Jac’s Journey

After almost a month in Phnom Penh, it was time to start being a tourist. I took two weeks out of the office to go travelling across Cambodia.

And I had a visitor from home!

It was delightful to show off Phnom Penh – almost like you’d show off your home city. Well, maybe not quite, but you get the idea. To finally visit the sights I’d been walking past for the last 3 weeks was really enjoyable.

The Royal Palace was beautiful – stunning buildings set in lush gardens. The Silver Pagoda brought squeals of joy from me as I realised where the silver tiles were. On the floor! Over 5300 silver floor tiles – it’s a strange sensation to walk on metal tiles!

I’d been waiting for my visit to Toul Sleng and Cheoung Ek with a mixture of anticipation and dread. How would I cope with the scene of such horrors, carried out during my lifetime, with the evidence captured in bizarre and disturbing photographic and documentary detail?

In Toul Sleng (S21), tears sprung to my eyes as I looked at photographs of babies who’d been executed by the Khmer Rouge. And then at the photos of the torturers – themselves little more than children. Cheoung Ek, or the Killing Fields, was a chilling place: mass graves, where people had generally been bludgeoned to death at the edge of a pit to save ammunition and the effort of moving bodies. A memorial of skulls has been constructed – soberly we lit some incense and placed flowers in front. Looking at skulls when I was so fresh from the KR photographs was very moving: I wondered how many of the skulls belonged to people I’d been looking at only a few minutes before at Toul Sleng.

For those of you who want to know more about the tragic history of this period, this is the best website I’ve found.

Paul was fresh from Manchester, and it was a delight to see Phnom Penh through his eyes. The motorbikes carrying a family of five made him gasp and point, the impossible loads being woven through city traffic on two wheels drew jokes about the loading methods in Distribution, the madness of the city streets, the welcoming smiles of the people and the contrast of the luxurious ex-pat haunts were so new to him that I got to experience them all over again for the first time. His quote for the blog is “This place is organised chaos. Don’t know how, but somehow it all seems to work. It’s madness.” He describes Phnom Penh as “clearly a once-beautiful city that looks like it’s been dragged through a hedge backwards”. The smiles and charm of the Cambodian people began to win his heart and the cheap prices were pleasing to his Scottish pocket.

He loved it.

Touring Phnom Penh

I heard a rumour that a Reid Kerr College (Paisley) poster has been removed from the Glasgow Underground and replaced with one claiming Jackie Daly was too chicken to post photos of her Cambodian haircut.

I’ll show you who’s chicken…!

Cambodian Haircut

And lovely Kampot

Kampot

And of course, the wedding I went to in Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh

At Khmer New Year, everyone tips out of Phnom Penh, along various highways, heading to their home towns and villages like salmon going upriver to spawn.

My friend Joe and I decided to join them and headed to Kampot – a tiny little place in southern Cambodia.

Famous for its superb pepper and the devastation caused by the civil war, Kampot is a tiny, slow-paced, beautiful place: traditional sleepy Cambodia baking in the hot April sun. We spent time moving from cafe to cafe, drinking tea, drinking beer and watching the river float past.

It’s funny how strong your preconceptions remain, even after 8 months in Asia. I was expecting things to be busy and vibrant, even in this small town, for New Year’s Eve. Not so. People go to bed early. Lonely Planet recommended a particular guesthouse as having a busy bar. As we arrived, we were told all the guests were in bed. At 11pm. As a Scot, accustomed to an immense fuss being made of New Year’s Eve, it came as a real surprise to me. But the celebrations begin next morning…

Our day trip to Bokor Hill Station was led by a really interesting guy.

His father had been a commander in Lon Nol’s army, so when the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975, his father was killed. The Khmer Rouge gathered his family; his mother, brothers and sisters were killed. He managed to escape. Then, in his words, “I lived in the forest for the next year, like an animal.” When the Vietnamese army came to Cambodia in 1979, he led them to the Khmer Rouge hideout at Bokor Hill Station, helping them avoid the landmines. Later, he helped the UN remove all the landmines in the area, as he knew where most of the minefields were. After the UN left, he turned to motorcycle repair. When tourists began asking to rent the motorcycles he was repairing, he got into the rental business and now runs a tour company.

There are so many stories in Cambodia of people’s bravery and endurance during the civil war. Not many end so happily. It was a delight to meet this man.

Bokor Hill Station was an odd place to visit. It had originally been built as a mountain retreat for the Colonial and Khmer leaders in 1925. As I walked through the hotel I had images of French colonial wives in chaise longues on the balconies. Next thing, I had images of Vietnamese soldiers firing at the Khmer Rouge, who were based in the Catholic church you could see from the window – less than a mile away. In a state of disrepair, this odd place won’t be the same for much longer. As is so often the case here in Cambodia, some government official has lined his own pockets by selling a chunk of land to Koreans who are going to build an 8-storey 5 star resort and hotel. The original Bokor Hill hotel is about to be renovated. I just hope local Cambodians get a sliver of benefit from the investment.

One of the highlights of the day was while we were travelling in our pick-up truck, passing other trucks, rammed with Cambodians. One of the Khmer New Year traditions is splashing water on each other – water pistols, squirty bottles and water balloons. The truckload of tourists took on passing Cambodians, everyone squealing with laughter and cheers going up for good shots. At one point, I saw a water balloon coming from behind, so I ducked and leaned to my right. The guy next to me ducked and leaned to his left. The water balloon soared through the gap and hit Joe right between the eyes. Smack bang in the middle of his hangover. Priceless.

Kampot is home to a lot of fantastic grass-roots NGO activity. EpicArts cafe supports local disabled people in amazing ways, Chumkriel language school provides cheap access to English language education, and many, many more are listed in the quarterly publication, the Kampot Dar’laing. Ex-pats and local people are working together and really making a difference. It’s inspiring.

As the Khmer New Year holiday drew to a close it was time to head back to the bright lights of the big city…and back to work!

(photos to follow later today…)

And then there were two, three, four…

Having agreed to work with ECPAT, I worked out what I needed to do and how long it would take. The Cambodian local holidays have spaced things out a little so I don’t feel remotely rushed. Another NGO phoned me and asked me to work with them too. On the phone they asked for a mini-seminar during a management meeting – easy enough. By the time I went over to meet them the next day, it had grown arms and legs into a full-on management development programme. I’ve given them two realistic options to choose from, so we’ll see where that goes. Another two NGOs got in touch after that, but I’ve started just to say sorry – too busy – I’ll get back to you if things change.

I hope I’m this much in demand when I get back to Scotland! Although I won’t be offering freebies, that’s for sure.

Apart from the tidal wave of potential work coming my way, I’ve been lapping up the life of an ex-pat.

A few snippets…

A Cambodian friend invited me to his friend’s wedding reception. I was honoured and just a little concerned about going in my flip flops. A trip to the market proved unsuccessful in the shoe department…

…repeated requests of “Do you have size 40 or 41? In anything?”
…drew the same replies of “Sorry, no have.”

You know what they say about women with big feet?

They can’t buy shoes in Asia.

So, in my Thai silk sarong and my flip flops, I went to a Cambodian wedding. In rural areas, Cambodian weddings last for three days (the actual wedding ceremony takes place on day two). Thankfully, in Phnom Penh now weddings take only one day. The bride has 7 outfits and at different points in the day, she changes her clothes, hairstyle, make-up, everything.

Walking into the evening reception, I was overwhelmed by a room filled with 500 people being served an 8-course meal with drinks laid on. At the end of the meal people got up from our table and I asked where they were all going.

“Home.” I was amazed. “Really, already?”

Close friends and family stay all day and late into the night and the rest are invited for the dinner, then they leave. I cringed at the thought of how much it would all cost. Luckily it’s now tradition for the guests to give money rather than gifts, so I suppose in a way, most of the guests pay for their own dinner.

I delighted in the outfits. Most of the female guests wore traditional Cambodian dress and they looked stunning. Hair was stylishly groomed, make-up was heavy yet attractive, and the outfits so bright and beautiful. The day was steeped in ceremony and tradition. Artfully drinking champagne with parents and in-laws, traditional dancing around a fruit display in the centre of the dancefloor (which was demolished and eaten as soon as the ceremony finished) and the throwing of tiny flowers over the bride and groom after they had the first dance. Breaking with tradition, a talented 10 year old guest removed the mike from the wedding singer and proceeded to enchant us all as she upstaged the professional band.

On another party theme, but with fewer sequins, I found myself at ‘Elsewhere’ on the first Friday of the month for NGO-worker-ex-pat party night. Elsewhere is an oasis in the middle of Phnom Penh; a bar, with great cocktails, set in a garden, with cushions to lie on and a plunge pool for when it all just gets too steamy. During the day there’s a shop selling gorgeous clothes, handicrafts and shoes in my size! I caused a riot that evening when I joined the queue for the ladies (approx 10 people – 1 loo) then promptly moved over to the gents queue (2 people – 1 loo). Later that night I came back and the queues were well and truly mixed up. You can’t hold a good idea down, heh.

The plunge pool is a bit of a liability with lots of drunken NGO workers, but huge fun nonetheless. When I went home I was a little tipsy and a little soggy, but very happy with a brilliant night out.

There are so many other stories I could tell you, but this one must be part of a blog called ‘ex-pat snips’. While I’ve been travelling I’ve often had to deal with scary situations, be pretty fearless in my approach, massively flexible and accommodating and open to change. Important skills for life, eh?

Just try applying them to needing a haircut. I can’t describe the trauma. John Preston has cut my hair for the last 14 years. He knows every strand on my head. Every colour that I love, every colour I don’t want again. He knows not to cut it too short, nor leave it too long. He knows what suits me and what doesn’t. And needing a haircut in Phnom Penh is so much scarier than needing one in Hong Kong.

I may thrive on change most of the time, but when it comes to ex-pat snips of the haircut variety, I am that bloke in the Maxwell House advert.