Relaxed in Phnom
For a small-feeling city of only 2.5 million citizens, Phnom Penh has become one of my favorite places. I woke up the day after the Killing Fields and S.21 prison/museum knowing that it would be a way better day. Can only go up from yesterday. Cambodians are truly the most humble, gracious and happy people I have found on my trip. They are a lot like the Vietnamese except Vietnam is at a cranking, crazy pace compared to this calm city. I have never seen people so comfortable on the back of the motodups – small motorbike taxis – no Mom I never take them and I always wear a helmet. They’re small bikes, but smaller people with four adults sitting comfortably or even two side-saddle girls behind the driver – they face away from each other.
I was astonished to be in the pool at the Kabiki hotel and noticed just bird chirping and very little city noise. Bangkok’s constant noise is not totally appreciated for its volume until one escapes it. It is cooler here than Bangkok, but that is splitting hairs. Main feature of the weather is high humidity and thunderstorms threatening and hitting multiple times per day. I’m still sweating out of control, but acclimatizing more each day and I am starting to enjoy the heat and water.
Tonight I sat out on my balcony over-looking the alley. As it grew darker, I realized there is almost no difference between here and much of Latin America. I even see people regularly who could be from Central or South America. Same thing I saw in reverse in the Americas. Oddly, Cambodia is not a homogenous society looks-wise. I’m not sure if I commented on this in Thailand, but I was very surprised by the variation in appearance between the northern Thais and those from the south. Basically, it has been a melting pot of India to China. Vietnam is a lot less variable. I assumed Cambodia would be like Vietnam, but it seems to be even more complex than Thailand. Over the past week, I have seen the most beautiful women from Latin America, Mediterranean, Arab, Indian and Asian countries and they were all Cambodian. The street scenes and the home scenes that I have witnessed are very much like being in Mexico City or Lima.
The city streets of Phnom Penh are the most interesting I have ever seen. First, the roads are full of motorbikes and many of those are pulling a cart and that cart is loaded to the sky. Especially outside of the city, the local matatu service is a large oxcart behind a motorcycle and the seats are boards across the cart. I tried to get a definite number of people, but I was too busy gawking, I would estimate upwards of 40 can fit. Remember the bit about how many pygmies can you stuff in a pickup? As far as I can tell, the Cambodians can out pack the Ba’Aka. Plus they’ll include three motorbikes (strapped on the back), a dozen bags of grain (under the people on the top of the pickup – a cage below and open to the sky on top) and a few live animals as well. They have motorbikes in the middle of a wood frame which has a dozen bunches of bananas hanging. The bananas seem to ripen quickly driving around town. Many women carry things on their heads similar to Africa.
I have seen a lot of kids not going to school. This is one of the poorest countries I have visited (lots of NGOs and other groups… coincidence?), but I would say Phnom Penh is one of the best values that I have seen. You can go really low here all the way up to very classy places and all are a good deal for their level. I believe the best service I have found anywhere is Cambodia. They really care about their jobs and taking care of others and that has shown with every person I have met. I had one driver take by tuk-tuk on two daytrips. He liked walking with the kids on Mekong Island. The next day we went sixty kilometers out to see Oudong which is a mountain with many stupas and other religious structures. The tuk-tuk had two tire blow-outs. Both times we stoped right in front of a tire repair shop. Amazing? Not really, you see the air compressors every few meters along the roads around Phnom Penh. They usually carry a few glass coke bottles full of petrol as well. Oudong was fantastic, but the best part was seeing some very nice life pass by in each village and out in the country. I saw the tuk-tuk driver today and he was genuinely sad to see that I was leaving. They really are fantastic people.
At the second blow-out scene (no blood) I walked across the street to a temple (possibly more temples than tire repair shops). Some monks came out to talk to me. Many Cambodian men become monks after secondary school. They leave monkhood to join the rest of society after they learn about Buddha, but some remain for life. I saw a lot of orange robes in Cambodia. When I was at the main stupa a crowd started to form. Then a group of monks arrived. We did three revolutions around the stupa as a group while chanting. I remained silent and smiled back at all the people smiling at me. My motordude gave me some lotus flowers and incense which I left against the stupa as an offering when everyone else did the same. We kneeled on the granite after the revolutions and the monks read from some scripture with the head monk reading and the rest responded. It was a beautiful and unplanned surprise. There is another moment like this one in Thailand with Pamela that I have not written about. We were in a little village out towards Burma when we noticed a party of people coming down the street. We stopped and got out. I thought it was a wedding, but it turns out that a boy in a raised seat is being initiated. They were parading him before the town in full regalia. I was taking pictures when one walked up to me and I figured they were going to ask me to stop (this is unlikely in Thailand, Cambodia or Vietnam where it seems everyone likes to be photographed). Instead, we were asked to join the dancers in front of the marching band. They grabbed our hands and pulled us in. Then they smeared white stuff all over our faces – Pamela looked quite cute – and we danced. The moment soon ended and we parted. I told Pamela that was the five minutes that defined Thailand trip and one of The Moments of my trip. Same with the Buddhists at Oudong.
I hope Brazzaville, Congo can put itself together as well as Phnom Penh. The architecture and roadways are quite nice with everything from Colonial period through Art Deco and modern. I see a lot of the same facades here that exist in Brazzaville due to the French although I don’t see bullet holes and larger here in PP. The city is basically an island around the Sap and Mekong Rivers. As soon as you get out of the city, there are waterways everywhere especially now in high water season. I visited Mekong Island via tuk-tuk, ferry and then walking. I picked up about fifteen kids along the way. They were truly nice and funny and we had a good walk. The families on this island supplement their incomes by working a loom below their homes (the homes as normal in Southeast Asia are stilted). They were making some beautiful silk cloth so I bought it hoping someone in Nairobi can make something nice for Pamela. Luckily for the Cambodians they got rid of the French before the colonialists changed them. Or at least before they put a bunch of French attitude into them as in Francophone Africa. Thankfully, the French did leave some nice cuisine behind. I had some wonderful red snapper in spicy coconut sauce and duck confit with foie gras at Lyon d’Or and Open Wine restaurants – fantastic.
I left Phnom Penh and Cambodia sadly today. I think it ranks up there as one of the best places of my trip. Maybe I went into it with lower expectations that were outstripped by a long way. I don’t think I have ever shaken the “eat all your food, there are starving children in Cambodia” bit from childhood. I’m no longer thinking about Cambodia and starving children or genocide. Way more to the place than that. I decided to take a boat down the Mekong Delta to Vietnam. I arrived in Chau Doc in time to take a motorbike up to Sam Mountain for views before sunset. Tomorrow I will go out on a pirogue to see the floating and stilted homes on the river as well as a floating market. I decided to change this trip quite a bit and spend more time in Mekong Delta instead of being in Saigon and Hanoi. This change may also jeopardize going to Sapa in the mountains northwest of Hanoi, but I like this river life a lot.
Tags: Asia, Cambodia
vagabondrick
Dear Rick – Ive been without e-mail access for almost a month now, but am back. Loved your accounts