Yes, I Will Do the Opposite

I ate some snake. First I played with it a little bit, then I ate it. The skin was really rubbery, hard to get through, but the meat underneath was tasty. In the morning I ate a frog. It was also quite tasty. After that I had a cricket which tasted like a peanut. So for better or for worse there are a lot of things that I like about Cambodia.

Phnom Pehn is as hard to like as it is to pronounce -- but I'm getting the hang of it.

My first night here, I met up with my college friend Lizzy and we went to the Foreign Correspondents Club. This club is situated in a French styled building by the Tonle Sap (river). Sitting by a railing at the top, listening to the tinklings of light acid jazz, you really feel imperial. Like some colonial field officer who has returned from the frontier to join his gentleman friends for a snifter of brandy. Here I met an American woman who has been living in Bangkok for 2 years and was traveling to Phnom Pehn on business -- she is an editor for a travel magazine publishing group. We talked for a bit and I told her I was a writer and all of that and she suggested that I could try to write something on Phnom Pehn. Something positive and culturally sensitive. This is like the seven-ten split of writing and pushes even the limits of creative non-fiction.

Phnom Pehn, to say the least, is a lot closer to Baghdad than it is to Zurich on the Mercer list of best places to live. To write a positive piece about the place seems like a real challenge. As far as I can tell, people really only come here as a stopping point between Vietnam (or Thailand) and Angkor Wat. So aside from me, the only people that seem to enjoy this city are drug addicts and sexual predators.

So I started taking notes and think that I might come up with a kind of story on the educational benefits of catastrophe tourism. The most interesting thing about this city is its sad and tragic history. The city is impressive in the perspective of the Killing Fields. Without seeing those, I would not be able to appreciate the seemingly small progressive steps this place has made. And, like going to the Foreign Correspondents Club, you have a much better time enjoying your personal luxuries here after you've been coughing on Diesel fumes and dust all day.

Meanwhile, Cambodian people have been extremely nice in the city. The best night I had was hanging out in front of the Royal Palace with my guide's friends joking around and cheersing our beers every six seconds. And if there is one thing I've noticed it's that they are all very positive: by which I mean affirmative: by which I mean, if you ask for a menu, the server will say "yes" and not bring it to you. "No ice in my beer please," "yes," plink...plink... Or, try asking a moto driver if he knows how to get to, say, independence monument, he will say "yes, yes" and drive you in whatever direction you are facing, then say back to you "you know?" slowly pull over and shrug his shoulders. From what I can figure, you have a 50% chance of someone actually doing what you ask them and 50% that they will do the opposite.

Another thing that really gets you down about the city are the number of beggars and street children. The kids are so young and they are very sassy with their English. Very cute and I try to help out a few a day but just can't help everyone. Then there are the boys sniffing glue outside the pharmacies, the saddest sight of all. They stumble around with these fishbowl eyes and it really is difficult to take buuuuut good for the catastrophe tourist to see.

Oh, and if my accounts of Cambodian street people is not enough for you, you can always read Nikki Sixx's thoughts: http://www.nikkisixx.net/Graveyard/

Education leads to job creation? Brilliant Nikki! Why didn't we think of that in the first place, well we can save the whole damn country now can't we? Nevermind the fact that the executive branch is too corrupt to function and that every intellectual the country had was murdered in the 70s or that electricity is luxury. The economy sucks; if there was a market for naked children, open fires and herds of sheep rooting around the gutter outside your guesthouse, Cambodia would have it cornered! But at least you always know when things get bad you can count on Motley Crue: a good name for an NGO too.

Aww golly, now I've got myself all political -- another 5 minute expert on Cambodia. Anyhow, I'm leaving with or without a story. Maybe before I go Lizzy and I will see another Filipino, rock-cover band, they seem to be in abundance.

Its been dandy, but its off on the early boat down the Mekong to Ho Chi Minh City... I've been waiting a long time for this.