When I budgetted for my world trip I didn't account for my bleeding heart. After a fun-filled night of playing trivia, drinking, and laughing, I head back to my guesthouse in Siem Reap. As I walk back a young girl, shirtless with torn pants and a dirty face jumps into my arms, while another girl grabs onto my hand. For a second I am reminded of a Goos family holiday taken back in 1995 to Italy when my dad, wearing a "fanny-pack", was robbed by a mob of seemingly innocent children, so I search for my wallet - it'still there. They start chanting to me "hungry, food, hungry, food, food, food"; I mean this is the stuff of my nightmares, and I say to them "sure I'll buy you some chocolate or chips", which are words I'm sure they don't understand, so I carry them into the convenience store. The second I walk through the sliding door, in what seems like a well rehearsed scheme, they walk over to the baby formula and hand me a $17 canister, this time chanting "for baby, please, for baby." (I have since learned the scam is to return the formula to the store and get the money, after I've walked away with my do-good-for-others feeling.) Needless to say, I left the convenience store having bought the formula AND plenty of chocolate, chips and candy. Cambodia is a country stricken with poverty, and everywhere you go people want your money. From the constant berage of "hey lady, tuk-tuk? where you go? motorbike?" the second you step off of a bus or leave a restaurant, you could even have just gotten off a tuk-tuk; to land mine mutilated people selling books and postcards out of a basket that hangs around their neck, surrounding you when you sit down to eat a meal; or restaurants yelling you the specials on drinks and food as you walk by. I have since spent money on $10 worth of school supplies for the orphanage I am teaching at and $18 for last-day presents to the children, a $10 donation to an orphanage in Siem Reap, over $14 on books from street sellers, $10 on pencils for the school at the floating village, and the list goes on. I have had many a heated debate with other travellers as to whether or not it benefits people to give them money. I ussually conclude the debate by saying "Well, you think the money we give goes to bad things like drugs and alcohol, and I think the money goes towards good things like food and education. Since we will never know the truth, I will keep thinking it it goes towards good things." As I drive through the country I often consider the impact a small monetary donation from each US citizen would have on the population here in Cambodia - it would be big. I think the answer to the question is, GIVE.
In my last couple of days in Siem Reap I hung out at a rooftop pool (which cost and astronomical $11 for a couple of hours compared to the $6 a night I was splitting for a guesthouse ), met up with my friend Tim from college for dinner, and visited an orphanage where I fell in love with a little boy named Tye.
The following day Jodi and I set out on a morning bus to Battambang, which my lonely planet describes as "home to Cambodia's best-preserved French-period architecture", but I just felt like it was another busy Asian city. With a central market selling fried bugs and spiders, squirming fish in buckets, eggs containing dead baby chickens, hand made scarfs, and knock-off purses, and the typical asian traffic (swarms of motobikes, tuk-tuks, cars and cyclos going in all directions), we decided not to spend too much time there. On our first and only afternoon in Battambang we took a tuk-tuk ride out to the countryside.
One of the main tourist attractions is a bamboo train, which is basically an old railway line that now provides the locals with means of transporting their goods - atop a bamboo mat on transportable wheels, so if anyone is coming in the other direction the cart with the least amount of goods has to get everyone and everything off, break down the bamboo train and let them pass. The best part of this bumpy ride was stopping at a little "village" where they forced us to eat fried banana chips and drink soda while I rose to celebrity status introducing the children to my iPhone.
On the way back we stopped to see homes where they make bamboo cakes (they put coconut milk, rice and black beans into a stick of bamboo and cook it over a fire), rice paper and Cambodian "cheese" (this is not cheddar people, its made from fish!)
The following morning we left Battambang and decided to stop in a place called Pursat, a town off the beaten backpacker path. When we got off the bus we were accosted by people trying to get us into their guesthouse, and after we found a place and started our walk around town, the looks of escaped zoo animals began. Clearly there aren't a lot of white people in Pursat because we were the afternoon entertainment. While most of the children would scream hello to us, the adults mostly gave questioning, unfriendly looks.
Pursat has another bustling market, lots of motobikes, garbage strewn all over the streets (in Cambodia most people cannot afford to have their rubbish picked up so they just throw it on the ground, out the window of their car, etc.) and a couple of old temples.
We took a scenic 45 minute tuk-tuk ride through the countryside, with bamboo homes, water buffalo, rice padies, and screams from children when they caught a glimpse of us. We ended up at another floating village, which was far less touristy than the last one, but still had a floating gas station, mobile phone shop and lots of smiling locals. After an early night, we took a morning bus to Phnom Pehn.
What I didn't know about Cambodia shocks me. Between 1975 and 1979 the Khmer Rouge, at the hands of leader Pol Pot, killed approximately 1,700,000 Cambodian people in acts of mass genoicide (1/3 of the population!!) With radical Marxist ideas Pol Pot murdered any person who was not a simple working peasant (including anyone with an education, governmental position, city job, etc.) One of the books I bought from a crippled street seller is called "First they Killed my Father", and I highly reccomend it to anyone interested in Cambodian history.
WIping tears from my eyes, this book explained how the Khmer Rouge told the people living in Phnom Pehn that the US was going to bomb the city, so the people were evacuated to surrounding villages where they were starved, and eventually murdered in truly violent ways. In the center of Phnom Pehn a former high school was turned into a prison called S-21, which is now a torture museum documenting the horrific acts of the Khmer Rouge .
About 30 minutes outside of town are the killing fields of Choeung Ek, where most of the 17,000 detainees of S-21 were executed. The memorial stupa which stands in the center of this rolling field displays over 8,000 human skulls, bringing to life the reality of this atrocity. Many of the locals I meet and even the orphans I teach have lost parents and other relatives to the Khmer Rouge. Considering the history of this war-torn country, I think Cambodia is doing pretty well.
Phnom Pehn also has a casino (where I won $8, and subsequently a few nights later lost $10), a royal palace, 3 markets (the Russian market, Central market and the Night Market), lots of great restaurants lining the esplanade which runs along the Mekong River, massage parlors ("hey lady, you want massage, good deal for you"), and thousands of tuk-tuks, motorbikes, cyclos, busses and street sellers (hey lady, where you go? you need a ride, good deal for you.)
After seeing some truly strange and ridiculous things here in Phnom Pehn I adopted a new motto, "why not."
For example: Why not wear your pajamas all day long? People all over this country wear two-piece, ridiculously patterned pajamas, all day, everyday. Or, why not wash your hands with a coke? Yes, I saw someone doing this. Or, why not drive on on the wrong side of the road? Whether taking a left hand turn immediately or in 4 miles, someone turning left onto a road instead of crossing traffic to get into the right lane, will pull into the oncoming traffic lane and ride there for as long as they feel like it. This, and not having stop signs or stop lights at intersections makes for a very strange, but organized chaos. Lastly, why not wear long sleeve pants and shirts, gloves and hats in 100 degree weather? The people here are so afraid of getting sun that they wear as much clothing as they can (not to mention all their face creams have whitening in them, which is pretty annoying for someone who likes to have a tan!)
The best part about my stay in Phnom Pehn has been my experience teaching English at an orphanage for the last week. Although I intended to head south to the coast for my last days in Cambodia, I couldn't pass up this opprotunity to work with the local children. I have been teaching two classes of 20 children, ranging in age from 4 to 15, basic English (sounds of letters, dictation, word recognition, etc.) Some of the older kids just want to practice their English, and during the conversation hour ask basic questions ("Do you have a boyfriend" is always a favorite, and one even asked me to sing "My Heart Will Go On" from The Titanic, which I did, horribly.) I truly enjoy teaching. Maybe it's a future career path?
On Sunday the 20th I am off on my own again, to Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam. My former travel buddy Rego is there, and I am hoping I can convince him to travel north with me. I will spend twenty days in Vietnam, before my July 10th flight to Bali, Indonesia.
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