Chester C (Chest for short) was headed to Phnom Phen for a random get away. His girlfriend was away and he hadn’t left our 20X30 mile island in too long. He had to get out.
For a random get-away weekend Phnom Phen is about is random as they come, however flights were cheap and despite having non-stop travel behind and before me I jumped in to tag along.
Phnom Phen is the capital city of the Kingdom of Cambodia, a country still reeling from one of the worst human atrocities in history, today commonly referred to as the Killing Fields. More on that later…
Arriving in Phnom Phen is not unlike arriving in any other South East Asian city, where an old airport is being either being replaced by or consumed by a new, shinny one. Customs as usual involved 6-12 steps, each at a new counter with a new person, many of which are the same (same counter, same person, same step; rinse and repeat) none of which make sense or appear necessary. Chest actually entered the country using a spare visa photo of mine because he forgot his own… laying a bit of proof to my claim these steps are not totally necessary or of purpose. Outside the airport is the inevitable array of money changes, taxi drivers and SIM card sellers (all of whom are quite handy if you can handle yourself around them).
The short ride into the city gives a good perspective on the stark contrasts and contradictions you are about to find all over Phnom Phen. Broad boulevards built by the French intersect unlit dirt and broken asphalt alleyways. Grand government ministry buildings consume your peripheral vision as you stare down lanes of endless slums and when stopped at one of few functioning traffic lights the intoxicatingly intense smiles of beautiful women on the back of motor scooters penetrate you as they stare from behind the beggars pawing at your taxi windows.
-Above the contrast between the chic modern rooftop bar and its raw but beautiful view of Phnom Phen-
Chest was brilliant enough (as per usual) to book a great boutique hotel right in the thick of things operated by a French couple. With a few mid-flight drinks already working and taxi beers to boot we were pretty well good to go by the time we arrived at our central Phenm Phen area hotel.
Off to dinner and more drinks on the rooftop overlooking Phnom Phen we could see the gnarled tangle of power lines like horizontal ivy climbing down each streets. The odd pointed pagoda shinned out from the dark in the distance. On the eighth floor roof deck overlooking the city, with the exception of a few unexplainable high-rise developments, we were nearly the tallest point in sight.
Along with dinner came our introduction to Hugo, a French Cambodian working at the hotel by night and local non-profit by day. Hugo would have been a completely unnoticeable characters in most cities, but in Phnom Phen he contrasted nearly as much as one of those grand government buildings next to a slum. His typically French dress and posture were almost cartoonish, but not a funny cartoon, more like caricature in the Editorials section of the Sunday paper.
Hugo invited us out with his friends and following another few well poured cocktails on the roofdeck we were weaving across the city on the back of his buddies’ motor scooters. With no sense of location or destination, time or purpose we emerged out of a tangle of alley ways toward the brightly lit and gold adorned Grand Palace. In that moment as the palace and wind rushed past me I couldn’t help but be reminded just why I live in this region…
Hugo waved us into a narrow alley where we dismounted scooters and walk toward an obscure green door, surely the room where if this were a horror movie my organs would be harvested.
Walking inside we could well have been entering a trendy Manhattan bar. Dim lighting, velvet and velour curtains and walls, cocktails crafted with meticulous care and beautiful people mixed together as creatively as the drinks in their hands. This was not the Cambodia I’d ever seen or imagined before.
After several rounds of lubrication we moved on with more and new friends in tow including a couple of interesting women working for local NGOs and a Scot named Simon who by my estimate was completely insane. Zooming down sides streets again on the backs of motor scooters the night bounced from bar to bar becoming more “authentically” Cambodian as we progressed.
At some point in the night I lost Chest. I was not particularly concerned because Chest is an experienced traveler, could drink a brewery out of business and is Canadian (which means he fights Grizzly Bears and wins). The next time I saw him was in the morning when he opened my bedroom door to deliver breakfast in bed and a story I was not explicitly expecting.
Turned out Chest was drugged. Not a fun kind of drug either. After separating at the bar, I headed directly to the restroom and Chest as it turned out headed directly to the floor. His legs had buckled under him and he was losing consciousness. Army crawling his way to the door he finally escaped through a side exit into an alleyway. As luck, fate or chance would have it, crazy Simon was in the alley having a cigarette. Pulling Chest to his feet Simon could see in Chest’s eyes exactly what had transpired and promptly placed him onto the back of a motor scooter and away from danger.
I can only imagine the disappointment on the lad’s face who’d drugged Chest’s drink. It must have been like a big game hunter watching the prize elephant he’d just shot keep tromping sluggishly but determined through the jungle, defying chemistry and logic, to cross a river on into safety. This beast Chest just couldn’t be taken down.
The following day we ventured out for some light sightseeing and market shopping. Both of these were terrible failures but for reasons completely unworthy of even mentioning. On our way to the Foreign Correspondence Club (FCC), an old journalists’ hangout during the Vietnam War overlooking the joining of the Tonle Sap River and the Mekong, our tuk tuk driver got lost. Realizing my phone was a better guide than the local man driving the vehicle I began looking for the location and mapped the route myself.
I was doing a fairly decent job navigating when I found myself physically fighting a Cambodian man on my lap who’d jumped from a passing motor scooter to steel my phone. Chest, in his poor state still recovering from date-rape drug, put up an honorable fight as well and eventually the would-be thief jumped out and back onto the motor scooter he’d come from and off into traffic. The attempted robbery was of surprising entertainment to me, but to Chest it was just too much (again the poor chap was nearly drugged to death the night before). We pulled over and went the rest of the short distance be foot with phone needless to say securely in pocket. We spent the rest of the evening overlooking the river from the FCC. We didn’t need any more action. A few well ordered rounds of Ankor Beer and prawns was all the action we needed.
….
I’d mentioned Cambodia is a country of contrasts. Sunday morning we woke up, packed and headed off on our final destination. For us it was the final destination of a weekend trip. For millions of others it was the final destination of their lives, the Cambodian Killing Fields.
I will not even attempt to explain the place, the history or the feeling one gets when visiting the Killing Fields. It would not be fair and I could not do it justice. I am sure there is no writer alive who could do it justice. It’s a place not of this world, or at least not of the human world. What the dirt and asphalt side streets are to the broad French boulevards and the shining government buildings are to the Phnom Phen slums, the Killing Fields are the contrast to any and all kindness or compassion human history has ever seem.
It cannot be explained. You must go see them for yourself.
….
I will go back to Phnom Phen. I look forward to it. I will look forward to the gnarled power lines running down the dark side streets. I will look forward to the smiles from beautiful girls on the back of motor scooters. I will look forward to the new acquaintances who would like to befriend, rob or drug me. I will look forward to the moments of wonderment and confusion of how humanity can be so beautiful and so cruel. I will look forward to the contrast.
Thank heaven for Cambodia.
From the Straits 