Phnom Penh, Cambodia

BACK TO CAMBODIA - June-September, 2009

Up at 04.30 and back to Perth International Airport - fly to the huge Changi Airport in Singapore. Transfer between terminals on the automatic, driverless, electric train and fill in four fours waiting for the flight to Phnom Penh … I really do not understand any person who says that that they “enjoy travelling” - oh, really?

This assignment was to a group of three very successful hotels/guesthouses, each with their own restaurant. There were active plans to open a new bar/café within a few weeks and meetings to initiate a new internet order-delivery system for meals, plus they were negotiating to sign a lease for another property. SO: all that was going on, along with all the other day-to-day challenges, issuing new manuals for every aspect of the Group’s operations, staff training, a new ‘human relations’ system, Standard Operating Procedures for every job, etc ….it all helps stave of the imminent onset of Alzheimer’s?

I was conveyed between each hotel and the head office (in yet another separate building) as a pillion passenger, on the backs of assorted motorcycles. Talk about ‘interesting’! When coming to a cross road: you don’t slow down, you just aim the vehicle into the contiguous mayhem, blend into a space that was not there when you entered the traffic flow and weave among the other vehicles. When executing a left-hand turn into a solid stream of two-way traffic, the procedure is to just head straight into the traffic flow (on the ‘wrong’ side of the street) and slowly weave your way across through the oncoming traffic until you can insert your vehicle into the flow on the ‘correct’ side of the road. Another aspect that tended to make life even more ‘interesting’ was when executing these suicidal manoeuvrers, the driver would answer their mobile phone and proceed with one hand to the ear, the other on the handlebars and weave through maniacal traffic.

Traffic lights are taken as more of a suggestion than an instruction. BUT - when actually stopped at red traffic lights (with two lanes each way) and wanting to turn left: an accepted procedure is to wait in the lanes on the opposite (wrong) side of the road and, when the lights seem like they may be about to change, quickly execute the turn and cut in front of the oncoming stream of traffic!!!

OH: You may like to know that I insisted on having a helmet!!!!

On a mid-morning stroll I was, as usual, accosted by tuk tuk drivers but one in particular worried me. After the usual “where do you come from” salutations, he asked if I wanted to “go to the orphanage” where I could “play with the children” - that little encounter really concerned me for quite a while afterwards!

My stay at the first of their hotels was very near a large park area where enthusiastic locals were exercising; so, I joined in at around 05.30 each morning - just briskly walking. People were walking, jogging, playing badminton or football (soccer), one regular morning soccer endeavour involved about fifty guys (goodness knows how they knew who was on which side). Groups were doing judo in their white outfits, and an enterprising guy wearing a microphone linked to a booming music system was cajoling about sixty people doing choreographed aerobics. Individuals were doing their own thing with their personal version of tai chi and, goodness knows what else…. I was usually the only round-eyed individual in sight, definitely the only one with a beard!

On my early morning wander, people were waking up and getting out of ‘bed’ (well: the gutter or a hammock suspended between bollards, or a makeshift ‘bed’ on the footpath, or emerging from beneath a tarpaulin). I was told about one family who had ‘lived’ on the pavement (on the corner of a narrow side road where the hotel was located) for twelve years! I could not quite figure out the logistics of the essential ablution requirements. Plus: there was an abundance of small children playing in the street so, if my dim recollection of biology is still correct: there was copulation going on - somewhere / sometime?

Some early risers were setting up their food stalls - or ‘ptomaine vending’ as I tended to think of them. I guess the local’s digestive systems evolve immunity to the indigenous bacteria that domicile in the concoctions they supply.

Another oddity I noticed was a habit of the kitchen staff from the hotels - who could snack throughout the day for free on quality hotel food. [By the Way - the restaurants at all three of these hotels were excellent: a high level of hygiene, good international menu, etc - I’ve been in other hotel kitchens where just a look could make your stomach rebel.]

Anyway, when food vendors trundled past hawing their ptomaine gastronomy, the staff would wander out and purchase a bowl of dubious cuisine and actually EAT it! I had a look at one - they were selling ‘pork in porridge’ - the porridge was in an aluminium bowl and the pork was carved from knuckles of fatty pig just sitting on the trolley in 100F conditions (nothing as risqué as refrigeration). I was asked by the staff if I’d like some - “Ah, it looks delicious, but no thanks.”

Talking about ‘getting out of bed’, it is, apparently, de rigueur for, women particularly, to wear colourful pyjamas during the daytime, in the street. One tends to perform a classic double-take the first time when seeing someone wandering the street in their pyjamas - until you just get used to it as their normal attire.

One day I’d been for my usual morning walk, had a shower and been barefoot and behind my laptop all day - so, around 5.30pm: decided to shod myself again and go for another walk around the local ‘parade ground’. There was lots of activity going on - people exercising, four groups emitting booming music for synchronised aerobic shenanigans, kids flying kites. I became aware of a major snafu with the adjacent traffic and initially put it down to peak hour…but, no - ‘twas a bloody great elephant wandering peacefully down the middle of the road. Now, there’s a sight you don’t often see in a capital city?

Circular staircase at one hotel A countryside wat Standard of kitchen staff - good! My 'home' for a few weeks 1930s feel to the decor

As I wander our insignificant, blue planet, I’m forever grateful that my primary (and only) language is English. Damn lucky really as it’s - for now anyway - the world’s common language…maybe Mandarin will take over eventually? I often see groups of people from diverse countries chatting in hotel environs - and their common lexicon is English. I pick up the odd basic word when inhabiting a country for a while, but sometimes feel a little guilty that I cannot converse in the local language of countries that I may visit several times.

However, in Cambodia for instance, language can get complicated when the lingo you use reflects your social standing and degrees of ‘politenesses’ vary. Then there is another version that monks use to converse, and yet another ‘Royal language’ with a separate vocabulary. That happens in Tonga as well, where I had several meetings with the then Crown Prince (he’s now the King) and the local Tongan I was advising was terrified that he’d use incorrect expressions when conversing with royalty. The Crown Prince spoke perfect English, with pronounced upper-class British accent!

The Cambodian language - Khmer - has 33 consonants, 23 vowels, plus 12 ‘independent vowels’. The language is also tonal which means that the same sound has one meaning when spoken in a high tone, but a different meaning when spoken in lower tone.

Another befuddling language observation is that today’s (Antipodeans, Americans, British) 20-something and 30-something year olds’ irrational predilection for the word ‘like’! They prattle on saying: “I was like walking down this like road and like saw this old guy and like asked the like way to the like temple.” Do you, like, get the drift?

I e-mail chat to the owner of Far Horizons Travel in California now and then and Mary Dell has a changing quote on her e-mails; her current one is: “Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages” ~Dave Barry

When you consider the troubled history of Cambodia, it’s truly a miracle that the people are now such calm, polite and accepting of their fate - a basic contributing factor must be their basic Buddhist beliefs. The country has gone though many phases, including the amazing achievements that created Angkor Wat and all those incredible temples which, for their time, displayed the acme of any ‘civilisation’ anywhere, a thousand years ago! Then they had ‘troubles’ with Vietnam; were ‘colonised’ by the French, then the unbridled lunacy of Pol Pot whose brief regime murdered and starved to death damn near 25% of the population.

Also got me thinking about the difference between French and British colonialism and the lingering differences. Admittedly, you Americans threw the British out but the lingering after-effects on other countries generally show a more benign after-effect - there’s still a British Commonwealth, but no ‘French Commonwealth’. OK, so there are exceptions, look at the disaster of Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), but was that a fault of the British?

The level of city NOISE is pretty darned consistent. During the day there are raucous motorcycles, trucks without mufflers and wandering hawkers of every ilk are flogging goodness knows what. Some yell into bullhorns, others ring bells, some try their voice (or a repetitious, looped recording) at some sort of chant, some dudes wander around with what sounds like an amplified child’s squeaky toy, over and over, which seems to be the lingua franca of recycling guys trundling a wheelbarrow type of conveyance!

At night there was the obligatory dog fight with what sounded like dozens of dogs contributing to the chorus of barking. Plus, at the third hotel I stayed in, a persistent, solitary rooster who would crow consistently every morning, with no answer from anyone. A rooster must have a brain about the size of a pea, yet a portion is allocated to the compunction to shout as loud as they can before dawn every morning…apparently even when they must know there is no one to respond. The damn fowl would yell every few minutes for hours…..

I was advising a group of three hotels and stayed a few weeks in each to assess the accommodation and their restaurants. At one there was a group of westerners in a building adjacent to my room who, on a couple of occasions, carried on chatting and playing music until 3am - one memorable night they did not quit until 5.30am, then the lone, demented rooster took over - right on cue!

As usual in these countries: one removes one’s foot apparel when entering any premises. When in the hotel and working on my laptop from my room and wandering to the restaurant for meals…I tended to just remain sans shoes. At one stage I was working this way every day for over three weeks - didn’t bother my feet with socks or shoes or any feet impediment whatsoever in all that time.

Someone asked me recently how these volunteer assignments actually work? Well: the organisation (funded primarily by the Australian Government) pays for our travel arrangements and medical insurance. The client we advise can sometimes contribute if they are financially able. The client can pay the volunteer an allowance - which can be nothing or a few bucks. The theory is that the volunteer is not supposed to be out of pocket on the deal. When I am advising a hotel I usually receive accommodation and meals. On this last assignment I was allocated a good allowance - which I just calculated was equivalent to around 7% of my salary the last time I was actually employed … in 2005. However, my weekly allowance on this one was more than what most local employees would receive in a MONTH!

Funny, the little tricks that your memory plays on you? Many years ago, I travelled through Cambodia as a tourist and I vividly recall visiting the Tuol Sleng [Genocide] Museum but, in my mind, it was located in a village setting - but it’s in central Phnom Penh; in fact: directly opposite one of the hotels I was advising. The incongruity of the building is that it was a school but converted by Pol Pot’s regime into a prison and torture centre. People were taken off the streets and whisked out of their homes for the flimsiest of reasons (such as innocently singing a song from before the regime took control), tortured and murdered. The visual, childish innocence of the grounds and schoolyard setting is shattered when you see the gallows in the playground and then wander through classrooms that are roughly divided with jagged brick and cement walls into tiny cells.

I actually donned shoes after nearly a month to attend a liquor demonstration put on by a French company who used virtually every fruit you can think of to produce liqueurs. It was a tasty product - high in alcohol though! There was a guy wandering around with a video camera and I was on local television that night!

On my last night in Phnom Penh, the owner (Manuel) took me out for a meal. He’s a very interesting guy - Spanish, been Buddhist since his youth, trained as a biologist, and worked around the world (at one stage putting transmitters on snakes and tracking them). Anyway, we went first to the upmarket Raffles Hotel Elephant bar - an amazing, renowned hotel. Then, by way of total contrast, we had dinner at a really local restaurant on a pavement (‘twas a miracle it was not raining), where we had local food, including deep-fried frog. I’ve not enjoyed such an exchange of such stimulating wide-ranging conversation for some time. Manuel mentioned that the three courses and several beers we consumed cost about the same as just two drinks each at the Raffles!

I REALLY was not looking forward to the flight home. Phnom Penh to Singapore / five hour wait / then another six hour flight to Perth. I always request a window seat because you can lean against the fuselage and, hopefully get some sleep without being jostled as you would in an aisle seat. I checked in in Phnom Penh and requested window seats for the two flights and was told there were none available for the second, longer, flight - which did not depart for another seven hours! When I arrived in Singapore, I went straight to the Singapore Air desk and asked for a change to a window seat and was told they were all booked. I had to transfer to another Terminal (Changi Airport at Singapore is huge) and asked again at the transfer desk there - and was given the same answer. I wandered around the cavernous precincts, happened upon yet another transfer desk, and asked again: to be told ‘certainly sir and it looks like there is no one in the seat next to you …. Wonderful what perseverance can achieve sometimes? Got very little sleep though and did not get to bed for about 36 hours…. DON’T tell me you enjoy ‘travel’!