The evening began with our guide taking us to a local restaurant a short walk down the Phnom-Penh street from our hotel. Deep-fried honeyfish formed the centrepiece of an exquisite meal in a cosy traditional Cambodian restaurant, and then came the singing and dancing children at the front of the small, narrow room. The restaurateur apparently orchestrates this performance weekly: about a dozen desperately poor streetchildren entertain a largely western audience with traditional singing, dancing, music and dress. If you had described the scene to me beforehand, I would have scoffed at the suggestion I could have been moved by it. As it was, I was stunned by its undeniable sensory beauty. The music, instruments and singing blended together in a demanding yet measured way which didn’t take long to rhythmically penetrate. Tastefully decorated dress and make-up for the girls; who ordered intricately choreographed dancing in a businesslike way over their tiringly unruly partners: the unfailingly amusing and hapless boys. Beaming smiles at the close of each dance made the heart of this fickle tourist melt entirely.
Donations to the children’s war-torn families were remarkable by dint of not being aggressively demanded: a meagre money box in the corner if you want to donate. It’s not even passed round. To anyone capable of human feeling, anyone wilted by what they’ve witnessed, to generously donate seems as obvious as breathing.
The dancing reflected, and perhaps exaggerated my sense of the Cambodian people. Given the terrors of their extremely recent history - the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot’s regime, the still perpetual danger of liberally scattered landmines - it would be entirely understandable for them to be defensive, cautious, cold, nervous: especially the children. Or for them to carry weighty chips on their shoulders for all that they’ve been subjected to. Yet by and large, they are enchantingly warm, disarmingly open and generous people whose characters suggest nothing of their history. Instead, a brave, unacknowledged, just-get-on-with-it attitude which is forever cheerful.
Senses regathered, I was jubilant to find that the England-Austria World Cup qualifier was on the television of most bars along the street. Aside from our party’s American pair - who seemed to be opting out a lot - we headed back from the restaurant in the direction of the hotel, to a Vespa themed bar. There we witnessed a disappointing but functional 1-0 England win in which David Beckham was sent off again. Duncan was cheered to see a framed Glasgow Rangers shirt adorning one of the walls. By the time the England match reached its conclusion, everyone in our group except Shane and I had gone back to the hotel. As the final whistle sounded in Old Trafford, I asked my relatively new Australian companion: “Another, compadre? Somewhere else?” Our eyes mutually twinkled at the prospect and desire for more liquor.
But I lacked cash and the machines in a nearby traveller-targeted Australian branch wouldn’t give me anything. Our hired tuk-tuk man took us down a quiet street to the distinctly unpromising looking door of what looked like a telephone booth. Regular enough looking cashpoint coming out the wall, but I was still highly sceptical. I nervously inserted a card, was heartened by English instructions, pressed buttons and, miraculously, it gave. Shane and I were elated: we could drink!
Our tuk-tuk man pulled us towards a busy looking bar in what must have been a central bar area, a short distance into town, and away from the river. Taking stools at the bar, we began speaking to ex-pats either side of us. Shane to an American “dude,” who had something to do with the running of the bar; me to a Scottish maths lecturer at the university here. A friendly chap, good conversation, but I was equally enjoying our proximity to the decoratively manicured barmaids.
At 2am the bar closed and we went to another, the local Walkabout bar. I was amazed the chain was this wide-reaching, unless of course it wasn’t part of it chain and coincidentally shared its name with the Australian chain.
If increasingly blurry memory serves correctly, Walkabout was a large, semi-circular, half empty 24-hour affair over two floors. And it was quite dark. I somehow managed to persuade an initially reluctant, vaguely sad looking local girl to come and sit with us at the bar. Using schoolboy French so broken it could have been strewn across continents, I tried to focus on what I was saying and her face, rather than her quite incredible chest and curvaceous body. Precisely what we spoke of I’m not sure. Possibly too much of myself as she was less forthcoming, though I’m sure I learned something of her. Her name, for example - which I struggled to pronounce so avoided using, before forgetting altogether. Somehow, through our numerous communication obstacles.. was that? ..did she? I think we began flirting.
Aware of Shane’s isolation, we headed upstairs to play pool, by then not in the greatest state of sobriety. Despite this, we made an average attempt at doubles. A startlingly beautiful local introduced herself to us, and more specifically Shane. Retiring from the pool games to different ends of the untended upstairs bar, Shane and I grew more familiar with our respective ladies - who had given no indication of being prostitutes. I was more certain of my companion because of her original reluctance to join us. She kissed with a strange pecking fashion, and expertly massaged my back. After a time she went to the toilet and I stretched my legs with a walk to the balcony area.
It was light, morning, daytime, market stalls had begun to open below. Shit. How had that happened? A glance at my watch confirmed it was little after 6am. Headfucked by the revelation, I anxiously considered next moves and reported my finding of the globe’s over-hasty rotation to Shane. He definitely wanted action with his friend but was going to book a room in a different hotel. I was less sure. I didn’t want to take her back to our room because I knew I was likely to get caught, busted, thrown off the tour, and off my next tour which was booked through the same company. But I didn’t want the expense of another room. Shane had always seemed quite frivolous with his money, including spending a ludicrous amount on that local guide in Saigon. It wasn’t exactly the safest country in the world. Would she have a terrifying father, or brothers? Might they want to kill me if I..?
Shane and I blundered drunkenly out of the bar with the girls clinging to our arms and squinted into the bright daylight. A minute’s conference later we separated, taking tuk-tuks in different directions. My driver was the same one who had had taken us into this area of town several hours ago. He had waited. He’d waited?! Since when? How much would he want? Fuck, my head was beginning to fuzz and I was still reeling from the discovery of it being morning. And there was the small issue of the girl sitting to my left, holding onto me for dear life as the tuk-tuk chugged onwards. Could I..? The risks were way too big, yet still I was burning for that amazing chest. In all fairness, her face was passable, a squashed nose its obvious focus point. Not on a par with Shane’s new friend. But she did have that perfect unblemished skin, a wonderful body, and those breasts... Idiot, I reprimanded myself. I asked her several times if she wanted to come back with me, hoping she’d have changed her mind and solve my nasty dilemma for me, hoping she’d have thought about it, said “rationally speaking, no, I’ve come to my senses and now I think about it I don’t think...” But of course she couldn’t form a sentence anything like that, so she just leeched onto me pathetically and whimpered “yes,” a hand high up my thigh. She insisted that she did want to come back to the hotel. She didn’t want to go home. Fuck, I thought, as the tuk-tuk approached our hotel. It was 6.30. No, I couldn’t.. Less to do with morals than the potential of seriously screwing up the rest of my trip. I paid the tuk-tuk man most of what I had left in my wallet for waiting, gave the remainder, probably not enough, to her, to get her home, and left. She wasn’t happy with me and possibly also worried about any consequences of staying out all night. A glance over my shoulder as I headed for the hotel door revealed that she had quickly clicked into sensible mode, rejecting the tuk-tuk we had travelled in (possibly an inflated touristy tuk-tuk - although they all look the same to us) in search of another. Watching her and her wonderful body independently swing away from me, I stepped sideways back through the hotel door.
Feeling like a fuckwit, confused and ashamed of myself, a small shard of something way back in my marshland head applauded me, was pleased and righteous at my decision. I passed an unmanned reception (unmanned! nobody would have seen us), silent but for the humming air conditioning unit, and pressed a button to summon the elevator. Regrets that I hadn’t taken her up were potentially smaller than regrets I could have suffered if I had. With that meagre consolation and a less coherent groan I flopped onto my bed.
A knock at the door woke me not enough hours later at 11am. I opened it to find a widely grinning Shane: that lucky ballsy Australian bastard. He had considerately knocked in case I had company. All had gone blissfully to plan for him. As beautiful naked as she had been clothed. And apparently a squealer. I felt sharp jabbing jealousy as I slumped back into my bed and learned details. He was disappointed in me, would have been so proud of me if I’d properly got my hands on those tits, muyte! - and he’s been pounding the regret into me since. Still think I was right not to, but can’t help wondering what if..? If, even in pissed, headswirling state, if I hadn’t been so painfully rational, sensible, boring, dull... then...
We’ve been flagging all day, much to the amusement of the rest of our party. I felt horribly ill as we walked around the Khmer Rouge torture prison, S21 early this afternoon. Like I could easily be sick at any moment. I snuck glances in discreet, obscured corners where I could quickly spring through necessary contingency. They were barren, cold blocky buildings we walked around, like the crappest, derelict department of your college: empty but for torture weapons, wasted beds, and galleries of images which didn’t serve to slow my somersaulting stomach. I recovered a little with the aid of sleep on the minibus which is touring us around. By the time we reached the surprisingly underwhelming killing fields - various small swampy ponds covering mass graves across a large field: a modest, tall stone monument at its centre - I was able to speak again without worrying it would agitate stomach acids. The fields offered little indication of the recent atrocities it had witnessed. Children played on a makeshift rope-swing over a muddy puddle, giggling in hysterical delight when one of them was brave enough to pick his feet up from the floor.
As we left the fields for the minibus, I offered the remaining quarter of my stale bottle of water to a small gathering of children who were working a neighbouring rice-field. They had been magnetically attracted to the fence by the passing western tourists, like ducks to someone dishing out bread. I offered the bottle to a tiny little girl at the centre of the group and gestured that she should share it with her clamouring friends. Contorting my empty hand back through the wire meshed fence, I was ashamed to sense my resemblance to a zoo visitor: a sometimes inescapable feeling here. Trying to contain yet more powerfully gassy burps, I pondered this as we walked back to the vehicle: if there’s more virtue in staying and working, or volunteering.
We’ve now returned to the hotel for much needed rest, Shane and I intermittently exchanging further details and blurry memories of last night while I write this. Imagining our behaviour wouldn’t be looked on favourably, we’re telling the rest of the group that we returned to the hotel together at 5am. I’ve been sworn to secrecy as he has a girlfriend back home, though the likelihood is we’ll never see each other again after this week. He says he’s not very literate, doesn’t do computers at all and is doing this trip en route home after a year in London. Our plans for this evening run as far as dinner - I haven’t eaten anything all day and my stomach gurgles are growing violent - followed by an early night. Tomorrow we meet in the lobby at 5.30am for an early flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia’s second city.
_______
circa October 2005
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