In and out of the Wild West

Well there is definitely a story to be told, hopefully in as much detail as I can remember. In order not to repeat the same mistake of writing after such a long time I am going to begin with Saigon, the most recent city where we have been for two days, while it's still as fresh in my memory as possible and then continue with as thorough an account of the past two weeks as I can.

Saigon

As I have done in every country so far on this trip I began reading a book that relates to the destination ahead. Graham Greene's Quiet American was next on the list because it is predominantly situated in Saigon, more specifically in the Hotel Continental. We took a semi-comfortable bus (our concept of comfort has dramatically altered since we left Europe) and rolled into Ho Chi Minh city. As I read I suggested to Gummi that we book at least two nights at the Continental to take a rest from the 2 $ rooms we stayed in in Cambodia. We arrive at the bus station and before our bags are in our hands and our cigarettes are lit we are approached by a legion of taxi drivers. We haggle for a bit, we have become increasingly good at it, and mount two motorbikes with our bags. Saigon, unlike the other cities where motorbikes dominate the road, has a ratio of about 50 bikes to every car. The traffic can only be described as chaotic order. That paradox means that although the traffic comes from every side and against the normal flow, there seems to be order and fluidity in the chaos. The motorbikes on the road drive so close that we could have 'high fived' every passing driver, and Gummi and I did while cruising at 50 kmph. We come to the Continental that unfortunately has recently been renovated and become a 4 star tourist spot, devoid of the 60's Saigon journalist charm I should have anticipated didn't exist anymore. The prices are ridiculous and I imagine a hundred dollars are added to each room because of it's past reputation. We go up to the bar, order two Saigon beers and think about where else we should go. We decide to just walk around until we come across a reasonably high priced comfort hotel and find one. After the first hot shower in weeks, no sign of rats, mice, cockroaches, ants, grasshoppers, dogs, spiders, beetles or any other undesired room accessories we had grown so accustomed to in Cambodia we head out. We pulled the 'white card' and strolled into the Sheraton in white shirts like we owned the place, had a drink on the roof we an extraordinary view over Saigon and later had dinner and came back. We opened the bar situated in our room, flipped through cable television and fell asleep to a sitcom and air conditioning. Just lovely.
Today we woke up late in the morning and headed for the Revolutionary Museum. Saigon is lively, more modern than I remember Hanoi having been and relatively clean. We saw the Ho Chi Minh City Museum, the Notre Dame and the horrible War Crimes Museum. Nothing exceeded the other in terms of splendour, especially not the French colonial architecture which is absolutely everywhere, except the War Crimes Museum. After Cambodia I would have thought I had grown numb to histories horror, at least partly. I'll talk about that later, but the War Crimes Museum is not as much a museum as it is a series of pictures that will turn Jean Claude Van Damme into a weeping little child. I go as far as to say that Chuck Norris, who's tears cure cancer (it's a shame he's never cried) would have broken down and cried desperately for his mothers warmth while curled up in a fetal position. Pictures of Agent Orange victims, marines toying with torn bodies and even jars with mutated deformed babies. Although horror shouldn't be made competitive between one country and another, this matches the horrors of Cambodia. We shook hands, or what was left, of a man who had nothing but soft stumps were his elbow used to be. Dejected with our stomachs turned inside out we decided to retreat to our little 50 $ safe haven, pulled out millions of Vietnamese Dongs and walked back. Now we are here.

Thailand

The last night we spent in Thailand on the island Koh Chang was in an Irish Pub. This seems absurd given that we were on a beautiful tropical island but it's also misleading. The owner of the Pub had set up a comfortable row of decent rooms for only a few dollars a night. The pub was a minute away and I really enjoyed a glass of Guinness with my full English breakfast before we left for Cambodia. So much for Thailand. The bus ride and the visa check at the frontiers in the north are not worth describing. However the second we entered Cambodia we were very obviously in another world altogether.

Cambodia... The Heart of Guns, Girls & Ganja

As soon as we arrived at Poipet, a casino town where Thais come to gamble and drink, the roads disappeared and the world seemed a little more rugged. I asked my driver where I could go to the bathroom and he answered 'there' pointing at some vegetation a metre away from the customs office. Seeing that I would get little help from him I walked into the next fancy casino since peeing was not all that was needed. As I enter the whore filled, drunken scene inside the casino I noticed a sign, one of hundreds that I saw in Cambodia, asking me politely to not bring grenades or weapons inside. Fair enough, I had left mine behind so I went in. When I came out the driver bade us follow him to what can only be described as a large piece of metal on, I assume, four wheels. We boarded and left. We were told by our new driver, a drunk man with a steel penis on his keychain, while peeing out of where the door should have been that the 150 km journey would take a little more than six hours. This was because the road, or where the road once was, was so full of dust and pot holes that we could go no faster than 20 kmph. On our way we saw an abundance of CPP signs, The Cambodian Peoples Party, naked children, shacks and flooded marshland. I was reading a book, appropriately called 'Off the rails in Phnom Penh, into the heart of Guns, Girls and Ganja and so I read and picturing the society depicted in the book all of a sudden didnt seem so difficult
We come to Siem Reap, book ourselves into the most expensive room of the entire Cambodian trip (6$) and after dodging cockroaches and showering with v. cold water we go downstairs onto the veranda for a meal. Before we have asked about the plans for the following day we are asked very directly if we want girls, drugs or guns. We politely decline the drugs and the girls but an interest in guns awakens in me. After all, I have watched an AK 47 on screen since I can remember, read about it in history books and fiction and I MUST try it. He arranges for me to go shoot... but is a little down that we two aren't in the mood for 'boom boom' and drugs. We meet the other residents most of whom where on the ride with us from Thailand. There is an Irish couple, a swiss, English and French guy and some Cambodians. We pool our plans together for Angkor Wat, the temple ruins that we came originally to see, and then pool our interest in a wild night together. All of us get on motorbikes, Gummi and I on one (in Cambodia like in Vietnam one will see up to five people together on one bike, including infants, none wearing a helmet, says the over protected Icelandic guy). We go out, have fun.
The following day we wake up early to tour the Angkor temples, a world wonder. The temples are amazing and despite the heat and uncomfortable presence of lead in our heads after the previous night we can hardly speak because of what we see. A little girl comes up to us asking us to buy some water from her. I tell her that I'm not thirsty and then I lie that I'll return tomorrow. She says that there is only sorrow tomorrow if I don't buy water from her and a little confused at the girls level of english (she was about four) I buy water from her, leaving with my tail between my legs. I have never been very fond of emotional blackmail but in Cambodia I had my hands repeatedly in my pockets giving money away or tipping v. v. generously. After all, a dollar is money to them while it will get me a tenth of a packet of smokes or a tenth or a beer back home.
The thing that threw me off balance during my stay in Cambodia was the willingness the people had to speak and get to know you, with no reservations or apparent regret of answering my questions about the auto genocide there and Pol Pot. Everyone we encountered had had family or friends murdered by the former regime but didn't sound unwilling to talk about it. Anyway, we spent a few days in Siem Reap, went to the war museum and the floating market where we held some large snakes and then ate them, went to the killing fields of the north and saw a monument erected with large windows, filled inside with skulls of many thousands of Cambodians.
I went to shoot and a part of me must have either died or been born with that experience. I arrive at some place outside of town to a wall of guns. They offer me grenades, rocket launchers and a cow that will cost me an extra 100 dollars but I get to kill it any way I choose, and eat it afterwards for no extra cost. I haven't gone Rambo enough to shoot a cow (although I could pick the Rambo Gun on the wall) and so I choose my AK 47, lock and load and fire. The noise is deafening, the force is trying and once I switched to automatic I just sprayed everywhere. The rush went to my head and I hurried off to the wall, picked out a 50's Chicago mobster Tommygun and loaded it up. That was even more of a thrill and I had no intention of stopping. Next on the list was an Uzi and last a simple colt 45. Good fun and now I'm a hundred dollars poorer.
We left Siem Reap for Phnom Penh, the capital. Phnom Penh was a different story altogether. It had much more of a metropolitan feel to it, vibrant and beautiful. we past some avenues such as Charles de Gaule, Mao and Kim Il Sung Ave., a swarm of motorbikes left and right and neon lit bars and clubs in certain areas. The great monuments were also brightly lit, the fountains and the overall look was promising. We had been picked up at the bus station, the French guy, the English guy and us, and were driven into the backpacker heart of Phnom Penh, by the lake. For four dollars a night we found a great place on the lake and settled in. Again we were asked if we desired some company with the opposite gender or guns, which we declined, but as for the drugs, there was obviously plenty in circulation among the locals and tourists. We grew to love that little guesthouse because of their unbelievable kindness and spirit and met many people there. A guy our age, who worked there and went by the name Chili, didn't do much apart from smoke weed and drink from morning till midnight and despite wanting to go clubbing with us, was always stone cold out by ten.
In Phnom Penh we stayed four nights, saw the temples and the Royal Palace, the markets and the city life and each of the above was equally impressive. The thing that has permanently left some tear in our heart was the killing fields, and the Tuol Sleng prison. We saw methods of torture that we had never before imagined, cells of a metre by metre, and room after room of faces. The Face Rooms almost made me cry, I had to walk around with my sunglasses on to conceal the tears. All the walls, including displays on board in the centre, had mug shots of the victims before their detention. Children, women, men, the old... mugshots of everyone completely expressionless, all facing directly forward, made the rooms ghost like. The Killing Fields had billboards were the statistics of the murders were recorded, pictures and information on how they were tortured, murdered and buried in detail. A monument was erected with the skulls and bones that had been excavated and they were in the thousands.
Apart from the horror and grotesqueness of the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng, Phnom Penh was great and I intend on returning.
From Phnom Penh we went to the coast, a beach town called Sihanoukville. We arrived at the Bus station and were greeted by motorbike drivers and heavy rain. We got on some motorbikes and drove around at night, down badly lit streets, sometimes flooded, in the rain until we found a guesthouse with 2 $ rooms. We didn't explore Sihanoukville, we just stayed on the beach drinking cocktails, playing pool and jet skiing. We met some interesting characters there such as John, the Lebanese UN worker. John had a story to tell, especially of murdering people and after I voiced my disbelief in his line of work he asked me to open his small black fannypack. In there was a gun, some ammunition and some business cards. We chatted for a while and after having made friends, made clear when he let me hold his gun, we went into deep political discussions on the Middle Eastern situation. He gave us his email and business card, clearly stating that he was a Close Protection Officer although I am aware that those can easily be manufactured illegally and before he left, he showed us his interest in photography, and I quote 'My second hobby after killing people is just photography'. The Wild West is what Cambodia is
The last night in Sihanoukville was unimaginable and in retrospect, unbelievable. We were on the beach at night drinking and smoking and meanwhile there is a lightning show in the sky. The lightning literally came every five seconds but still no thunder. Then in an instance some downpour of biblical proportion fell on us, the lightnings came closer and thunder shook as if we were in Baghdad the very first days of the airstrikes. I sprang to my feet into my trunks and dove into the ocean along with some French people. After about twenty minutes thunder struck with such immense force that the entire beach' electricity went cold. Candles were lit and the only sound was the storm above me. There on the beach, waist deep in 26 degree water, Mai Tai in my hand I felt historical. The next day we had had enough, returned to Phnom Penh by bus to the same guesthouse where we were greeted like locals by the owners, stayed two nights not leaving except for the occasional internet trip to maintain some correspondence with our worried parents and now we are in Saigon.

There is a lot I haven't mentioned because I can't recall right now or because some details need not be expressed on a blog read by family. But the Wild West that is Cambodia, it's smiling poverty stricken people's and their torn & forgotten history and the comfort life that can be led here for a few dollars makes me understand how people get stuck here. But don't want to now. I look forward to Viet Nam, Laos, Chine (our new plan) and eventually meeting my father in India.

Thats all for now, I will do my best to write more!

Behave

Rutur