Jac’s Journey

Walking through the Siam Centre, I could have been in New York. Young people carried themselves with confidence; trendy and glam, kitted out in the latest fashions, their funky hairstyles decorated by iPod earphones descending to designer pockets, manicured nails punching into all-singing all-dancing mobile phones. A Thai pop group played on the outdoor stage to a large crowd of adoring fans, while commuters glanced up from their BlackBerries as they waited on the Skytrain platform.

Later, at the fantastic Bumrungrad hospital, I was surrounded by people from every continent, as scores of rich Saudis waited for their cheap, high quality healthcare, burka-clad women sharing waiting rooms with the long slim legs of young Thai girls in designer skirts.

Sitting in my worn-out traveller gear, I stuck out like a raggy-nailed sore thumb.

I passed through quickly a few months ago, but spending a little longer this time, I am amazed by how much Bangkok has changed since my last visit in 2001. It’s slicker, there are more cars, fewer tuk tuks and bikes, it smells less and seems more westernised.

Many travellers I’ve spoken to turn their noses up at Bangkok, but it really depends what you’re looking for. It’s hard to beat for shopping – apparently people from Hong Kong and Singapore now fly to Bangkok to shop! It’s one of the best places in Asia to get healthcare. You can eat in top class restaurants, food from every continent, visit amazing sights and stay in some of the best hotels in the world.

What you don’t get is an authentic Thai experience, and the people who come here looking for that are missing the point. You can’t take a direct flight from hundreds of different countries and expect the destination to be ‘unspoilt Asia’. When thousands of people can, and do, get here easily from all over the world, you end up with a cosmopolitan environment, and that’s exactly what Bangkok has.

I decided to stay on Khao San Road this time. I’ve avoided staying here in the past, but with a long to-do list, the tourist services around the place would be convenient. It’s cheesy, tacky and garish. And I quite respect that. It’s not trying to be anything other than cheesy and tacky, and it’s proud of it. Gaun yersel Khao San. I do wonder where all these people with dreadlocks come from though – I’ve been travelling in Asia for 8 months and have never seen so many dreadlocks. Folk must wash them out on the overnight train as they leave. I did resist the call of the dreadlock-maker on the street. I’d had a second Cambodian haircut before leaving Phnom Penh, which was a bit of a mistake; dreadlocks will not improve matters, I fear.

With my to-do list complete, it was time to hit the beach, so I set off on the night bus and ferry to Ko Tao. A tropical island paradise with loads of diving and beach bumming…ahhhhh

Bangkok

Where do I begin with Cambodia?

…The tragedy of its recent history and the devastating civil war?
…The glory of the Angkor period and the historic strength of Khmer civilisation, art and architecture?
…The corruption and short-sightedness of the government – turning a blind eye to human trafficking, abuse and prostitution, stealing land from their citizens and selling it off to foreign corporations, more concerned with lining their own pockets than sustainably developing the nation and marrying their children into other elite families to ensure they remain in power well into the future?
…The strength of the inspiring NGO sector that counters and challenges the limitations of the Cambodian government, despite their own challenges of generally low skill levels, inadequate short-term funding and resultant difficulties in long term planning?
…The resilience and indefatigable persistence of the ever-smiling Khmer people who get on with it despite everything?

My experience of Cambodia was deepened by the work I did there with ECPAT. As a result, I find it more difficult to write this post. As a traveller, you experience one dimension; a skim picture of the country, brief encounters with the people before you move on and then you add in what else you know to draw some conclusions.

With Cambodia, I find it tougher. I got the skim view, I had the brief interactions, but I also had more extended interactions with people. They made me more hopeful, they made me sadder, they made me more confused.

When it comes to Cambodia, as with most things in life, it’s shades of grey. There are factors causing the institutionalised corruption that I can understand enough to restrain my criticism. If a teacher is paid 30USD per month, not enough to live on, even in Cambodia, then they must find ways to supplement their income.

So, when teachers ask their students for payment, even though early schooling in Cambodia is practically free, you can understand that.

When policemen are paid the same, you can understand why they take opportunities to earn a few extra bucks, whether by stopping westerners driving motos to dish out on-the-spot fines for imaginary traffic offences, or to charge a dollar ‘admin fee’ for providing an insurance report or stamping a passport. I’d like to think I wouldn’t, but maybe if I was earning 30USD per month, I would be doing the same…

Then again, how can you ever hope to develop a country in the long term when all the driving factors are about short term gain?

This is where it gets murky. When around 40% of the population can remember the madness of the Khmer Rouge regime, where waking up each morning was a miracle (or a curse) then why wouldn’t you tend to have a short term perspective on things.

I think that, as Westerners, with our comfortable lives, we have the luxury of thinking and talking about the ‘greater good’ and ‘the long term’, which is a luxury ordinary Cambodian people just can’t afford. A perspective based on the here and now, basic needs, the impact on my family, has to be most people’s first concern.

It doesn’t excuse the government leaders though. For them I heat a large pan of boiling scorn and heap it upon their heads. A change in the Cambodian government will go a long way to solving Cambodia’s problems. But this is not likely to come soon. With a budget running to millions of dollars they ‘buy’ votes from under-educated rural people, in elections that cannot be described as anything like free and fair, and thus the CPP will be returned to power despite the leadership of Hun Sen, a clever enigma of a man who has managed to reinvent himself so many times he has stayed in powerful positions for the last twenty years.

As I moved from Laos into Cambodia, the difference was stark when you take the example of government sponsored development of the tourism industry. In Laos, lessons are being openly sought from more developed Asian countries, with a resulting focus on eco-tourism development, which saves rainforests, preserves some indigenous rural communities and spreads the tourist dollar fairly widely.

In Cambodia, Korean or Japanese conglomerates come to Phnom Penh, do a deal with a government minister for some land in an up and coming tourist hot spot, privatise the best section of beach, riverside or hill-top and build a five-star resort that will create only a tiny economic benefit for local people. And will invariably result in some forced evictions along the way, of people who may or may not be paid compensation to move off their land.

Just look at the example of Angkor Wat. It costs 40USD for a three day pass. You pay this money to a Korean company who hold a 99 year lease to manage Angkor Wat, the number one tourist attraction, in the one industry that holds the greatest potential for Cambodia. And a percentage of the income leaves the country. It beggars belief.

Despite all of this, the people of Cambodia are inspirational. The lessons they had for me were many and varied; how to find fun in everything, how to keep going no matter what, how to accept your lot and work with it in life, how to find a way of surmounting barriers and getting there in the end. While the country may not be ‘great’ in the economic sense, the people have ‘greatness’ in abundance. I feel privileged and am grateful to have received so much from them.

Calling all readers!

I’m on the threshold of leaving Asia, the promised land as far as knock-off music and movies is concerned. Not, of course, that I would ever condone counterfeit activity. Ahem.

Having recently purchased a delicious new laptop, I can at last buy music and put it on my iPod and buy DVDs to watch.

I’ve been out of the loop for the last 9 months so desperately need your recommendations:

– Great new artists on the music scene I should listen to

– Great music albums that’ve come out in the last 9 months

– Great movies

Thanks in advance!!

My last stop in Cambodia. An historic town; colonial architecture, a snapshot of real Cambodian life. And a chance to go on the Norry, aka the Bamboo Train!

I was very excited about the Norry. I seem to have been inadvertently collecting bizarre methods of transportation – running favourite so far being the Champasak ‘Car Ferry’…

The Norry is definitely unique, and was a serious contender to beat the car ferry and become my new favourite!

But first things first.

Very aware that I’m flying ‘down under’ soon, I’m been splashing out on nice accommodation. When I get to Oz and New Zealand, it’ll be hostels and dorms all the way, so I’m taking nice private rooms just now while I can. La Villa, Battambang was a real treat. A beautiful converted colonial villa, renovated tastefully and with real attention to how it would have looked all those years ago. Yet, with modern touches like a DVD player in my room and a long list of DVDs for hire for 25p.

I was expecting a bigger version of Kampot, and was a little disappointed with the town itself. Kampot was so tiny and stunning that Battambang couldn’t compare. Had I not seen Kampot I would have been charmed, but I had, so a quick once over for the town was enough.

Then I grabbed a moto to the ‘Bamboo Train Station’.

Well, what I mean is, my moto driver rode around the countryside asking villagers where we could find someone to put a couple of wheels and a bamboo platform on the train tracks and give me a hurl on it.

Eventually, we found someone. I watched with delight as he got two sets of wheels and put them on the track, a rubber belt around one of them. Then the bamboo platform. Then the engine, which drove the wheels via the rubber belt. Then the recruitment of train guards, all under the age of 7. Finally, the petrol, poured into the engine from an empty plastic water bottle. We were off.

A couple of times we met other Norries travelling in the opposite direction. Whichever Norry was easiest to move would get dismantled, the other Norries would be pushed past them, and then we would reassemble again on the other side. All in less than 5 minutes.

On the way back to the ’station’ we encountered the Battambang to Phnom Penh freight train. A yell from one of the young guards had us all leaping off the Norry, dismantling it and waiting by the side of the tracks for the train to pass.

The Bamboo Train was fabulous. If it wasn’t for the fact that the tracks are damaged and buckled most of the way across the country, Norries would be the transport of choice for nutters with a death wish. But as it is, the trains move pretty slowly giving Norries plenty of time to get off the tracks.

As they say on all good game shows, don’t try this at home, kids!

Battambang

It was the day I’d been working up to for six weeks. It was all going to come together. It wouldn’t matter than I can’t speak Khmer. It wouldn’t matter that there’s a huge cultural divide between Khmer and UK work styles.

It wouldn’t!

I was nervous and excited and hoping to do a good job. Over the last six or seven weeks, I’ve learned so much about Cambodia, about the horrors of child trafficking, abuse and prostitution and about freelance working generally. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with ECPAT, and am certain the project I’m helping them with is going to make a difference to how they work, in the way they want it to.

I chuckled to myself as I wrote up flip charts on my hotel room floor the night before the meeting: it’s been a while since I’ve done that. Some nice touches to bring fun and energy, like my iPod speakers and an energising playlist. And of course the dodgy artistic impressions I like to throw in for laughs.

As those who know my work would imagine, the day was very well planned. It was a challenge to speak slowly enough – Scottish people tendtotalkreallyquickly! WhichisnotgoodfornativeKhmerswhoaretryingtounderstandthem!

But we all got there in the end. As ever, at the end of the day, I was exhausted yet elated. The team’s feedback was positive and as for me, I was delighted I’d pulled it off, not having facilitated any meetings for around 10 months.

But it was just like riding a bicycle.

I’ll still be in touch with ECPAT by email, and if I ever find myself back in Cambodia, I’m sure I’ll do some more work with them, but for now, it’s job done and time to get back to being a traveller.

I shook off the NGO volunteer role and played at being a tourist again. Finally, I visited the National Museum, a treasure trove of Khmer sculpture and art, with many pieces rescued from the temples I’d visited at Angkor Wat. From there to Wat Phnom. Another temple. The real downside of seeing so many amazing places is that you become hard to impress (rolls eyes)! Onto the French Embassy, the safe-house of last resort during the Khmer Rouge victory in 1975. The place where Dith Pran’s forged passport photo oxidised and left him to 4 years of horror in the Cambodian countryside. To the Elephant Bar in the Raffles Hotel Le Royal, previously Hotel Phnom, where Sydney Schanberg, Jon Swain, Al Rockoff and the gang had all lived during their time as journalists in Cambodia. I looked through a photo exhibition in the hotel, the swimming pool rippling in the background as someone swam lengths. Then to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) for the last time: my favourite riverside bar, also an historic haunt of expats and journalists in Phnom Penh, with Al Rockoff photos on the wall.

A lovely day of farewell to Phnom Penh, my home for the last 2 months. It’s time to move on to the next bit of my adventure.

But I’ll never forget the joy of facilitation in flip-flops…

Phnom Penh – Faciliation and Farewell

It was when I saw Paul’s face that I realised just how much I’ve adapted to travelling.

“Five hours on a bus?”
“Jacs, can we not get a flight?” (This is the polite version)

Afterwards, to my wry smile, he said, “That was a lot better than I expected”.

So, in the complete absence of flights between Siem Reap and Sihanoukville, it was then a 9 hour bus journey to the beach. Having had a good experience before, Paul was up for it this time.

12 hours later, exhausted, we arrived. As I’ve come to expect, the bus journey was filled with adventure.

Kids at the rest stops greeted us with their ever-present cheeky grins.

“Pineapple, cheap, cheap, only one million dollars!”

“What’s that?” (pointing to your necklace). You look down and they flick their finger up your chin and nose. “Gotcha! Hehe!”

We were soon surrounded by children guessing capital cities. Paul had taken to trying to sell me.

“Okay, I’ll buy your pineapple for a dollar if you buy Jackie for five dollars.” The kids loved it. He’s got a whole new Cambodian branch of his fan club.

Back on the bus, we stopped by the roadside after a loud thump. A motorcycle had plowed into the back of the bus. The bike’s front wheel was lodged inside the rear bumper, almost to the handlebars, and the driver was on the ground. With everyone just standing looking, Paul took over and became the hero of the hour, checking for pulse and breathing, and stopping him swallowing his tongue. I became his assistant, running to get water. In the absence of a piece of cloth, he pulled off his t-shirt and used it to clean the gravel and blood on the semi-conscious moto driver’s face. As I glanced around, I wasn’t sure whether people were staring more at the guy lying on the road or Paul’s ‘pure brilliant white’ Scottish chest.

When the ambulance came, the hero stepped aside and pulled the “first t-shirt that came to hand, honest” out of his bag: his Celtic strip. With the delay, he was now on a Cambodian bus, wearing his Celtic strip, while the Old Firm game was on. His brother and sister texted the scores as they happened, and the pressure was killing him. He coped so much better with a traffic accident! But a 3-2 win rewarded our hero in the end…

Eventually arriving into our luxury beachfront hotel, we were lucky not to fall asleep with our faces in our dinner, but the following five days of chilling out by the pool and beach, eating great food and a little flutter at the casino soon helped us recover.

Sihanoukhville

Been looking forward to this one for a while…

Arriving into Siem Reap, we were delighted with our little guesthouse – a budget/midrange place to give Paul a taste of the backpacking life. Although, with air-con, cable TV, a great bar and restaurant, a toilet of the non-squat variety, en suite shower and your room cleaned every day, I don’t know that he’s had that much of a taste…

We were headed for templed-out heaven. Three whole days of amazing temples, between 800 and 1100 years old. Temples belonging to an ancient civilisation that neither of us had heard about before I developed my love affair with Asia.

So many temples, so little time: the awe inspiring massiveness of Angkor Wat, the great things come in small packages-ness of Banteay Srai, the movie-set romantic-ness of Ta Prohm and the Indiana Jones lost-in-jungle-ness of Beng Melea. We explored temples with cries of ‘look at that’, ‘this is so beautiful’, ‘amazing’, ‘incredible’.

The photos can do the rest of the talking…I’m running out of superlatives. (Get comfortable – there’s a few!)

One of the most memorable things about visiting the temples was the local children selling postcards, books and trinkets. Like all Cambodian children, they are stunningly beautiful, with smiles that melt your heart and a huge sense of fun. It’s a tough situation. They don’t go to school much, but learn excellent English from the tourists. They work hard to earn money, but earn more than their parents did farming the land. And fresh from my experience working with ECPAT in Phnom Penh, I could see that their ability to earn a living from tourists could help protect them from the dire economic circumstances that attract unscrupulous human traffickers.

But you can only buy so many postcards…

We took delight in trying to make the experience fun for us and the children. They responded by giving us back smiles, fun and games. One of their sales tricks is to ask where you’re from, then tell you the capital city of your country. Paul and I tested them on loads of countries, and were amazed as they came up with obscure capitals like Antananarivo in Madagascar! We didn’t know that.

“Ok, if you can get three capital cities right, I’ll buy your postcards.”

And so, with their young memories working hard, and cheeky grins as they gleefully told us Reykjavik was the capital of Iceland, we parted with our dollar for ten postcards.

While sitting with a cold beer, contemplating Angkor Wat, we chatted about what the future might hold for these beautiful kids. Learning English from tourists is helpful, but without a broader education, would they really have access to opportunities to pull them out of poverty we mused. Then the rain came on. Within 30 seconds of the rain starting they were running about selling raincoats. We were in fits of laughter.

The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in these kids. They’re going to be just fine!

Paul, seeking rest and relaxation after his long flight, decided to have a rest day and I took off on the back of a motorcycle to the further flung temples of the region.

Flying through the beautiful Cambodian countryside, the wind billowing my shirt out behind me, I breathed deeply and laughed delightedly at the local people on the rural roads who were amazed to see me. I had decided on the two final temples I wanted to see – so far apart that no-one else is mad enough to take that route – and so I was the only tourist on the road for hours.

Stopping off at my moto driver’s home, we supped on freshly pressed sugar cane juice, then I took some photos I would print out later to give them. A pit stop on a remote roadside was hilarious as the curious girls selling water wanted to know my age and weight. Ahem.

Over three days, we’ve seen incredible things. A massive temple that was the centre of a city of 1 million people while London had a paltry 20,000. The remnants of a civilisation that were builders and creators with ego, imagination and resources. It’s a wonderful counterpoint to the recent tragedies in Cambodian history, and hopefully will encourage Cambodians to keep developing their country and their people, and find their greatness again after the brutality of the Khmer Rouge regime.

Angkor Wat