Escape From Cambodia

Escape from Cambodia.

I tried to sneak out of Cambodia. Well I sort of did, but  the real story is not nearly as  cool as that last sentence.
We're not there yet.

Kampot/Kep

After getting off the ferry from Koh Rong island, Pru,  CaxMee and I got on a van headed to the old French colonial city of Kampot. After squeezing 17 (not  an exaggeration) people into an 10 person van, we took off for the  most uncomfortable 2 hour ride of my life.

In Cambodia, sometimes they have a makeshift running of the bulls on the highway when some farmer loses control of his cows. I managed to take a really crappy picture of the event.

Also, due to the lack of "real" gas stations, locals fill up old Pepsi and Coke bottles with gasoline, and sell  them off the side of the road. A 5 year old filled up our van as his Papa watched on. "One day you will inherit this business, my son", I imagined his father saying.

Kampot is a small town located on a big river. It's a quiet, chill place to stay, and was probably the most physically active  town in Cambodia. Every 3 blocks there was either a volleyball sandpit, soccer fields or basketball courts. And they were all full with men and boys playing.

We watched a few minutes of some volleyball game that seemed to matter a lot to the locals. The entire lot was  filled with men watching the two teams play, while women were completely absent, except under some shade  in the corner making food (no joke). I wish I could make jokes about how short, slow and awful these guys were at volleyball, but JESUS they were good. Actually good. So  instead we watched and tried to figure out which side the locals were cheering for.

This is some metal billboard with a really old rusty advertisement for condoms. I assume it was trying to show that eventually, condoms can grow arms and legs and high five you.

That first night we went to a local bar and competed in a heated pub quiz. We lost, miserably, and the winning team got free beer. The generous victors however, did not like fun or beer, so they left and we drank it all.

In every city I go to, there are informative brochures  and booklets about the city with maps that detail sights and activities for tourists. We started reading one of these pamphlets about Kampot and were astonished  by all of the facts! For instance the entire town is built on an active volcano! Also, the town was originally designed with a system of canals and channels that had to be navigated by boat, like Venice, but those have disappeared due to drought! Additionally, while all of Cambodia uses the US dollar as a currency, Kampot  is soon switching  to the Euro! There were so many fun facts that we started reading them aloud to each other. We were amazed to find out that this tiny town had an Apple store and an IKEA! Then Pru read out another fact: "Kampot is larger, in size and population, than the city of London." We stare at each other and then at the ox-cart that was coming down the dirt road. We had been Rick-rolled by a jokester and his pamphlet. Now that we realized it was fake, it seemed obvious that NONE of the above mentioned"facts" could possibly be real. But these booklets were EVERYWHERE in Kampot. Well played Kampot, touche.

I realize this  isn't interesting, but don't take toilet "flushers" for granted. In most of south-east Asia, there is a toilet (bring your own tp) and next to it, a bucket with water and a bowl or pail. When you're done, there is no "flushing." Instead you scoop up water with the pail and dump it into the toilet bowl. Rinse and repeat.

For all you Breaking Bad fans out there: do you wish the series still lived on? Well good news, I have found definitive proof  that Heisenberg has simply  moved his Methamphetamine empire to Cambodia.

Kep

About one hour from Kampot, there is  the Crab fishing  capital of Cambodia, Kep. Try to remember this because one day, someone reading this will be on the final question of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and  that question will undoubtedly come up. You're welcome, and if you're reading this after winning, the money has changed you. I  want my old friend back.

Pru and I rented a scooter and rode gangsta style all the way to Kep. And by gangsta style, I mean we were safe and wore stylish helmets.

In Kep, the men fish the crab using traps, and then bring them back to shore where the women sort them out according to size and put rubber bands around their claws. We had some grilled crab at a market restaurant, and it was delicious. Four whole crabs for $7, and I'm pretty sure we got overcharged.

That crab market is also where I tried Durian, the fruit. It is considered a delicacy in south-east Asia. It's smell is so repugnant that it is outlawed in most pubic places, including the Bangkok metro and sky train.
So I bought one to try. The texture   is not pleasant. It is sticky, and yellow, but soft as well. The smell, isn't as bad as I was expecting, but it was definitely very strong. Like sniffing a rotten rose. Or when you sniff something that doesn't necessarily smell good, so you cringe when you initially smell it, but then find yourself smelling it again. It's sort of intoxicating. So then I tried it. Uhm, I guess I just don't get it. It tastes strong and the texture, sucks. The taste is neither pleasant nor bad. It tastes  similar to eating a rotten mango... that costs as much as 10 fresh mangos. It just doesn't make sense.

There was a giant blue crab statue in the harbor, that had this plaque as an explanation. What I found hilarious was the elaborate, glorious, and epic date  on which the statue was constructed: "Inaugurated on Tuesday, the 13th Day of the Waning Moon of Kartika Month of the Year  of the Dragon 4th year Cycle B.E. 2556 ............or December 11th 2012."

On my last night in Kampot with my new friends, CaxMee stayed in so Pru and I went out on the town. Had some dinner and some drinks. The place we ate had a  cool setting, and then some sort of open mic live music show started, so we stuck around for a while longer. About 1 hour in, the dude in charge of choosing  who goes on stage next, was going table to table asking if anyone wanted to strum a few chords on guitar. Let me set the scene for you: we were in a Cambodian Indian food restaurant surrounded by hippies who were still living in the 60s. We had just sat through an hour of (good and mellow) acoustic songs. Which was awesome, I really enjoyed it.

The guy comes up to our table, "Hey mates, one of you guys want to play something for us?"
"Oh no thanks" we both replied.
"Awh come on, he can strum some guitar while you sing a song" he said, before asking "Do you know any songs?"
So I half jokingly said "Oh yeah, I know all the words to Stan by Eminem."
"Perfect, I'll play the melody and you can rap it" he says walking away.

So that's how I came to rap a song about a dude committing suicide while murdering his pregnant girlfriend, in front of 40 people. They loved it and I stepped off the stage, sweating profusely.

On the drunken walk back to our guesthouse, I spotted a roundabout with a statue in the middle. So I  did  the only logical thing and rode it like bucking horse.

We ended up going to some bar that let the patrons play whatever music they wanted, so I introduced Kampot to swing dancing and country music. Then I passed  out  and woke up to take my bus to Phnom Penh.

Phnom Penh

This is the capital of Cambodia. Most tourists go there to visit the genocide museums and to see the killing fields. It's actually sort of depressing and not fun so I'll resume it quickly.

But first, here's a fun picture of locals burning fake paper copies of $100 bills! It was the Chinese New year, so it must be some sort of tradition. When I asked a local why they did it, he smiled ad said "yes!" Now you know.

From 1975-1979, Cambodia was ruled by the bloodthirsty dictator of the Khmer Rouge named Pol Pot, who exterminated 1/4 of the country's population. The two main memorials in the city are the S-21 detention center and the killing fields. S-21 was an old high-school converted into a torture center and the killing fields were nothing more than fields where they buried thousands of people in mass graves.

These places are ridiculously eerie, due manly to the fact that everything is still there. Nothing  has changed. In S-21 they still actually have the chains in the cells.

The dirty torture beds are still in their original rooms, and you can just stroll in and out of there. The only thing they did was gather all of the skulls and put them on display.

Apparently, of the 20,000 prisoners that passed through this particular detention center, only 7 survived. Four are still alive today, and they have all written books. What was very strange to me was that these 4 men all have booths set up in the courtyard of the prison. They sit there and sell their books to tourists, or charge them to take pictures with them. These 4 weren't killed because they were deemed "useful" because they could fix machinery or paint. I sat back and watched a couple of interactions between them and a group of tourists accompanied by their guide. The old man, either doesn't speak English, or pretends not to be able to. He gets a deeply humble and sad look on his face, and goes up to every single tourist bowing down very low and saying some soft words in Khmer. All this while, the guide is reminding the tourists of what this man went through and how much he suffered....he pauses and then says that they can buy his book and take a picture with him for money. Mostly  all of them comply and walk off with books and pictures of them and their Cambodian survivor. The old man, now alone with his assistant, immediately ceases to be sad and gloomy. They both laugh and talk, while the old man adds his newly acquired cash to his pocketful of $100 bills (I actually saw this)! Then when a new group approaches, he resumes his sad and gloomy act.

It all just felt wrong somehow.

Even though they aren't meant to be funny, the Cambodians put signs up that would seem obvious, but instead offer comic relief; it's much needed. This sign was to remind you that mass murder happened here, so please refrain from laughing and looking creepy.

My second stop that day was "The Killing Fields."
They are pretty much just a collection of mass graves.
Except, most of them have either not  been excavated, or only partially excavated. This means that every time when it rains, some of the surface dirt is eroded and things start to surface. Every month the workers of the memorial gather the pieces of clothing, bone fragments and teeth that rise to the surface. But only once a month. So when I was walking through the field, I actually found some teeth. It's creepy and sad, so my day in Phnom Penh was not the most joyous.

Again, the Cambodians can't help themselves and at the entrance of the genocide museum, they have a sign to remind  you not to enter with hazardous, common, everyday items. Such as hats, cell phones from the 90's, and hand grenades.

When you exit the killing fields, feeling humbled and somber, you are approached by friendly TukTuk drivers who aggressively ask you if you would like to go blow up a living cow with a bazooka. This is not a joke.
But I'm not into killing things just for the fun of it...plus  it cost $300 and for that price I could buy a Cambodian for 3 months.

That night was much more fun! It turns out that Hugo (guy from Paris) and Pru (girl from England) had both arrived separately, but equally (Jim Crow jokes anyone?) to Phnom Penh.

We met up and had some dinner Cambodian style.
This means you go to the night market, find the food stalls and get pretty much anything you want to eat for about $3. Then you take off your shoes and sit down on a thin bamboo mat to eat.

Inexplicably, Thailand and Cambodia are in love with the cartoon Angry Birds. So some of the food you can buy, is deep fried Angry Bird fish spam. I think they grind up fish and mold it into various forms and colors, and then deep fry it. It's not bad, but while the majority of the shapes are made to look like shrimp or fish, there is one that is just Angry Birds. Strange fruit....

They also sell chicken eggs. Locals love that stuff. No big deal, right? We eat eggs all the time, delicious! Except the eggs westerners  eat are not fertilized.
For those of you who don't think about chicken sex all day long, a female chicken will lay an egg, regardless of whether or not a Cock has sex with her. If the Chicken doesn't get no lovin', then the egg is what we consider "normal" and we eat it. But if the chicken has sexy time with the cock, then that egg will have a baby chicken growing inside, and will eventually hatch.
Except the Cambodians don't let it hatch. They wait until it is juuuuust about ready to hatch, and then they take the egg and boil it. And eat it.
Now I just can't bring myself to try one, because I honestly think it would make me gag, but EVERY single western person I met that has tried it, LOVES them. Once you eat a chicken fetus, I guess you can't stop.

Fried chicken egg con chick fetus. Yummy.

I really wanted to try a "Dr. Fish Massage" thing.
You may have seen them in big cities. These large, open-top, fish tanks are filled with little minnows. You stick your feet in and they all "attack" your feet and eat all the tiny dead pieces of skin. So Pru and I tried it while Hugo supervised us. We had a beer during these 30min with fish eating my feet. But it's okay, the fish are Doctors, it says so on the sign. The first 10-15 min is almost unbearably weird and ticklish. But after that, your feet get used to it and it's actually quite nice.

We ended the night by going to a hooker bar. A prostitute bar, if you will. We went because if you go with a girl (we had Pru) the hookers ignore you. So we just had some beers and played pool while we observed the old white men (and one black dude from Florida) that got prostitutes.

This bar is pretty much a brothel. You go in, buy a drink, and then some 18-25 year old Cambodian girl comes up to you and starts speaking to you like a stripper. They literally sound like the hookers from the movie Full-Metal Jacket. You know the line, "$5, sucky sucky, soldier boy, me love you  long time." So imagine that voice.

"Oh you so handsome."
"You so strong."
They laugh at everything you say, "You so funny, buy me drink."

And then the dirty old men disappear into the night with a girl they had been drinking with for the last few hours. I don't know why, but something tells me that not all of those men were handsome, strong, and funny.

Siem Reap

The next morning, February 1st, I left my friends again and caught a bus to Siem Reap, my last stop in Cambodia.

This is a good time for me to talk about what locals wear in Cambodia. For some reason, the women and little kids all wear pajamas. ALL DAY EVERYDAY. Most of these have very western themes and prints on them, like bugs bunny or AngryBirds.  My theory is that when Western stores can no longer sell loads of outdated items of clothing, they ship them to Cambodia  and trade them for a couple gypsy souls and some rice.

Also, in Thailand and Cambodia, they all bleach their skin. They try to get as white as possible. Which of course isn't possible for anyone, except of course the late, great Michael Jackson. So when I try and buy anything at the store, it's all "whitening." Soap, lotion, sunscreen: they are all whitening. While westerners are obsessed with getting as tan as possible, these people avoid getting darker at all costs. They all wear these huge shade hats, that have a face covering that only shows their eyes. Staying white is one of the reasons why, all the locals wear long sleeves and pants, even though it is 90 degrees out. The other reason  is much simpler, they're cold. This is winter for them. It must be hell in summer. I tried to explain to a local that where I'm from, rain falls from the sky as  powdered ice cubes (they don't know snow) and that it is -30 degrees most of winter. They try to understand, but it's impossible to explain, so they just stare at me like I'm an extraterrestrial.

At first I thought they were crazy, but it is only a matter of perspective. They do with their skin, what we do with our teeth.

I got to Siem Reap on the main night of the Chinese new year. This meant that since I never book anything in advance, it took me 3 hours to find a hotel room. I finally found one and went to sleep, exhausted after walking around with my backpack for that long.

Siem Reap is the city where the ruinous Temples of Angkor Wat are located. You may think you have no idea what those are, but you do. Those are the temples where they filmed  "Tomb Raider" and "Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom" (not to be confused with the successful remake, "In Diana Jones and The Temple of Poon").

There are two ways to get to Angkor Wat from the city. Either you rent a bicycle and ride there, or hire a TukTuk for the day and have him drive you around to the most popular temples. I thought riding a bike would be fun.

I don't know why I remember this, but a long time ago, I remember one of my best friends's dad, Mr. Heiss, told me never to rent the cheap bicycles overseas. So naturally, when the shop offered me a $2 town bike or a $3 mountain bike, I of course chose the town bike. The entire road there was flat, so I figured I didn't need the big bike with the big tires...

It's a 24 kilometer ride. 8km there, 8 within the temples, and 8 back. Of course when  you get lost a little, it turns into a 30 km ride. Which isn't bad actually....

Six kilometers in, my front tire blows. I come to a halt and curse at my tire and at the shop for selling me a shitty bike, the words of Mr. Heiss haunting me in my head.  I had two choices: either I turn around and get a new bike, or I stop acting like a little bitch and tough it out.

So I  decided that flat front tire or not, I was going to finish this  temple tour. Riding on a flat front tire feels like riding a bike uphill in sand. And since I actually was riding in sand some of the time, it made things quite difficult.
I  got to see 2 or 3 sweet temples, but decided to cut it short because it was 98 degrees that day, and I was sweating like a Chinese kid in a Nike factory.

I did give a monkey a banana. And chilled with another one who had stolen a coconut. Never trust a monkey with a Coconut.

About 4 hours after I had started my bike tour,  I was halfway through. I was cranky and exhausted, so I called it a day and started on the 15km to go back to town.

Then the tire went from flat, to the rim having eaten through the rubber. So now, every half rotation, my tire would be riding on rims. At this point, I was sweating like a migrant worker in a strawberry patch. To top it all off, my bike was now making a high-pitched screeching noise, like the brakes on a freight train. Everyone on the side of the road, or passing me in TukTuks would just stare at me and point to my tire, to bring it to my attention. Like I didn't know I was riding on rims. Some Chinese tourists on the  back of a TukTuk took a picture of my misery.

As if the gods were mocking me, a group of tourists on an organized bike tour, overtake me riding huge mountain bikes and speed past me, ringing their gay little bells every time one of them passed me.

This demoralized me. But for some reason, I got angry. I thought to myself, what would Lance Armstrong do? So I injected myself with steroids,  created a foundation for curing cancer, and confessed all of my sins to Oprah. After I was done with that, I sped up on my rickety bike and cruised past the 15 tourists and their tour guide, screeching like fingernails on a chalkboard the whole way.

Knowing Lance would be proud of me, I used the surge of adrenaline to power my way back to town. I made it to a seven eleven, completely exhausted, over heated and dangerously dehydrated. I sat on the floor in front of the AC, drinking a Gatorade for a solid 15 minutes, while the clerk lady laughed at me.

That night I met some people in my hostel and we planned to go to the temples in the morning, with a TukTuk driver this time. This was to happen after a glorious victory by the Broncos in the SuperBowl. Instead, I had to watch the game at 6:30AM with a German guy who was rooting for the SeaHawks. It was awful.

But  then afterwards, five of us took 2 TukTuks and went around all of the main temples.

In one of them, I found a deep dark hole that was quite obviously the place where Bruce Wayne became Batman. It even had bats.

I even found his Cambodian Batmobile later.

Optimus prime was also there, disguised as a TukTuk.

In that overgrown temple, Buddha manages to keep an eye on you....

Here's a zoom in of that same picture.

The ruins are huge, amazing and fun because every room you walk into, looks like it could literally be booby trapped. This room had holes in the wall, as if arrows were going to be fired upon you the second the threshold was crossed.

This photo is a good way to describe Cambodia.

We all went out that night on Pub Street, but we started off in a sweet bar where the entire floor was covered in sand. The bar had funny bathroom signs and the coolest drink  that had somehow escaped my knowledge.

The  drink was called the grenade. You fill a beer cup with a bit of red bull. Then one shot glass you fill with Jaeger, and the   other with another liquor. Then you position the two shot glasses inside the glass, so that when you pull the top shot glass, it's like pulling the pin on a grenade and the Jaeger falls into the red bull. Clever.

Other highlights of the night included me finding a Wyoming license plate and eating a snake (tastes like fish and chicken, it's strange).

The next morning, after going to bed at 4AM, I was supposed to catch a bus back to Thailand at  7:20AM. I slept through my alarm and woke up at 8. Panicking, I threw everything into my backpack, and ran downstairs. Drunk luck is real; my bus hadn't left yet. I got in and passed out until I reached the Cambodian border.

I was still in a sleepy hungover haze, and simply follow the people in front of me to get in line at the immigration checkpoint. As the officer calls me over, I hand him my passport. He gives it back to me along with a piece of paper to fill out.  I was supposed to fill it out, and then get my passport stamped, so that I could legally leave the country. . .

Yeah, I didn't understand that. I simply take my passport and the piece of paper he gave me, and leave. I just walk right past all of the officers and walk towards Thailand. About 30 feet from the Thai checkpoint (I was now in no-man's land between the two countries) a fat, sweaty, out of breath Cambodian officer comes running up from behind me. He had been running (waddling) behind me the whole time yelling "Brother!" Though I had actually heard this, I never thought it was directed towards me, so I never stopped or turned around. He was relieved and somewhat dying when he finally caught me (I was walking, he was "sprinting").

I followed him back and got a stern talking to. I nearly got sent to the principal's office. Then, I legally left the country and  entered Thailand, which, compared to Cambodia, felt like New York City.