Kampuchea

(Note regarding last post: I admit naive existence by my reaction to Poipet, of all border towns, and am duly humbled and impressed by y’all’s courage under fire. I remain in anticipation of genuine notoriety ahead!)

Lunch was a hearty bowl of steaming soup. I dug in. . . . Uh-huh, I don’t eat that {{taking out a pig knuckle}} . . . Mmm, chicken feet {{chuck}}. . . Hadn’t had innards in a while {{chuck}}. . . What-is–??–{{scrutinizing from different angles. . . chuck}} . . . By the time I was ready to start there were a few noodles left in my bowl and four dogs waiting expectantly at my feet. Meals are a Fear Factor challenge without the prizes. The psychology part can be overcome, it boils down to digestive prowess—and a good medical evacuation plan.

A third world state of affairs bypass logic for lottery in Kampuchea. I was looking for a friend’s place and passed a row of houses addressed 41, 9, 243, 245, 9 (in that sequence, and yes you saw 9 twice). After a sufficient amount of cursing I looked around, hoping to find a baraing (foreigner), because even English-speaking Khmers are little help. (For no apparent reason street names or currency denominations will just change.) Postcards: one person in the entirety of the country was delegated monopoly on the photo stocks here, and capturing the unrefined splendor of Cambodia was not his forte. Mail: don’t bother. Internet: user-resistant. ATMs: none. Bring all the money you will need into Cambodia with you and stuff it under the mattress against your better judgment. I was told by the bank teller to go “upstairs” when I flashed my ATM Visa card. After two dark flights of stairs and down a narrow musty labyrinth I came upon a small closet of an office with a bare light bulb, one desk, and one very small old man with a receipt book who told me in French that the wires are down and please come again NEXT WEEK. As in, I clarified, many DAYS from now? Oui, he nodded.

#!@%&!@#$

Transport: There are bus stops but no buses. There are no taxis. Most roads even in the capital city of Phnom Penh are unpaved. Stop lights are a senseless piece of adornment to be ignored at convenience. I still spazz a twitch when my motodup makes a left on red and plows intrepidly into the oncoming traffic. While walking I look alertly in ALL directions, not just BOTH ways, because all manner of wheeled transport hum right along every crack of space, kicking up thick clouds of dirt which I am convinced obstruct reason somewhat. Public transportation comprise motodups (drivers with motorbikes) and cyclos (bicycle-driven rickshaws)– good luck communicating in ANY language theirs or yours. In eagerness to earn as much cash as possible, they nod affirmatively when asked about a destination, then rocket halfway to Vietnam before you realize in panic that this navigationally-challenged psychopath has not a drop of clue where you just told him to go.

First impressions indeed at Poipet. Infrastructure is in hideous disrepair. I am not an engineer, but watching foundation being laid is a worrisome sight. I cringe every time a truck drives by and shakes the building I’m in. On a decrepit one-lane bridge in Kandal province, as I erred in apprehension over a cheery gust of wind, unsecured planks of wood or steel shifted about beneath our tires. Drivers tear through the narrow roads, passing on the left, the right, on the grass, between pedestrians and streetside stalls– with chickens and livestock scurrying out of the way. I must mention that fellow riders are belting out folk songs throughout these suicide jaunts, while my life flashes before my popped-out eyeballs and thoughts along the lines of “WE’RE-ALL-GONNA-DIE” cycle through my consciousness.

I never worried about medical insurance in the US or while traveling, but statistically in this raw environment I have a high probability of needing emergency evacuation to Singapore or Thailand at some point. Regulation is cockeyed. Valium and Cipla are available over-the-counter, but in the latest blip of attempt at regulation, you need a letter from the Ministry of Health to obtain migraine medicine (hello? prescription?). As a result, microorganisms have reached critical levels of resistance to the bastions of antibiotics straight out of the pharmaceutical pipelines. Hygiene: what’s that? (Try not to eat in Cambodia). Medical and clinical science education: not accredited (Kudos to whoever braves a root canal in Cambodia). I want to tattoo a credit card number on my forehead: “If found unconscious please medevac OUT of Cambodia PRONTO.”

The food is adequate (read: be afraid). It’s a different culinary experience to my street corner binges in Thailand. Were it not for the endless other elements in Khmer society vying for damage to my person, there would not be a second thought to snarfing what morsel crosses my path. However, with a maximum lifetime allowance in mind, I must budget my behavior accordingly. Many an unsuspecting digestive tract– sturdy ones at that– have been felled by the multitude surprises this cuisine has to offer, that I am loathe to challenge the fates quite yet. There are things in their food– THINGS— that Phnom Penh must boast a robust sanitation system. {{Whining, wringing fingers:}}} And the bathrooms, the bathrooms!– FINE latrines though they may be by local standards–you do not want to be that acquainted with them. So I sadly stick to things whose nutritional content has been heat-beaten out of it, and hencewith I’ve found Khmer preferences to run in the flavour vicinities of bitter, sour, and salty. {{{sigh}} Someday when intestinal difficulties move higher up my priority experiences of Kampuchea I shall endeavor to elaborate further on this– the cuisine, not its digestive repercussions.

At least I caught the cool season hereabouts Indochina at a mild 90+degrees, dry as a bone. I’m burnt like a rice farmer and am very often hot and sticky. I went for a haircut and my Khmer apparently came out as “take it all off” instead of “trim it just a wee bit”.

: –

Ah well, a new look for a new life.

For women, Cambodia is a shocking sweep back in time for misfortune of birth. Virtue is paramount: rape victims are forced into the sex industry for lack of options, thanks to unforgiving social stigmas. This attitude is so entrenched that girls will actually drop enrollment and proactively shop for brothels. Propriety dictates single women be chaperoned by a family member in social situations. And while wives are expected to be obedient and faithful, society encourages men to keep several bedmates. (I do not understand royal dynamics yet. I expect an openly gay King to liberalize a few things somewhat, but I won’t hold my breath).

All Khmers are survivors, and as with anyone who has undergone trauma, there is a gravity to their spirit. People as young as 30 bear psychological remnants of the Khmer Rouge purges. The genocide that tyrranized Democratic Kampuchea just three decades ago stripped the country of its entire educated population. The reign of terror ended only in 1998 with the death of Pol Pot, without justice meted out, leaving the country scarred and exhausted. Today over half of the population is under 14 years old. Literacy struggles around 30%. Cambodia ranks 130 out of 175 countries in the Human Development Index (HDI). It is a clean administrative slate hospitable to and eliciting a steady flow of aid, creating an NGO economy, from which of course corruption took firm hold. There is evidence of families pimping children out to beg, severing their limbs or pouring battery acid over their face, to better tug at the empathies and wallets of foreigners. Human trafficking, the slave trade, a child sex industry are all rampant. It is an international effort to curb the markets for abuse here. I still reduce to verge of tears when I’m approached by uniformed men with rifles demanding my passport in rapid language beyond my grasp, in areas where I’m the only baraing, because it is not so long ago that foreigners, especially US Americans, were terror targets. But I suspect these problems are the reason why I’m accosted.

Throughout all this we have the UN presence to thank for the fortressed neoclassical French villas which comprise the Boeng Keng Kang section of Phnom Penh, home to the expats. I cannot fault such havens amid abject poverty and the daily dose of heinous realities that blow right through the psyche. This country tears every foreigner away from known comfort zones. It is a lot rougher than I expected, and my travel trepidation level is daily readjusted. I thank my lucky stars for friends across the borders here who keep regular tabs on me. And a husband who can read logs like this and still remain eternally supportive.

First impression via point of entry is a curious introduction to a country. Express arrival through sterile gateways is had at the airport, with greeting that is composed and targeted. Would you like a Starbucks au lait, a shuttle to our white beach resorts, wine and dine at our five star establishments. How modern we are, let us show you (can you tell what parts of the world my travels take me to). The overland route goes through back doors, where a country is less prepared to receive guests, exposing social ills and systemic inadequacies, or perhaps better displaying an old world charm and raw beauty. Given time and energy, I attempt this passage.

And then there was Poipet.

The train ride from Bangkok to the border town of Aranyaprathet was uneventfully peaceful. With the tropical landscape rushing past my window, it was a tranquil start to the two-day journey. There I was able to hitch a ride to the border aboard a tour bus en route to Siem Riep and the premier destination in Cambodia, Angkor Wat. After the usual song and dance with immigration officials I crossed into Poipet and the Khmer Kingdom. (Overland border crossing is just the most paranoic encounter for me. The worst I expect is a fee scam. But what if they deny me entry? Or worse, confiscate my passport, my one internationally recognized proof of existence?).

And here it had to happen, a vicious assault of the worst kind. I was in a cafe with my adopted tour group pondering absently at the ache in my joints. Eight hours on an unpadded wooden seat can wreak havoc on the most tolerant constitution, more so for taller Westerners with less wiggle room for long legs. I always wonder what can pierce the everlasting good spirits of my 6’7″ husband and imagining Keith with me in those moments makes my heart smile.

Through this reverie a soft papery fluttering, too late, caught my attention. WELCOME to Kampuchea, prime real estate for the ubiquitous cockroach population of the large kind, equipped with the unfortunate mechanism of flight. The foul creature that fixated on me crawled for refuge down the front of my shirt as I flew into a fit. The next few moments were a blur until I snapped to sense and stopped, and found myself standing smack middle of upturned chairs, table, and parted crowd. A dirty little Khmer boy scampered after the creature, caught the lunch escapee in one hand, and dumped it into the fryer at the front of the cafe. Lordy if this isn’t a sign.

For my bright and cheery outlook on travel, I cannot find one good thing to say about that abominable hellhole this side of the planet. Poipet is a crossing point that opened to foreigners in 1998, and it instantly built up around the opportunities that presented. It’s described as a Wild West town, and the lawless atmosphere this implies is not exaggeration. Children cling to your sleeve and pursue handouts en masse, then kick your backpack as you walk away. Motorbike drivers crisscross insistently in front of you, undeterred by NO in Thai, Khmer, English. A growing mafia with the singular objective of scamming a deal aggressively harass travelers and are outright belligerent when refused. . . . And that is the tamer part of the scenario. Where normally I’d push positively onward, in this town my optimism reduced to irritation then alarm as darkness approached. I was actually disappointed to the brink of tears to see the last foreigner leave for Siem Riep and was tempted to talk my way again onto one of their groups.

I wanted OUT of Poipet ASAP, but the next means out to the part of the country I was bound for did not leave until morning. In my years of living in Harlem or traveling new cities, I’d never felt my sixth sense buzzing, not to be ignored, even in the dead of night, like it did in Poipet in broad daylight. I bought my bus ticket, hurried to my room, jammed the nightstand against the door, and rearranged the layout to maximize my advantage in case of intrusion. I lined up what belongings I could use as a weapon on the bed, near reach. It’s the kind of place where you keep your clothes on and sleep alert with your hand wrapped around a sharp object ready to spring the commotion rather than wait for it to happen to you. I am forever thankful to a new pal who kept calling/texting to check on me, offering to pay my taxi back to Bangkok should I decide to return “home”. He rescued my sanity that day and night. {{{You’re the bestest, Nirmal–yet again!}}}

The sun awoke over Kampuchea with the brightest crimson glare, and I concurred most crossly. I found to my complete disgust at the BUS station that I was traveling via PICKUP truck. While it is not uncommon hereabouts, balancing precariously on the sides of the flatbed is a recipe for pain. Besides that I was the only female of fourteen riders none of whom could I communicate with, and besides THAT it is a dusty nine-hour ride to Phnom Penh, which is WHY I wanted a BUS, with MANY people, PADDED seats, and AIR CONDITIONING. Of course that ticket man was nowhere to be found at 6am. So while waiting to leave, all manner of Poipet’s biting insects descended on me. Expletives I never knew I had in arsenal erupted to surface and hawkers converged when it registered that I wasn’t Thai or Khmer. Finally, half an hour past the appointed departure time we left. On the way out we passed a row of thatched-roof abodes that might’ve passed for the cutest stilt houses were it not for the fact that they were IN Poipet. Do you know they even had the NERVE to erect a sign entreating travelers to Please Come Again– lousy filthy &%$@! {{{fists in air}}}.

NOTHING in the Khmer countryside was alluring; it was barren and lifeless with an occasional lone coconut or palm in the distance, even the jagged rocky excuses for elevations looked wasted. The roads were in HORRIBLE condition, with massive craters the size of small Pacific islands marring our path so the truck drove a swerving tango, rattling my senses ad infinitum. On the flatbed were sacks of pineapples, and when I fell on one from a jolt of exuberant driving across a series of chasms I nearly flipped myself over the edge in haste to avoid impaled death by pineapple. In the middle of a rickety one-lane bridge as I erred in apprehension over a cheery gust of wind, our driver stopped, got out, and rearranged an UNBOLTED plank of steel to cover a gaping hole that an entire vehicle can plunge through to the muddy waters not a very near distance below. Finally I had it, anything was better than this. So I got off at the side of the road and flagged down the next runt of transportation that chugged along, where I squeezed between a pregnant lady who needed all the space she could hog, and her sack of durian and jackfruit (another spiky stinky blob of a fruit straight out of a science fiction scene). Unbelievable. Reality just sucked at that point so I forced a nap.

First impressions indeed–I am now here, in this broken country with a tragic recent past, I’m getting a new cellular number, I’m searching for a new address.

By the way, for those of you in touch with my parents, I appreciate not a word of these scenarios coming around their way! While I love them dearly enough, the wildest adventure of a paper cut sends them reeling into a doting frenzy, so my placid Tales of Asia back home are benignly uneventful, which pleases them. I’d rather not shatter their notion of my posh care and accommodation with a college friend in Bangkok whom they’ve come to know and trust. {{I shudder the thought if they knew the truth about you, Doualy!}}

Cambodia: “Logic” in My New Life (or Lack Thereof)

Cambodia: Poipet Border Crossing