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.