2023년 10월 18일 수요일
SEA Part 10
And so, this tale must come to an end.
We arrived back early afternoon on Sunday December 31st, 2007. The plane would leave at one the following year...
We arrived back early afternoon on Sunday December 31st, 2007. The plane would leave at one the following year...
2008년 2월 20일 수요일
SEA Part 9
The journey was nearing the end. It was Friday in Siem Reap; we would leave Sunday evening from Ho Chi Minh City. Two days and 500 plus kilometers. But today, we would go nowhere.
We began the day at our usual breakfast joint a short walk from our hotel. Situated near the river and bordering the large souvenir market, furnished with plastic chairs and tables, friendly chatting staff and buzzing black flies, its storefront left open to the cool morning breeze, this nameless establishment offered cheap but delicious Khmer food. For fifty cents a pop, why not sample all their fruit shakes, except once you tasted one it was impossible to imagine anything better. Jeff got stuck on the banana, I was partial to the papaya. The dishes were pilled high with sautéed vegetables and rice, the quintessential Asian meal, the breakfast of champions.
With filled bellies, we walked over to main avenue I described earlier, where the banal and ostentatious trappings of a Universal Tourist Mecca prospered. The street was lined with bars and restaurants offering every kind of food, from Mexican to Middle Eastern, pop music drifted out from each bar and beer and liquor advertisements proved that, as far as spirits went, Cambodia was as advanced as the rest of the world.
We chose one place with a name like, The Silk Tiger, chiefly for the fact that they could supply a chess board with which to while away the hot afternoon hours. And this is what we did, playing chess and staring at the passersby.
First a young European, tanned the color of tabbaco stained fingers, long gnarled dreadlocks wrapped in a faded bandana, sandals slapping against the pavement. Next, a middle-aged man with no arms, a box of bootlegged books slung around his neck, an inimitable grin on his prematurely aged face. After reading the message attached to the box about his four children’s empty stomachs and his need, not for charity, but for hard-earned money from the sale of his product, Jeff bought a biography of Pol Pot for the ludicrous cost of six dollars. But, it was for a good cause.
Tourist and beggars and tuk-tuk drivers passed all day long. There were funny little fellas with bare feet and third- or fourth- hand shirts and contagious smiles, roaming up and down the row of bars, collecting empties. They'd wait outside the railings of the bar, and when you made that final deep neck bend to get at that last warm sip of your Tiger Beer, they'd be right there to demand the empty carcass. One kid, a little older than the others, would even make a go at the can himself, sucking up whatever beer might have been left behind. It was funny at the time, but writing about it makes me wonder how funny it actually is.
Later that day we went to the souvenir market to get the necessary gifts for those we needed to ameliorate back home. It is an open-air market covered by one large roof, filled with a maze of stalls selling basically the same shit. Postcards, shawls, T-shirts, jewelry...there is a wide range of products, but it is the same list at each stall. It would seem one large monopolizing manufacturer sells the same catalogue of junk to every merchant in the village, homogenizing the market and making shopping a very dull experience. We got what we needed and got out.
Our last night in Siem Reap dissolved into space after our final happy pizza of the voyage. The bars were brilliantly lit in the warm night and a dulled gaiety permeated the town center. Tired tourists filled the bars and restaurants, filling their stomachs with food and drink, full of wonder after a day at the temples and the minor decadence achieved by the wealthy west in the indigent east.
We began the day at our usual breakfast joint a short walk from our hotel. Situated near the river and bordering the large souvenir market, furnished with plastic chairs and tables, friendly chatting staff and buzzing black flies, its storefront left open to the cool morning breeze, this nameless establishment offered cheap but delicious Khmer food. For fifty cents a pop, why not sample all their fruit shakes, except once you tasted one it was impossible to imagine anything better. Jeff got stuck on the banana, I was partial to the papaya. The dishes were pilled high with sautéed vegetables and rice, the quintessential Asian meal, the breakfast of champions.
With filled bellies, we walked over to main avenue I described earlier, where the banal and ostentatious trappings of a Universal Tourist Mecca prospered. The street was lined with bars and restaurants offering every kind of food, from Mexican to Middle Eastern, pop music drifted out from each bar and beer and liquor advertisements proved that, as far as spirits went, Cambodia was as advanced as the rest of the world.
We chose one place with a name like, The Silk Tiger, chiefly for the fact that they could supply a chess board with which to while away the hot afternoon hours. And this is what we did, playing chess and staring at the passersby.
First a young European, tanned the color of tabbaco stained fingers, long gnarled dreadlocks wrapped in a faded bandana, sandals slapping against the pavement. Next, a middle-aged man with no arms, a box of bootlegged books slung around his neck, an inimitable grin on his prematurely aged face. After reading the message attached to the box about his four children’s empty stomachs and his need, not for charity, but for hard-earned money from the sale of his product, Jeff bought a biography of Pol Pot for the ludicrous cost of six dollars. But, it was for a good cause.
Tourist and beggars and tuk-tuk drivers passed all day long. There were funny little fellas with bare feet and third- or fourth- hand shirts and contagious smiles, roaming up and down the row of bars, collecting empties. They'd wait outside the railings of the bar, and when you made that final deep neck bend to get at that last warm sip of your Tiger Beer, they'd be right there to demand the empty carcass. One kid, a little older than the others, would even make a go at the can himself, sucking up whatever beer might have been left behind. It was funny at the time, but writing about it makes me wonder how funny it actually is.
Later that day we went to the souvenir market to get the necessary gifts for those we needed to ameliorate back home. It is an open-air market covered by one large roof, filled with a maze of stalls selling basically the same shit. Postcards, shawls, T-shirts, jewelry...there is a wide range of products, but it is the same list at each stall. It would seem one large monopolizing manufacturer sells the same catalogue of junk to every merchant in the village, homogenizing the market and making shopping a very dull experience. We got what we needed and got out.
Our last night in Siem Reap dissolved into space after our final happy pizza of the voyage. The bars were brilliantly lit in the warm night and a dulled gaiety permeated the town center. Tired tourists filled the bars and restaurants, filling their stomachs with food and drink, full of wonder after a day at the temples and the minor decadence achieved by the wealthy west in the indigent east.
2008년 2월 13일 수요일
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