Famo Adventure Motorcycling Guide

New post time I think it must be. I’e had a few humbling experiences in the last couple of weeks and my time in Cambodia ended pretty abruptly, sad to say it.

A Petrol Station

Although the roads in Cambodia are horrible, the people are wonderful, except of course the people who continually try to sell me stuff I don’t need. On a bad morning I can get pretty annoyed at being offered lift after lift when all I want to do is walk, and by about the 100th offer I could scream my head off at these people. The best defense is to completely ignore them, because there is no possible way to respond to every single one with a “no thank you”. I have to keep reminding myself that this is the only way they know how to make a living, so every one of my greenbacks they can get a hold of is precious. It also makes genuine interaction very dubious, because you can always see that glint of ‘I just want your money’ in the eyes. You can be walking down the street and 100m ahead of you a tuk-tuk driver will put up his hand, then the other drivers in the area will all raise their hands, and you still have 80m to walk with 5 people waving at you calling out “me sir, me sir”. I’m proud to say that my mum (I met up with my parents in Pnom Penh) has discovered a way to adapt her years of primary school teaching to the task of ‘tuk-tuk driver control’. Goes a little something like this:

Mum and Dad get out of the bus, immediately surrounded by 10 tuk-tuk drivers:

All Tuk-tuk drivers (hands in air): Pick me, pick me, I was here first!
Mum: Okay, I’m NOT going to choose ANYONE until there is silence
(tuk-tuk drivers immediately shut-up, all looking at mum and bobbing up and down on their toes. Some have their hands over their mouths)
Mum: Right, who was here FIRST?
(hands go up, grunting noises)
Tuk-tuk driver: Me, I was here fi-
Mum: Silence!
(hands pumping the air, more grunting noises)
Mum: Okay, now who was here LAST?
(everyone is silent, look around at each other, one tuk-tuk driver puts his hand up)
Tuk-tuk driver: me
Mum: You can be our driver then
(entire crowd groans)

I thought that was a pretty interesting way of dealing with the situation. I know I’ve fallen for that one before a few times.

So, first day I arrived I did a stupid westerner thing and decided to sort out some of my money in front of the national museum. I was immediately surrounded by about 15 beggars with their hands out, jostling me. I pretty much had to run away and think about what I may have done wrong: my genius genes hadn’t kicked in that day I don’t think. To tell you the truth, I’m becoming less and less willing to give money to people who hold their hand out at me, as horrible as that may seem. I’m a reasonably generous person, but the whole idea of Small Child with Sad Eyes looks suspiciously like exploitation and the Mother with Baby seems even worse. There is generally a third party who gets most of the money, something like a beggar’s pimp. I think because of that, it is always better to give money to foundations and charities that have boxes set up around the place. They at least try to encourage people away from living on the streets.

Mum and Daughter

Some kids, I gave them a juicebox and a toblerone, kid on far right has a coconut!

Pnom Penh is a big, rough, bustling place with garbage strewn everywhere and drains spewing foul-smells at the unwary person who happens to walk over one. It isn’t the prettiest town in South-East Asia by far, however it has got some charm about it and you can find some nice places amidst the jumble.

Old Victorian?? Architecture

Compared to Thailand, the country is very poor and the sense of national pride very weak. Back in the early seventies, Cambodia was cruising along a path to westernization, with popular music and fashion playing a big role in everyday Pnom Penh life. In 1975, thanks to the Khmer Rouge party, this was all destroyed. The communist Khmer Rouge believed that the only way to put Cambodia on the map was to create a purely agrarian society, in which every man, woman and child worked on the land. The crops produced would be used to better the economy and help fight the terrible Youn, or Vietnamese, who were raping and murdering the Cambodian people. This was all propaganda, and the money from the workers in the fields was used to buy guns that were mainly used to kill Cambodian people. The Khmer Rouge soldiers were often very young, and sometimes were even brainwashed so much by the purveyors of propaganda that they informed on their own family as dissidents, sending parents, brothers and sisters to certain death. The party leader, Pol Pot, had first learnt Marxist theories in Paris and thought that they could be adapted to Cambodia to better the country. Unfortunately, he also believed that all professionals, intellectuals, artists, and people who worked for the previous Lon Nol government should be murdered. Over 4 years, almost 2 million Cambodians were killed by their own government and since the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge, there have been no formal trials of the party leaders.

Mass graves at the Killing Fields

The effects of the Khmer Rouge genocide are still being felt today. Many prisoners and soldiers of the regime are still alive today, however very few of the people in charge of killing have come forward. When you walk around Pnom Penh and look into the eyes of the older people on the street, you could be looking into the eyes of someone who saw their entire family murdered, or you could be looking at someone who killed 50 people. The woman who took us on a tour of the Toul Sleng prison had trouble composing herself. She had escaped into Vietnam, but had lost most of her family. Walking around the prison and seeing the beds where people had been tortured and beaten was a very humbling experience, as was reading the responses of ex prison guards, who had been given the choice of becoming a murderer, or being tortured to death. The days spent exploring the prison and killing fields were dark, and overshadowed all other attempts at seeing national monuments in Pnom Penh.

Toul Sleng Prison

After Pnom Penh, my parents had planned to head up to Siam Reap and the temples of Angkor. I decided to follow them and rode my bike the 300km in a day. Unfortunately, the night I arrived I came down with a bad case of food poisoning and ended up spending the next four days in bed. We’d planned a day trip of the temples for the day after I arrived but I couldn’t join them. They left the day after that, so my meet-up with the olds wasn’t so good. I self-diagnosed and administered some drugs and spent the four days watching incredible amounts of Hollywood crap on the cable TV channel. On day four I tried to do a tour of the Angkor temples but ended up having to race home feeling awful. I did see sunrise and some pretty cool ruins, but felt too horrible to go on. Feeling ill in a country that doesn’t have wonderful medical facilities is another humbling experience and I decided that, as I still wasn’t feeling 100%, I’d race back to Bangkok in order to be near a proper hospital if all went wrong. I was also keen to find a mechanic for my bike, as I’d noticed a leak coming from the countershaft.

Angkor Wat on Sunrise

Tree Chewing Up the Temple

The final experience that made me all humbled out in Cambodia was my 40km/h stack on the dirt highway back to the border town of Poipet. I don’t know how it happened, maybe I used my front brake at the wrong time, I think I hit a rock that flicked my wheel sideways but in the end I found myself on the ground. The panniers are a good thing and I’m glad I had’t shipped them back to Australia. They provide me with a little cubby-hole to sit in if the bike falls on its side, so I got away with a bruised knee and dented pride from the 25 Cambodian farmers stood gaping at the stupid Westerner on his arse. The car behind me, thanks for stopping by the way, hooted its horn until I managed to get someone to help me lift the bike and push it off the side of the road. I took it easy after that and realized how close I’d come to experience the title of my last post. I’m a careful rider, but sometimes these things happen and make you think, maybe I could go 10km/h slower and take in a bit more scenery.

Some Traffic – Icecream Van

More Traffic – Dead Pig on a bike

So, back in Bangkok I took my bike to Dynamik Motors and had the guy there do some routine maintenance. He fixed my oil leak and sorted out my growing valve clearance. I asked him if I could stay and learn how it is done, but I had to leave when I saw his guys with their hands in my bike’s motor: It was worse than watching myself operated on.

I met some Canadians and went to the National Museum with a cool American girl called Greta. We found it amusing watching the superwoman prowess of the scantily-clad Thai girl in the Indy bar, who seemed to change costumes at the drop of a hat. First skirts, then shirts with stripes and skin-tight tights. Very classy! I also ran into a lovely couple from the states who were heading up to Laos for some motorbike touring. Hopefully I can meet up again with Steve and Wan in the next couple of weeks. Steve works as a HIV doctor and has been living in Southern China. He went to a conference on the spread of diseases across Myanmar borders in Bangkok yesterday, which sounded interesting. Wan showed me where to find the best Pad Thai in town, second-to-none!

Tomorrow I ride to the Thai-Laos border and head into Laos for a couple of weeks. I’m looking forward to some scenic riding, something I haven’t seen on the trip since Australia. I’ll loop down the Thai-Burma border and then finish for a short stop in Chang Mai. I’ve decided the best way to get to India will be to fly the bike to Kathmandu. It seems easier than attempting to illegally ride through southern China. When I get back to Bangkok from Chang Mai, I’ll need to organise the bike shipping etc.

I hope everyone is well. Thank you to all those who are keeping in touch or are thinking of me. I go through patches of loneliness when I spend a while without “clicking” with people, but I know these times are passing. I’m reading The Power of One, which I’d always disregarded for being “The Power of One” damn my cinicism, the book is amazing and very inspirational. I’m looking forward to getting to Spain and meeting up with Steve and Tati and settling in for a bit, however I’m also mega-excited about everything that will happen along the way. Please also, if you feel adventurous, come and meet me along the way in India or wherever (I’m looking at you Rob H, Carly!!!)

Stay well all,
Love
Dameaux

This entry was posted on Friday, January 26th, 2007 at 7:47 pm and is filed under Cambodia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.