Money talks

Wednesday, 24/10/2012 – 132 A.D.

Now then, if you loved yesterday’s post at the Genocide Museum then you’re just gonna be oh-so-enamoured by our trip this morning to The Killings Fields! The two sort of go hand-in-hand, with most tourists visiting both in the same day, but we’re not like most tourists. First off we had to find a travel agent who could book us onto the Mekong Express to Saigon at the end of the week. That wasn’t too hard at all. Then we needed to find a tuk-tuk driver who would take us the 15 or so kilometres out of town to The Killings Fields. That was even easier. A $13 round trip was a pretty good price as well.  

The Killing Fields outside of Pnhom Penh are called Choeung Ek and they are the most famous, but there were hundreds of such sites all over the country. Victims were brought here by the lorry-load for swift executions and then buried in mass graves. When you buy your ticket you get the audio tour as standard, which is fine because it allows you to walk around the site at your leisure, listening to the commentary from survivors. And I had thought that the stories of bones, teeth and clothing seeping up out of the ground after heavy rains was a little far-fetched...not at all, as it happens. 

[The main "stupa" or monument to the victims. More on this later, particularly what's inside it.]

[There are pits like this all over the place.]

[You wouldn't think a sign like this would be necessary, but unbelievably I saw one bloke do it without realising what he was walking on.]

[Mass grave in which 450 bodies were found - the largest at Choeung Ek.]

[The lake at the far end of the site. There are more mass graves beneath it, but the decision has been taken to leave them undisturbed. It's a strange sensation to sit besides such a quiet, tranquil body of water and then suddenly remember what it contains.]

[As mentioned earlier, bits of bone, teeth and clothing that have risen up from the earth.]

[The grisly contents of the  stupa.]

[The contents just go on and on and on.]

I'll spare you the descriptions of some of the even more extreme behaviour that went on at Choeung Ek, because I think you've had enough. While standing in the stupa and quietly lost in thought, I had to do a double take at the guy standing next to me. It was Duncan, a fellow traveller who we'd met on the train from Surat Thani to Bangkok. I didn't know that he was planning on coming to Cambodia - small world. Well, sort of - if you come to Phnom Penh, chances are you'll end up at Choeung Ek at some point. In fact, I like the way that there isn't a massive amount of things to do here - you leave feeling satisfied that you've really experienced as much of the city as you could, rather than with regret for those things you never had time to see.

Come the afternoon we had some free time, so it was decided we should have a What Carcass Moment. I realised that previous What Carcass Moments often involved Tim going off to do something and me staying back at the hotel to chill. Therefore I decreed that today I would be the one to go off and leave him to...chill, I guess. Thing is, I didn't really have anywhere definite to go! But What Carcass Moments are always a great excuse to wander round the city to some top tunes on the Ipod. And whereas many people may not regard it as a top tune, there's something enjoyably surreal to witness the dusty chaotic Phnom Penh hustle and bustle while listening to Unchained melody. Strange choice, I know, but in this context it somehow worked. 

I went to the travel agents to pick up our bus tickets, then headed off to the large Central Market. There was plenty of stuff on offer, but it's not the same without a wingman to distract the stall owners and give you a bit more peace as you browse. One thing I did pick up was some apples - been a while since I've had `em, don't think they grow `em around here because they're not the cheapest fruits on offer. To round out the afternoon I headed to the north of the city to check out Wat Phnom, i.e. big temple on the city's only hillock, then went to meditate beside the river, which is quite a pleasant strolling spot late in the afternoon when it's out of the direct sunlight.

It was our fourth out of five nights in Phnom Penh...time to go out and party! It had been far too long since Bangkok, but ping pong shows were definitely not on the agenda tonight. In fact, we didn't really know what was - at the end of the day we may well just go out for tea as normal and have a couple extra beers before going back to the hotel to watch the karaoke channel with milk and cookies. But first it was time for something a bit stronger, and I was overjoyed to find a place doing Indian cuisine, in particular my favourite dish, chicken madras. And it wasn't bad, though nowhere near as hot as I've had in Southport. 

We moved north beside the river, stopping off at a couple of the places that are frequented by the few Western tourists in the city. I wouldn't really call them bars, more like restaurants with a bar-like feel. However, come 10:30 and we found ourselves wandering back towards the centre of the city. Here all of the places had flashy neon lights outside and women squeezed into dresses three sizes too small shouting across the road at us to enter. To enter the bar, I should clarify that. Plus they all seemed to offer rooms for the night. Yep, these were the so-called "hostess bars" where the single male punter is made to feel extremely welcome. Don't get me wrong, there's a sliding scale here, ranging from bar girls paid to serve drinks and talk to customers (and nothing more), all the way to those girls who'll give everything to a paying customer. The problem is, it's difficult to tell from the outside of these places if they're the okay kind where you can have a drink and a laugh, or the ultra-seedy sort where you'll be dragged upstairs before you can say "Cheque, please!" 

It was getting to the point where we'd walked past the same venues several times, much to bemusement of the tuk-tuk drivers hanging around, and an early night was beckoning (without the milk and cookies). But we're English, and we're up for an adventure, so we figured we'd minimise the risk and go back to the place we ended up eating at the first night. This was the Golden Sorya Mall where there were all kinds of bars scattered around an open warehouse-type setting. We'd had a bite to eat at the safest spot near the pavement, but now we ventured deeper into the complex.

It was a hostess at the Sorya Beergarden bar who attracted our custom. Why? Can't really remember, but probably something to do with happy hour prices. We took our seats at the bar, which was more like a long, bendy, neon-lit table. In general, the punters sat one side, the hostesses on the other. Oddly enough, once we'd ordered our jug of beer, a chap who worked there was the first to strike up conversation. We really weren't fussed about talking to him, especially as it seemed a little strained. When we asked him which football teams he liked, he said Barcelona and Chelsea. Upon looking round the mall a little later, we saw that the two TV screens were coincidentally showing the Barcelona and the Chelsea games. Good job they weren't showing  Yeovil against Darlington as we wouldn't have believed him for a moment!

Anyway, the dude soon departed and a young hostess called Thavy took his place. She at least seemed genuinely interested in what we were talking about, but at the back of my mind I still couldn't be sure if it was just all part of the service. I should point out that Thavy was was wearing the white T-shirt which is standard regalia of the bar staff, whereas those girls who I got the feeling were the hostesses-who-go-where-most-other-hostesses-won't, if you'll pardon the expression, were dressed in mufti. Very tight mufti, in most cases. Anyway, Thavy came and went as the night went on and we learnt a lot about why she worked there, the hours she did, the scary place she worked at before, how she wanted to go to Canada to visit family, how she wanted us to teach her the minimal French and Spanish we knew, etc. Just a nice girl, at the end of the day, nothing more than that.

During a moment when it was just The James and The Tim left to their own devices to talk among themselves, I suddenly felt an elbow in my back, followed by a couple of hands squeezing my shoulder blades. Upon turning round I saw a middle-aged woman who, I'll tactfully say, may have had a hard life. My initial reaction was that she wanted me to buy her a drink and etc., etc., etc., until we get into extremely censored territory. Well that wasn't going to happen! So as I politely said, "Thank you, no," a thousand and one times, she eventually got the message, feigned a sulk, and walked away. A few minutes later we saw her across the bar giving a massage to a zonked-out bloke who'd barely been able to hold his drink. Turned out she was just a masseuse, nothing more, giving on-the-spot massages to the patrons for a buck. And I have to say that she may have only done my back and shoulders for a few seconds, but she certainly knew what she was doing! Back in Thailand, Longtip had advised us that if we do go for massages we should go for the older, experienced masseuses. We'll have to see about that one another time!

[James is relieved to have escaped the dodgy massage...]

[...but this guy wasn't so lucky.]

Things were rocking in the Sorya Beergarden and the Grayboys were in good moods, with enough entertainment around to keep us going for a few hours. When we initially arrived there had been a decent mix of clientele, but as the night wore on it was basically just us and the blokes-of-a-certain-kind. These guys were mostly smashed out of their heads and the drool on their faces was visible as the girls pretended to flirt with them and tried to look touched when they were bought a rose from the passing child selling flowers. I got the feeling that, with so much inebriation around, things could turn ugly at any moment, not that we had anything to worry about - we're English and we're well `ard. Besides, there were some black-shirted security guards hanging around near the entrance, although most of them looked about 15 and barely taller than the hostesses in their heels. At one point trouble did break out. We didn't understand why at the time, but Thavy told us later that one of the blokes-of-a-certain-kind who was with a hostess-of-a-certain-type went and kissed the sister of said hostess. And hostess went ballistic. Heels came off, fists came out, and the two of them went at it like wild beasts. The security guards piled in to help separate them, but they only succeeded in getting them to either end of the bar, where they still shouted at each other and traded insults. A few minutes later, one girl grabbed a glass and prepared to launch it (thankfully her friend grabbed her arm) and the other grabbed a glass ashtray to lob (thankfully her friend held onto the ashtray). We were sitting halfway between the two of them and if either missile was launched inaccurately then we may have got our drinks paid for free (but not our hospital bill!) The fracas ended when bloke-of-a-certain-kind picked up his hostess, put her under his arm and walked out of the mall with her!

[The long and lonely walk to the Gents - keep your eyes open and your pockets closed!]

One thing all of these hostess bars have is a pool table - the old-fashioned kind where you can simply take the balls out of the pockets for a new game without having to stick any money in. Judging by some of the skillful shots these ladies were playing, they've obviously got quite a few games under their designer belts. It's  one of the ways for the customers and the girls to break the ice - have a light-hearted game of pool (and keep it light-hearted when you get beaten by the girl!) I'd been talked at by one of the more louder mufti girls, called Bowpar [SIC], who demanded I get my name down on the board for a game. Okay, what the heck, I may not have my specs with me, but I've got enough Angkor inside me to feel competent. And so I took to the table and took on a hostess whose name I did not catch for the England versus Cambodia international classic. And England won! Get in!

Unfortunately Cambodia struck back when Bowpar came to the table and beat me. But only just. And she got quite lucky with some shots. And I was distracted by something shiny in the distance when I potted the white. 

The evening was rounded out with a couple of games of doubles - me and Bowpar against Tim and Thavy (my team wins) and then me and Bowpar against Tim and unknown hostess (again my team wins, much to younger brother's chagrin). There was a bit of confusion over the rules, especially the one where you're supposed to nominate which pocket you pot the black in and you lose if it goes in another one, but who cares, it's only a game. Which my team won. And, if you're reading this months down the line, Tim...MY TEAM WON!!!

By now it was gone 02:30, and the place closed at 03:00. Not only did we not want to be around to see what happened at that point, we also had to get up early to get down the Chinese embassy next morning. And so we went to pay our bill and get going. As we were leaving, Thavy came over (no sign of Bowpar and the others) and asked if we could keep in touch via Facebook. It surprised me, but pleasantly, and we were only too happy to. It's good to have made a friend who's a local and not another fellow traveller. She's going to Ho Chi Minh City at some point soon - I forget when exactly - but no doubt we'll have moved on from there by then. We're always moving on from somewhere!

Walking back through the streets of Phom Penh in the early hours was very strange; they were absolutely  deserted, bar the odd tuk-tuk driver offering us things I should not repeat. Such a contrast to the daytime when everywhere is teeming with people and vehicles. And such contrasting experiences today - The Killing Fields in the morning, the hostess bars in the evening.When we reached our hotel the shutter had been pulled across the door. For a brief moment we thought we'd have to return to the Sorya Beergarden and find a hostess with her own place to stay the night with. Then one of the staff who'd been sleeping behind the desk poked his head up and let us in. Damn!