phnom penh

phnom penh
Originally uploaded by ubikwity.

Douglas and I went to the Royal Boat House for the celebration of King Father Sihanouk's birthday. Hundreds of people packed into the park between the river and the Palace. The Royal family is in China but we all were expecting a fireworks show that never came. After, we had dinner at Cantina and met Lisa who has just returned from the states.

a cook’s tour

“Once you have been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charley Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia - the fruits of his genius for statesmanship - and you will never understand why he is not sitting in the dock at the Hague next to Milosovic. While Harry continues to nibble nori rolls and remaki at A-list parties, Cambodia, the neutral nation he secretly and illegally bombed, invaded, undermined, and then threw to the dogs, is still trying to raise itself up on its one remaining leg.”
-Anthony Bourdain, A Cook’s Tour, 2001

phnom penh

phnom penh
Originally uploaded by ubikwity.

hun sen is my friend

The River Street Bistro Bar is on the corner of my street. They have a decent pool table and have been renovating the upstairs into some kind of hip-hop disco. I first went in to the club part because I could hear the thumping bass from my room and was not impressed. The go-go dancers are required to wear jeans by decree from Hun Sen. There were a lot of ‘returnees’ hanging around. These are Cambodian Americans who have been deported, returned to a country they never knew. Most were in gangs in Long Beach. So I like to play pool and there is a pretty Khmer girl who just wouldn’t let me win a game. So I kept going back to play her. Last night I beat her four games to none. So I decided not to press my luck and went out on the balcony and bought her a ‘Lady Drink’. She speaks english well and was telling me about a wedding she had gone to in Sihanoukville. I noticed she had rows of scars on her forearm, something I had seen many times in Thailand. It seems to be a common response to hopelessness and despair among prostitutes. She said she was once in love, and her heart was broken. She said he was a 64 year old Australian pilot and he lived in Cambodia but he married her friend. She added that she has a three year old daughter from another old man. She is 23 years old. A drunk Khmer guy came up and sat with us. He was well dressed in an orange polo shirt and white pants with a big walkie-talkie hanging off his belt. She introduced him as her brother. She said he was ‘Hun Sen’s border guard’. I figured he was on leave from the border. He seemed distressed as well as shit-faced. His sister brought him a glass of water. I sat as they talked for awhile in Khmer. Then she asks if I would buy him a drink and I do. She goes off and he puts his arm around me and says ‘borng bproh’, which I knew from my recent lessons means ‘big brother’. So I was relieved he was my friend. Then he took out a silver .45 pistol that was tucked into the back of his belt and set it on the balcony. Very quickly and skillfully he pulled back the mechanism and took the bullet out of the firing chamber. Then he released the clip and squoze the bullet into it. Then he reloaded the clip and put the gun back under his shirt. Hun Sen’s bodyguard, not border guard...

phnom penh

phnom penh
Originally uploaded by ubikwity.

phnom penh

phnom penh
Originally uploaded by ubikwity.

Angkor Wat reflection

Angkor Wat reflection
Originally uploaded by Tim Church.

I'll be heading for Angkor next week via Batambong. I'll meet up with David and Alicia there.

phnom penh

phnom penh
Originally uploaded by ubikwity.

Islands are reappearing in the river as it has been dropping about a meter each week. It is pouring rain tonight. The river festival is comming later in November. The Sap river runs from the great lake up near angkor to Phnom Penh where it merges with the Mekong (whose sourse is in the Himalayas). As the lake drains into the Mekong it eventually changes the course of the Sap as the Mekong starts to refill the lake.

history histrionics

Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith defended the arrests and said the government is only protecting itself in its actions against critics of the secret border deal. Citing the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan by US forces during WW2, Hun Sen said an offensive is sometimes the best form of self defense. He also said he would continue to broadcast a controversial song from Lon Nol’s era that accuses retired God-King Norodom Sinhanouk of ceding land to Vietnam. “I’ll have it produced into karaoke,” Hun Sen said, “Don’t be afraid of history.”

phnom penh

phnom penh
Originally uploaded by ubikwity.

phnom penh

phnom penh
Originally uploaded by ubikwity.

Old colonial building near the royal palace.

Deadwood

I'm sure very few of you are familiar with the HBO series 'Deadwood' although it won some Emmy's. I rented the DVD of the first season and was very impressed. It is just like Phnom Penh.

Royal Pagoda

phnom penh
Originally uploaded by ubikwity.

Hun Sen has recently said that he may end the monarchy, because the king will not sign his secret border deal with Vietnam. He has started playing anti-Sihanouk songs from the Lon Nol era on the radio. The retired king has said he will not return to Cambodia.

General Li

general li
Originally uploaded by ubikwity.

Mr Li, the "general", was a star in the movie "City of Ghosts", where he played Depardeiu's quirky doorman. He is a Cham Muslim and hangs out at the Cantina, where Hurley gives him free fried rice and cokes. Mr Li has a regal disposition and does not ask for handouts, nor is he grateful for them. He just smiles and salutes. Recently his Imam gave him a cell phone although he doesn't quite know how to use it - he holds the mouth-piece to his ear.

Hun Sen Sues Everyone

Hun Sen will sue anyone for criticizing his secret border deal with Vietnam. "I sue them all, princes, princesses, workers, farmers, all were born naked." This allows him to send them to prison. They will have to prove their innocence, "I did not shut down your radio stations, newspapers or organizations... We arrested only those who said wrong and do not arrest all of you." Well, thank goodness for that...

FCC of Cambodia

phnom penh
Originally uploaded by ubikwity.

I am being tutored in Khmer, every Wednesday and Friday from 8 to 10 am. We started learning the alphabet - to read and write and to pronounce the vowels. I still have a way to go but last Friday, Sokram, wanted to teach me some 'conversational' phrases. So now I know how to say, "This is a table" and, "What day is today?" and most useful: "This village has many bats." Although she translated it as "This village has many dark." Not until she drew me a picture did I realize it was a bat. BTW, this town is full of bats.

computer bug

A tiny ant crawled into the keyboard of my laptop. I am sure it can’t get into the guts of the machine as I am very familiar with the insides of this computer. To be safe I decided to debug it. So I went and bought a DVD (“Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy”) and watched it. Playing a DVD for two hours tends to superheat the entire chassis and will cook anything stuck inside. Sure enough the little creature appeared and went on its way. It is important to keep the apartment tidy. I had left an empty can of Lipton Ice Tea on my desk and the ants went to town. And like most things in Cambodia, the ants bite.

sunrise

sunrise
Originally uploaded by ubikwity.

light fixture

To look at the photos you would think this is a very nice apartment, and you would be right, relative to other apartments in Cambodia. But it is not built nor furnished to any kind of western minimum standard. The electrical system is just one example. My bedroom has two wall sconces, the living room has four, the kitchen has a flourecent tube on the cieling and the bathroom has a bare bulb attached to loose wires jutting out of the wall. The switches for these lights is some kind of memory game. The bathroom was inadequately lighted, especially during any attempt to shave. But there were two extra wires jutting out of the wall over the sink. So I asked Sam, my landlord, to put a fixture in. We met at his restaurant. He bought me a couple of espressos and told me he would send some people that afternoon. I was playing badminton with a nine year old and her sisters in the alley when the two arrived. Let me digress for a moment; the alley is a narrow dark passage that opens up to a small courtyard about 12' x 12' as the cockroach crawls. It is not uniform in shape, size, paving, or cleanliness. It is a throughfare for motos and carts and kids on bycicles. So when I say I was playing badminton in the alley with the kids from the shack across the way, I mean the four of us stood at each corner of the courtyard and batted two birdies back and forth. Sometimes the birdie would land on an outgoing moto and be carried off down the alley. Sometimes a birdie would land on the roof of the wooden shack, or on a balcony. Always the birdie was recovered, and play would resume. When the electricians arrived I was able to finally stop, and everyone, including the five or so spectators were visibly sad to see me go. I lead the two workers up the stairs to the apartment. They didn't speak any english so I showed them the wires in the bathroom. They wanted to look over the whole apartment and turned on and off all the lights, they didn't seem to note that the switches were all counter intuitive. One of the bulbs in my bedroom was burned out and they promptly replaced it. They were all smiles and spent some time on the balcony gesturing to each other various points of interest. Finally I called Nith and told him that the electricians were here and could he please tell them to put a new light fixture in the bathroom. he did and they went back into the bathroom. 'What kind of fixture?', they gestured,' flourecent like the kitchen or a bulb like this?' I pointed to the bulb. One of them goes off to get the equipment. the other stays and continues to case the joint. I offer him some water and a cigarette. He starts talking to me in Khmer. As best I could tell he was asking if I wanted to meet his sister, special price. He wrote down his phone number. Eventually the other guy returns and they get to work. they attach a fixture to the loose wire and screw a bulb into it and, tada! they switch it on. Not exactly what I was expecting, and nothing that I couldn't have done myself quicker, but something I could shave with. The postbox would have to wait. And I think I'll do that myself.

politics

I was sitting at the Rendezvous Cafe with Sam, discussing getting a new bathroom light fixture and a mailbox for my apartment, when he mentioned that the guy sitting at the next table was the AFP photographer. He had two Canon bodies on the table, one with a 400mm telephoto lens the other with some kind of fast wide-zoom lens, easily $9000 worth of camera gear. I introduced myself, saying, “Sam says you are the AFP photographer.” He replies, “AP”, as if I had just insulted him. And in a way I had. Sam had worked with Stig and Kevin at the AFP so I had assumed he knew the difference between the AP and the AFP. I doubt the AFP even has anyone in Cambodia anymore. I had been by the old headquarters back in 2000 and it was a language school. I explained the mix up and that I had been an AFP stringer back in ‘94. He was duly unimpressed. I said that the politics today were still just as absurd, but less lethal. He gave me a dark look and says, “I wouldn’t count on it staying peaceful.” A bit more small talk and I went back to sit with Sam. The AP photographer finished his coffee and got on his new 750 cc motorbike and drove off like a gunslinger. I never did like the AP, but it is a little disconcerting as they only show up someplace with a big per diem if there is blood in the water. So back to Sam; he will send some people to fix the light and install a mailbox. Look for that story later. I thought about the rental contract that Sam and I had signed. It included a prohibition on “illegal activities or political party” on the premises. Well, you know me, that sounds like a really great time. So let me fill you in on the current political situation (as far as I can figure). Hun Sen is the current Prime Minister of the Royal Government of Cambodia. He has been Prime Minister continuously since he lost the election back in 1993. For a part of his reign he was called Co-Prime Minister, until he deposed the other Co-Prime Minister (the one who won the 1993 election) in a bloody coup in 1997. To justify the coup, he accused his opponent of having secret negotiations with the Khmer Rouge to get them to accept amnesty and join the Royalist Party. After the coup, the KR accepted amnesty and joined the CPP (Hun Sen’s party). Some time later, Hun Sen pardoned the ex-Co-Prime Minister, who returned from exile and was allowed to rejoin the Parliament as head of the Royalist party. Hun Sen was originally one of Pol Pot’s cadre. After the KR defeated Lon Nol, (the US supported dictator who replaced King Sihanouk so that Nixon could get permission to bomb the crap out of the country legally) Pol Pot started a border war with Vietnam. Hun Sen was ordered to take his troops and attack the better armed and battle-hardened Vietnamese (basically a suicide mission). He decided to defect. Later, when the Vietnamese invaded and threw out the murderous Pol Pot regime, they installed Hun Sen in the new government. That was in 1979. Hun Sen lost an eye during the war. The Royalists and the KR began a guerilla war (backed by the US and China) against the CPP (backed by the Vietnamese).This continued until the UN sent 30,000 troops to oversee the election that was ignored. When I was here in 2000, Hun Sen was talking shit about the Vietnamese, because that always impresses the locals. Now, the Royalists have said that they will not oppose Hun Sen because the country needs to present a unified face to the aid agencies who are keeping them all in gravy. For this loyalty, Hun Sen has given the Royalists 30 million dollars. This money was raised by selling public property. The third largest party, and the one that won a majority of votes in Phnom Penh, is the Sam Rainsey Party, named after it’s western educated leader. They called foul on this and a few other glaring abuses of power. Hun Sen accused them of treason and arrested several of its Parliamentarians. Rainsey was able to escape to France. The King resigned in disgust (his words) leaving his unmarried 55 year old artistic half-brother to assume the throne. Now Rainsey is planning to return to Cambodia. Mysterious posters have been put up in the schools and universities accusing Rainsey of treason. He is accused of treason because he said that aid groups shouldn’t give money to Cambodia until the rampant corruption has been reduced. But if the aid groups stopped giving money, then Cambodians would suffer, thus, Rainsey wants Cambodians to suffer. So he will be returning soon and his party has asked for permits to hold a rally welcoming him back. These permits have been denied, but a rally opposing his return has been permitted. The reason given is that the government cannot guarantee the safety of the Rainsey supporters and bloodshed at the airport might deter tourism.

Cambodian Names

Soda: bartender
Dada: museum guide
Am Wrong: military spokesman for ex-government

The apartment

I met Sam at the FCC lobby, we filled out a rental contract and then his assistant lugged my bag across the street, Sam motioned to his ankle as the reason he wasn’t going to accompany us up the stairs . We pass through a dark and dirty alley to a pad-locked gate, after a considerable effort the lock opens. The aide carries my bag up, we both hit our heads at each of the three low ceilinged bits as we both were concentrating on keeping our footing on the complex stair design. You could call it an artistic interpretation of a staircase. Different heights, widths, and angles suggest a different mad dwarf designed and built each step. We arrive at etage 4 and my first impression is a good one. The stairs end in a hallway - to the right are the kitchen and bathroom, to the left the bedroom and beyond that, past a wide wooden sliding door is the living room and balcony. Aircon in the kitchen, bedroom and living room. The bathroom has a padlocked metal door with a glass-less window to the back balcony (to let the mosquitos out). Dark hardwood floors throughout, except for tiles in the hall, kitchen and bathroom.

The Foreign Correspondents Club of Cambodia, http://www.fcccambodia.com/, is, on its surface, unchanged from when I first sat in its big wooden lounge chairs eleven years ago. I have posted parts of my journal from 1994 at the beginning of this blog to create a frame of reference. I wrote about a restaurant called the Déja Vu. It was right across the street from the Khmer Rouge headquarters. It was one of maybe three places that had good western food in a stylish colonial atmosphere (the others being the Café No Problem, the FCC, and maybe the Cathouse). Kelly and Anthony were the proprietors. In the intervening years they took over the FCC and in collaboration with an Australian Hotel Group, expanded into Siem Reap, Yangoon, and Kampot with very nicely designed Hotels. So for my first three nights in Cambodia I booked a room at the FCC. They name the rooms after temples at Angkor, I was in the Bayon room. Over the very comfortable and spacious bed is a beautiful panorama of the temple framed between two riveted panes of glass. After washing up, I called Lida and then Martin, to let them know I had arrived. Martin said he was near-by, and would I like to go to a new bar across the bridge. I said yes. He picked me up in front of the FCC. We sped across the Japanese Friendship bridge on his cross-country motorbike, down a few darkened streets on the peninsula to the riverside. There was no sign but Martin referred to it as Snow’s, although I would later learn it was called Maxine’s. It was basically a wooden boat perched on the bank of the river, with a wrap around balcony, all tastefully decorated with small Khmer bells and christmas lights, dark wood, low beams, a simple bar, and some loungey couches. About ten to fifteen people were scattered around the place. we approached the bar, where I recognized Michael Hayes, the publisher of the Phnom Penh Post. Martin made introductions, and I met Snow, the proprietor, who was behind the bar. I recognized him from the movie ‘City of Ghosts’. The bar was named after his precocious daughter whom I would meet in the next few days.