Travel Diaries: Cambodia

People back home reading the diary are often flabbergasted at the amount of people I meet. So much so, that my mate Sean has even vowed to compile a quiz, because surely, even I “won’t remember every little detail.” Whenever I speak to my big brother, John (who’s been desperate for a shoutout), he without fail always comments something like “I just can’t keep up, I don’t know how you can be arsed.” The fact is, it’s getting to the point where I can’t. You have the same basic five-minute conversations with different people every day, and it can be quite monotonous and boring at times… “Where ya from? Where ya going next? Where did ya start? India?! What was that like?”

We’ve got our little group now, it’s a nice dynamic, particularly with Josh Gal and co popping in and out of our lives every couple of days, so we’re currently not accepting any applications to join us at this time. Having said that, when I do meet someone who I can have a substantial conversation with, it’s greatly appreciated, and they will automatically qualify for a mention in the diary. With that in mind, the below entry will introduce a number of characters, so sit down with a cup of tea (something which we haven’t had in weeks) and try your best to follow…

We arrived in the surprisingly modern and built up city of Phnom Penh at around seven o’clock in the evening. A capital which suffered immensely due to both American interference in South East Asia, and at the hands of the brutal Pol Pot regime. After batting away the scamming tuk-tuk drivers like flies, we jumped into a Grab and set course for the Mad Monkey Hostel. Almost everywhere we’ve been so far has had a Mad Monkey, it’s a large franchise in this little corner of the world, and is generally where the party is at, but Tanya went a separate way, to reconvene with her boyfriend, Matt, who has come to join us for the final leg of our trip.

We had our first experience of the notorious Cambodian currency, the riel. It’s a nightmare, the notes all look the same, and they only it use it for cents, as they use US dollars as actual money! We checked in to find the bar area full of backpackers, the majority sporting orange vests with the Mad Monkey logo and “PUB CRAWL” written on the back. I couldn’t think of anything worse than joining them, so we nipped out for some shit food, and on the way home, got chatting with a thin middle-aged Aussie called Ben, who asked us for directions towards a bar. We had no idea which way to send him, having only just got to Phnom Penh ourselves, so he said goodbye and thanked us for our time.

The girls were pretty jaded from the coach, and I was reluctant to socialise with any of the orange lads, so was thrilled to spot Ben from across the bar like something out of a 1990s romcom. I’ve always got on better with people older than me, and given that he was at least twice my age, I thought I’d have a better chat with him than anyone else in the hostel bar. I was right, and spoke with him about how he’d managed to end up in Cambodia. He told me he spends six months at a time in Kampot, just a couple of hours south of the capital, and six months in Perth. He worked a job which I understood nothing about, even less so after he’d explained it to me, but we still had a nice conversation, and he took my contact details to potentially meet up again when we went to Kampot the following day. The chat was cut short by Mia approaching me and instructing me to put the orange vest on, because we were going on the pub crawl. I sighed.

I reluctantly put it on (over my t-shirt of course, I really don’t have the physique for a tank top) and said goodbye to Ben. The pub crawl was/is pretty self-explanatory, but the vest side of things was put in place so that the bar workers knew who to give a free shot to. We sacked it off after the second venue, and arranged to go see Tanya and Matt, for what had been a long-awaited meeting as I’d heard a lot about him. An amusing, talkative, energetic bloke, we had some really in-depth debates about world politics that evening. As is seemingly a pattern, I called it a night prematurely because it all got a bit too much, and I had a big day ahead of me the following morning.

On the way back to the hostel, now no longer wearing the vest, I ordered a pizza from a street food vendor. Whilst I was sat down waiting, a polite but intoxicated Cambodian man approached me and sparked a conversation. We began with the usual pleasantries, where I was from, and so forth, before I of course turned the conversation towards conflict and genocide. Jetra (likely an incorrect spelling), who was around fifty, couldn’t be happier and more open to discuss what happened here in the 1970s. We chatted for a while as my pizza went cold, and he struck me by explaining that his mother had been shot in the back and killed in the cross-fire during fighting between the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese. Unbeknownst to me, this story would seem trivial against the magnitude of the genocide, which I would learn about in depth the next day.

I had an appointment at the doctor’s the following morning at ten o’clock. When applying for my Australian visa, I was prompted to declare my medical history, and given that I’ll be requiring a repeat prescription upon arrival, I had to declare it. The Aussie immigration office came back and said that I’ll need to undergo a health examination before they can grant my visa, and gave me a list of trusted clinics in South East Asia whom I could make an appointment with. It baffled me, as the prescription I’ll be requiring is nothing to do with physical health. Nevertheless, I reluctantly arranged a visit to a clinic in Phnom Penh to undergo a physical assessment.

I walked in the blistering heat and arrived a quarter of an hour before my appointment, as instructed, where I waited for about forty-five minutes before I got seen to. Dr. Heng, a chap in his sixties, who bore a striking resemblance to my Grandad Peter (only darker and shorter) called me into his room. He was a pleasant bloke, and unlike many of the GPs in the UK, was quite jubilant and chatty. He took an interest in my travel plans, and we discussed my route as he instructed me to strip down to my underpants. He then went on to check my pulse, put something in my ear, something else in my nose, hit my knee with one of those little plastic hammers causing a jolt, shone a light into my eyes, etc… Why I had to go through the procedure in my underpants I’m still unsure, but he was a nice guy, so I’ll let him off.

He then walked me downstairs after telling me to put my clothes back on, and instructed me to take a seat outside a radiology room. After about five minutes, Dr. Heng invited me in to the room and told me to take my clothes off, again, as I was about to have an x-ray for tuberculosis. I asked Dr. Heng why the hell this was a requirement, but he just giggled and said it’s part of the procedure. I told him I was only there because I’d be needing some sertraline when I land in Australia, but again, he just giggled and said it’s part of the procedure. Before I knew it, I was in my pants again standing against a machine whilst the radiologists sprinted out of the room as if I was some sort of leper.

After getting dressed, I was then introduced to a nurse who’s name I’ve forgotten, and was led back upstairs into a room where my height and weight were measured, which made pretty grim viewing. I then underwent an eye test (again, no idea why), followed by a blood pressure test. The worst part was when the nurse escorted me back downstairs (the ascent and descent of the staircase was presumably a ploy to test my fitness), where she took half a fucking pint of blood from my arm. She then showed me the full syringe, causing me to almost simultaneously vomit and pass out.

By this point, I was really annoyed. It was all hunky-dory having a laugh in my boxers with Cambodian Grandad Peter at the start, but they crossed the line when they made me anaemic before instructing me to go back upstairs and, wait for it… PAY! As if I wasn’t feeling nauseous and faint already, they charged me $107 for the privilege. I waited and waited for all the test results to come back, and a small part of me sort of wished I actually had tuberculosis just to make all this worthwhile. But, eventually Dr. Heng brought me into his office, this time letting me keep my clothes on, and told me I was fit and healthy. It gave me peace of mind to know that I’d passed my human MOT, and I received an email confirmation that my visa had been approved before I’d even got to the bottom of the damned staircase on my way out.

I went and met Mia back at the hostel, who was violently hungover, and together we went to see one of the most horrific, harrowing and heart-rending attractions in Cambodia. The S21 prison - an old high school which the Khmer Rouge used to imprison, torture and kill almost 20,000 civilians in an attempt to enforce their extreme communist philosophy “Year Zero”. Out of the thousands that entered, only twelve survived. S21 is now a museum, and offers a brilliantly insightful audio guide, which tells the tale of how the prison operated, and what actually went on there. I’ve never been to Auschwitz, and it’s wrong to compare monstrosities and horrors, but I can’t imagine ever having a more gut-wrenching, gruesome experience. Photos displayed the remains of many of the prisoners, the majority completely unrecognisable as human beings as a result of extreme barbaric torture. Mugshots of the civilians lined the walls, most of them men, but many of them little boys.

Suddenly, my health examination didn’t seem all that bad, and whilst walking through the grounds, we bumped into Steve and Robert, the two Canadian blokes we met back in Hue. It was nice to see them, but I couldn’t have thought of a worse place to have a reunion. We didn’t last the full tour, and cowardly left prematurely as we really felt like we’d seen enough. It saddens me that the Cambodian genocide is relatively unheard of in the Western world, and I’m unsure as to why we don’t know more about it. It’s a hugely important part of history in my opinion, displaying the full extent to which mankind can be evil, and should not be forgotten about.

Later that day, we made the awful, claustrophobic journey a couple of hours south to Kampot. A village perched on Praek Tuek Chhu river, home to many expats and Cambodian people alike. We checked in to the Yellow Star hostel, and the six of us conveniently filled a six-bed dorm. We were greeted by two dogs, Lyla and Arambol, and four or five cats. The hostel had a swimming pool, a reasonably priced menu offering both Western and Khmer food, an in-house tuk-tuk driver, a pool table, and was relatively clean. The truth is, we didn’t do an awful lot in the few days we spent there. I rang our John to wish him a happy 34th birthday (there you go, two shoutouts for the price of one), and caught up with some of my pals on FaceTime. The pool area was great, and we definitely got our $3 a night’s worth. I also made great use of the pool table, competing with the locals, to the point where I’m now considering a career in professional snooker.

On one of the days, we got a twenty minute tuk-tuk to the Arcadia Hostel, a riverside bar and guesthouse which boasted a huge slide and a pillow launch. We took advantage of the happy hour $1 beers, tested our bravery by going down the slide, and jumped off twenty-feet-high platforms into the river. We had great fun, and got chatting to a window cleaner named Michael from Lancashire, who’d been away from his home town of Rochdale for two years, travelling Asia and working in Australia. He was a little bit older than me, had an infectious laugh, and a strong hatred of Gareth Southgate and the way Man Utd had been performing this season.

The music came as a pleasant surprise, too. “Sunday Bloody Sunday” by U2 played, followed by “Dancing in the Moonlight” by Thin Lizzy, a little bit of Fontaines D.C. and the odd track by The Cranberries. We got talking with an articulate Irish chap from County Meath, who I suspected was the person responsible behind the song choices, but he denied any involvement. He was named Cathal (pronounced Cohell (rhymes with cockle)), and we chatted about everything from the GAA to the IRA. We also spoke extensively about horse racing, a sport very close to my heart, which I miss very dearly. We had a lot to discuss in the wake of Cheltenham, and he told me that his friend owns a number of horses with the trainer Gordon Elliott, a lot of which have strong chances at the festival this year. As the night grew on, we struggled to remember how to pronounce Cathal’s wonderful Gaelic name, and began to refer to him as Cohort, Cobalt, and Colgate.

On the way home, Mia and I had a drunken disagreement which may or may not have resulted in her purposely or accidentally misplacing the book I was in the middle of reading, Hell’s Angels by Hunter S. Thompson. We had a night cap at the hostel bar, during which a very drunk Irishman (no connection with Cathal) became rather aggressive towards Eden. In a brave attempt to keep the Good Friday Agreement from breaking like a Cadbury’s Easter egg, the bartender diffused the situation, and sent us all to bed.

The following day I woke up looking like a lobster. I’d sunburnt my back and shoulders, stupid of me really, as I should know better at my big age, having been sunburnt countless times before. Therefore, I had to spend the remaining couple of days in the shade, before boarding a bus to Sihounukville, a port town which acts as the departure point to the tropical island of Koh Rong. We’d never actually planned to visit the island, but after meeting Helena and Tanya, they informed us it was unmissable. Tanya had actually lived on the island around seven years ago, and was to become our mini tour guide.

The journey to the port was three hours, and I could think of infinite better ways to spend 180 minutes. Perhaps by watching six episodes of Classic Coronation Street with my Nanna, back to back, or six episodes of Classic Emmerdale with my Nanna, back to back. I’d even be happy to watch a three-hour documentary about snakes presented by Stephen Mulhern, not with my Nanna - but instead I was on a cramped coach bound for a place I’d never heard of. We weren’t even driving on a road, I couldn’t even describe it as a dirt track, it was just rocks. It was like being on a rollercoaster, and we arrived at the port with our ribcages lob-sided and minor whiplash. A short time later, we boarded the midday ferry to Koh Rong, and I was back in my happy place - on a body of water (I’m considering learning to sail, and perhaps competing professionally at the Olympics).

Koh Rong is a paradise. The kind of which you’d see on a painting or stock photo, or on an episode of A Place in the Sun when they go to the Caribbean. We couldn’t be further away from the Caribbean, of course, but the white sandy beaches, shaded sporadically only by palm trees, made me feel like I was in a film. Simplistic, wooden fishing boats lined the shores, as we clambered our bags over the wooden pier and onto land. We set course for the Plankton Bungalow Resort, where we’d stupidly booked to stay in a tent with no air conditioning for the next five days. Mia and I pit-stopped at the Jungle Bar and Kitchen, owned by Rich, a bloke from Nottingham who had lived on the island for about five years. The food was good, and the views were even better.

We caught up to the others an hour or so later, and found them basking in the sun on the resort’s very own private beach. It was a beautiful sight, hampered slightly by the thought of having to climb a steep staircase nestled amongst what I feared were snake-infested bushes, to our tent which was like a high-end oven in a Michelin-star restaurant. We dumped our bags in the tent next to one little pathetic, plug-in fan to keep us from spontaneously combusting, and put on our swimming trunks before running into the sea.

We laid out our towels on the beach, and relentlessly and ruthlessly raided the resort’s beer supply. Later that evening, we found ourselves having some civilised drinks on a plastic table and chairs on the beach, but they weren’t going down too well, so we all chipped for a litre bottle of Jäegermeister and awaited the arrival of Josh and Dylan. Once we were all together, we set out to find a more energetic venue. Psytrance music was all that we managed to find, and given that we’re not absolute weirdos, we didn’t really enjoy it too much. Still, we had a fun night and went back to the oven for a terrible night’s kip, which was disturbed by a lizard on the inside of our zip-up tent door.

The following morning, after waking up feeling like an overdone poached egg, we dragged ourselves down to the private beach to try and recuperate. Whilst there, I got chatting to a pale, former paratrooper named Ste, from Walton, Liverpool. He was doing a little ten-day tour of Cambodia, and I got on with him really well, as is the norm with Scousers. The day was voluntarily interrupted only when our group went to visit Rich, for the second of many times, for some nice but slightly overpriced food. Once we’d eaten, it was back to the resort to watch the therapeutic, perpetual waves crash into the rocks. Echo Beach, I’ve missed you.