Killer Cars

Where we had just left off, I had decided to cut my Thailand trip short. Bangkok was just too much for the senses, and actually became thick on the wallet after cheap Cambodian prices. By the time my mother and me had gotten back, my cousin Bunthok had time taken off from work and he was able to show me around some more in the country. We went on some crazy adventures as follows, to the south coast, to Kratie and almost killing ourselves on the ride to Ratanakiri.

Highlights and Observations

Keepin my mouth shut
I remember stopping at a 7 Eleven just outside Bangkok and was just marveled at how everything’s both the same and culturally different (instead of hot dogs on the go, it’s hot rice balls). Enjoying the cultural balance, East meets West, would remind me how a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand would be enjoy having the best of both worlds. Anyways, while walking around with my jaw dropped, I continued the ride home with a closed mouth, pretty much all the way back to Phnom Penh.

There was a reasoning to my logic. One, a 2am wake up call doesn’t call for good sleep ( I didn’t even get to enjoy the elephants walking in the street), and two, I wanted to try an experiment with Khmer strangers. When my mom and I arranged a taxi for us to go all the way to Phnom Penh, we shared one with 2 nationals who were in Bangkok for an English exam to immigrate to the United States. I wanted to see how other Cambodians would react to a Khmer American who can’t seem to speak the language. My extended family couldn’t believe I couldn’t speak it, but can 2 total strangers really believe I am just an American? I wanted to figure out if I am a target for embarrassment or am I a figure to resent? My plan of action was to just keep my mouth shut, because if I can put a sentence together, my plan would be foiled.

Plan worked perfectly well, the other 2 nationals didn’t want to test my language skills and I was able to sleep on the ride home all the way. We even stopped for breakfast and I just stood there like a model. If they were to have said something bad or embarrassing about me, I am sure to have understood. Turns out all the ribbing I received in the weeks prior were all in good fun. At that point, every Cambodian I ran into was harmless. After that, I came to really appreciate the humor among Cambodians. It is I, the uptight New Englander, that needs to lighten up a bit.

Family trip to Kompong Som
My cousin Bunthok had prearranged to get some time off of work and we got back in time just when his days off had started. A big thing that we had all waited to do was spend a day in Kompong Som. Known to tourists as Sihanoukville, the most popular destination in Cambodia’s south coast. We packed about 3 days worth of luggage, I doubled myself up on sunscreen, and we headed straight to the coast. And when I say straight, I literally meant it. While driving between towns is remarkably difficult due to the roads, the US have fronted the money to connect Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville with a clean paved road. A much easier ride for sure.

Sihanoukville is emerging as the numbers keep flocking to Cambodia. The geography of the coast has a lot of similarities with its neighbor Thailand (who has a booming beach circuit), but Sihanoukville is modestly developed, leaving for more clean white sand, and a more pleasant trip to the beach. Tourism is booming and will one day soon rival its neighbors. However, just like the temples of Angkor, come here now before everybody else does.

From my point of view, I had never seen a clearer ocean in my life. And while I still have a lot left of the world to see, from now on, I have to compare every beach I will ever see, back to Occheuteal beach in Sihanoukville. It seemed the sand would stretch for miles and miles and you could walk so far, you felt like you were the only one on an island.

In that one day I spent there, I felt my Cambodia trip was complete. I had seen the necessary things I had needed to see on my Cambodia trip. From the ugliness of Khmer Rouge torture done by Cambodians themselves, to the extravagance and richness of Cambodia’s temples and art, to the sheer tranquility of Cambodia’s coast created by nobody but mother nature. At that point, there was nothing you could show me that could prove that Cambodia is an ugly and poor country.

Full service beer!
For a country as developing as it is, it has a few number of remarkably good beers. There’s smooth Anchor (kind of like a Coors light), Angkok (like a cold Budweiser) and then there’s award winning Tiger beer (available internationally and is very similar to a Heineken). Each brand makes its name known for sponsoring a local bar or restaurant that will preferably only serve that brand (kind of like Pepsi owned restaurants). However, there are times when a karaoke restaurant in the south coast to become so big, to need 3 sponsors. Such was the case one night when, after our long sundrenched day in Sihanoukville, we had dinner at a restaurant so big, it had all three big name brands as sponsors. One thing that I never noticed till that night, because there was so competition from brands, was the existence of ‘beer girls’.

A ‘beer girl’s job is to feed you drinks and simply, keep the drink ‘alive’. A ‘beer girl’ will only serve you beer from her employer, and if you want an opposing brand, she will refer you to someone else. Your beer is served with full service, if your glass cup is half full, an arm will extend from behind and pour it in. Out of ice? That would be impossible.

With a restaurant as filled as this one, it was funny to notice the competition between each of these ‘beer girls’. Some brands dominate over others, while everybody just agrees, ‘beer girls’ are a horrible occupation because usually, the ‘beer girls’ get paid nothing. They’re all after work call girls.

Better a day in a minefield, than a day as an amputee
Something I didn’t notice from the day in Sihanoukville was that for the first time, I was allowed to walk on my own away from my mother or anybody assigned to have a supervisory role (remember a couple of weeks ago, I had to shower in front of a stranger). For weeks I was under heavy watch in the heavy mob cities of Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. Basically, they didn’t walk me walking around like a retard, which I basically was. But since south coast is one whole strip, if I ever get lost, I can just turn around and go back.

A slightly dangerous encounter happened the next day when we were enjoying a picnic over at Kep, and undeveloped and relatively dirty shore by the city of Kampot. I had taken a walk to check out some deserted colonial homes and had mistakenly walked past the Prince’s former residence. At one point in my trek, I was surrounded in a grassy patch with a bunch of cows. Suprisingly, the cows did not disturb me at all (a free roaming cow is a happy cow). However, a little late ticker went off in my head and I realized that I HAD STRAYED OFF COURSE. The #1 rule for any Cambodian is don’t step foot into places that are unknown, the danger of stepping on a landmine is still present. I don’t know how the cows had tipped me off, but I have come to the conclusion that I was in a grassy field with nobody to help me get off. Plus, there were just a bunch of cows all around me. Imagine if THEY had stepped on a mine and I was in their vicinity?

With some luck, I had gathered my bearings and walked slowly back to the motorbike path. The scare for the day had its way, and there was nothing else for me to see. It was back home to Phnom Penh, but on the way, we stopped by Tek Chouu waterfalls for some river tubing and some delightful views

Ratanakiri, ride of a lifetime
If there is one car ride I will never forget in my life, it would have to be the trip I had taken with my cousin, the next day, to the province of Ratanakiri. I had recommended that no one else join us in this trip, as Ratanakiri offers nothing pleasant. It is a huge giant dustbowl inaccessible in the rainy season, is on the fringes of the border to Laos and Vietnam and away from any major city, and only offers purely recreational activities with the exception of visiting the minority villages. It was not a place to bring kids, or my mother who would prefer not to walk.

On the trip to Ratanakiri, we haven’t even left Phnom Penh and we had to make some sacrifices. Namely, our taxi driver decided he needed to break even and forced me and my cousin to both sit in the front passenger seat to fit the other family of 4 in the back. This was a 1988 Toyota camry, these sedans were not at all roomy. It consisted of me, one cheek on what’s left of the seat, the other cheek on my cousin’s lap. Plus I had to balance my accessories of an iPod and a cellphone. My Lonely Planet guidebook estimated that the ride from Phnom Penh to Ratanakiri would last 13-15 hours if taken with the major roads. Since I have dealt with Cambodia’s roads before and the patience it requires, I did not even want to think about having to sit double in a seat for 13 hours straight. Not surprisingly, I did last the entire ride from Phnom Penh to Ratanakiri sharing a front passenger seat with my cousin Bunthok, a fully grown man, in a 1988 Toyota Camry sedan with broken air conditioning in heat stricken Cambodia.

In addition to being cramped in the sedan, a worst case scenario began to fall play. Our taxi driver began suddenly drifting off into sleep. Mind you the road that we were on was desolate, empty and full of potholes. Since I was closest to the driver, I found it a responsibility to keep him awake. However, things weren’t as easy. The first time he fell asleep, I swerved his car back onto the road, and he got a flat. Eventually we pulled up to somebody’s house and bought a car tire off of them.

The second time was a hairline to being a human disaster. Prior to him swerving off the road again, I became horribly tired at staying awake and watching Mr. Sleepy. Since I was in the front with no seatbelts, I knew my life depended on it even though it was 1:30 in the morning. I tried so hard to stay awake watching our driver and trying to chat with him, but even that was taking a lot out of me. I found myself drifting off into sleep and then having it bother me that I was letting this driver almost kill us. Having to stay awake when you know your life is in danger is not an easy task (now I think I know how David Blaine felt when he was standing inside that block of ice). I had woken up when the family in the back was screaming for him to watch out, and realized our driver was swerving off the road about to hit a tree. On instinct, I took control of his wheel and cocked it desperately to avoid the tree, and immediately got the car was stuck in a ditch.

Accident saved and full of anger, the family, my cousin and I knew it was time for all of us to take a nap for our own safety’s sake. So here we are, 3:30 in the morning in the middle of nowhere and I had to find a nice spot to take a nap. The car was not an option. I started walking around up and down the road. There was no life going on anywhere. A group of wolves started to investigate our existence but when I shined my headlamp on them, they just stood still. I ended up attempting to lay across the trunk of the car and just count the stars, but that turned out to be really not as comfortable as it looks. What was surprising of this instance was how somehow, it really did not bother me as much. I think being stuck in a ditch in the middle of the night is better than having a flat tire at high noon.

After our nap in which I got no sleep, the sun had started its way up and I guess that was what the driver needed to stay awake. We got into Ban Lung, the capital of the province at 6am. The hotels that we were checking into, the owners haven’t even waken up yet. And then we came to the conclusion that Ban Lung is just one giant dustbowl. It is impossible to walk outside without getting dirty. Every inch of our $5 hotel room was covered in dust, and since we knew it couldn’t be any other way, we just asked for a fresh pair of sheets to keep us happy. Since I knew I was only here for 2 days, this would be acceptable. If I knew I was staying here for a week. No way. Despite the troubles to get there and the fact that there is no comfort in Ratanakiri, it still didn’t take away from the backpacking experience. I really enjoyed my stay in Ratanakiri.

Other side of the world, the world is indeed too small
We had hired a guide to show us around since transport around is basically dirt and mud roads. He had driven us over to a seven step waterfall and showed us the families in the area mining for gems. When we thought the provincial town was full of dust, we weren’t yet prepared for a motorcycle ride in the dust jungle. It was heavily apparent that you needed protection in all areas from the dust that will accumulate. Even if you are wearing a motorcycle helmet (which we both were) we still ended up with clouds of dust in our face and up our nose.

We had packed a lunch and headed to one of the town waterfalls to eat. Sitting on the rocks, enjoying the view, and watching kids take suicide dives into the water. At one point we were joined by two tourists who at first I assumed were French. But, since one was wearing a Cape Cod shirt, it really threw me off.

“Are you from Massuchusetts?” I didn’t even hesitate to use English.

“Now what makes you think that?” the older lady said.

“Just look at your shirt.”

Our fellow tourist had forgotten that her shirt had thrown it off. She was from Cambridge Mass, along with her fellow husband and backpacker as well. They had come to do the same recreational activities that we were, although they arrived here by a small jet.

“My vacation time is limited, I couldn’t afford to waste any time”.

What was a little miraculous was how us as neighbors, separated by an hour and I93 could meet each other in the other side of the world.

Ka Tieng fate of doom
$10 an hour for an elephant ride is hella expensive compared to anything in Cambodia, but it would be murder to come to Cambodia without the oh so lovely on top of an elephant shot. We had arranged one to take us through the rubber plantations, walk across a river and land us at the spectacular Ka Tieng waterfall. While elephant rides turned out to be very overrated (they walk at a senior citizen’s pace), ending up at a distant and serene location made it worthy.

I was in need of a dip and decided to take one even though it was still a long and dusty ride back to the hotel. I changed into my swim trunks and circled around to the cave behind the waterfall. What once seemed a peaceful gorge or water now turned to be a loud and dangerous shower blast. I took my time entering into the current, but since I still don’t know how to swim I became rather scared. The rush of the waterfall was pulling me into the blast, and I did not want to be stuck underneath the waterfall where seemingly tons of water would be falling onto my death. Since I had stepped into the currents, I can no longer just walk away, my only option was to level out and swim against the current to get back to the shore.

I was that day, and still am, a horrible horrible swimmer and I had never been more scared from anything in my life. Since my cousin had found the sound of the waterfall pleasant, he had fallen asleep. I truly believed I was going to die underneath that waterfall if I had let it pull me in. I found myself shaking uncontrollably, and have come to the conclusion that I need to get over my fear of deep water and the ocean floor if I want to keep being a traveler.

Boeng Yak Lom
If there is anything to cap off a long day of hot and dusty, break your back moto rides, riding on elephants, fearing for your life under a waterfall, it is to head over to the volcanic crater lake of Boeng Yak Lom before it closes to visitors. There is no other time to visit, since all the tourists head to the lake at the same time. The fascination behind Boeng Yak Lom lake is its perfectly round circle. Some swear it must have been hit with a crater it is so perfectly round. This makes for great swims as this lake is the cleanest fresh blue water in this country. Tribes and villages around the area has sworn not to use fertilizers and that pledge and many others have kept Ratanakiri ‘real’ and untouched.

Again, couldn’t swim much. Water drops off really quickly after 4 meters in, I can imagine just sliding down to the bottom. And since there is no current, it would have been a quiet death.

Minority villages
It seemed like there was more to see in Ratanakiri, yet I didn’t want to stay an extra night. After crashing very early (lack of sleep in the taxi ride the night before), I hired our tour guide again to show me around the minority villages in the area. There was only so much he could do in one morning, but I think we got to see a lot. It was a small chance for me to understand the diversity of SE Asia, and understand how villages and tribes still choose to live old fashioned and visiting them is like a trip through time. I remember my mother asking me if the villages looked like Africa and remarked yes, but it was still nice for me to see what Cambodians can do with the resources they have.

Riverfront stalls in Kratie
Later that night, took a (short!) 5 hour trip by taxi back in the direction of Kratie, and it was pure backpacking again. Settled on a cheap 5 dollar hotel which was even cleaner than the last and had a great riverfront view.

It was too dark to go sightseeing, but thoroughly enjoyed the food stalls that were all set up by the river. Some even go as far as having solid wood (solid wood folks!) tables out on the sidewalk for dining. We settled on a stall that had the largest beer selection (go beer) and I had my first shot at trying Tiger beer. After reading its label, apparently Tiger beer is Cambodia’s most renowned beer and has won many international medals. Imagine to my amazement back here in the states, that I can find Tiger beer in the diverse community of Boston Massachusetts? Big beer, small world.

Kampi rapids, eating a whole chicken
Bunthok didn’t creep me out that much when he drunkenly admitted to me that he would ask girls to meet him at bars and then disappear when they weren’t good looking. Although I should have considering he’s family. Whatever, the next day we took a drive around the temples, and I got to visit female monks for the first time, I believe wearing a white robe is 10x cooler, although I really can’t criticize. We wanted to spend our lazy morning and long lunch hanging out at the Kampi rapids picnic area.

At these rapids, it is easy to laze a days away. Local town dogs head over here to sleep and I’ve seen many sleep for hours due to the relaxing sound of the rapids drowning all the noise in anybody’s head. My cousin and me got to drinking early as I tried to teach him chess. After heading in for our first swim in the ocean it became clear that this place was too nice to not have the rest of the family to come by. So after calling the rest of them (my mother, his wife, aunt, the kids) we got back to drinking and finding a good spot to sit in the rapids. We had lunch, and since there was only 2 of us, I figured it would be a good idea for me to eat a whole roast chicken. I didn’t think it was possible, but it wasn’t that hard. Overall picnicking at the rapids was a very relaxing time and this was one of the many things I found that would make Kratie a great place to live (its dramatic sunsets by the river is also a draw).

Happy Hour, it would be sin to be doing it alone
One thing I found weird, was how when we were waiting for our boat to see the dolphins, my cousin Bunthok knew it would not come for another hour or two because it is siesta time. He was in a “do not disturb” let me socialize, and let us sightsee when those boat drivers come back sober. Apparently he was right. I was a little impatient and not any fun. He walks over to the dolphin gift shop, makes himself at home and starts chatting away. After getting no luck, I find a cot to take a nap in. Looking back, I really enjoy the fact that at siesta time, you are able to be a complete stranger and still feel at home for those 2 hours of your day. Even though I was impatient, I should have understood and hung out trying to relax.

Phone call in the middle of Mekong
The biggest draw to Kratie is its claim for having the endangered population of Irrawaddy dolphins in SE Asia. Going out to see them turns out to be a big disappointment. These dolphins are terribly shy and the sad story is that both times I went to see them, I was only able to see 2 of them at most in the ocean. They don’t fancy boats or humans very much and I should have come to that conclusion when I realized there is virtually no good pictures of any Irrawaddy dolphins available. But, these animals need protection, so while you might not want to considering trekking here to see shy dolphins, be a responsible tourist and at least pay to help protect them in their environment.

After having a great day in Kratie and the rough adventure that was Ratanakiri, I felt ecstatic. I had gotten what I wanted out of Cambodia already and these trips to Thailand, Sihanoukville, Ratanakiri and Kratie were more than fulfilling the traveling side of me. I began to think that maybe there is more of Cambodia to be seen and that 5 weeks was somehow not enough time. This thought carried over into my head while my cousin, our boat driver and me were sitting peacefully in the middle of the Mekong river. At one point I had received a phone call from my at home Cambodian neighbor Dy (if you guys remember, my mother and I were tagalongs on her trip, and parted ways at the airport, we do not know where she went after that). I really do not know how she got my number, but most of the confusion about the cellphone was if the phone calls that were incoming were really for me. Most of them were, however I don’t seem to acknowledge them as I can only sustain a 4 minute conversation. However when Dy called me, there was no doubt she was calling to reach me. And trying to reach me while I was sitting in the middle of the Mekong river.

“Hello, how are you, do you know where I am?

“Where you are? Do you know where I am?”

“No”

“I am in the middle of the Mekong river!”

It was the one of the most surreal moments I had. People calling me in Cambodia is one thing but how I was able to get a phone call in the middle the mightiest river in all of Asia is beyond me. To add to that, she was sitting in some farm field and calling people because she was just bored. Beyond being stunned, she did propose a simple question that appropriately fit my feelings at the time.

“Do you want to stay in Cambodia longer?”

“How?”

“I call, Singapore Airline, ask for later date.”

After that, it became a pending issue. I left her without a clear response, stating that I would like to go, if they could guarantee me a visit to Vietnam, which would be another joy in travel.

And that was that. After the phone call, my cousin Bunthok asked me if I wanted to stay. I glowed a little bit out there on the Mekong.

“I dunno. I would like to.”

“I think you should.”

Did I end up staying in Cambodia? Or did I swing it back home to move on into the real world?

TO BE CONTINUED

Photo Links

• South Coast, Cambodia
• Ratanakiri, Cambodia
• Kratie, Cambodia

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