Bangkok, Thailand

Bangkok has been an adventure, a great adventure. First and foremost, Bangkok is very different from any other Asian city I’ve been to. It’s a combination of Hong Kong or Beijing with Phnom Penh or Ho Chi Minh City. It straddles the line between a developed cosmopolitan city and the capital of a developing nation. Traffic, for example, is horrendous and traffic laws are all but nonexistent (stoplights being the only consistently followed signage so far as I’ve seen). On the other hand it has an excellent public transportation system, high rises, and all the amenities a major city could desire.

In the three days I’ve been here, I’ve visited, possibly, the largest market I’ve ever seen (including the markets in Morocco), and had drinks in an exclusively Thai bar, wandered around Wat Pho and surrounds, and taken the river taxi. I’ll start with the market.

Chatuchak is a weekend market that covers 35 acres of space and has more than 15,000 stalls. Anything and everything you could possibly imagine is probably for sale in some corner of this market (yes, I’m including the less savory things as well). A few of the highlights of my trip include live monkeys, fighting cocks, sugar gliders, giant sea turtles, knives, guns, and all manner of other things. I have been told that it is home to the world’s largest black market for endangered species. I don’t doubt.

In addition to all the illegal stuff, all manner of cloths, food, knickknacks, trinkets, jewelry, incense, art, statuary, and anything else are also available for purchase. To my disappointment, the prices were not as good as I had hoped, but experiencing the smells and sights of the market were incredible nonetheless. And hey, for 75,000 Baht (30 Baht to 1 USD) I could have brought home my very own endangered monkey.

Finding the local bar always proves to be an interesting experience. Fortunately for me, I have friends in Bangkok who have lived here for a few months and know all the good hangouts. Not only does it provide a distinctly local experience, it’s usually much cheaper. For 500 Baht a bottle of whiskey I think we did a good job.

The music blared over speakers that couldn’t quite handle it, a combination of Thai music, western music, and western music sung poorly by Thai cover bands. I even went and danced with the table of Thais next to us; they had no idea what to do with me, but I enjoyed myself immensely.

Wat Pho is notable because of its reclining Buddha, the largest in Thailand. This Buddha is simply massive. I mean that in the truest sense of the word, it stretches at least two or three football fields in length and goes up a solid 30 or 40 feet in height. It’s very impressive. Still, I found the restoration work around the temple more interesting. Home to roughly 1000 Buddha images, many of them are in poor states of disrepair. Local artisans were in the process of restoring many of the images around the temple. Wat Pho also claims the origin of Thai Massage some 200 years ago; apocryphal stories would place its origin 2500 years ago and credit it to Buddha’s physician.

Finally, my journey up and down the river on the tourist river taxi was quite an enjoyable and cheap way to see the city along the river. 30 Baht covers your fare as far as you care to go up the river. An English-speaking guide points out sights as you pass them, and sings western songs to boot. A very enjoyable and cheap way to see the city in an hour.

Of Tuk-tuks and Bamboo Trains

The economies of tourism are complicated, massively complicated, in underdeveloped countries, even more so. As a tourist it is impossible to know the true cost of something. Being six feet tall and having white skin somehow sets me apart from the locals. It’s strange.

As a result of my unusual pallor and height, magical things happen to the price of anything I want to buy, hire, or rent. A few days ago I had an enlightening conversation with a tuk-tuk driver, and another one with a stall operator.

While I was eating my breakfast at a little café next to my hostel a Cambodian man came down and sat next to me, unexpected but not unusual. Naturally, we started talking about this and that, and I eventually asked him what he did. “Tuk-tuk driver”, and my heart fell. I knew he was about to try and sell me some package or convince me to go somewhere.

As luck would have it, I was wrong. He didn’t want to sell me anything. Instead we started talking about tuk-tuks and tourism in general. He had worked at guesthouses and restaurants in addition to driving a tuk-tuk. Someday he wants to open a guesthouse of his own.

As I go into more specific details, please forgive me as I’ve undoubtedly made more than a few mistakes and made rough guests at actual numbers.

He explained that there are, in essence, three different kinds of tuk-tuks. First, are the hotel tuk-tuks. They wait outside guesthouses and hostels and generally snag the customers as they leave in the morning. They must have nice, well maintained tuk-tuks, and the drivers must know someone who works in the hostel.

The second kind of tuk-tuk driver waits outside the bus stops and gives rides to tourists arriving in a new city, often suggesting a hostel if they tourist doesn’t have a specific location yet. Now, these drivers have to pay the bus company a fee, $25.00 a month, or $2.00 a day. Yet, I’ve never paid more than… $1.00 or maybe $1.50 to get to my hotel (sometimes even less). How could this be?

First of all, if they take you to a hostel, the hostel is paying them a commission, usually a dollar to two. If they manage to take two or three people to a hostel in a given day, they’ve paid for their spot at the bus station and made a few bucks. They have (in the locals eyes) gained rights to you as a customer. And undoubtedly, they will attempt to sell you some package. Usually they’ll bargain to meet you at some time the next morning and they’ll drive you to two or three sites, for $5.00-15.00.

The third kind of tuk-tuk driver just sits on the side of the street, and flags down passing tourists. The other two hate this kind because they view them as thieves, stealing customers they’ve already laid rights to.

Now lets get a little more complicated. Assume your driver at the hostel or from the bus stop sells you a tour. Logically, they’ve paid for their expenses and made a tidy little profit too. Or maybe not… By way of anecdotal example, in Phnom Penh I split a tuk-tuk with three other guys for a total of $12.00, $3.00 each. We drove ~15km outside of the city and then back in. In Battambong for a total of $8.00 I drove 20km outside the city, another 15km to a second site, and then another 15km back into the city.

In Phnom Penh, the two places we visited were government run, and cost a flat $2.00 entrance fee. In Battambong, one of the places I visited cost $10.00 and was privately held. My tuk-tuk driver undoubtedly received a $2.00 or $3.00 commission for driving me there.

Now it has been explained to me that in many cases a tuk-tuk driver will actually agree to a package where the tourist pays them less than the actual cost in gas to drive there. The tuk-tuk drive makes a wager that they’ll make up the difference in commissions. Sometimes they’re right sometimes they’re wrong.

Onto the Bamboo train, the one I paid $10.00 to ride and my tuk-tuk driver was paid $2.00 or $3.00 in commission. After my ride I sat and chit-chatted with a woman who worked at the store. After she realized that I wasn’t going to buy anything we started talking about the train. As it turns out, her husband was one of the drivers.

Out of my $10.00 $2.00 or $3.00 went to the tuk-tuk driver. The bamboo train driver was paid another $1.00 and presumably the owner kept the rest (I think, for all I know he could have to pay other people). For each trip the train driver makes, he gets paid $1.00. Hardly seems fair, do it? The young woman urged my to tip my driver. I did.

Now the young woman told me another piece of information that, for me, helped explain everything. A worker out in the rice fields gets paid $2.00-$3.00 a day. It’s back breaking work in the sun for long hours. I would use it as a base for the minimum pay. If you can beat $2.00 to $3.00 dollars a day, you’re ahead of the system.

Back to breakfast, the gentleman told me a few more interesting little snippets of information about Cambodia. Fifteen years ago when he was going to school a bowl of noodle soup cost 300 reil (the exchange rate is currently 4000r to 1usd; I have no idea what it was in 1995). Today that same bowl of soup costs ~5000r. That’s an inflation of roughly 1600% over 15 years. Now, he could also use that same 300r to pay for an hour of English instruction with roughly 15 other students. His mother gave him 300r a day; he chose to go to school. His English, today, is excellent.

He also told me that when he opens his guesthouse (he said it was a very big dream, he makes just enough money to get by) he wants to open it in Battambong, not Siem Reap. Apparently the in fighting among the Cambodians in Siem Reap over tourists’ money can get nasty. Though he’d probably make less money in Battambong, he doesn’t want to deal with the hassle of Siem Reap.

Battambong and Phnom Penh, Cambodia

It occurs to me that I have been extremely ungenerous to the children in Cambodia. As such, I would like to modify my most recent posting. Having now visited two other cities in Cambodia, it appears that the only place plagued by young miscreants is Siem Reap. The children in both Phnom Penh and Battambong have been nothing but delightful. And to the credit of Siem Reap, not all my experiences with children were bad.

After leaving one of the temples, a young girl attempted to sell me something. I politely refused; she asked me where I was from. When I responded, “the United States,” she began to rattle off a long list of facts: Obama is president, Joe Biden is VP, Washington D.C. is the capitol, George Washington was the first president, etc etc. We spoke briefly while I walked to my bike, and then the unexpected happened. She gave me, I repeat, gave me, a bracelet for my girlfriend or, barring that, sister. And more importantly, expected nothing else. She enjoyed our conversation. It is a poor man who judges all by the actions of few.

Have you ever gotten a flat while riding a tuk-tuk? En route to Chueong Ek, this happened to me. A sudden pop and the sound of shattering glass turned out to be, not a gunshot as I assumed, but the auditory announcement of a flat tire. We immediately got out of the tuk-tuk and walked it forward to a “garage”, a garage in that it had a hanging picture of a motorbike.

Using two bricks as a jack, we lifted the tuk tuk up and proceeded to change its tire on the side of the road. Unfortunately, the nail that had popped our tire was still embedded in the tire itself. The repairman cut a piece of rubber from a bike tire, fitted it into the tire of the tuk-tuk, and all was well. In short order we were on our way again.

Those of you living (or who lived) in either Greenwood Village or Williamsburg probably have memories of exercise equipment (I use that term lightly) along paths and trails. Some government initiative thought that a push up bar along a running path would inevitably lead to a healthier society, one that does push-ups on their runs. It upsets me greatly to announce that, within the United States, this has been a failure.

A similar campaign in Cambodia has heralded great success. Along the waterfront in Phnom Penh the government has installed various different pieces of workout equipment. Some are reminiscent of pedal bikes, others ellipticals, and others unlike anything I’ve seen before. Walking along the waterfront at sunset gives evidence to their great use, every machine. And free(?) aerobics classes are also in evidence. Someone setup speakers and decided to lead an aerobics class, multiple someones in fact. Not only that, but they each had some 20 or 30 participants.

For those of you unaware, Cambodia was once a French Colonial nation. The city of Battambong is proof of that. Spattered with French Colonial architecture, this sleepy town lies in the North West of Cambodia. As many of you may know, I’m fond of sleepy little towns; Battambong is no exception.

My stay here is brief, but I would readily stay longer should chance arrive (and a few degrees were knocked off the thermometer). The hustle of Phnom Penh, the excess of tourists in Siem Reap, Battambong lacks. Instead, people go about their daily business largely ignorant of the few tourists that come here. The only unique attraction is the bamboo train.

Today I’ve visited both the bamboo train and the “killing cave”, another of the Khmer Rouge’s violent spaces. The bamboo train utilizes an old French railroad track to move people and product between rural villages. A six horse power engine hurtles a bamboo stage along the track. These stages can be easily taken apart and removed from the track should a string of other stages be encountered going the opposite direction; a novelty, undoubtedly, but entertaining none the less.

After a good hike (supposedly either 1000m or 1000’, it wasn’t clear) I was lead to the killing cave, the site of another death camp hailing the Khmer Rouge. Many and more skulls were displayed in a memorial stupa. Again, the tragedy of the Khmer Rouge has been reinforced through vigilance and memorial.

And now, I admit ashamedly, to having forgotten one of the cardinal rules of backpacking: street food. In any and all cases one should attempt to eat the local street food. Simply put it is cheaper and better than anything you could get in a restaurant. I have been reminded of this today.

For the past week and change I have been eating exclusively at restaurants. For a whapping 3500r (roughly $1.88) I was reintroduced to street food. Searching for a cheap lunch I found a street vendor selling bread and a variety of fried meat(?) products. Served abed mint and cucumber the fried sticks of meat were accompanied by bread and a hot sweet chili, including red beans. It is one of the best meals I’ve had in Cambodia. I won’t soon forget to frequent often the gap-toothed vendor selling undistinguishable food on the corner of the street. I'm having dinner at the same place.

Remembering The Khmer Rouge

On April 17th, 1975 the city of Phnom Penh celebrated the arrival of the Khmer Rouge. Their arrival heralded the end of a brutal civil war. The Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pots (birth name Saloth Sar), would rule the country of Cambodia for a brief four years.

Believing in a communist agrarian ideal stylized “Angkar”, the Khmer Rouge would devastate the country of Cambodia and kill roughly 20% of the population. Cities were evacuated, intellectuals, doctors, teachers, business men and women, anyone suspected of harboring anti “Angkar” thoughts was put to death. Democratic Kampuchea, as the Khmer Rouge called it, represents one of the bloodiest, most violent, and cruel periods of human history.

Allow me to compare some numbers. During the Holocaust, roughly 6 million Jews (and other minority groups) were killed, roughly 2/3 of the Jewish population in Europe. During Stalin’s reign in Soviet Russia historians estimate that 700,000 people died due to “purges”. During the Reign of Terror estimates range from 16,00 to 40,000 people died. While the Holocaust still dramatically overshadows the Khmer Rouge’s genocide killed an estimated 1.4 to 2.2 million people ¼ to 1/5 of the population, roughly half from execution and half from starvation and disease.

In 1979 the Vietnamese ended the rule of the Khmer Rouge and established the People’s Republic of Kampuchea. The Khmer Rouge fled to the countryside and maintained a government until 1993. The world community recognized the Khmer Rouge, not the newly established government. The Khmer Rouge continued to hold a seat in the United Nations until 1993 when the world community officially recognized the new government after nation wide elections.

As of this writing, only one of the leaders of the Khmer Rouge has been punished for their crimes against humanity. “Duch” the head of the infamous S.21 or Tuol Sleng Prison Camp has been convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and a plethora of other equally vicious acts. He is the only leader to have expressed any remorse for his actions. Pol Pots died in 1998 while under house arrest before being convicted of any crimes. The remaining five leaders currently indicted by the ECCC (Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia) have all plead not guilty.

Over the past few days I have visited both Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek (the killing fields outside Phnom Penh). Similar to the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge kept detailed photographic and written records of all the prisoners who stayed at Tuol Sleng. These images, as well as victim testimonies (what few survived, out of ~17,00 to 20,000 prisoners 7 survived) bear witness to the horrible crimes that happened.

Choeung Ek memorializes the victims of the Khmer Rouge. A massive pagoda displays the skulls and bones of the victims for the public to venerate and view. A “killing tree” still stands where guards bludgeoned infants to death by swinging them into a tree by their feet. Mass graves containing roughly 9000 bodies have been found, exhumed, and displayed. It remains as a grisly reminder to the actions that took place during those years.

Going forward it is easy to dismiss all of these as the atrocities as a bygone, but that simply is not the case. Millions die every year in Africa due to similar barbarity, The Sudan in past years, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, and other nations come to mind. The government of North Korea is eerily reminiscent of the Khmer Rouge (mass starvation, totalitarian and autocratic rule, no freedom of speech). I have no answer or solution, but would like to call to witness what we so easily forget.

Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Everyone knows I love cooking, rather I love food and cooking is an aspect of food. I am now certified (I even have a certificate) to cook Khmer food. It was a three-hour course, with three courses. I learned how to make banana flower salad, fish amok, and sticky rice.

I was unfamiliar with banana flowers, which are similar to giant artichokes; the petals die and eventually give way to bananas. Replace the lettuce with thinly sliced petals soaked in limewater. Add a handful of fresh herbs, sweet chili, and carrot.

The dressing, it turns out, is the same as the dipping sauce used for spring roles. Mash garlic, chili peppers, and shallots, add to boiling water. A splash of fish sauce, a spoonful of sugar, and voila: the sauce is done. Toss all the other ingredients and pour the dressing over. I think my version might be chilled with a bit more hot peppers.

Amok, it turns out, is basically curry. Mash turmeric, ginger, chili, garlic, and shallots. Add it all to boiling coconut milk; add sugar, condensed milk, and water. Add whatever else you want, let it cook down a bit and you’re finished. Serve with white rice.

We managed to both burn, and undercook our sticky rice at the same time. Cook the rice first (note, sticky rice not regular jasmine); add coconut milk, condensed milk, sugar, and powdered vanilla (I’ve never seen this before). Cook everything down until the liquids boil off and allow it to cool. It comes out as a really nice desert, very sweet.

My other activities in Siem Reap include a massage by the blind, a walkabout the city, and, of course, a visit to the markets.

I love massages, anyone who says they don’t has either never had a good one, or is lying. Massages in Asia are cheap, very very cheap. And even better, they can potentially help a good cause. I received my massage from a blind person. I don’t know how he was blinded, but I do know that my five dollars help him support himself and the rest of the blind community in Siem Reap. For five dollars I received a full hour body massage. After lugging around two backpacks and a camera bag, a massage feels great.

Massages by the blind seem to have infiltrated a great deal of the worlds backpacking destinations. I’ve had one in Nicaragua as well. I don’t know if this is an international organization, or if they’ve sprung up independently. As an added bonus, they come without the risk of a happy ending.

And now, a special note on the children of Cambodia. Any visit to a tourist attraction (at least in underdeveloped countries) comes with a plethora of people trying to sell you everything, including the kitchen sink. In most places the would be entrepreneurs range in age from about five to fifty. The children in Cambodia are particularly aggressive. Most people you can either wave off or ignore, occasionally it takes two statements of disinterest. The children will pester you with “why no”, “feed me”, “give me money”, and the like. They’ll even follow you to your bike, tuk tuk, or taxi – begging the whole way.

As annoying as this is, it gets worse. As soon as the sun sets in Siem Reap, the children turn from aggressive touters to muggers and harassers. In my own personal experience, one young child repeatedly reached under my shorts and attempted to hit my privates. After doing this several times, I finally trapped his hand between my legs. I hoped that would stop him. When I let him go, instead of learning the error of his ways he began violently kicking and punching me. Fortunately, he was too young to cause any sort of problem and I just ignored him, but this could have been a serious problem.

Others have not been so lucky. In one case, a young woman was attacked by so many children she couldn’t hold them back. After they stole all the money out of her pockets they disappeared into the night. Another young woman had a child (holding a baby) continually grasp at her pants and pockets. She managed to escape without losing any money.

The markets, I must admit, have been unremarkable in Cambodia. They sell the usual assortment of clothing, carved statues, shot glasses, key chains, and the like. I’ve enjoyed them, but have yet to find anything of particular note.

I took the night bus from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh. It could have been worse; buses in Asia are a crapshoot at best. The seat didn’t quite recline, but at least it was decently cool, dark, and quiet… until about 4:00 in the morning. For some inexplicable reason our driver decided to blare music throughout the entire bus. Not traditional Cambodian music, not western music, but a strange hybrid of the two. The worst elements of western pop, an occasional electric guitar, and what I can only describe as Khmer chanting filled my ears for the rest of the trip. I didn’t get much sleep.

The two main attractions of Phnom Penh, for me, are the killing fields and Toul Sleng museum. They’ll be discussed in a separate write up.