Phnom Penh,
Cambodia
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Cambodia. Today I'm going to Cambodia. I have to admit, I'd first learned about from the Angelina Jolie/Clive Owen movie "Beyond Borders" last year, but ever since seeing it I've wanted to go. So of course, when I learned that I had the opportunity to visit the country on Semester at Sea, I had to go. I woke up a little disappointed because I really did want to spend more time in Vietnam, but I can't have everything, can I? I got up early and had breakfast and packed, which I hadn't managed to do the night before as I'd intended because I laid down on my bed to just "close my eyes" before packing but ended up not opening them again until morning. So when I woke up early, I had breakfast and packed before meeting my group in the Union to board the busses. We drove to the airport and checked in before waiting an hour to board the plane. At the last minute (meaning I'd already gone through the second security checkpoint and given my ticket to the attendant on the other side of the gate between security and the waiting area at the gate), I saw a place where you could purchase stamps so I ran back through security to buy them. The woman didn't quite understand why I wanted them, because I didn't want to send them; I just wanted to have them to put in my journal. I asked her the price and she told it to me, but then went on to help another man, followed by another. I had to flag her down and tell her I wanted to purchase three, and she looked at me again with a tilt of the head and proceeded to help a third person who had come up behind me. Behind me perhaps isn't the best word, because it was a circular counter so people gathered all around her rather than in a line. So she wasn't looking past me to the next people in line, but I knew what I wanted and she didn't seem to want to give my three stamps to me. And because of this, because it took me ten minutes to do a task that should have taken about three, I had to wait in a long security line (they let you through by flight, and the flight to Phnom Pen had finished and security had moved on to Singapore) and the attendant had to come and find me in line, usher me through again and herd me down the stairs to get on the trolley to board the plane. I thought about it, and I don't think it was one of those situations in which I was an ignorant American with this woman. She took dollars, she sold stamps, she understood what I wanted. But of course, I am the foreigner so there might have been a step in the process that I missed. At any rate, I made the trolley wait. We took the short drive over and boarded the plane for our fifty-minute flight to Phnom Pen. We landed in Cambodia and had to go through the process of getting Visas in the airport, which required us to stand in three lines before we were cleared. All of us collected around the ATM because the rest of the country doesn't have ATMs, and then we boarded our busses to take us to the hotel. The city reminded me a lot of Vietnam with a little bit more rural landscapes and rivers along the sides of the road. Bikes and motorcycles were just as popular in the city, as were street vendors and rickety shops along the sidewalks. We had to drive about twenty minutes from the hotel to our airport, where we were served drinks as we waited for our room keys. Right outside the hotel was a park on a hill, with temples and elephants and lots of locals that Becca and I really wanted to explore, but the only free time we were going to have in Phnom Pen was the forty-five minutes between arriving at the hotel and leaving for our visit to the National Museum. Becca and I got our keys, ran to our rooms, threw our stuff down, and ran across the street to the hill. Our tour guide had warned us that we would see a lot of amputees around the country, from all of millions of landmines, two million of which are still unexploded. And they were indeed everywhere. They slept in carts, on blankets in the park, on the steps up to the temples, or just on the sidewalks. We ran across the street to the park, an uneven-stoned walkway that wound around the large hill in the middle. We passed more people hanging out relaxing, others selling books and postcards, or attempting to sell books and postcards, beggars, women carrying their babies to evoke sympathy, or worse little children carrying, presumably, their siblings. We passed two temples in our five-minute walk along the walkway. I'm sure we would have seen more had we continued, but we were stopped by the elephant. Just like in Malaysia, you could pay to feed him or ride him, but since we didn't have a lot of time we just got some bananas to feed him. This guy was a lot more animated than Lasah, our elephant in Langkawi. I was given a bunch of bananas, attached to the stem, and I fed him all the bananas, his trunk tickling my hand, and I held the stem in my hand and walked away with it because I wasn't supposed to feed it to him. Well, he didn't like that very much, that I still had food that I wasn't giving to him because he reached out for me with his trunk. Of course, I loved it. I just ate it up. Elephants! I love elephants, and I love it even more when their trunks come after me. It was like when my dog used to nuzzle me when she knew I had food, but she snapped. The elephant wasn't really a threat, even though he was a couple tons and easily could have done a lot of damage if he wanted to. Ironic. After we fed the big guy and took pictures, we ran back the bus, or as good as I could with the huge spaces in the uneven brick sidewalk. I feel like I had to stare at my feet the whole time so I wouldn't trip. We got on the bus and took a five minute drive to the National Museum. It dropped us off on the corner, and as soon as we got off we were bombarded, for the first time of countless times for the rest of the stay in Cambodia, by children trying to sell us bracelets, Lonely Planet books for Cambodia, and postcards. They just come right up to you and plant themselves in front of you, and just like in India, telling them no doesn't work. I don't flinch as much as I used to, just ignoring them and walking away, saying nothing. There's still some part of me that thinks it's a rude thing to do, but sometimes you've got no other choice. If you interact with them at all, it's at least two to three minutes before they'll leave you alone, even if you do buy something. You buy one thing, and they'll find something else to offer you, even if it's more of the same product. Becca, Matt and I made it through the sea of children and women with their babies, pointing at their mouths with one hand and the other wrapped around the child in their arms, and into the dirt walkway of the beautiful stone museum with pointed roofs with snakelike designs on the edges. We took pictures with elephant statues in the lush gardens out front before going inside to look at the sandstone carvings and statues in the rooms of the building surrounding a courtyard with four ponds of fish and a statue of a Hindu god at the center. We wandered for about an hour, looking at the statues and images of gods, beautifully and precisely etched in the sandstone before we went outside and fed the fish. Becca has a thing for animals so she bought four packets of fish food so we could feed the fish in every pond. We still had another hour before we had to get back on the bus, so we decided to walk and find a snack because we hadn't eaten since breakfast and we still had another couple hours before dinner. We crossed the street, much like we did in Vietnam when we just walked out in front of traffic and trusted that they would move around us, and made it to the sidewalk, dodged street vendors and, crossed over the gutter filled with garbage and crossed the second, sandy street to the side of the street lined with restaurants. We chose the one on the corner, a little Irish pub that opened up onto the sidewalk because it had salad on the menu. After the ship's yellow lettuce they pass off as salad, we were craving salads that were actually salads. We ordered our snacks and an Anchor, the local Cambodian beer, and watched Cambodia go by for the next hour. The people here are so polite. Even when our preport packet told us to not order food that wasn't on the menu, they accommodated us and what we wanted. The people passing by the restaurant obviously noticed us, and when we smiled they waved back. A man wearing a Brasil soccer jersey, when he saw me looking around at the bar, came over and asked if we needed service, even though he didn't work at the restaurant. Everyone pays attention to one another here. I couldn't so much as look up and someone would scamper over to ask if I needed anything. I already loved the place, but for some reason, I was starting to feel homesick. I don't know what it was exactly. Probably the combination of it being a few days after Easter without my family, it being the port when families could visit their kids, and the fact that I really felt far away from home. I really liked Cambodia already but for some reason I can't quite figure out, it felt much further away from home than I had before. Even in India at my highest level of discomfort on the train pulling into Agra, there's something indescribable about this country that gets under your skin. It's there, and I feel it still, but I don't know what it is. Just a feeling of sadness at everything around you, even though it really wasn't that distressing. There were people begging, but we have that back in the states. The areas of Phnom Pen I was in for the most part were commercial areas, where people had their shops and businesses that were allowing them to make a profit. It's not like we were in a destitute area, but I felt a heavy weight on my shoulders that felt a lot like sorrow. I couldn't get excited about being there. It was exciting to be in a new place, but not an exciting place to be, if that makes any sense. The country has tourists, but it didn't feel like Brazil or South Africa or even India. I felt like I did when I was visiting the hospitals in South Africa, like it was a good learning experience for me but I really shouldn't have been there. And I don't know why. I tried to push the feeling down though, as we paid the bill and caught our bus to the Mekong River for a sunset cruise on a riverboat. It wasn't exactly sunset, but we did get to take a riverboat, a lot like the one we stayed on in the Amazon, through the floating villages. Plus, it was the Mekong, so who cares if it was technically sunset or not. We basically did a loop around, around the villages with people fishing off of their floating front porches attached to their floating homes. I can't even imagine living like that. Becca and I were talking and I admitted to the fact that I still very much like my luxuries from home. I really wished I would have been less attached to them after this trip, seeing the ways in which other people live. But Becca mentioned how cool it would be to live in one of those homes for a month, going fishing every day to gather food. Maybe the girl going to Tanzania for a month shouldn't admit it but I just couldn't see myself even doing that. But then again, there was something of a Cambodia syndrome going on with me. Normally, staying in a floating home sounds like something I'd really like to do, but it was just another example of me not really feeling comfortable there. I'm pretty adventurous, but right then, having that conversation, I just wanted to go home. And I hated feeling that way. The entire trip, I'd been waiting for my chance to go to Cambodia. I'll probably never go back there, even though I'd love to go back to Angkor Wat because I already miss it, and yet I couldn't shake it off. It was my first night in Cambodia, and already I was thinking about leaving. It was the first time I'd wanted to leave a country, and I know I'm supposed to have more than that, to have a reason or be able to pinpoint a particular emotion or thought process that made me feel that way but I can't. Even now, reflecting on it a few days later as I write, I can't figure it out. After the cruise Becca, Matt and I separated from the group that was going to dinner and went to find a Mexican restaurant we'd read about in the Lonely Planet book. It had been so long since we'd had Mexican food, so we decided to just do it. Not very ethnic, but I was definitely looking for something familiar for my taste buds, given my mood. We walked across the street from the pier to the Rose Bar, through motorcycles and bikes clogging the street out front, past locals sitting on covered sidewalks watching us, where the white kids were going. We went into the bar, except for the girls behind the bar and out on the floor to serve us and one couple playing pool in the back room. It wasn't all we'd imagined it would be, being an empty, dark, and fairly quiet place to hang out. We wanted something a little more upbeat and headed out to do some shopping along the way to the restaurant. DVDs and CDs are dirt cheap there, and they get bootleg copies so the first thing I looked for was Season 3 of Grey's Anatomy. I found it, along with the second season of Weeds in the first store we went into, and bought both for five bucks. Granted, each only came with two discs of each season, but it was something. Certainly better than nothing, and a few new episodes for us girls to cuddle up together and watch. Becca and Matt came back to tell me that there was a store a few doors down that was selling the same seasons for cheaper, so I decided to go over and take a look, even though I'd made my purchases already. They were still looking around, so I figured what the heck. I asked the ladies if they had Season 3 of Grey's, and they pointed me to it. Because it was in a clear packet, I could tell that they had three discs to sell, whereas I'd only bought two, and they were going to give it to me with Weeds, also with three discs instead of two, for four dollars and fifty cents. I decided to go for it and told the girls I was going to return the first set, because that would get me four more episodes of each. They even played the discs on a DVD player to show me that they worked, which I appreciated because they very easily could have been dud discs. They worked fine, so I purchased them and went to return the first sets I'd bought. Well, the woman from the first store took everything from me. She took what she'd sold me along with what I'd bought from the second woman. I tried for about five minutes to explain to her that I'd only purchased two discs from her and I was returning those to her, but I'd purchased three discs from someone else and she couldn't take them from me. I figured she was trying to scam me, take my money and leave me with nothing. So I started to leave, because I had the discs I'd bought from the second store, but she grabbed my arm saying she'd call the cops if I left because I was stealing. At this point, I should have just given them back to her and asked for my money back, but she then threatened to go next door and talk to that store owner, which sounded like a much better idea than getting cops involved. I was a foreigner, after all, so who were they more likely to believe. I think it was more about pride at this point, because I really didn't need the seasons that badly but I didn't want to sit back and let her take advantage of me, claim that I was trying to steal from her when in fact she was trying to steal from me. I know, I should have let it go, but I didn't. We went next door and the two women chatted back and forth with each other in Khmer, as I tried to explain what had happened. I tried to tell the second woman that she was trying to take DVDs I'd bought from her and leave me with no merchandise and minus four bucks, but all she could tell me was that there had been a mistake, that I'd misunderstood her. She suddenly decided that she'd only charged me that amount because I'd bought the first two discs because the two were in business together. I was starting to lose track of what had happened and had had enough. I was starting to lose my cool, which I'd kept at first. I'm getting pretty good at being firm but not being rude because even when the first woman pushed me and grabbed me, I didn't lose control. I told them they could have their DVDs back and I wanted my money back. I didn't want to have anything to do with it anymore, and with the first woman still claiming to call the cops, all I wanted to do was get out of there. Becca had come over at this point and was trying to explain the situation to them as well, but it had just become a situation of my word against theirs, so I swallowed my pride and apologized for the misunderstanding, and got out of there, sans Grey's. It was stupid and the whole situation got out of hand, but it just really pissed me off. It just made me realize that I really was a foreigner and because of that, no matter what had happened I was going to be in the wrong. Even now it still pisses me off, but that's just the way it goes sometimes. It definitely was an experience. Afterwards we found an internet café as we continued walking through the crowds of people who had come out with the moon, eating late dinners at sidewalk cafes and children playing and in some cases still selling little trinkets. We stopped in and checked email before catching a rikshaw to the Mexican restaurant for a dollar, which only ended up being a few more restaurants down. And we thought a dollar per person was a great deal. I tell you, sometimes being an ignorant foreigner sucks. And to think, I was already struggling before all of this. When we sat down to eat our burritos and chips and salsa, I wondered to myself if it was me, because I recognized that I wasn't quite myself. I'm still not sure because it doesn't add up and seems like each player in the situation was wrong in some way, so I just let it go and enjoyed a night out with friends. At first we were the only SAS people around, which was nice, but later in the evening more showed up because we were right next door to a pizza joint that apparently makes special pizza with special kinds of "herbs" in it. I didn't know whether or not to believe it, but Becca wanted to go buy a shirt because either way a t-shirt with Happy Herb Pizza written on it is kind of funny, and Matt went with her while I waited for the bill. And sure enough, when they came back, Matt told me he'd started talking to the owner, who had taken him back and shown him a large bag of marijuana. I was partly mortified and partly tickled by this. I mean, who runs a restaurant that uses weed in pizza? We finished up at our Mexican joint and went next door to get Becca's shirts and ran into a bunch of the SAS kids who were eating the pizza. They kept saying how high they were, but they seemed pretty normal and pretty sarcastic about it, so I have no idea exactly what they'd gotten themselves into, but I didn't really care to stick around and find out, so we caught another rikshaw back to the hotel, past the hill all lit up, and went to bed. It had been a long, emotional day and we had an early morning the next day for the Genocide Museum and the Killing Fields. My roommate was gone, so I turned on the TV to King Kong and fell asleep to Adrian Brody. That certainly cheered me up, because I love Adrian Brody. I just felt so out of my element there, in every way. It was good, because being forced out of my comfort zone helps me grow and makes the experience all that much richer, but it was a hard day. I'm definitely aware of the fact that I'm not in any world I recognize anymore. Phnom Penh
