SEVEN CENTS

The shift change for beggars in Phnom Penh seems to come just about an hour after nightfall. The children selling books, begging for a handout and the many amputees, most with their own micro-business, dominate the daylight hours. In truth, most of the action during the day is from children trying to sell books. The straight out begging which is common on the beaches of Sihanoukville, the blind men being led by their children and the land mine victims sliding their way along the sand, cap in hand, are not a common sight in the Cambodian capital. Once night falls it is a different story. Perhaps cowed by the heat of the day, small families – typically just a mother and a sick-looking child or two - creep out onto the footpaths and begin their appeal for money.
I am ambivalent about beggars. It is easy to imagine that you are being taken advantage of, and that the four year olds carrying sleeping children along the streets are part of an organised business, run by some unscrupulous adult. The Siem Reap milk powder scam is a great example: mothers will appeal for you to buy milk powder from the local pharmacy for the sickly child hanging limply in their arms. This appeals to a lot of foreigners who would rather buy food than give money to someone who may not feel the full benefit of it. All is not as it seems, however. The milk powder is rapidly sold back to the pharmacy at a discount, and the scam is ready to be repeated. The mothers begging on the streets after dark in Phnom Penh seem of a different ilk however. I have no reason to believe this is indeed the case, but at any rate, they are more likely to be on the receiving end of my philanthropic largesse than their peers.
Such it was that walking home the other night, slightly tipsy, I spotted a woman sitting on a mat on the river road in Phnom Penh. Her dark brown face had a wide, deep scar running from one side to the other, crushing the bridge of her nose. Before her on her tatami mat lay a child, perhaps a year old, in a filthy t-shirt, naked from the waist down. I had just been to a convenience store and had some change in my pocket. I pulled out the riel notes I had received in my change and handed them over to her. She clasped her hands in thanks and turned her head away. I walked on feeling slightly more at peace with the world and grateful that I had not just walked by. That is, until about two hours later. I calculated what I had left in my pocket and realised I had given the woman three 100 riel notes. 4200 riel makes up one US dollar. I had given her about seven cents, as far as my addled mind could calculate. Even in Cambodia this is a pathetic amount of money. I imagined the thoughts that ran through her head as I reached down to give her the bills: gratitude, relief,, and then most probably disappointment when she realised that this was what apparently passed for charity from this particular foreigner. I felt guilty for a while but then realised there was an obvious, simple solution. There was no doubt that she would be out there again, the next night, and the night after that. I had time to redeem myself. And I wouldn’t even need to go out of my way. She was, after all, on the way to the best bar in town.

Not a Bright Man

WALKING around the backstreets of Krong Koh Kong, gently exuding a slimy sweat not dissimilar in aroma to cheap vodka is a diverting way to pass an afternoon. The overseas hangover is a dangerous beast, especially for the lone traveller. Finding oneself semi delirious, dehydrated and thinking fondly and at length about the modern conveniences, such as ready access to your psychologist, which you have given up to be marching the streets of a place so backward it doesn’t even have a shop selling pirated DVDs is enough to inspire a panic attack. Luckily everyone will assume this is just some strange Western custom and continue to go about their daily business, which seems to be staring at you and riding around with a chicken strapped to the back of a motorbike. Having virtually circumnavigated KKK – not an acronym the local chamber of commerce has adopted with much enthusiasm oddly – in search of a non-existent shopping mall where I might be able to get a copy of the fifth season of The Wire, I happened across the Bright Man Centre. “Ah ha, the foolhardy Cambodians and their amusing mangling of the English language,” I mused as I pulled out my camera to snap off a shot of this little gem. I must say the Cambodians have not taken to the wholesale bastardisation of the English language like most of their Asian neighbours. It must be said the Japanese are the outright leaders in this field. One of my students in my teaching days in the Japanese boondocks had a great coat with the phrase “the dream of both hands fullness” on the Back of it. To my mind nothing else conveys the deep yearning at the heart of most human beings quite so eloquently. The teacher with the “Fuck Milk, Got Pot?” t-shirt has enlightened the worlds a little less, but amused it a little more. Cambodia’s best efforts to date had been the oft-miss-spelled banners at the local headquarters of the “Cambodain People’s Party” – likely the result of a politically minded and mischievous, or simply incompetent sign writer in the Battambang area, and the misspelling of the word boat (baot) at the beach at Sihanoukville. The Bright Man Centre had the same sort of ring of hope that “The Dream of Both Hands Fullness” had to it though. A shiny optimism that if one applied oneself the rich bounty of capitalist success and meaningful work would come bounding to one’s door, or at least be visible somewhere in the middle distance. I had assumed somewhat smugly that the Bright Man Centre was just another signwriting snafu. It surely had to be a laundry, or perhaps even a skin whitening salon whose marketing director leaned towards the painfully literal. But as I walked closer I saw that it was actually a school, filled with studious looking young men who if they were not already, were aiming to be Bright Men. I mentally congratulated them and mused quietly to myself that I was not a Bright Man that day. Exhibit one: I woke up late for my bus, drunk, and packed both pairs of shoes away in my bag before realising that getting around sans shoes was going to be an issue for me. Underwear was in the too hard basket too. I felt a painful moment of embarrassment as I crammed myself into the packed mini-bus which was to ferry us to the bus station, where I promptly got on the bus and fell asleep, presumably sweating horrid smelling fumes onto the large, shaven headed Finn sitting next to me. He repeatedly kept asking me how long it would take to get to the border. I repeatedly fell asleep abruptly, method acting for my upcoming reprise of River Phoenix’s narcoleptic character in a remake of My Own Private Idaho I’ll be putting on in my lounge room when I return to Australia. I just need a drug problem and a guy who looks like Keanu Reeves who can’t act and I’m good to go.
I had gotten myself into this parlous state via a combination of pretty Dutch girls, less pretty Dutch men, and dangerously cheap booze – a scourge common to the whole of Cambodia, or so I am told. Staying up until three or so in the morning, chugging alternately watery beer and vodka tonics, had seemed like a good idea at the time. It always does. Rarely does having less to drink seem like a good idea while you’re actually in the middle of having too much to drink, or so my experience suggests. The pretty Dutch girls and I had spent the day sitting at the beach, swimming, and generally doing nothing. A steady stream of English and Swedish nightclub touts approached my dashing blonde companions, in an effort to entice them to one of the many cheap drink-driven nightclub shenanigans going on that night. Not a one of them asked me what my plans for the coming evening were. They also failed to ask the balding, 35 year old German pedophile next to me, who was incongruously wearing dark pants, no shirt, and suede brogues at the beach. I guess if you have no shame about parading around with a barely legal prostitute it would be too much to ask to have some appropriate shame in regard to his clothing choices, and let’s face it, he was German, he never had a chance. I was increasingly peeved as the day went on, because in my indignation, I had come up with a great comeback should one of these touts accidentally pry his eyes away from the cumulative 11.5 feet of blonde Dutch goddessity to my right, have a mild stroke and hence attempt to convince me to attend some party with the dubious honour of two for one cocktails (for god’s sake they’re only $2 to start with!) I would blithely comment that I was strictly in Cambodia for the heroin and prostitutes and doubted they would be able to serve my taste in the former at said party. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time – one which remains sadly untested. I did realise however that I was not simply being profiled as a fellow German pedophile by the nightclub spruikers. Seriously who would prefer to have come to your party: a solo 33 year old with an alarming triangle of sunburn on his right shoulder blade, or two 25 year old blonde Dutch girls. I happened to know something about these two Dutch girls which would have guaranteed that any party they attended, anywhere in the known universe, would have been attended by every man who could possibly make it there, had they but known. A couple of nights previously, over a few beers in the sleepy town of Battambang, Eveline had casually announced that they slept in the same bed, and had become so used to doing so that should one of them hook up, the other would probably just share the bed and attempt not to get too much in the way. It was all myself and the two other guys at the table could do not to start giggling with delight right then and there. You could almost hear us mentally high fiving each other just at the thought of it. I love that northern European women almost never fail to live up to the stereotype of gorgeous, blonde sex maniacs who have nothing better to do than have naked saunas and sleep in the same bed. More likely I have just mentally blocked out all of the normal things which the rest of the Scandinavian female population does – surely they occasionally need to shop for hair products and sauna accessories (and yes, I know Holland is not Scandinavian). Anyway, after treating myself to a generous quantity of Chilean sauvignon blanc and the aforementioned vodka tonics, I decided it was time to leave. This meant stumbling about 50m home, where I proceeded to look quizzically at my bag, before trying to stuff everything I owned into it. This is not usually a bad way to pack. I’m pretty sure this was when the shoe accident occurred however, leading to much confusion in the morning as I was simultaneously trying to brush my teeth and figure out where my foot coverings had gone. I actually managed to cut myself looking for my iPod, which had been swept up in the previous night’s bag stuffing. Now I was bleeding, brushing my teeth, and still had no fucking shoes on. Luckily the pick up bus was late, guaranteeing that I would not have to face the opprobrium of my fellow travellers for my tardiness and bloodiness as well as my infernal stench.
Having reflected upon the fact that today was not be one the more mentally acute in my short existence, I turned away from the future bright men and trudged back to my hotel, leaving a mild haze of alcohol fumes in my wake and proceeded to have my third nap of the day. I needed my rest. I was about to head deep into the Cardamom forest with a garrulous Englishman named Nick. He assures me there are no landmines at the Khmer Rouge camp we are heading to. It’s virtually the last time this trip will be available in this form. A road is about to be pushed deep into the forest. Poachers and tourists will naturally follow, stripping the woods of the gibbons and other assorted wildlife which Nick assures me make the place magical. I’ll have to take him at his word regarding the land mines. As far as I can tell he has all of his limbs, unlike the motorbike driver who dropped me at the hotel today. Motorbike driver seems a curious occupational choice for the one-handed, but perhaps this guy had not managed to make the grade for entry into the Bright Man Centre. Either way, I’m off, deep into the woods. After just one more nap.

Hello Sir, You Want Bike?

Insert moto, Tuk Tuk, girl, boy, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, boom boom or a massage into this sentence and you have the ubiquitous greeting of the South East Asian short trip transport professional. Here is a man who, despite your initial doubts and flashbacks to high school physics classes about inertia and another, more vivid flashback to the clause in your travel insurance that says something fatal and non-recourse about motorcycle riding, will be able to ride you to your hotel on a 38cc moped with your 22kg pack stuffed between his legs and you on the back. With hope the high pitched keening noise you are making will be covered up by the wind whistling past your driver’s ears at 25km/h, or he will be too engrossed in finding out where you are from so he can sling the requisite stereotyped responses back at you.
“Ah, Australia, a dingo ate my baby,”
“What the...”
“Many kangaroo, many koala,”
“Um yeah, but getting back to Lindy Chamberlain,”
“You want to see my friend’ hotel?”
The appropriate answer here, if any, is no. Negotiating with moto rivers, stall holders and the guy who’s selling you the cocaine which is actually pure smack which will land you in the stinkiest cell of Bangkok’s worst prison for the next 25 years with a cell mate called Shirley – sorry, the negotiation is all about not having a negotiation at all.

This a fundamental rule not ignored, but seemingly alien to most foreign, or should I say, white, tourists to SEA. Getting back to the fundamental cornerstone of transport touting. “Hello my friend”. Think on this for just a while. How many of your friends recently offered to hook you up with an underage prostitute of either sex, or perhaps something in between, sell you heroin, or drive you to a restaurant for 25c. If you have good friends perhaps one out of the three might be acceptable. Two out of three and you need to start seriously thinking about the circles you move in, and if you have the whole triumvirate, well, I hope your parole hearing goes well next month. My friends come over to my house, often wearing shoes, drink red wine and talk about politics and how they’re really going to stop drinking so much when they hit their next major birthday. They rarely, if ever, sleep in hammocks strung between two poles of their major mode of transport and yell indiscriminately at passers-by.
It was with some amusement, having realised the place in my world where Tuk Tuk drivers resolutely reside, that I heard some foreign friends discussing how annoying the relentless touting was becoming for them after a couple of months in Cambodia. I realised then I had reached a state of peace, perhaps Zen. An equilibrium with the Tuk Tuk community which was symbiotic, and imbued with a mutual respect. I would ignore them, pay no heed to their cries of “ hello mister”, “hello friend”, “you like lady”, until that time that I did indeed want to go back to my hotel, get loaded on pure golden triangle number four heroin and get sucked off by a chimp. In the meantime they remained road noise. As ubiquitous, and as worthy of notice, as the road swishing by under your tires as you wind on down the road.

Having been alerted to the fact that not all travellers were as enlightened as I, I undertook to observe my fellow adventurers, and it is with some sympathy I recount the sad tale. Here were people, who, it seemed must have been in sore need of companionship. Were their lives so hollow, so bereft of human contact, that they had to fly all the way from Berlin to befriend this wizened little brown man who was about to bilk them out of an extra $US2 by feigning complete lack of understanding of the previously struck deal the moment they arrived at their hotel?
I had to sneak closer, and discern what these poor lost souls were actually talking about.
“You want moto...”
A slightly sunburned woman, about 50 years old, with tuckshop lady arms and stringy blonde hair and a beak nose, who had apparently stolen Elizabeth Taylor’s sunglasses, considered her reply.
“No well, actually we were thinking about doing some shopping and Trevor’s still in that DVD shop back there seeing if they have the third season of The Bill and then I think we’re just going to get some lunch.”
Oh dear. Two very bad mistakes here. One is a common misunderstanding, even in the West: that anyone actually gives a toss what you are doing, how you feel etc; haven’t you heard of pleasantries idiot? The second was engaging in the first place. It’s like the angry chimp at the zoo. Don’t make too much eye contact, otherwise poo will be flung. It’s a much more pleasant experience in south east Asia – very rarely involving poo - but one which almost inevitably ends with you buying some postcards from a child pretending to be crippled at a silver factory in a suburb of Bangkok even the locals haven’t heard about.
Unless the driver is one of the admittedly many who speak excellent English, all he heard from the aforementioned communication was “Shopping! DVD! Lunch!” It would be a statistical anomaly large enough that hordes of World Bank economists would descend upon this particular individual and study him for years if his relatives did not own at least one of these particular establishments, if not all three. (If you do track down this mythical individual, please contact World Bank headquarters at Geldnehmenstrasse 15, Geneva, or some such).
The resulting negotiation is somewhat akin to watching a cancer patient trying to resist being bundled out of a Ricky Gervais show by two burly security guards. A tenacity borne of poverty, entrepreneurialism and the promise of lunch, is always going to beat the inherent nature of the Western beast to be polite. Unless of course it’s an American in which case they’ll buy everything but then complain, and rejoice following a filling $US3 meal of steak and fries that they don’t have to tip in this hellish backwater.
I’ll close the door on that distressing scene right now. It’s enough to equip you with the tools necessary to avoid such a problem in the future.
1. Remind yourself that you have no friends in South East Asia: Should someone call out “Cameron England, journalist and resident of Australia” you should perk up your ears, and then politely remind them I have long since moved on. Otherwise, generally if someone is yelling at you that they are your friend, they are not.
2. Learn not to react: It’s like your little sister scaring you when you were a kid. If you jerk spastically and flail your arms around washing machine-style every time someone yells “hey you”, you’re going to need a chiropractor within a week and your trip will be ruined.
3. Make no eye contact: remember the metaphorical poo.
4. If you want to have a conversation, seek out the lonely slightly depressed looking single male traveller in the bar on Pub Street. He’s craving social interaction. The guy wearing flip flops and reclining on his moto has three or four friends he has spent most of the day giggling at stupid foreigners with. He doesn’t need your friendship, nor the details of your day.
And lastly 5: If you do indeed fall off the back of a moto, careening home drunk at 3am through the streets of Siem Reap, don’t tell your insurance company. They, also, do not want to be your friend.