To Phnom Penh

Sunday Oct 3, 2004

I got up at about 4:45, way too early for me. When I went outside I found there was nothing open for breakfast (guess I could have predicted that) and then I found that I’d locked myself out of the hotel. The front desk clerk was sleeping on a cot right by the front desk, and I had awakened him to let me out the front door, which was chained shut. So I woke him back up on the way in and got a spare key to get into my room. The van to pick me up to take me to the river boat arrived right on time at 5:40 AM. We picked up a bunch more people and then headed out to a village where the boat was waiting. The water was high enough at that time that the river (and therefore the village) was a few kilometers closer to Siem Riep than usual.

On the bus I met an English couple just starting out on a planned year of traveling. I thought my packing had been difficult, but heading out for a year has got to be tough. They had some monster backpacks as a result. Their trip from Bangkok to Siem Riep had taken 18 hours, so it turns out my 12 hour trip was lucky.

In the village I bought a bottle of water, a small loaf of French bread, and 4 tiny bananas. We had agreed on $2 before I agreed, then after I gave her the $2 she said $2.50! I snatched my $2 back from her and started walking away and she said “Okay! Okay! $2” so I turned back and bought the food.

The boat was a long steel cylinder maybe 3 meters in diameter and 30 meters long. I’ve never seen a boat like that before. A guy took my bag as I was loading onto the boat, and I went inside and sat down. It was fairly claustrophobic inside, since there were no windows. Then the guy who had taken my bag tapped me on the shoulder and told me I owed him tip money for taking my bag. I got indignant about that, and told him I thought he worked for the boat and I would have just taken it myself had I known. He asked again and I just shook my head and said no way.

I rode most of the way on top, which was nice for the view and breeze and bad for the noise and comfort. The boat was fast, and had some serious horsepower with some not-so-serious muffling. Sounded like a straight cut-out exhaust. I had significant hearing loss after the boat ride despite earplugs, and wouldn’t be too surprised if some of it is permanent. I also managed to not put sunscreen on until about half-way into the trip, which by then was too late to prevent a painful burn.

The Rambo 7, no kidding. Loading onto the Rambo 7.

It was difficult staying comfortable on that metal cylindrical top. Laying down on my back turned out to be the most comfortable, and I fell asleep for little while like that.

Here’s a video of part of the ride.

Floating village. More of the floating village.

A fisherman out in Lake Tonle Sap . The open-air way to ride.

Lake Tonle Sap is huge. I couldn’t see either shore from the middle. It was flooded then, and had lots of debris and vegetation floating in it. There were lots of boats out on it, but they were well spaced out. I think most of them were fishing.

Some homes along the Tonle Sap river.

There were a lot of structures underwater, with just the roofs peeking out. Most were up on tall stilts.

When we arrived in Phnom Penh there were about 50 guys up on the pier yelling at us. They were asking where we were staying, did we need a ride, etc. It was annoying, but on the other hand it was also really easy to get a moto to the FCC to meet Bill.

The FCC in Phnom Penh is awesome. It has an open air upper floor with a great view of the waterfront and Tonle Sap and Mekong rivers.

The mosquitoes in this part of the world are a commando breed. Compared to the type I’m used to, they’re a little smaller, totally silent, and about 10 times as fast. The also seem to be smarter. They hang out in bathrooms and go for your ankles when you walk in there in the morning. I got a few bites every morning, and no, I never learned to put repellant on before going in.

Bill’s place is nice, but small. One surprise is that his $5 per month cable TV hookup has twice as many channels as I have in Kirkland , including some movie channels.

We met Tara and Peter for dinner (Tara had also come down from Siem Riep) at the FCC, which was good. That conversation made it more clear how big a deal corruption is in Cambodia . They all seemed to be of the opinion that the single biggest factor holding the Cambodian economic development back is corruption. Everything you do involving public officials requires a bribe. There’s a bribe food-chain that is making the top guys millions while 30% of the people live on less than $20 per month. I was talking with a Cambodian about business development and he insisted that you wouldn’t want to make a big business, you want a small business that won’t get noticed by officials, otherwise you’re going to get squeezed for bribes. It also appears that it’s part of the culture, as one person said “It’s a dishonest culture”. That was definitely my experience too, though I primarily saw it from a tourist perspective, and I guess I agree that scamming rich tourists is a lot more reasonable than squeezing local businesses.