Out of town - again

Wedding Shop - Battambang, Cambodia

Currently writing from an internet cafe in the somewhat worn-out, slightly drugged-up area of Bangkok near Soi Ngam Duplee/Malaysia Hotel. This used to be the cheapest part of town to stay till the infamous Khao San Road grew into the monstrosity it is today.

Tonight I've a room at Madam Guest House. It's an old wooden Thai house, run by a fractured extended family who love their Sangsom and cigarettes. All rooms are secured with rusty padlocks, and mine tonight is at the top of the stairs. On a 14-inch ledge, held together by tape and plywood, stuck at an angle from steep wooden stairs that drop down twenty feet. To enter the room, I've got to sashay down the ledge for a yard or so before unhinging the padlock. No beers for me tonight!

Much of the past two weeks was spent on or near the beaches of Sihanoukville, Cambodia, and much of the next two will be in or around Southern Thailand, reviewing guesthouses/bars/restaurants/beaches/natural parks. Or some combination of the above. Actually I've little idea of what I'll find, which is always the greatest appeal of any kind of travel, even when heading to places previously visited.



Charlie Chaplin - Battambang

Here's an essay I wrote recently when looking for freelance work. The organization required a guesthouse review, a restaurant review, and a short piece on "Why I Travel". Restaurant? sure, I've regularly frequented a dozen of them in Siem Reap. Guesthouse? I've spent time at plenty there. But "Why I Travel" was impossible. How to avoid the passionate cliches that crop up anytime one writes of a raison d'etre?

Eventually, I just scribbled down a page of notes and came up with this. Hit "Send", thought "There goes what little dignity I have left" and walked away. A few weeks later, thanks to luck and circumstance - though probably not this piece - I was offered some work.



Mobile phone sign - Battambang

Will be back writing here [Travel-Itch] in a few weeks.

"Some people work to live, or live for their work. I work to travel.

I always knew there had to be other ways of living than those of my hometown of Minneapolis, stuck in the center of North America.

At university, I discovered a language program in Strasbourg, France, and was determined to study there, though couldn’t afford it. I convinced two of my professors to accept an independent study proposal, and agreed to mail them paintings periodically. This secured loans for tuition in France, and I was quickly hooked on traipsing to new places, occasionally with a plan, but more often without one.

Travel stimulates all the senses, particularly here in SE Asia. Riding
around Cambodia, prahok overwhelms the scent of aromatic wood from burning garbage. Imams’ and monks’ chants at twilight are punctuated by motorbikes and keening karaoke videos.

But it’s really the unexpected that's kept me at it: mishaps and delays, bumbling cultural mistakes made while sweating like a WWF barbarianess (though with more clothing), the banter with bandits and grandmothers, the disorientation of heat and spontaneous hospitality. Expectations and assumptions are turned upside down. This is life at its finest intensity.
This is why I travel."

The world's a funny place, and Cambodia's no exception.

These past few days in Southern Cambodia, I've often gone to an internet cafe across from my hotel, the spartan yet clean Seaview Villa. The cafe's owner is usually genial, and always calls me - and all other westerners, whether male or female - "Sir". I don't correct him, though usually look confused when he goes on about how "handsome" I am. Particularly when his wife isn't around.

Tonight as I paid my bill for a half hour of internet usage, he whispered, "2,500Riel"(60cents). I rifled through my small change, and wondered why he'd whispered. As I handed the bills to him, he quickly bent over and I felt a warm wet pressure on my bare shoulder.

He'd kissed me!

I walked out of there, glad it was my last night on this beach, puzzled and sorry for the guy. It reminded me of a crush I'd had in the second grade on a kid in my class. He was tall and blond, the son of a local TV announcer. One day, while walking behind him in an oh-so-Catholic ordered line, I kissed the back of his uniformed shirt. He turned round, a polite yet puzzled look on his face, and asked if I were okay. "Yes, I'm fine," I said, blushing to my toes, and never made a move on another guy again till I was in my twenties.

He was completely out of my league, and I knew it. This Cambodian father of four had looked at me in the same way. The longer I'm in Asia, the less I understand the place.

Thanks to the sexual revolution that's turned the west upside down & inside out, that has given freedom to many and confusion to most, western women here are viewed with both curiosity and repugnance. And no small amount of desire. We're perceived as easy, due to our physical affection with men in public, the clothes we wear that leave little to the imagination, and the soft-core and hard-core images of us available everywhere if one knows where to look.

Breasts fall out of tight tops, bulges show through spandex, thongs pull out of low-waisted trousers. It's terribly discomfiting to conservative societies around the world. Western men cause offence as well, going shirtless in public, sporting hairy chests that make Asians laugh in private (and sometimes public, too) and shorts that often reveal pale, hairy legs. Here, though, resentment towards western men is focused on the draw that their cash - and more relaxed views of a woman's role - has towards many SE Asian women.

During my first few weeks in Korea, I'd walk through stares in the street. It was was uncomfortable to know that most of the men eyeing me up&down had seen more western women in the softcore programs shown on TV every midnight than they had in real life.

Eventually one gets used to it. Learns to dress conscientiously yet comfortably in the heat without raising too many eyebrows and showing too much jiggling flesh. But there are occasional reminders of that gap in cultures, in understanding, like the young motodops that have grabbed my breast hesitantly as they drop me off at my apartment at night, even though my cleavage is covered & my sleeves are long. (I've since learned to hail older motodops instead; they're more courteous and less often exhale beer as we bargain.)

The young guys have few options besides prostitutes, which they can only afford occasionally. Attracting a "nice girl" - a virgin of course - a marriageable girl, is often out of their reach till the man's saved enough money for a dowry, which typically takes years. They're frustrated both physically & financially. Then they see many of us, weird and western women that we are (known to many male expats here as FWC - Fat White Cows...more on that another time) who wear mere strips of fabric instead of the sensual layers local women do, who smoke and snog our men in public, and sometimes, a local guy just can't resist giving us a little squeeze. Or, I suppose, as tonight, a little kiss.

Sovanna Phum Group

Thanks to Jinja, I was able to witness the latest spectacular performances put on by Sovanna Phum in Phnom Penh this past weekend. Here are a few photos; the rest were all accidentally trashed due to a conflict between a temperamental computer, blitzed memory card, and misleading camera directions.

Enjoy.