Phnom Penh

Dear Sir,

My currently rate is $35/day around Phnom Penh,for 9 or 10hrs.

Cheers

Wendella, you're an experienced monger and a valuable contributor on this and other ISG forums, so I really don't want to antagonise you, believe me mate!

There's stuff I feel strongly about but am aware people easily misinterpret as anti-this or anti-that and when it comes to country politics everyone to their own, we're all visitors or ex-pats in Cambodia.

On the simplest level. without taking any 'position' on it, or saying whether it's right or wrong, there's a gulf between a general 'Cambodian' view of their history and the view held by the rest of the world. Just as there is in Hong Kong (tho in a different way) over what being a British colony was all about. Most historical accounts are selective on facts, even before they get to opinions and blaming.

The Cambodians as a nation, and this is one of the remarkable things for me, are one of the most kicked about nations and at the same time the least blaming of anyone. They just don't expend the effort. I think they're too busy trying to stay alive.

Currently the Thais are (and often have been) sh*ts in Khmer eyes. The Thais argue over territory and (like the rest of Cambodia's neighbours lol) usually win. The Vietnamese are the traditional enemies of Cambodia but in the good books these days as being the conquerers that at least expelled Pol Pot. (Frickin' sad really - their best friends are their least worst enemies.)

I am always curious about how other countries define themselves - and how well they back up their facts with undisputed evidence of course. At the evidence level, there's not that much disagreement. They seem to stop when it comes to the blame level. Just that we don't.

I think I'm right in saying that one of the literal translations of 'Siem Reap' is 'Siamese Flattened.' Imagine that. Their greatest treasure is also their greatest humiliation. I have never encountered a people that handle so many decades of defeat and humiliation with such tranquillity and even laughter. It is very puzzling at first.

Dr Beat Richner has sweet f.a. to do with politics of course. The NGOs he's critical of are the medical ones. He's also critical of most foreign medical models as he can prove pretty convincingly that his model is more cost-efficient in saving lives (happy to explain in detail but hardly appropriate here?). He's a national hero as he's set up three hospitals (the biggest afaiai in Cambodia) and all funded through donations, and saving millions of lives (esp TB and burns) through simple cost-effective measures. He's Swiss-born, so also a bit of a Swiss hero (having shamed his home country into donating pharmaceuticals). But one of his biggest contributions is the training progranms for Cambodian doctors (almost all staff are native Cambodian).

When you look at his organisation's set-up (and it's really worth looking at!), it's one of those reality-check moments. There's no denying what he achieves - your tuktuk driver probably sends his kids there for free Western-standards treatment - yet governments and NGOs have bureaucratic and political encumbrances that prevent them from doing so well. Whatever the rights and wrongs of anybody, there's a radically different version of what is real depending on your experience and evidence in front of you. There's no argument - just no crossover either.

So it's like that with the whole era surrounding Pol-Pot, and whatever words we choose they're wrong in some way or other. But experience is good. Going to the war memorials, the killing fields. Not to make any judgement. But just to find out things you can verify beyond any dount in your own mind.

Another big reality-perception gap was the massive (biggest in history maybe?) international and NGO aid program to establish democratic elections in Cambodia. So much effort. So much money. And the best laid plans of mice'n'men, politicians, NGOs - were a trifling thing to overthrow as soon as everyone left. And some of their efforts (when we take into consideration 'little things like problems of sexual abuse in many forms or the national economy') even made things worse.

Cambodia is a complex place that easily resists Western 'solutions.' I find that fascinating in itself. I'm not really into casting aspersions. Neither (remarkably I think) are they.

The question of the Pol Pot era and the back-to-basics f*cked-up communism-at-its-worst is a massively complex question that bedazzled the sh*t out of me for months. I sat down and wrote several timelines, comparing accounts and so on. Just to get my head round it. It's as complex as the Angkor Wat period of fighting the Chams, at least. There's so many divergent and equally sincere perspectives and they're all life-and-death valid. So getting hold of relevant facts and timelines without judging is a big enough job. There will always be someone who will say, 'they're to blame,' or 'no, they're to blame.' I've met people who were forced to kill-or-be-killed. Forced not just at gunpoint but watching their children's heads/brains smashed against a tree till they 'cooperated.' I've tried to interview war survivors and had to stop as younger relatives' eyes fill with tears at the pain of fathers' remembrances. There's a point where I don't give a flying f*ck who was right or wrong, just who can do some good.

I asked one man (a tuktuk driver I'd got to know over a period, one with a degree he would never use as well) after talking about the horrors Cambodia has lived through, if he hoped there would be a better day for his children when they grew up. I realised too late it was the sort of 'let's look on the frickin' bright side' -type question that we tend to round sad conversations off with in the West. He looked awkward trying to find an honest reply that was the kind of 'upbeat' one the question implicitly asked for.

Eventually he looked up, and said, "Maybe for my children's children." It was one (of many in my stay) saddest things I'd ever heard.Not only the lack of hope. But the complete acceptance of the lack of hope. And then they smile duh!

So I kind of puts things in proportion for me. I sit in that nice monastery a stone's throw from Walkabout. A nice day's shaggin' then we sit in silent meditation for an hour till a monk rings a little bell and says, 'Any questions?'




[QUOTE=Wendella]Yeah let's forgive the genocide, it wasn't their fault after all. "They were driven to it by us." Groan. Is this the kind of weirdness Dr Richner is talking about? I guess the real blame for the holocaust falls to the Austrian art school professor who gave Hitler a C then. Yeah sorry guys, we live in a world where if you murder you own personal responsibliity for it. There's no get out of jail due to 'understandable madness' card. Re responsibility, who let North Vietnam set up active bases and the Ho Chi Minh trail inside Cambodia to attack south Vietnam from with a war going on a few miles away?

I dunno, maybe Dr B isn't saying anything like this. But this probably isn't the best place to discuss your unconventional opinion about a genocide. I think Christopher's first idea to keep it to PM for anyone interested was the wise way to go.

This doesn't have anything to do with loving Cambodian people or not, unless you're thinking of including guys who personally killed dozens of innocent pepole (incl women & children) on your list of loved ones. I'd just think it would be bizarre to think someone who was torturing and murdering should be forgiven or allowed to blame it all on someone else. If you need to look for a foreign contribution, werent' they Maoists?[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Christopherd]Wendella, you're an experienced monger and a valuable contributor on this and other ISG forums, so I really don't want to antagonise you, believe me mate!'[/QUOTE]

Me too -- this probably isn't a suitable subject for this thread, better we go PM.

[QUOTE=Phantomtiger2]Hey Barri,
Just wanted to let you know how much I appreciated all the work you put into the maps in Indo.
A fellow ISG member and I returned recently and used many of your helpful info. Many thanks, owe you a beer (or 2).

Oh, back to your question. The answer is YES. I usually pick one up at the airport as there seems to be a new version of the map every year. If they are out of them at the airport, the Walkabout or the Flamingo hotels will have a few lying around also, so just go in and ask them at the desk.

PT[/QUOTE]Hehe, I guess I'm kind of a map freak :). I read about your and Sharkas adventures, and I'm glad you had use of the 'Absolute Sanur X' maps. I see now that my old Phnom Penh map is outdated, but you told me before I could as well rely on the Canby map, thats why I asked.

I'll PM you when I'm in PP for that beer ;)

Cheers,
Barri

Not sure that you comprehend wendella.

Firstly the king was to blame for inviting the viets in, as he was to blame for much of cambodias recent problems(post 1953 I mean).

No democracy here, one can hardly blame the people.

He picked a winner and he was right, but it is obviuos to me that without sanctuaries in laso and Cambodia the viets were fucked.

Allied with this was the huge quantities of munitions coming up the highway from kompong saom, imported from China.

Probably about half the stuff the viets consumed came throught the parrots beak this way.

Why the US did not destroy the port or the highway beats me, they bombed the bejesus out of everything else.

Now the bombing, the Us had recently admitted that the bombing started in 65 not much later as we thought.

The B52 raids started in 1969 and the scale was awesome.

They bombed in boxes, something like 4ks wide and 12 ks long and one could not see the planes.

The say it drove people mad-well why wouldn't it. All the books say this and I know Cambodians who still have nighmares over the bombing.

The other thing it did was to drive over a million refugees into phnom penh where many died in the streets when the KR blockade was enforced.

I have been here over three years now and I speak with a lot of people in the bush and I think that I understand what happened.

I can't find any information about this hotel on the forum.
Can anyone who has stayed post a brief review, and, most importantly, let us know if it is GF?

[QUOTE=Phil Istine]Not sure that you comprehend wendella.[/QUOTE]

I might more than I let on -- just PM'd you. OK if we keep it in PM? After reading your PM today, I'd say I probly read more into what you meant than you intended. Agree its complex, but still believe torturing/killing innocent people is considered a crime by people in all countries. Cambodians might be different, but they're not that different.

Hi Guys,

Have booked a hotel (Amber Villa) in PP for beginning of January but just read that it is in the middle of the NGO area. Does this mean it is not going to be GF? Are most PP hotels GF?

Can you suggest other GF Hotels (apart from Walkabout)?

Thanks for your help.

Cheers,
Bubba

Just about every hotel in PP is GF. Don't worry

[QUOTE=Christopherd]I've met NGOs in Cambodia who are traumatised with frustration. They're not all well-paid 'do-gooders. ' But the frustration arises from a total lack of understanding. They go out there with the best of intentions and it's only when confronted with reality, when they see Cambodia through Cambodian eyes, that they realise how hopelessly ineffectual their well-laid plans will B. And by then it's mostly too late. And it happens in every area, right down to telling the Cambodians how to grow rice.

If you read textbooks or wikibooks on Cambodia. On something as simple as, say, the Pol Pot regime, then start investigating the truth once you're out there, you quickly realise how the picture of Cambodia in Western eyes is painted in sanitised colours that make sense of the 'world order' we have come to live with. The truth about the Pol Pot history, for instance, is far too unpalatable when the truth sinks in about the West's role. So we get the 'simplified' version. People go to Cambodia with not just insufficient information but [I]wrong[/I] information. This goes for the monger who's only interested in his hole, for the NGO that wants 'to make a difference' and for the normal, decent human being who just wants to visit.

For people reading this whose interest in Cambodia goes beyond getting laid, can I earnestly encourage you to consider visiting [URL="http://www.Beat-richner. Ch/"] Beat Richner's[/URL] Saturday night cello concerts in Siem Reap. It's one charity/NGO that knows what it's doing, decries the cack-handed attempts of the half-cocked NGOs in the country, and saves the lives of millions of children. 'Dr Beat' is a legend in Cambodia. Almost any tuktuk driver has heard of Beat Richner. If you want to give some money (or some blood) this is one place where it won't be wasted.

Sorry to go on. But for the many people maybe reading this that look beyond the surface, are suitably horrified, and feel helpless to help or even see a way forward for Cambodia, Richner is a strong light in a dark tunnel.

Re the last post about movies. Haven't seen that one, the filmmaker concerned is a celebrated Cambodian director who has won awards from Cannes and Amnesty International. Cambodia is a great place to learn about Cambodia. Soak up the films, books and so on. Let's face it, you need something to fill in the hours when not eating sleeping and seeking pussy.[/QUOTE]There is 3 kind of tourist in Cambodia. Those only coming only for p4p and regular tourist coming for seeing monument etc. Both will come with their wrong version about Cambodian culture and history,

You have a third category those coming in Cambodia for p4p or any other reason and fall in love with the country.

You don t need to make donation to "DR Beat" to have good conscience. You can simply do simple things by yourself. Like offering a meal to street kids, or offering board, pens, exercises books to a school, buy rice bag to orphan institution in the counrtyside. I ve heard hundred of story from simple anonymous " travelers" giving usefull donation. (sorry but since my experience with the khmer legend M. S I trust nobody in Cambodia)

Most of NGo come to Cambodia thinking they are God, they come to give lessons to poor rural farmer about how to grow the rice. But this farmer got his knowldege from his father, that keep it from his father, that keep it from his father.; and an NGO member come with his science and no single word of khmer language, telling him he know nothings. But what do the NGO? They give their technical lesson during 3 or 6 month and they told them goodbye living them in the same situation as they was before. So after their leave the farmer will come back to grow the rice like his ancestors did it. NGo are out of the real Cambodia

Come in any supermarket in Cambodia and look about goods made by Ngo in Cambodia? What you will find?: jam fruit, taco sauce, pasta sauce. Goods not in the khmer nutrition. But who care? They got credit from foreign government to do it. Money runs NGO as usual.

Rithy Pahn got award for his report about S-21. Which is not his best report. But Rithy Pahn is Khmer and show the present Cambodia through Cambodian eyes. He has view that barang will never get simply because we was not borned Khmer. Rithy Pahn let the ordinary Khmer talking about their present life simply; he s not against NGo. He ever got support from foreign government and some ngo.

Sure we can face the real Cambodia by ourself. But be carefull it take time, open mind and what we see is not often the truth.; (look the number of "Thailand expert" who are expert of nothing in reality)

Please note that almost all the history book about recent Cambodian past was writting by Barang. Not by khmer.; that could be the explanation of the "simpliest version"

Cheers

[QUOTE=Channy]There is 3 kind of tourist in Cambodia. Those only coming only for p4p and regular tourist coming for seeing monument etc. Both will come with their wrong version about Cambodian culture and history,

You have a third category those coming in Cambodia for p4p or any other reason and fall in love with the country.

You don t need to make donation to "DR Beat" to have good conscience. You can simply do simple things by yourself. Like offering a meal to street kids, or offering board, pens, exercises books to a school, buy rice bag to orphan institution in the counrtyside. I ve heard hundred of story from simple anonymous " travelers" giving usefull donation. (sorry but since my experience with the khmer legend M. S I trust nobody in Cambodia)

Most of NGo come to Cambodia thinking they are God, they come to give lessons to poor rural farmer about how to grow the rice. But this farmer got his knowldege from his father, that keep it from his father, that keep it from his father.; and an NGO member come with his science and no single word of khmer language, telling him he know nothings. But what do the NGO? They give their technical lesson during 3 or 6 month and they told them goodbye living them in the same situation as they was before. So after their leave the farmer will come back to grow the rice like his ancestors did it. NGo are out of the real Cambodia

Come in any supermarket in Cambodia and look about goods made by Ngo in Cambodia? What you will find?: jam fruit, taco sauce, pasta sauce. Goods not in the khmer nutrition. But who care? They got credit from foreign government to do it. Money runs NGO as usual.

Rithy Pahn got award for his report about S-21. Which is not his best report. But Rithy Pahn is Khmer and show the present Cambodia through Cambodian eyes. He has view that barang will never get simply because we was not borned Khmer. Rithy Pahn let the ordinary Khmer talking about their present life simply; he s not against NGo. He ever got support from foreign government and some ngo.

Sure we can face the real Cambodia by ourself. But be carefull it take time, open mind and what we see is not often the truth.; (look the number of "Thailand expert" who are expert of nothing in reality)

Please note that almost all the history book about recent Cambodian past was writting by Barang. Not by khmer.; that could be the explanation of the "simpliest version"

Cheers[/QUOTE]Channy,

Good response. I agree 100%

Mr Bob

great post, Channy

[QUOTE=Barri]Hehe, I guess I'm kind of a map freak :).. I see now that my old Phnom Penh map is outdated, but you told me before I could as well rely on the Canby map, thats why I asked.

I'll PM you when I'm in PP for that beer ;)

Cheers,
Barri[/QUOTE]


Actually, if you have one of the older maps of PP by Canby, it is still 90% -95% usable. The streets are the same on the newer maps, but the only changes are new bars or hotels will be on the new maps and older non-existing places will be deleted.
Hell, I still have an older map that shows the location of the famous BJ place Sophie , but new map will not have this as it no longer exist (sad).

I'll have to owe you that beer next time I make it back to Indo or PP as my vacation is over and I'm currently back at home and (arrgg: work) and watching the snow outside wishing I was back between some gals legs in the topical heat. Well, a man can still daydream until my next trip.

PT

[QUOTE=Christopherd]great post, Channy[/QUOTE]

didn't the angkor empire implode due to mishandling agriculture? maybe if some ngo's had been around then, things woulda turned out differently

looked like some pretty wide brush strokes in that post to me.... and didn't you just get done saying the cambodians dont' like to blame? that post seems to show opposite-- as did what i heard of Dr. B.

i bet if i did a quick search i'd find there actually are books written on these subjects by cambodians. and whether or not, what's wrong with foreigners writing about it? it seems less like sth foreigners can't understand as sth some people don't want scrutinized, esp by outsiders. Damage control in other words. Judging by the things i've heard about KR, and by translations of signs i read at S-21 and elsewhere, i actually dont' think we're talking about sth very complex but actually just the opposite. If anything, one's struck by the frightening simplicity of it all, and how obvious and crude it all is.

I have this Khmer GF, which I have had for the past 5 months. She is from a hostess bar on 136 and she has not had any other man since. I love her dearly but I can tell she is getting a little ornary. I would like someone to take her for free ST. PM me for contact.