Stuck in Sihanoukville: Jan. 29-Feb. 22, 2012

After another warm night's sleep in Phnom Penh I enjoyed a late breakfast before getting picked up by a tuk-tuk to take me to the bus depot for my ride south to the beach. Even though it's only around 200 kilometres from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, the journey still took over 6 hours. This is largely due to poor roads (rather bumpy) and plenty of slow moving moto traffic requiring the bus to drive slowly for long stretches while waiting for a safe opportunity to pass. While on the bus I engrossed myself in a book, napped, and thought about what was to come. While in Siem Reap I had met a couple of Dutch guys who told me about how easy it is for foreigners to get jobs in hostels and bars in tourist developed areas around South East Asia... even without work visas or permits. With this in mind I studied my guidebook carefully to plan my job hunt strategy.

The bus arrived in downtown Sihanoukville around 7pm when it was already dark. With my bags collected I hopped on a moto-taxi and told him to take me straight to Utopia... a highly touted party hostel near Serendipity Beach. The driver drove me right into the courtyard where one of the girls working the reception desk promptly told me they were full for the night. However, she said since they were a 24 hr. bar as well, I was welcome to crash out in one of the hammocks or couches scattered around the hostel grounds for free. I made short work of finding some foreigners to share a drink with who also let me stash my bags in their room for when I would laze in the hammocks later. Amongst the people I chatted to was an ex-employee of Utopia. I brought up the prospect of getting a job there to which she replied I could probably get a job right away, I just had to talk to Jimmy... but he was gone for the night and 2pm the next day would be the magical hour.

In the morning I collected my bags and headed back to the front desk where I quickly got a dorm bed for $3/night. It was still early by Utopia standards (around noon) so Jimmy was nowhere to be found. No problem... I took the opportunity to wander down to Serendipity Beach and check out some of the town. Sihanoukville is Cambodia's newest city having been inaugurated with the construction of the Sihanoukville Port in 1955 by King Norodom Sihanouk soon after Cambodia achieved independence from France. During the Vietnam War the city was used as an intensive military port until the Khmer Rouge successfully chased the US out of the country in 1975 during the Mayaguez Incident. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 the port became very important to the continued development of Cambodian trade and in 1999 when economic markets in Cambodia were opened up, Sihanoukville lead the way. Now it continues to be an important trade route as well as a tourist attraction due to the many beautiful (albeit trash strewn) beaches.

After meandering for a couple hours I returned to Utopia in hopes of finding the elusive Jimmy... no luck. Instead I ran into a fellow Canadian (Matt) from the Toronto/Montreal area and a British fellow called Scotty. Little did I know that we would be hanging out plenty in the weeks to come. With dark approaching fast Matt offered to show me Otres beach which was a short moto drive away. A quieter spot than Serendipity with far less trash, we enjoyed a few drinks and a couple games of pool before I decided I wanted to head back. I figured I'd walk it as it was only 4 or 5 kilometres. After about 1.5 kilometres one of my flip flops had a fatal blowout... I liked those flip flops, they had been with me for a few years and had come half way around the world... R.I.P.. On a dark road at night somewhere in Cambodia wearing only one flip flop I encountered a couple locals hanging out on their bikes near the road. After some brief negotiations I managed a ride back to Utopia.

 

Once there a quick stop at the "lost flip flop" basket rewarded me with some free replacement footwear. I then decided it was time to assert myself at the pool table, which I did with flair. The night progressed and still no Jimmy, but I ran into the girl who told me about him the previous night. We chatted for a bit, rounded up a bunch of her girlfriends and hopped a tuk-tuk back to Otres beach. We ended up at a trance show at the ocean side until I decided a rest may be in order. As I stepped up to the bar in Utopia for a nightcap, who should I see... the elusive Jimmy! I waved him down and introduced myself... it went something like this...

"Yo! You Jimmy?"
"Yeah, that's me."
"I'm Jon, I hear you're the man to talk to about getting a job here?"
"Yeah, that's me, what can you do Jon?"
"I can fix stuff and serve people drinks."
"How long are you planning on hanging around Jon?"
"I figure a couple weeks."
"How's graveyard shift sound to you?"
"What are the hours and what's the deal?"
"The hours are midnight to 8am, what kind of deal do you want?"
"I was thinking free accommodations, food, and drinks."
"Sounds good Jon, can you start tomorrow?"
"Done and done, I'll move my stuff into staff accommodations in the morning."

Easiest job interview ever! So began my stint as a bartender in a 24 hr. party bar in paradise. The next night was my first night on the job and I loved it... the people were friendly, the music was great, the nightly poi shows rocked, and I helped make people happy. Near the end of the night when things had quieted down considerably I noticed this young guy at the bar looking pretty intoxicated. I chatted him up and it turns out his name was Sam and he was from Courtenay just a little ways up Vancouver Island from Victoria. Small world! He was broke from a rowdy time in Vang Vieng, Laos so I tossed him a free beer and mentioned that he might want to work with me here at Utopia. A couple days later the Canuck crew was three strong behind the bar after Sam joined up and then a fellow named Asa from Toronto. Throw in a Spanish gal who went by the name of Monster, an Aussie bird named Gracie, and a Dutch fellow Skip and we had a tight crew for the next couple of weeks.

I won't bore you all with life behind a bar for a couple of weeks aside from one highlight when I had to take an inebriated Finnish guy to the clinic after he dove into the pool and split his head open on the statue in the middle. The rest was good work with good people, and good times. Somewhere along the way I befriended some Khmers who showed me some of the countryside around Sihanoukville. We rented dirt bikes and cruised up the coast along beautiful (and mostly clean) Prek Treng (aka Hun Sen) Beach before heading up a sketchy looking dirt track that took us to Kabal Chai Waterfalls. Then we rode to the other side of Sihanoukville and saw some of the natural beauty of Ream National Park before going up to Wat Ream. At the temple we had our fortunes told and partook in a "monk shower".

Even though there were stretches of literally days when I wouldn't even leave the confines of Utopia, I did manage to get out and about the city a bit. My Khmer friends showed me a bit of where they lived in the Cambodian "hood" as well as some of the market life. One thing about Khmers is that when it comes to food, they will eat just about anything and take spicy hot to whole new levels of experience, so I figured "When in Rome..." Amongst the many random meats I tried there was dog... it's kind of chewy and gamy. Apparently cat is better, but we couldn't find anyone who had some. Cambodian crab is particularly good and cheap.

After two weeks of feeling like a rock star I awoke one morning and realized I had almost run out of time on my Cambodian visa. Before I could second guess myself I hopped on a moto and headed for the Vietnamese Embassy to secure a visa for that country. Half an hour later I bought my bus ticket to Kampot for the next day. Dallying would only make me want to stay longer what with the great people I had met. The New Zealander owners of Utopia, Mark and James, even asked me to stay on indefinitely... I still wonder if maybe I should have just stayed there another two weeks, the living was, after all, free. I gave my notice, packed my bags, and worked my last night as a bartender in paradise... in the morning after my shift I remembered to run around to snap a few photos, but they are all very last minute. With no sleep I dragged my bags to the curb and awaited my minibus to Kampot on my way to Vietnam.

An hour or two later I was woken up by passengers trying to crawl over me to get out of the bus in downtown Kampot. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, hauled my stuff to the curb, and opened up my guidebook to find a place to stay. As I perused the pages I remembered a conversation I had had with a patron at the bar in Utopia one night. They told me that if I wanted a nice chill time in Kampot to check out a place along the Kampong Bay River called Bodhi Villa. I just wanted to sleep, so I hailed a moto and off we went. When I rolled into the guesthouse they informed that they were full up for the day, but that I might enjoy the place next door called Samon's Village, so over I went. It turned out to be a pretty sweet place. The owner, Samon, created the place as a miniature eco-village complete with vegetable gardens, chickens, and several local families living and working there. He told me it was a step for him on the journey to setting up a larger scale type eco-village where people could continue to practice traditional Khmer lifestyles and practices without being subsumed by western consumerism. I have to admit it sounded like a pretty noble plan, although I couldn't help but remember that the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot espoused a similar philosophy before the regime turned vicious... food for thought.

That evening there was a Khmer buffet for dinner followed by a couple of local bands playing traditional Khmer music. I fell asleep in my hut next to the river with a belly full of delicious food and my head swimming with marvelous melodies from the band as they wound down their last set of the evening. In the morning I set out to get the next step of my journey sorted as I only had 3 1/2 days left on my Cambodian visa. I moto'd into town and did a little research. Instead of simply taking a bus to Kep, the town closest to the Vietnamese border with guesthouses, I decided to take a country tour which ended in Kep, but instead of going back to Kampot with the tour, I'd just stay in Kep. Sweet! I headed back to my tranquil village and relaxed with my book and MP3 player next to the river for the rest of the day.

The next morning I had an early start getting into town and on the minibus for the day's tour. Our first stop were some salt fields outside of town. Cambodia doesn't have any salt mineral deposits, so they have to harvest salt from sea water. Through a series of canals from the ocean a few kilometres away, sea water is directed into fields cleared and leveled to hold the water. As the water is left in the sun it evaporates leaving behind salt crystals. The salt is then collected and bagged before either being sent directly to markets or to processing plants where it can be further refined into proper table salt. Our next stop along our country tour took us through some rural Cambodian villages and farmland to get to the temple cave of Phnom Chhngok. The cave houses a 7th century shrine to Shiva which has been well protected by the fact that it is in a cave. After a look at the shrine, our guide took us for a little bit of spelunking through the limestone mountain before exiting back on some farm fields.

A short ride down some bumpy back country roads brought us to a Muslim fishing village and crab farm. Like the salt fields, the fishing village accesses the ocean through several kilometres of canals which the fishermen float their boats up and down. Because fish are easier to catch when it's dark, these fishermen head for the sea at dusk and return home at dawn with their catch. Their families then process the fish and take them to market during the day while the fishermen sleep through the morning. Attached to the fishing village is a crab farm. It looks much like the salt fields only they make sure the water levels remain stable through a series of pumping stations.

Back in the minibus we drove for awhile before we reached the outskirts of the seaside town of Kep. Before heading into Kep we detoured into the surrounding hills to visit a pepper farm. Pepper grown in this region is world renowned and sought after by gourmet chefs. During French colonial times it was said that no self-respecting French household would be without its Kampot pepper. What makes Kampot pepper so good is the unique soil conditions in this part of Cambodia as well as the traditional ways in which the pepper plants are grown and harvested. The particular farm we visited also grew several types of fruits including durian, mangoes, and papayas.

We finally rolled into Kep in time for a fresh crab lunch at the crab market. Apparently Kep used to be quite a place when the French were around. Ever since, though, it's kind of lost its edge. No matter, the last stop on this day's tour was Koh Thonsay (Rabbit Island). This island is only 2 square kilometres in area with a limited number of huts along its one main beach. I showed up during the week when there were very few people around. Fine by me, I more or less had a tropical beach in paradise all to myself for the afternoon and evening.

In the late morning of the next day, after a lazy start to the day on the beach swimming and tanning, I found a boat to take me back to Kep. There I quickly booked a bus for Ho Chi Minh the next day (the last day of my visa) and then walked to a sweet little guesthouse nearby. I spent the rest of the day chatting with other travelers and enjoying the free fish massage offered in the guesthouse. What a great finish to an amazing time in the country of Cambodia. I miss that place and those people already! Next up... Vietnam...

Temples, Trash, and Tragedy: Jan. 22-Jan. 29, 2012

I awoke early to get my trip from Bangkok to Siem Reap underway. My earlier experience of road transport in Southeast Asia prepared me for a full day of travel to make the approximate 300 kilometre journey. I decided to try to navigate Bangkok on the cheap which meant metered taxi, skytrain, and a little walking to get to the northern bus depot. I was doing fine till I reached the end of the skytrain line which appeared like it was next to the bus depot on the map... but in fact, it was not so.

As I wandered aimlessly amongst street vendors and locals I noticed another tall person towering over the crowd of Thai heads. It was a European fellow on the same mission as myself, so I suggested we split a cab the rest of the way. Sorted, right? Wrong! The cabbie spoke NO English and was bad at pantomime, yet we got in and he started driving not really knowing where we were going. No problem, he pulled out his cell phone and called an English speaking friend to translate for us... lucky he was already heading in the right direction.

Within 15 minutes of arriving at the bus depot I was on a bus headed for Poipet, the border crossing I had chosen to enter Cambodia by. About 6 hours later we were ushered off the bus on the Thai side to make the crossing on foot. I dodged all the touts and scam artists trying to tell me I needed their help to cross the border and headed straight for the government buildings. I spotted a confused looking Norwegian/Taiwanese couple and chatted them up on the walk to customs.

At this point I had no idea how I was going to make it from the border to Siem Reap some 100 odd kilometres away. So I asked the couple what they were doing. They had pre-booked a private cab from the Cambodian side of the border to their hotel in Siem Reap and welcomed an extra paying passenger... problem solved! Hello Cambodia! A couple hours later we pulled into their hotel and I bid them farewell. It was 7:30pm, I had been traveling for over 10 hours, and it was dark. I pulled out my guidebook and headlamp and looked up the cheapest hostel I could find. I was in luck, the cheapy was a mere 2 blocks from where I was standing, so off I went. About ten minutes later I was checked-in to my $3 a night dorm room and enjoying my first delicious Cambodian dinner.

Cambodia is a country that has seen some of the most atrocious actions against human beings in the world. Some compare what the Khmer people have gone through in recent history to what the Jewish people went through in Nazi controlled Europe during WWII. Cambodia's bloody history is as recent as July 2010 when Khmer Rouge member, Kang Kek Lew, was the first to be found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. All others have avoided prosecution by either hiding, defecting, or becoming part of the current ruling regime in the country. Saloth Sar (aka Pol Pot), the leader of the Khmer Rouge was never caught or tried for his crimes and from 1979-1997 was still in control of a small part of Cambodia near the Thai border. He died in 1998. Estimates on the number of people killed during the Khmer Rouge rule (1975-1979) range from 1-3 million.

The Khmer Rouge era was in part a by-product of the ideologically induced wars over the spread of communism which happened in the region between 1953-1997 including the Vietnam war (referred to as the American war by Vietnamese). Before that, Cambodia was part of French Indochina which it became a part of in order to protect itself from the Siamese-Vietnamese war which threatened to subsume the people, culture, and country. Before that Cambodia had been controlled for centuries by either the Siamese or the Vietnamese (Siam became modern day Thailand). To find a time in history when Cambodia had any regional power, one has to look back to the Khmer Empire during the Angkorian era (9th-15th centuries). This is, of course, when the world famous temples of Siem Reap (particularly Angkor Wat) were constructed in what archaeologists believe to be one of the world's largest pre-industrial cities with an urban sprawl of nearly 1,000 square kilometres and capable of sustaining up to 1 million people. Incidentally, the degree of animosity between the Siamese and Khmer people becomes obvious when one understands that the name of the city Siem Reap translates to "the flat defeat of Siam".

The temples of Angkor are, of course, the main reason I decided to visit this particular Cambodian city, and I was eager to get the temple tours underway. After a sweaty sleep in the dorm and a sweltering breakfast I waved down a moto-taxi (basically a moped you hop on the back of) and headed for Angkor Wat. The temples of the area (numbering over 70) were built throughout the reign of the Khmer Empire. At its inception, the Khmers practiced Hinduism and constructed their temples accordingly depicting Hindu mythologies and following construction practices of cosmological significance and measurements. Temples built in the latter half of the Khmer Empire's reign reflect the Khmer people's shift to Mahayana and then to Theravada Buddhism. Old Hindu temples were modified to also reflect this shift.

After I got my 3-day pass to the temples, my moto driver dropped me at the entrance to Angkor Wat... and it is impressive. The modern name of Angkor Wat means "city temple", but no one truly knows what the place was called by its builders. The temple grounds are surrounded by a 190 metre wide moat accessible from the west by a sandstone causeway and from the east by an earthen bank. The outer wall encloses a space of 203 acres which houses the temple and in the past also contained a royal palace and a city. Structures other than the temple were built out of perishable materials that have long since disappeared and been replaced by forest. The temple itself was built of sandstone during the first half of the 12th century by Suryavarman II and was dedicated to the Hindu deity Vishnu. In line with its Hindu dedication, the temple layout is of mythological significance. The temple is a representation of Mount Meru, home of the Hindu gods or devas. The central quincunx of towers symbolizes the five peaks of the mountain, and the walls and moat the surrounding mountain ranges and ocean.

I wandered around the temple grounds for a couple of hours before the crowds began to wear on my nerves. It was also really hot and humid with temperatures hovering around 35 degrees. I figured I'd get one more temple in on this day and I thought that I could save a little money by walking there. One monkey with a banana, two buckets of sweat, and barely a kilometer and a half of walking and I was ready to flag down a moto or tuk-tuk to get me the rest of the way to my destination. Those of you familiar with the movie Tomb Raider have seen parts of this temple, although in the movie some shots were done at another of the Angkorian temples. This place is Ta Prohm. Amidst sweltering heat, creeping jungle, hoards of roving tourists, and many workers restoring the temple I got my first peak at the massive trees and root systems encompassing portions of the ruins. Cambodia is a country with little regulation and lots of corruption, so people are free to do pretty much anything they want. I satisfied my penchant for exploring by crawling through parts of the ruins likely only seen by workers or archaeologists... very cool and sometimes very eerie.

Ta Prohm was originally named Rajavihara meaning "royal temple" and was constructed in the late 12th century by the Khmer King Jayavarman VII. Its purpose was to be a Mahayana Buddhist monastery and university; over the years several additions were made to the temple area. The temple's stele records that the site was home to more than 12,500 people (including 18 high priests and 615 dancers), with an additional 80,000 souls in the surrounding villages working to provide services and supplies. The stele also notes that the temple amassed considerable riches, including gold, pearls and silks. I wandered as long as the heat would permit and then decided to cool off back at my hostel and try again earlier the next day before the temperatures got too high. Back at the hostel I met some other travelers intent on a little revelry and a fellow named Tobias who was keen on seeing sunrise at Angkor Wat the next day... its always more fun to explore with a travel buddy.

Around 4:30am Tobias woke me up and we negotiated a tuk-tuk for the day in order to do the "grand circuit" of temples. By 5:30am we were amongst the throngs of seemingly thousands of people eager to get a good photo of Angkor Wat at sunrise. To be quite honest, the whole thing was quite anti-climactic... Tobias thought so too. So while people gawked at the outside of the temple in the growing dawn light, we made a run for the inside before anyone else decided to go in. It was definitely better empty than when jammed full of people. We hung out in there for a bit and decided that if Angkor Wat was cool without people in it, Ta Prohm was bound to be pretty sweet as well. So we had our tuk-tuk beeline it to the temple grounds.. totally worth it!

As tourists started trickling in to Ta Prohm we elected to begin our grand circuit tour of 26 kilometres. Along the way we would see Pre Rup, East Mebon, Ta Som, Neak Pean, Preah Khan, then Angkor Thom which includes Bayon, Baphuon, Phimeanakas, Terrace of the Elephants, and the Terrace of the Leper King. There were far FAR more ruins to see, but, after two days of templing, I was completely templed out, so was Tobias.

We got back to the hostel in the early afternoon before the truly roasting heat hit and we relaxed next to fans with ice cold drinks to keep us cool. I had booked another two nights at the hostel in hopes of completing a few other tours around Siem Reap. First on my list was something I had heard about through the backpacker grapevine... apparently for the right price anyone can fire an RPG, AK-47, or any other of a number of military firearms and weapons. Alas, the right price was too lofty for my meager budget. No problem, there was still the floating village tour listed at $15 on the hostel wall. Apparently that wall had been painted 2 years earlier and the rates had since more than doubled... boooo!! Oh well, as a consolation I decided to relax for a day wandering around Siem Reap and playing cards with other travelers and then make my way to Phnom Penh via boat rather than bus, maybe then I could catch of glimpse of some river life and villages.

I got up early to catch the mini-bus from Siem Reap to the shores of Tonlé Sap. It gave me an opportunity to see how suburban Cambodia lives and aside from the apparently happy looking people one thing stood out amongst others... TRASH. The whole country seems to be blanketed in a layer of garbage which sometimes seem to reproduce to form proper rubbish piles. I can only assume that this is in part because of a lack of centralized garbage collection or dumps. Even though the country is experiencing rapid economic growth from strong textiles, agriculture, construction, garments, and tourism sectors leading to foreign investments and international trade, much of the profits aren't spread evenly due to massive government corruption. In 2005 oil and natural gas were discovered beneath Cambodian territorial waters, hopefully some of that money will find its way to the largely impoverished countryside.

Once at the lake a hundred or so tourists were ushered aboard a large boat and prepared for the transit across Tonlé Sap Lake into the Tonlé Sap River leading into Phnom Penh, the country's capital city. Tonlé Sap Lake, its name means "Large Fresh Water River", is the largest freshwater lake in South East Asia and is an ecological hot spot that was designated as a UNESCO biosphere in 1997. The Tonlé Sap is unusual for two reasons: its flow changes direction twice a year, and the portion that forms the lake expands and shrinks dramatically with the seasons. From November to May, Cambodia's dry season, the Tonlé Sap drains into the Mekong River at Phnom Penh. However, when the year's heavy rains begin in June, the Tonlé Sap backs up to form an enormous lake. For most of the year the lake is fairly small, around one meter deep and with an area of 2,700 square km. During the monsoon season, however, the Tonlé Sap river, which connects the lake with the Mekong river, reverses its flow. Water is pushed up from the Mekong into the lake, increasing its area to 16,000 square km and its depth to up to nine meters, flooding nearby fields and forests.

The 4-5 hour boat ride was interesting at the beginning as we passed small collections of floating communities before entering the lake proper. The lake passage itself was quite uneventful as it is a large enough lake that you can't see land for much of the trip across. As we entered the Tonlé Sap River the scenery improved again with small local fishing boats going about their daily business and stretches of flood plains to either side. Further down the river we passed through riverside communities of varying sizes with locals waving to us along the way. As beautiful as the countryside was, I was continuously in awe of the very apparent poverty affecting the majority of Khmers.

We eventually entered the river area north of Phnom Penh where more river dwellings tranformed into light industrial and eventually into city proper. Three rivers converge in Phnom Penh: Tonlé Sap, Mekong, and Bassac which was the source of the city's former name Krong Chaktomuk meaning "City of Four Faces" referring to the "X" formed by the crossing of the rivers. The city itself has a rich history dating back as far as the 1300's, but I had been landlocked for over a week at this point and craving some beach. I had read that the Killing Fields exhibit had been contracted out to a Japanese company paying the Cambodian government a nominal annual fee, so I decided to not check out the genocide museum. To my chagrin I later found out that a similar deal had been made for Angkor Wat. I wandered around the city until dark and then called it an early night after booking a bus for the morning headed for Sihanoukville on the Cambodian coast... look beach, here I come!