What went on in Cambodia in the 1970s was the result of outsider interference compounded by weak leadership. Prime Minister Sihanouk committed his country to its nebulous take on
communism because he thought the USA planned to assassinate him. His 'Peoples
Socialist Communist Party' was no such thing, yet its name was implication
enough for the North Vietnamese to assume sanctuary on Cambodian soil, and,
coupled with the CIA threat from across the border, Sihanouk casually
acquiesced.
Sensing indifference to his political responsibilities and becoming
increasingly aware of the military's desire to align itself with the American
cause, there occurred a rural based insurgency forcing Sihanouk to back
sanctions against a strain of left-wing thinking of which he must have assumed
placated. It was too little too late. Alarmed by the Vietnamese incursions, and fearful of losing the money
America had been providing in aid, General Lol Nom took the Prime Minister’s
vacation in France as an opportunity to depose the leadership and seize power
for himself.
Sentenced
to death in absentia, Sihanouk's response can be seen as the defining moment in
Cambodian history. In exile, he set up the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), more commonly known as the Khmer Rouge, a beast that would be
used to commit genocide on an unfathomable
scale. What then followed was an example of geopolitics gone mad. Out of need
rather than desire, the Khmer Rouge formed an alliance with the North
Vietnamese in a bid to overthrow Lol Nom's United Sates sanctioned regime. American
funds had found their way into the wrong pockets, resulting in corruption and
scandal, driving all neutrals towards the CPK. So in effect,
both America and Vietnam had created an environment where the Khmer Rouge could thrive, and with Sihanouk in exile it was left to Pol Pot to assume
leadership and implement his particular brand of communism.
After forcing out Lol Nom’s regime, the Khmer Rouge
turned their attention to expelling the Vietnamese and set Cambodia on course
to its bloodiest period in history. Ironically, it was Vietnam who was finally
forced to end it all in 1978, after the death of some 2 million people
through war and famine.
10/02/03: Get boat to Trat
and then a minibus to the border. A truck to Koh Kong and find a guesthouse. Go
for a meal with Welsh L
& K, G and F.
The fishing vessel that dropped us off on Koh Chang doesn’t
do the early rounds, so we’ll need to get a songthaew to Tha Dan Kao and a ferry from
there. Welsh L & K, G and F are ready and waiting and we join forces by
default. Something is said about how Welsh L & K weren’t sure whether we
wanted to travel with them, but it is both vague and unconvincing. That aside,
they seem open to accompanying us to Cambodia, and the first stage of
our day-long journey appears perfectly relaxed. The drive to Tha Dan Kao is
negligible and the ferry back to the mainland takes about 45 minutes. Next, we
make the short journey into Trat by public bus, whereupon we transfer onto a
minibus that will take us to the border-town of Hat Lek, which takes about an
hour. On our arrival we stop for food and drink. There’s no rush because
there’s no queue to get through, and we’ve been up since 09:00, haven’t had
breakfast and it’s now approaching 13:00. The food is remedial (stir-fried rice
and mushrooms with some green stuff thrown in) but it fills a hole and readies
us for the transition into Cambodia.
From Thailand most people
cross into Cambodia via Poipet, entering into the North Eastern sector of the
country conveniently near to Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor. In contrast,
the border crossing into Koh Kong looks like it sees very little action. Will
this be a good thing or bad?
Stage 1 is simple enough:
Thai Immigration Control stamps our passports and bids us farewell. Cambodian
bureaucracy – representative of Stage 2 – is a little less efficient. Everyone
but G has a passport sized photograph of themselves, essential for gaining
access into Cambodia. Prepared for an eventuality such as G’s, the guys in
immigration have a camera, although they charge about 200 baht for the use of it, on top of the
600 baht it costs for the visa. These photographs are supposed to be
attached to the immigration form you have to fill out and are then filed away. As
it turns out, nobody sees the photograph that has supposedly been taken of G
and we’re led to conclude that the 200 baht ended up in somebody’s pocket. It’s
a hectic process all round with barely a word spoken between us and our inquisitors.
It’s like an unrulier version of the entrance we made into Laos, but we do get
nice big, green visas adhered to our passports, with our middle names
mistakenly masquerading as our first.
Bureaucratic boxes ticked,
we’re then flung out onto the street for the assembled throng of taxi drivers
to fight over us. Take your pick. We
select the guy who seems to be the least pushy, provoking a virtual riot. The
money we pay up front is then cut with some of the other drivers, who might actually have some sort of system in place. We climb on board the back of
our driver’s pickup truck, wait for our entourage to put their finances in
order, only to be then set upon by men selling cartons of cigarettes. A pack of
200 Marlboro Lights is going for 200 baht, whereas they’re asking for more than
double that for a carton of Marlboro Red. The discrepancy makes no obvious sense
but F and G are prepared to gamble on the Marlboro Lights, whereas Welsh L buys
his regular Marlboro Reds for the not unreasonable sum of 500 baht (they’d cost
about 700 baht if you bought the equivalent number over the counter in
Thailand). The nature of the disparity is very quickly revealed once we’ve got
going and F lights one of his newly acquired cigarettes only to find it
completely unsmokable. The driver’s accomplice, well aware of everything that
has gone on, pokes his head through the back of the cabin and explains that the
cheaper cigarettes are made from dried cow dung.
It’s not far to Koh Kong
proper and there’s enough time to book into our guesthouse and organise the
next leg of our journey, for there is much to see in Cambodia but not a lot to
see or do in Koh Kong.
It’s a little hard to judge how reasonably priced things are
in Cambodia, given in that you can deal in one of three currencies. Like in
Laos, baht seems to go down pretty well. Less favoured is the local currency,
the reel. Preferred above all else is the dollar, with many things costing
exactly that – one dollar. Generally speaking, it’s probably best to keep hold
of your dollars for as long as you can, use baht for the slightly more
expensive things like meals and bus journeys, and accumulate reel in
small change along the way. Rent can be paid in either baht of dollars – you
can’t use reel for anything of great value – and stuff like beer or
coffee can be purchased in either dollars or reel. Reel really comes into its
own when buying things that you know aren’t worth a dollar but will
cost a dollar in the absence of any reel, because dollars cannot be broken down
into cents. This methodology can also apply to baht, with the smaller
denominations generally absent from circulation, and it is baht we must use
until we can get to a bank and cash in some more of our traveller’s cheques. It’s
all a bit of a headache.
Koh Kong is a strange place. It
is a small town but busy with it. What are all those people doing over there, crowded
around that tiny shop? I think they must be watching something on television. This place feels very remote,
maybe because I’ve not noticed anyone who isn’t evidently local. The Cambodians
seem helpful enough, even if I am a little on my guard after that clamour back
at the border.
At the restaurant I feel
slightly exposed. We total six and we are the only people dining here, and
we’re ordering cans of Angkor Beer by the round. The staff seem to find us
rather entertaining, as do the children playing outside, and we shamefully
comply by building a tower out of our empty cans of Angkor. I didn’t figure on
getting drunk, although to be fair Angkor Beer comes in small 330 ml stubby cans
similar in strength to Singha, as opposed to the stronger Chang. We stock up on
a few more on the way home, mild intoxication appearing to be the rational response
to our new environment.
11/02/03: Mini-bus to
Sihanoukville. Book into Brosoer Guesthouse, lunch somewhere, walk along beach, dinner at Sunset Restaurant, drinks and games of cards with G and F.
The journey to Sihanoukville takes about four hours, cutting
through the gentle slopes that fringe Boutum Sakor National Park to the south. It
is an uncomfortable journey. Our roads are mostly wide, flattened dirt-tracks,
the foundations for a major arterial as yet un-built, and we have to cross rivers along the way. Whether the authorities ever intend on bridging these
tributaries is unclear, but they slow us down considerably. The ever-present
red soil finds its way into our mini-bus through the fractured, plastic
interior of our vehicle – as does the noise – but the river crossings offer us
temporary respite from our hot and dusty cocoon.
On reaching our destination
we’re introduced to one of the more unsavoury aspects of travel in Cambodia. We
have told our driver(s) the name of the guesthouse in which we intend to stay
during our tenure in Sihanoukville, but he does not take us there. Instead, he
drives us to Brosoer Guesthouse a few blocks away. Assuming that there must
have been some mistake, we explain to him where it is we wanted to be dropped
off, he feigns ignorance and we direct him there using the map in our
guidebook. On arrival, he asks us to remain in the vehicle while he checks for
vacancies, re-materialising less than a minute later with the unwelcome news
that the guesthouse in question has not enough rooms to accommodate us all. He
then argues that we may as well return to Brosoer Guesthouse as it is a good
guesthouse and the nearest one to us. And we may as well as it’s a nice enough
place – and it’s closer to the beach.
In other words, the drivers
are in cahoots with the hoteliers and will receive commission for taking you to
pre-determined establishments of their choosing (maybe they all pay commission
but some more than others – I don’t know). You also get the feeling that they
can’t quite understand what you think the problem exactly is. One guesthouse
isn’t so different to the other, and it’s not like the accommodation they’re
offering is much more expensive, if at all. They have a point, but what they
don’t understand is that we’re supposed to be TRAVELLING, and that we need that
separation between transport and accommodation for us to feel like we’re really
flying by the seat of our pants, even if we’re really not.
They’ve got this sort of
racket going on in Thailand too (see Trang),
but it can be circumnavigated by using public transport (or
the big VIP buses, which carry too many people to make this sort of thing
practical). But there doesn’t appear to be any alternative to the minibus in
Cambodia – or if there is we haven’t seen it – and they’ve got you right
where they want you. For this reason I am very happy to have somebody like
Welsh L around, who will take all this on board and do his utmost to avoid its
recurrence.
The early start has ensured that we have still
much of the day to spare, allowing us time to break from each other’s company
for a while, confirm the presence of banks – now closed for the day – grab a
bite to eat, and reconvene later on Serendipity Beach for a stroll and a few
beverages. It is a nice beach, without many of the cafes and bars that such a
vista might normally sustain.
I’d heard that Sihanoukville
attracts a more dubious model of foreigner: the European male with an interest
in under-aged children. There are no obvious signs that this is the case, and
the proprietor of the café where we have purchased our beers is more than happy
for us to interact with her infant. The mere suggestion that it might happen,
though, instantly colours our opinion of the place, and maybe it is for this
reason that nobody seems that keen on exploring any of the bars that there must
assuredly be in a town of this size. Instead, we take dinner at
Sunset Restaurant next door, and then retreat to our guesthouse for a couple of
beers in the front yard.
12/02/03: Go to town to
change up money. Get motos to Ream National Park and a boat to a deserted
island covered in mangroves. and stop off at temple on the way back. Dinner at
Sunset Restaurant; cards and drinks in Welsh L & K’s room with all.
Welsh L has brokered a deal with the guys at Brosoer to take
us to some diminutive island just off the coast, part of an area collectively referred to as Ream National Park. I still don’t feel entirely
comfortable in Cambodia, let alone Sihanoukville, and my trip into town to
cash traveller’s cheques and find somewhere to take breakfast does nothing to ease my tension. The acquisition of dollars proves straightforward
enough, but my partner and I struggle to find a café in which we feel entirely comfortable.
But find a café we do (I order an omelette) and then we hurry back to join in
with Welsh L’s chartered expedition.
From here on in, mopeds and
scooters – that motorised staple of Southeast Asian life – will be referred to
as ‘motos’, for that is what they call them in Cambodia. Riding two per
pillion, we set off for Ream National Park at ponderous miles per hour, the steady inclines and the weight of
three bodies per bike slowing us down. Spare a thought for the guy with a huge
sow strapped to the back of his moto coming the other way (and maybe for the
swine, too), a common sight on Cambodia’s roads. The journey is a short one – it
can’t be more than 10 miles – and the pace of life at our destination is agreeably
slow. Refreshments in hand, we sit around in the shade, Welsh L putting in an
admirable effort to make allies of our pilots.
It is a humble fishing vessel
we board, long in form and very much like the long-tail boats they use in Thailand,
for that is what they are. Our destination is a deserted mangrove-infested
island with an unswimmable lagoon as its centrepiece. Within half an hour of
landing we are ready to leave, the views from the boat being the primary objective
of this exercise.
On the return leg of our
journey the engine conks out, setting us adrift for a good 40 minutes, a period
of stasis that I don’t very much appreciate. Nobody else seems bothered, but
the current isn’t carrying us in a favourable direction, and I know it will
start to get dark within the hour. Our pilots have nothing to offer in the
way of reassurance other than their own insouciance. Mobile phones have yet to
conquer the world, so there’s no calling for help either. Maybe we can make
gestures towards the shore and someone can come out and tow us back.
After a series of impromptu
repairs, we finally get going again, and there’s just enough time on the way
home to stop off at a temple to watch the sun set and to laugh at the semi-domesticated
monkeys and puppies at play. We return for dinner to Sunset Restaurant and then
play cards back in Welsh L & K’s room. Tomorrow we will be on the move
again, having agreed to continue our travels as one – for the moment at least –
and I hope that our next port of call will be more rewarding.
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