter that towed the tuk tuk past the various temples and merely squinted when buses and trucks threw up clouds of dust.

Or Bonnie and the rest of the boys at Makara guesthouse in Sihanoukville, who toiled behind the counter from six in the morning until 10 at night, seven days a week. I didn’t have the heart to ask him what he earnt for his incessant work hours.

Hard work and long hours seems to be the strategy for improving the lot of Cambodia. Nothing I saw gave me any confidence that governments or business were doing their bit to stop corruption. But a new generation coming through – and there’s certainly a lot of them – without the stain of Pol Pot, may make a difference in the near future.

Dark days

S21 prison cell, Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh, Cambodia – A day after a visit to the Khmer Rouge’s main prison and killing fields, I’m still trying to get my head around the madness and paranoia of the regime.

It’s a bit of a macabre pilgrimige for Westerners to visit Tuol Sleng, or S21, the former school where the Khmer Rouge sent 14,000 accused Cambodians and a handful of Westerners for interrogation and torture.

At least my visit at the benefit of hindsight. There’s been enough research on S21 and the activities of the regime to learn a little about what they did and why they did it.

But when the Vietnamese army defeated the KR in January 1979 I was yet to be born and the rest of the Western world was yet to show much interest in what had happened in Cambodia in the preceeding five years under Pol Pot.

As David Chandler wrote in ‘Voices of S21′, officials at S21 worked on the assumption that the prisoners were guilty because they had been accused. Often the officials had no idea why they had been sent to them. And so began the interrogation and, inevitibly, torture.

The hundreds of black and white portrait photos of the S21 prisoners make for haunting viewing. Most are terrified as they look into the camera. Some defiant. Some exhausted.

Regardless, all of them were eventually killed. Some by torture but most murdered at the Choeung Ek killing fields.

Choeung Ek was 15 kilometres out of town along a dusty, pot-holed riddled road. I was expecting a barren patch of land but the fields are now green pastures lined by trees and lilly-filled lakes.

The sound of school children singing made for a haunting feeling as we navigated through the pot-holed field.

Never one to shy away from the past, the Cambodian authorities had posted signs in English identifying various sites. A tree that had been used to kill infants. The shed which stored DDT to kill the smell of the corpses – and anyone buried alive. A tree used to hang a loud speaker to drown out the cries of those being murdered.

Trying again in Phnom Penh

Near Sisowath Quay, riverside Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh, Cambodia – Now that we know not to expect a quaint city full of Tamraind tree-lined boulevards and French architecture, Phnom Penh ain’t all that bad.

Recharged after a week by the beach at Sihanoukville in the south, we returned to PP – where we spent a night earlier this month – to experience what this city has to offer.

This time we’ve opted for the Boeung Kak Lake area in the north of the city. We had heard it was quieter and a bit more chilled than the busy river front area we stayed in last time.

Quiet and “chilled” are all relative terms I suppose. I doubt anywhere is quiet in this city.

After checking several guesthouses right on the lake, we’ve decided to stay in a glorious old French faux-colonial building a street back. It has fifteen foot high ceillings, chandeliers and a big broad balcony facing onto the street where like to sit in the evenings and drink from litre bottles of Mekong whiskey.

A day in the life – Sihanoukville

Otres Beach, Sihanoukville

Sihanoukville, Cambodia – Morning
I usually wake up late, say around 8am. Ha. So much for getting up at dawn each morning in the cool to take photos of the locals going about their business.

There’s no surf in this beach town so I rarely feel rushed to get out and do anything. We eat breakfast at our guesthouse restaurant tree house, usually muesli and fruit salad for me (US$2.50).

If we have rented a moto for the day (US$4 plus fuel) then Jacq and I might load up the backpack with towels and water and burn out to Outres Beach, five kays out of town and away from all the hawkers and bright red Euro tourists.

Lunch
We might drive into the market area first and grab a bunch of bananas and a couple of baguettes for lunch (maybe US$0.50 for the lot, tops). Eat them under the shade of a cabana at the beach in between swims.

If we haven’t got a moto then maybe just a swim at our local stretch of beach and a read on the sun lounge under the umbrella.

I went for a run with Jacq one morning but nearly died of heat stroke afterwards so I’m not that keen on jogging at the moment.

Afternoon
Maybe we’ll throw the touch rugby ball around on the beach in the arvo. Maybe hit the internet cafe for an hour or two (US$1.50 per hour, fast, reliable connection).

Evening
This is my favourite time. The temperature drops a little, the breeze picks up and the ramshackle beach bars come to life.

The sunsets are pretty damn good here at Occheuteal Beach too, so I might noodle around with my camera for half an hour or so.

Then its a short walk up the beach to one of the many bars. We sit at tables on the sand and I usually drink handles of Angkor Draft for US$0.50. Jacq used to enjoy the cocktails for about US$1.50 a pop but they were unreliable so she’s switched to buying a bottle of Mekong whiskey at the beginning of the evening (US$1.50 plus US$0.50 for each mixer).

The seafood is very good here. We’ve had very nice barracuda (US$3.50) a couple of times, cooked on the barbie at the Mermaid Bar and Restaurant. A Japanese restaurant up the hill named Happa also does great tepenyaki. I think a meal for two with a wine each cost less than US$10.

A short walk back down the beach in the evening cool brings us back to Makara guesthouse and our little courtyard room.

Cambodian karaoke – a critique

The karaoke is so bad even the locals are looking for a way off the bus

Travel – Despite having been in country for less than two weeks, I feel I’m as qualified as anyone else to discuss this amazing cultural phenomenon.

Like some sort of scene from A Clockwork Orange, I’ve been sat down and forced to watch hours of this stuff, mostly while on bus trips through the Cambodian countryside. Within minutes of leaving the bus terminal, the driver’s assistant fires up the DVD and keeps it going until we arrive at our destination, whether its 30 minutes or six hours away.

Cambodian karoake video clips rarely stray from the well worn path of: boy meets girl, overcome adversity, and reunite – all within five minutes and without nary a kiss or any form of physical contact.

The girls are quite often stunning but the blokes, well, they tend to be a bit ordinary. Round faced, pudgy and quite frankly punching above their weight in trying to lure the girl. I don’t know what they’re singing about but it must be good to keep the chicks interested.

The settings are also curious. In one clip the standard picturesque lake was replaced by an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Same deal though. Meet, hold hands, stare wistfully into the chlorinated water and depart. Maybe it was filmed during the dry season and all the lakes were muddy bogs?

Sometimes the storylines can get quite dramatic. Another clip featured a boy being accosted by bandits on the side of the road. They shot him in the head at close range (with some sort of advanced technology pistol that issued no fire nor recoil) and he collapsed on the ground. Blood flowed from his mouth and head. What appeared to be brain matter was sprinkled throughout the blood.

The two bandits made their getaway on – what else – a scooter.

Snookyville

Occhueteal Beach sunset

Sihanoukville, Cambodia – Leaving Phnom Penh from the Capitol bus terminal felt like being one of the last South Vietnamese to hitch a ride on an American helicopter as Saigon fell.

A bus arrives. A crush of humanity presses against its sides, trying to get inside. I don’t blame them. I want out of Phnom Penh too.

Jacq and I bought our tickets the day before so we get a seat. I am very glad to be on my way to the beach. A week in the heat and smog has made me realise that perhaps big cities aren’t for me.

Four hours south is Cambodia’s only beach resort. It’s ramshackle and unsophisticated but we don’t care.

Rooms by the beach cost just US$5 and there is almost no one around. A scooter drives down the main road here at Occhueteal Beach perhaps once every minute or two.

There’s not a great deal to do here. But for once I don’t actually mind.

Stop over in PP

Evening on the Tonle Sap river bank

Phnom Penh, Cambodia – As I may have mentioned before, Christopher Koch’s book Highway’s to a War was a bit of of an inspiration for this trip through south east Asia. This is how he described Phnom Penh when fictional war correspondant Mike Langford arrived in the mid 1970s:

“Old Phnom Penh,which no longer exists, which will never exist again, was a French city on the Mekong coloured Mediteranean pink and cream. Tamarinds and flame trees lined its grand, half-empty boulevards, and it’s handsome, old French villas had walled gardens. The cooking was still French, the restaurants excellent and the coffees, pastries and bread a delight.”

But a couple of decades of civil war, five or so years deserted when the Khmer Rouge came to town and drove everyone into the country, and rapacious development and westernisation meant PP looked little different to many medium-sized Asian cities when I arrived late in the afternoon.

The boulevards are still tree-lined and the French villas still exist on the river, but scooters, smog and gutters full of trash mark PP’s ascension to the 21st century.

I had originally intended to stay a week or two here. I could see myself and Jacq living in a little room on the river, having baguettes and coffee for breakfast and exploring the city with the my camera on my shoulder.

But it’s too loud, too noisy and too full on. We’ve decided to keep heading south for the beach and may come back to PP on our way across to Vietnam.

Tomb raiding

Angkor Wat at sunset

Siem Reap, Cambodia – It appeared at the end of a pleasant, tree lined road about ten minutes out of town. In a country where everything is either brand new, old, dusty or filthy, the southern face of the Angkor Wat temple is simply ancient.

Our tuk tuk driver Ban dropped us at the start of the causeway a few hours before sundown and Jacq and I spent the time exploring the complex. It was absolutely huge.

Some fast figures: built in the 12th century for Angkor king Suryvaraman II, the outer wall measures 1025m by 802m. The moat is 190m and in total the temple walls encloses 200-odd hectares. In other words, huge.

Just walking down the causeway over the moat and into the temple proper took five or ten minutes. We climbed the very steep steps up to the temple towers and looked out into the Cambodian rainforest. It was hard to believe that around us were another dozen or so temples. All I could see was jungle.

The next day Ban took us out to Angkor for the famous sunrise. In the dark hurtling down the boulevard, we were overtaken by tourist buses, other tuk tuks and private cars making a beeline for perhaps the most popular gig in town. Once at the site we joined a couple of hundred others waiting in the false dawn for the sun to rise over the temple towers.

Unfortunately, with the monsoon still hanging around northern Cambodia, the sun didn’t come out from behind the clouds. However, the early start did give Jacq and I a great head start in seeing some of the other temples before the crowds.

Our favourite was The Bayon, a couple kays north of Angkor Wat in the giant Angkor Thom complex. Where Angkor Wat was huge and impressive, it was the detail and intracacies of The Bayon that I liked best. Around 200 faces had been carved into the stone walls. I could have also spent hours exlporing the maze of dim corridors, drainage channels and tunnels beneath the structure. A definite highlight.

Visits to the Baphuon and Ta Prohm followed, the latter famous for the tree roots that have grown around the temples and spilled down onto the ground below.

In the afternoon, after a sleep back at the guesthouse, we discovered Siem Reap was more than just a dusty gateway to the temples. We walked along the river and watched Cambodian families talk and play on the river banks. A dragon boat team steamed down the river, shouting and the geeing each other up. And no one tried to sell us anything.

Later still ominous storm clouds bunched in the sky. The wind whipped up and fat drops began to pelt down. Jacq and I ran for our lives. We found shelter in the upstairs bar of Le Papier Tigre, where we watched the street below go from dusty dirt to twho feet of water in ten minutes.

Angkor Wat photo album

Walls of Angkor Thom

Inside the Bayon

One of the many faces of the Bayon

Tourists at Angkor Wat

Jacq, Angkor Wat

Into the forest

Angkor pillars

The heat, the crowds, the hawkers all fade away when you arrive at this sight