Just Another Day in Cambodia

I’ve had a couple of people ask me “Just what the hell do you do all day?” So, I thought I’d try to capture an average day of travel around Cambodia, one of those “do nothing” days that make up the bulk of my travels.

It’s 7am in Kompong Cham, a quiet riverside town that’s called “the Gateway to Real Cambodia”, and I’m packing up to leave. The town is completely quiet — I think I’m one of only five or six tourists here and about half of the businesses are shut down. I spend a good twenty minutes trying to download a new book to my Kindle app on my iPhone for the bus ride — internet access here is slow, at best.

The book finally downloads and the tuk tuk driver is waiting outside the hotel and takes me to the bus station for $1 US. It turns out to be a private bus service –not the main bus station– but they have a bus leaving for Kratie (pronounced “Kratchy”) in a half hour, so I don’t protest. The bus ticket is $7, which seems pretty high compared to others I’ve taken, and the driver hangs around until the woman running the place slips him a bill or two. Double-dipping is the norm here.

The bus pulls up and my heart sinks — this is no VIP air-conditioned tourist ride. It’s rusty and rundown, with oily handprints all around the engine compartment and all of the tiny windows are open. Everyone piles in, throwing their luggage on the floor in the back. The bus is only half full and I’m the only foreigner.

At first I’m thrilled to have a seat to myself –a rarity in SE Asia– but just as I’m getting settled, two locals wrestle a 100cc motorbike onto the bus and manhandle it down the aisle, parking it next to me and trapping me in my seat.

We leave on time and are about 20 kilometers out of town when we pull over by an abandoned building and the driver gets out. After sitting in the heat for several minutes, I decide to get out and see what’s up. This requires me to scramble over the motorbike and several large sacks of rice. I look like Ed Asner playing Jackie Chan, but manage to escape without injuring myself or others.

Everyone is squatting in the shade of the bus, looking back the way we came. No one speaks English, so I’m not sure what’s happening. After nearly a half hour, two scooters pull up — apparently, we’d left a couple of customers behind and have been waiting for them to catch up.

The rest of the trip is uneventful, and the heat never gets too bad, so long as we’re moving. I alternate between reading and watching the landscape roll by — palm trees, rice fields, and an endless parade of thatched huts, working families, and brown, bare-assed babies.

Four hours later, we stop in Kratie and I’m dropped off on the main street by the Mekong River. As always, I have no way of knowing where I am or how to get to the main tourist area. A tout is there, promoting a nearby hotel with an AC room for $15 US. It’s a couple of dollars more than I’ve been spending, but he offers a free tuk tuk ride to check it out, so I agree. I climb in to the tuk tuk and we drive about half a block before he stops in front of the hotel — no wonder the ride is free.

The place is actually quite fancy and overlooks the river, so I agree to stay the night. While the AC in the room is cranking up, I rinse the dust and sweat off in the shower, and then use the toilet. Only after I’m done do I realize that bathroom has toilet paper, but it’s mounted on the wall by the sink — a good five feet from the toilet. Very handy.

Thais and Cambodians don’t use paper, of course, preferring to use a small hose by the toilet to rinse off after doing their business. I don’t mind using the hose when I have to — it gets the job done, though you still have to dry your ass afterward so I’m not really sure what the point is.

I hit the button on the nozzle and find that, unlike most, this one has a lot of water pressure — I’ve seen riots put down with less. I leap up in surprise, slip on the wet tile, and nearly brain myself before grabbing onto the sink. At least I won’t need more coffee today — I’m feeling very alert.

A restaurant up the road proves to have the only wifi in the area, so I stop to have lunch and check email. The link is of the ‘tin can and string’ variety and costs $1 per hour, but I’m glad to have it. The menu lists a blue cheese burger and I order one, ever-hopeful and always disappointed. As expected, it’s barely edible — a dry, burned patty resting on a stale, crumbly bun. The quest for a real burger continues…

It’s now four o’clock and the heat is easing a bit, so I investigate the local market. It’s the standard Cambodian set-up, with a hundred small shops packed cheek-to-jowl. Everyone is already closing down, though, so I wander about for just a few minutes, then head to the river to watch the sunset.

The Mekong is lower than many locals can remember ever seeing it. There is a bit of a controversy about this right now — China has installed three dams well upstream and Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam are all complaining about the drop in water levels. The Mekong is a major trade route and boats full of goods are stranded on sandbanks up and down the river. China blames global warming and refuses to do anything, though –to be fair– all four countries have dammed the river in one place or another, so there’s plenty blame to go around.

A storm is building in the north, with large lightning displays and distant, growling thunder. I find a street vendor who is thrilled to sell me a beer for 75 cents and sit in a plastic chair overlooking the river as the clouds roll in and the temperature drops.

A young Cambodian man joins me and explains that he’s teaching his students English and wonders if I can explain a couple of English phrases. He produces a book and points out “Gap Year” and “Gender Gap”. We talk for a bit and I’m expecting this to turn into a sales pitch of some sort (as it often does), but instead he says goodbye and leaves.

A driver from the hotel spots me next and sits down to pitch his full-day tuk tuk tour of the area. He tells me a local legend about a monk who turned himself into a crocodile in order to save a princess, but it’s so long and convoluted that I’m lost within minutes and spend the next ten pretending that I understand what the hell he’s talking about. When I refuse to commit to his $25 tour, he gets bored and leaves.

Two Aussie women sit down nearby and we chat for an hour about our travels, while watching the last glow of sunset fade away. After they leave for their hotel, a Cambodian man in his early twenties joins me and quizzes me about every aspect of my life — age, weight, number of testicles… everything. When I explain that I’m not married and don’t have a girlfriend, he is genuinely concerned for me. “But, you are over 40! You must hurry!”

The rain never materializes and the lightning show winds down, so I head back to the cafe to hop online and have dinner. The noodles with vegetables are salty and delicious and I treat myself to a $2 glass of white wine — probably the best glass of box wine I’ve had in all of Asia. It almost makes up for the burger.

Back in my room, a third shower rinses off the sweat and the AC has finally cooled the room down. I watch a downloaded movie on my laptop but barely make it halfway through before switching it off and going to sleep.

It’s been a full day.

Tagged as: Cambodia, mekong