I am sitting here in my cavernous apartment listening to the Hilltop Hoods “Down the Hard Road at volume 11 (the new stereo with subwoofer rocks the house!) And all the Khmer in the apartments across the road are out on their balconies looking at me like I am a freak. “I’m going down the hard road….don’t know where I been …..I spent my youth like life was cheap….” I have had enough godamned election campaigning over the last few weeks to last me a lifetime. Here that means vans with loud speakers cruising down the street wailing shit music and subliminal messages. It is time I gave something back and I figure some quality Aussie hip hop is just the ticket.Anyways it’s been an interesting 48 hours here over the weekend so sit back and enjoy some tales from The Penh
Had a hilarious experience on Friday night to start with. We went out for Tra’s (my Khmer brother-in-law) birthday with the entire family and it went something like this. To start with I will tell you about Tra. He is 27 and works in a hospital (not sure as what!) and he has been very good to me from my very first trip here to Cambodia. He has been instrumental in helping me with settling in and understanding the family dynamics and Khmer life in general. He always asks me “ Are you alright Justin“ which believe it or not is worth its weight in gold here because sometimes the day can get on top of you or you can be at a place where you just are scratching your head about khmer ways and e will step in and explain things to me. Tra is my best mate here by far and he is loved by the family. He is in a relationship with Phalla, one of Leakhena’s older sisters, and has been for a couple of years. They live together in a great little one bedroom apartment over near Tol Sleung and Phalla has created a lovely space on their high ceilinged colonial style front balcony with fragrant jasmine and frangipani and bougainvillea. The difficult thing is that Tra’s family is from a rich(ish) family and as Leakhena’s family isn’t, there is a fair bit of resistance from Tra’s family about marrying AND Phalla was married for a few years when she was 17 and so by khmer standards is “damaged goods “. That’s a terrible thing to say but the old skool khmer parents put a lot of onus on purity and chastity and they would rather their son marry a 17 year old virgin and be unhappy than marry someone they love. So Tra has is work cut out! So I wanted to buy him a nice present and straight after work I made the fatal mistake of goings shopping with Leakhena. I wanted to go to a particular mall and we got mixed up and ended up across town in a crappy one. Friday night is out of control in Phnom Penh as everyone is out and it doesn’t help when the King is in town and they shut off blocks and blocks around his palace so he can fart in peace without the peasants hearing or smelling it. So we relocate to the right mall and in we go and I just want to get Tra a present like a shirt. The shirts we look at are all shit and expensive as hell by Khmer standards because as soon as they put a shop in a mall they think they can charge a premium. I have just come from Thailand where I can buy fake but good Polo dress shirts for $8 so there is no freaking way I am paying $4o for a crap version in Cambodia! We strike out at this mall and Leakhena says she knows another shop so off we go. By this time we have been faffing around for 2 hours in the steaming evening that The Penh has thrown at us and my temper is running at an all time high. The traffic is off its face everywhere and if one more Khmer parking attendant writes on my mud guard with red crayon I am going to punch him out. So we end up at quite a nice shop where I manage to finally buy Tra a nice shirt. The girl then wants to take it out of the nice box it is on and put it in some god awful glossy plastic shopping bag with crappy stuff written all over it and I ask her to put it back in the box as I try to explain the concept of PRESENTATION to her. She thinks it is much better in the Disney Show bag and I tell her in no uncertain terms that if she doesn’t put it in the box I am walking out and not buying the shirt. She capitulates of course but I am sure she thought I was one crazy Barang. Fancy wanting your nice shirt in a lovely box and not a bag that looked like it came out of a toy shop!!
Then we get outside the shop and my bike won’t kick over. I am swearing like a bastard by now as the sweat drips over me and there is this little smart arse Khmer bunch of his mates sniggering and laughing at me as I almost have a heart attack. So in the end I wave some Riel notes at him and wave him over and tell him I need a push start. He jumps at the chance to earn 50c and I jump at the chance to extract some revenge on the whole city. I flip the kill switch on the bike to OFF ( meaning it will not start ) and I get him to push me ( he is running at full speed pushing 300kg odd ) at least two blocks as I occasionally try to start it “ oh dear it didn’t work – push some more ! “. In the end I flipped the kill switch back to ON and away I go. Poor little smart arse is a sweating wreck by now and as I give him his 50c I smile a little smile. Petty I know but it was either that or kill someone.
I tell Leakhena I have to go home to shower and regroup (after 3 hours trying to buy one shirt) and we eventually head out to a great Khmer restaurant with the whole family in tow. We eat like kings and then I find at the end of the meal that Tra has paid for the lot! Then we go back to Tra and Phalla’s apartment and the trip over there is a hoot. I have
Leakhena on my bike, Neung (sister) is on a scooter with 2 cousins, Lin (sister) is on a scooter with her daughter and a brother and Tra has the rest of the family in his Toyota Camry - including Pi Pi the little white dog hanging out of the window. We all convoy together at about 40kph across the by now quiet streets of PP and we are talking as we ride and laughing and at one stage we stop at a red light and Lin’s daughter (8 years old) jumps on the bike with Leakhena and I , sits in front of me with her hands on the handlebars and screams with joy as I take it up to 80kph to give her a thrill.
On arrival at Tra and Phalla’s out comes the beer, the ice, the Johnny Walker (which I firmly decline - I try all sorts of things at their insistence – frogs, half developed sparrow eggs with beaks and feathers, spiders, ants etc but they have learnt when I say NO I really mean it!) and friends start showing up and instant party starts with me the only Barang in sight as usual but I love it. Once again – all paid for by Tra. The Khmer people are so friendly and accommodating that I would rather party with them any day. At the moment I am mostly going out with all Khmer people. Leakhena has some great girlfriends and they have boyfriends and friends who all get together regularly and I am always get included and welcomed like one of the gang and it is also very good for my Khmer. They all know I am studying their language and are very helpful and patient and I have a couple of good Khmer mates now who are always offering to do things for me and asking me out etc. So after we party for a while – which basically involves sitting on the floor on lovely straw mats with pillows and drinking cold beer or iced tea and talking and telling stories and laughing a lot ( mostly at me ), Tra announces phase 3 of the night ,
Karaoke !. By this time it is 11pm and I just want to go home to bed but don’t want to be rude so off we go again in multi-scooter convoy (about 8 scooters this time). I have visions of us arriving at some dodgy restaurant with a bunch of drunken Khmer wailing crappie songs and instead arrive at a cinema style complex called X2. One of the chaps we are with is a VIP member which means that we jump the queue and my bike is parked in the VIP section with about 10 uniformed guards pushing people out of the way so I can ride into it. I feel like David Beckham as everyone gawks at the Barang with the Khmer entourage and the Khmer tattoo (gets them every time!!) and we are ushered into this complex like royalty. Inside there are gorgeous Khmer girls EVERYWHERE all dolled up the nines in Silk gowns and the inside of the club is seriously lush. Then we are walked up to the second level and I realsie that the complex is actually a massive set of private rooms that you rent out for an hour or what have you. In your own room is a flat screen the size of a tennis court, a leather couch that wraps all the way around the room, an ensuite bathroom and twin Aircon units chilling the room nicely. The ceiling is a fake night sky all lit up with stars and the floor is black and white checks like the old kitchen at Hipwood street,. We have about 6 of the lovely dolled up Khmer girls serving us all and out comes the beer again and they are into it. Our VIP member is an absolute crooner from way back and as the cheesy Khmer rock videos roll on, I am left shaking my head at the scene again and again. Eventually I can take the terrible music no longer and I announce I am leaving to go get some sleep.
Saturday arrives and I awake refreshed after 9 hours in the cot. After a few chores (look for a fridge, drop my laundry in etc), I decide I need to get out of The Penh and so I pack a day bag with some water and my camera and some loo paper ( I travel everywhere with it because stomach bugs here are an every week occurrence and you never know where you are going to be when the….er……”shit goes down”) and head off across the Japanese bridge to explore the peninsular opposite Phnom Penh. The great thing about working for my company is that I can pull up aerial maps of PP and surrounds whenever I want and have a look in detail at where might be a good place to ride to. So I get out to this peninsular and it is great. Very peaceful and rural but yet right across the river from the hustle of the city. I criss cross the streets and head off down dirt roads and find a lovely Wat (Pagoda) where trainee monks are walking around under lovely shady trees. I meet some boat builders who are crafting these boats that must have been 50ft long. A bit like a Chinese dragon boat. I take photos and play with some kids and hand out some riel and then I head along the Mekong and marvel at some of the villas that the rich Khmer are building on the riverfront. AMAZING compounds with some beautiful houses and villas and gardens. If I stayed here long term I could easily move out there. After a couple of hours of cruising around I stumble across an amazing bakery and have a massive muffin and a lychee slushy all for 75c. Joy!!
Back to Phnom Penh for an arvo sleep and then out for a few cold ones with my boss and then a lovely Indian curry nosh up with the guys from Adventure Motorcycles, Jeff and Brady and our respective wives and GFs (all Khmer!). Some of the girls have never had Indian before and the looks on their faces as they eat vindaloo mutton is classic. I then head over to Elsewhere Bar with Leakhena and her best friend. This is a lovely old French Villa with a swimming pool and a lush garden with daybeds set under frangipani trees draped with fairy lights. Smooth tunes are playing and we are known to the staff so we always get looked after. Then we move on to Riverhouse as the girls want to dance and when we get there I am pleasantly surprised as it is a big old two story villa on the riverfront and the tunes are all disco extravaganza and it is going off. I am too tired to do anything remotely funky on the dance floor so I order iced tea and sit under the irrigation lines on the balcony that shoot out a fine water mist all over you and just watch as the girls have fun. Eventually Steve and Cheewan arrive, two of my Khmer buddies, and we chat away. The security guards are all massive Khmer Kato-style hit men and as a result all the punters are behaving themselves.
Today being Sunday we sleep in a bit and then we go and buy a fridge for the apartment which they then deliver on a scooter. See photo. I did not think this would be possible but I am learning everything is possible here. I watch in awe as they follow us across PP with the mid sized fridge wedged between them on a 125 scooter. Amazing. I paid $75 for a second hander and delivery was free. They carried it up two levels and installed with a smile! I pick up my watch and then we go and have a lovely lunch of dried fish, pork and vegetables and I have a Khmer Palm beer which is made from palm juice. Quite refreshing and the whole lot cost $4.
Leakhena had mentioned to me the night before whilst we were eating Indian that she really loved the way Indian women pierced their noses and wanted to do it as well. I asked her how much and where and of course she had already done all her homework so after lunch I asked her if she wanted to get it done and she jumped at the chance. Off we go to Psar Kandal (the marketplace) where Leakhena and Pov seem to spend a lot of time and now I know why – it is beauty shop heaven with 50 million little stalls doing everything from facials to massage to pedicures and all for a handful of riel. We find the piercing stall, select a little stud and within minutes (and $1 later) Leakhena has a lovely pierced nose! Initially when she asked what I thought about getting it done I mentioned there were not a lot of girls in PP with the nose pierced and was she worried how she might be perceived but then I thought BUGGER THAT, she is 24 years old and wants to have a bit of fun and I have just got myself tattooed in Bangkok so who am I to cast aspersions. She is happy as Larry though I have no idea what her mother will say nor do I want to be anywhere in sight when she sees it! As it turns out a lot of Khmer girls are fascinated with India. They love the music and the Saris etc
We finish off the weekend by meeting Pov for some pre-dinner duck eggs at a small stall near my apartment. These eggs are a delicacy and the Khmer believe they give you strength. You sit on a little plastic stool and the egg man presents you with a duck egg that has had the top knocked off it. Garnish it with chili and pepper and some fresh basil leaves and away you go. I should mention at this stage that a duck hatched in 40 weeks and you are eating these eggs at 24 weeks which means they are somewhat….er….developed. You do not want to look too closely at the contents but I can say they taste pretty good. During our egg session Pov hands me a lovely khmer scripted invitation to a party at her house in the Provinces in two weeks time. It is about 1 hour out of Phnom Penh and is, from what I can gather, a celebration of her mother’s life. It will involve a visit from a monk and some blessings and when I asked where we would sleep I was met with a quizzical look “but….we not sleep…..everyone dance dill dawn!!”. Man…I tell you….khmer people know how to party!
After eggs we go for chicken soup at another street side restaurant (a favorite of mine in a quite tree lined street where I am always greeted warmly by the owner). 3 huge bowls of soup and a plate of raw vegetables and iced tea all around costs just over $2(all prices in US remember). Leakhena and I retire early and after listening to some tunes and chatting for an hour about Hun Sen and how he is busy raping the country , sleep after this very full weekend comes swiftly.
So how was your weekend ?