Hello Lay-Deeeeeee! Adventures in Phnom Penh

“Hello Lay-Deeeee” is the constant, singsongy refrain shouted repeatedly at any foreign women by Cambodians who are offering or pretending to offer tourist services. Common variations include “hello lay-deeee, you wan coke? One dolla,” “hello laydeeee, you wan ride? Two dolla,” and “hello lay-deeee, you need massage? Three dolla.” Having ten people shout at me simultaneously did not discourage ten more from joining in. Showing a go-getter persistence not uncommon in South Asia, these solicitations only get louder after every polite, but firm “no, thank you!”

The most confusing part of this situation is that when one actually says yes, most of the solicitors are unable to deliver the service they’ve offered. For example, every Cambodian with a motorbike, bicycle, or car perceives him or herself as a provider of public transportation. Unfortunately, I failed to find even one single driver in Phnom Penh who knew any famous landmark, business, street, or intersection I needed to find. Forget pointing it out on a map. It took me awhile to understand that getting driven to weird places, having the driver shout the mystery destination to random and equally clueless pedestrians, and then getting dumped who-knows-where with a ‘sorry, I donknow’ or even more oblique ‘sorry, not here’ was a normative experience.

Mom, I think you should stop reading now. I’ll let you know where you can start again.

All of this dumping is unsettling given the many personal safety warnings about Phnom Penh. During my flight from Bangkok to Phnom Penh, I sat next to a man from Florida who was the evil doppelgänger to The Office’s Creed, unnerving one-brow-down stare included. Creed struck up a friendly conversation with me by saying, “watch your back in Cambodia.” Startled by his immeasurable creepiness, I said ‘oh, haha, yeah, I heard that sometimes tourists are targeted by purse snatchers…I’ll be careful.’ Creed: “Purse snatchers? Try murrr-derrrrr.” Alright. At this point, I couldn’t help but wonder why he was going to Cambodia for his 46th trip- he sure made it sound like Palm Springs. Was I sitting next to a hitman? A gun trafficker? A child sex tourist? A guy who really enjoys showing off his proficiency in creeping people out? I finally settled on “foil hat wearer” after the following exchange:

Creed: You know what’s wrong with America these days?
Me: [Oh boy…]
Creed: Look around. Look at the people on this plane. What do you see?
Me: Cambodian people?
Creed: No. Look again.
Me: Thai people?
Creed: No.
Me: Umm, tourists? Advertisements? Peanuts? I’m not sure …
Creed: No. YOUNG PEOPLE.
Me: [Looks around … spots mostly not young people…]
Creed: It’s because we’re destroying America. The young people are coming here instead. Asia.
Me: Oh.
Creed: And that’s the problem with America.

Good start, right? He warned me about 96 more times not to go anywhere alone after dark, which is perfect advice for touring a tropical country with a 6PM sunset. The next bizarre western man I meet is Franz, the gross German retiree who is staying at the same guesthouse. During our ride from the airport, throughout which his gross and unbridled toes were touching practically everything, he told me that he was moving from Malaysia to Phnom Penh because the beer is cheaper and there are fewer Muslims. Alright. Franz wanted me to join him at his favorite steakhouse for dinner. I declined, explaining that I’m a vegan (and leaving out the part about just not really wanting to have dinner with him- the tuktuk ride was long enough...) He says, “No steak? Why aren’t you dead? Well, don’t go out at night. The people are small, but determined.” Strike two for not being an extra weird weirdo magnet in a country that itself seems to be a weirdo magnet.

I don’t know how much my experience in Phnom Penh was influenced by these two oddballs, but I did find the city to be a little sketchy. I shifted my time there to the following goals: 1) do not get murdered, 2) do not eat steak, 3) do not choke to death on the chunky, particulate air while trying to breathe, and 4) go to the park to see aerobics.

Across Cambodia, people gather every morning and evening at local parks to do what I would describe as Cambodian Zumba. Or, white people’s favesies, instructional wedding dances. This is a really interesting sight, as the young men who own boom boxes compete with each other to get the most people dancing to their instructions. Even for people not involved in dancing, this activity serves as spectator sport complete with roasted corn, cotton candy, and popcorn.

Obviously, the beautiful sunset at the stadium made me remember that it was time to hustle back to my safehouse to achieve goal #1. To work on goal #2, I started to get driven around to lots of places I did not ask to go. After about 3 hours of driving and walking (yes, alone, at night) around desperately searching for not-steak, I found a vegetarian restaurant, moments short of hunger-induced delirium. Like many businesses in Cambodia, the restaurant was a non-profit training center for Cambodian youth trying to leave the sex trade. As it turns out, this is a great idea far beyond the obvious reasons: former sex workers really know how to whip up a real nice yellow curry.

Having achieved all of my goals so far, I planned to stay victorious by rethinking my planned three-day stay in Phnom Penh. I decided to just spend one night, sightsee the next day, and then scurry onward to wholesome Siem Reap on the night bus. For the first, and hopefully last, time in my life, I propped a chair underneath of the doorknob and went to sleep.

The next day, I buckled down for some disturbing, but unavoidable education about Cambodia’s recent past. My planned light-and-fluffy start to this day was at the Russian market, a huge open-air shopping center jammed full of, well, everything. When I say jammed, I mean jammed:

Every stall was like this. Since Phnom Penh is home to many of the world’s garment factories, the market was filled with Yves St. Laurent, NorthFace, Ralph Lauren, adidas, and so on… Intellectually property and laws in general are no big thing there, so it was hard to tell what items were imperfects, overstock, stolen, or just plain fake. The market was chaotic, crowded, sensory overload. I rubbed up against more people in more ways than any westerner – even an oblivious close talker- would be cool with. I tried to wander to an isle with more room, and I landed in the food area. Mistake. If I could name one thing worse than the personal space nightmare I was trying to escape, it would be a crowded aisle full of pig heads, duck fetuses, assorted eyeballs, fried grubs, cow legs, fermented fish paste, and the smell that accompanies such culinary delights. I’ve never been so close to indiscriminant public vomiting. I quickly mastered the desperate shoving that is a favored pastime in much of Asia and made my way to the street.

My next stop was Tuol Sleng, a school-turned-torture and execution center of the Khmer Rouge. This probably goes without saying, but the Khmer Rouge represents the most depraved and wicked capacities of human beings. In a period of four years, they managed to systematically murder two million people or one-quarter of the population. They kept meticulous records of victims and deployed children to commit heinous acts against the population. The educated and cultural classes were targeted; teachers, doctors, professors, the literate were killed, kicking Cambodia back to the dark ages. A massive famine followed the genocide, which explains the peculiarity of Cambodian cuisine. Phnom Penh was the epicenter of the destruction, profoundly tarnishing the once-glamorous “Pearl of Asia.”

Any Cambodian my age or older has lived through harrowing violence, famine, and unthinkable loss. Anyone younger inherited a broken society whose dysfunction created the kleptocratic government, widespread gun violence, child exploitation, lawlessness, poverty, and screwed up sense of justice that characterize the country. Order more closely resembling the twice-daily line dancing rather than the Russian market would really benefit the tourism sector, but it’s not hard to understand why the country struggles to regain its footing. The vast majority of Cambodian people I encountered were gritty, eager, and kindhearted, but they’re stuck in adverse circumstances that force difficult choices.

After a heavy day facing how on earth mass killings happen (and keep happening), I went to a tiny movie theatre to kill time with smoothies, Four Weddings and a Funeral (how unlikable is the allegedly captivating Andy McWhatshername’s character?!), and peeing a lot until my night bus arrived. I still consider this a foreign experience, as I understand about as much dialogue in that movie as I would have a Khmer film …

Okay, Mom, you’re back in. Phnom Penh was great!! Here are some pictures! Bye bye lay-deeee!

Elephunk

Everyone loves elephants!  I, for one, am quite charmed by those all-in-one, nose/upper lip/finger on the end of a slinky, prehensile trunks.  I’d challenge you to name a more useful and versatile appendage, but it’s about as possible as solving the elephant lotion shortage.  Elephants are the coolest because of their keen long-term memories, abilities of self-recognition, strong and cooperative social groupings, creativity, altruism, displays of grief, and other characteristics of sophisticated intellect.  They’re also matriarchal (elephants: 1; humans: 0), and they practice allomothering to improve females’ mothering skills and infants’ chances of survival.  Smart!  It’s like The Babysitters’ Club Super Special Number Elephant:

Our ele-love can be explained by the same human egotism that makes us love dogs, dolphins, and apes.  Oh, look, they’re awkward smoochers.  They really are just like (some of) us!

We’re so enamored with our similarities to them that we keep them readily available for gawking, confined and constrained in zoos, circuses, and other attractions without, ironically, managing to find much compassion for their obvious and profound suffering in confinement.  We know their needs simply cannot be met in these environments, but we just can’t stop ourselves from rewarding the perpetrators of cruelty and neglect with our money.  Sometimes their endangerment even creates a bizarre demand for their demise, like when rich people decide that bluefin tuna is really tasty or when sea turtle eggs boost virility.

Elephants have great symbolic importance in Southeast Asia.  Representations of elephants are seen on everything, from temples to beer cans.  You know, drinking Chang beer brings good fortune and wisdom to so many people; think of all of the great speeches, pick-up lines, and decisions that are made with its influence!

Their strength, intelligence, and gentle nature has made them quite handy to people.  Wild and domesticated elephants were used historically for pageantry and war, and more recently, in logging and tourism.   Habitat loss from encroaching humans, demand for ivory, tropical wood, elephant rides, and baby elephant ogling, and a penchant for crop nibbling have made life difficult for them. 

People looking to make a profit from elephants either snatch babies from the jungle, often killing their mothers in the process or take babies from mothers already in their possession.  The well exposed, but continually denied-by-governments process of “the crush” ensures that elephants will grow up obedient.  The crush involves caging and chaining young elephants so they cannot move, depriving them of food and water, and beating them into submission with hooks, canes, and nails.  After elephants are trained, they end up on city streets and elephant camps, doing tricks and begging for fruit from tourists. 

While the vast majority of elephant attractions in Thailand promulgate these cruel practices, there are a handful of responsible organizations aiming to help elephants and educate tourists about their circumstances.  While I was in Chiang Mai, I had the fortune of spending two days at the Elephant Nature Park, a sanctuary for injured and distressed elephants.  And when I say fortune, I really mean tear inducing, I-can-die-now, downright magical OMG-ness. 

ENP is run by Lek Chailert, who has received a lot of well-deserved praise for her work on behalf of Thailand’s elephants.  Animal Planet, the US Humane Society, and many others have sung praises of Lek and ENP, but the best coverage to spend your time on is Jennifer Hile‘s National Geographic documentary, Vanishing Giants.

ENP is home to many sweet and quirky ellies with unfortunate pasts.  The suffering of some is obvious, as is the case with the elephant who stepped on a landmine, the elephants blinded by their mahouts as punishment, elephants with fractured pelvises and hind legs from forced breeding, and the newborn who went without milk before arriving at ENP and eventually died after weeks of around-the-clock care. 

For all of the torment these scars represent, the ellies spend their days walking around, swimming to get clean, promptly getting dirty, sniffing things high and low, playing, and searching for and chowing down on pumpkins, bananas, and pineapples.  One of my favorite signs at the park identifies some of the elephants with two photos each: one of their faces and one of their feces.  Apparently elepoop is quite the individual identifier and gives the talented sniffers lots of information about each other.  Elepoop is also known for its unique composition of quite a lot of undigested pumpkin, banana, and pineapple and just a little actual poop, making it a favorite distasteful, but fruity snack of the dozens of dogs who call the park home. 

I spent the two days with three lovely couples and an awesome guide.  We met, fed, and bathed the elephants, competed with lots of confident dogs for a space at the dinner table, and enjoyed all-vegetarian buffets of amazing Thai dishes.  At night, we marveled at the complete blackness of the cloudy sky, the intense motivation of Thai mosquitoes, and the racetrack buzz of frogs who were targeted by hunters’ distant flickering flashlights.  After we went to bed, I struggled to sleep throughout the night- something about giddy reflections on my elephant interactions… or animals crunking on the tin roof… or the escaped, musth-y¹ teenaged boy elephant attempting to grunt his way into a pretty girl’s heart.  Elephants sound like tigers when trying to pick up chicks.

¹Musth is a period of girl-craziness in which male testosterone levels are about 100 times greater than normal… lock ‘em up, elemoms!)

That last part created drama that lasted well into the next day.  The randy elephant, whose attention was wrapped up in his quest for love (His soundtrack: Beastie Boys’ Girls), was not concerned with the mahouts’ efforts to get him back in isolation.  He even tore down a shelter with his trunk to show them his insouciance, but was eventually separated to leave the “unreceptive” girls in peace (New soundtrack: Eric Carmen’s All By Myself, with credit due to Rachmaninov, whose lonely melody Carmen egregiously plagiarized).  (A note to any musth-y young men reading this: many unreceptive women would really like to put a elephant-sized fence between themselves and musth-y men, so tone it down a notch.)

Our second day at the park was totally amazing.  We spent hours in the fields, traipsing through the mud, just watching the elephants do their thing.  Here are some photos from the morning:

      

 

 

 

And because saggy elebutts obviously deserve their own section: 

                                                   

In the afternoon, we bathed and fed the elephants again.  They don't waste time reapplying their sunscreen.  Then, our guide took us river tubing (sequel: planes, trains, automobiles, and tubing), ending back at the park where we got to watch elephants swimming and playing with their mahouts.  At the other side of the river, the herd with the youngest elephants also took a dip.  

There are no shortages of opportunities to patronize businesses that harm animals, in Thailand and around the world.  Many tourists mindlessly pay to pose with tiger cubs, ride elephants, and swim with dolphins.  I even went to a store in Chiang Mai that was selling ivory pendants carved into the shape of elephants.  When I asked the store manager why they would have such a thing, he said, “many people want it.”  Perhaps elephant rides are obvious examples of exploitative animal tourism (even the American Association of Zoos and Aquariums, not famous for its progress on animal welfare, is against elephant rides), but here’s a handy guide to sniff out problematic animal attractions at home and abroad.

And of course, more pictures:

Thai Smiley

คำทักทายจากเชียงใหม่! 

Photo credit to Veggieartgirl

ฉันรู้วิธีที่จะใช้ตัวแปลภาษาออนไลน์!

Chiang Mai is awesome.  Because I’m nothing more than a liberal hippie stereotype, this place was total heaven for me.  During my week here, I took a vegetarian Thai cooking class, went on a two-day Buddhist meditation retreat, spent two days at the famous Elephant Nature Park sanctuary (I can die now), got my first (and second and third) Thai massage (read here for warnings and disclaimers), shopped at the many street markets, and ate … and ate … and ate.  My abs are now covered in a nice layer of what happens when one eats too much coconut milk. 

Chiang Mai has more vegetarian restaurants per capita than any other place in the world.  So, naturally, I am considering moving there.  (Hot Monk- more about him in a minute- told me I could get a job teaching him and other monks at the monk university.  Monks are a lot like the Jedi; they need to know a little bit of everything to earn their noble place in society.)  As many times as I’ve wondered if my people can just get our own island, Chiang Mai is probably the closest we can get without tipping the others off to our vegetarian segregationist dreams.  (Minus, of course, anyone who is reading this who has just been tipped off to my vegetarian segregationist dreams…)  Compared to other vegetarian hot spots, Chiang Mai is less “L.A.” than L.A. and farther away from Texas than the land-island of Austin.  It’s rainier than Portland, but also has more Northface and Columbia jackets. 

I made 16 different recipes in the cooking class: 14 that were part of the cooking class and two extras for a confused Japanese family that thought I was the entertainment.  If anyone wants the recipes, let me know.  Taste testing included. 

In other culinary news, sushi and mango are cheap and abundant in Thailand.  Reasons #236 and #237 to go.

Mahachulalongkornrajvidalaya (no, really, I did not just fall asleep on the keyboard- y'all don't have spacebars in Thailand?!) Buddhist University runs a program called MonkChat, which invites non-Buddhists to drop in and ask questions about Buddhism and other monk-ey business.  My most pressing question about monkenometry revolves around whether monks have jammies, which, unfortunately, I did not have a chance to ask.

Technically, monks don’t have any possessions, but others in the society take care of them by providing them with things they need- food, shoes, rides, iphones… These men are already celibate and rely on the kindness of strangers to eat- don’t tell them they can’t have an iphone!  They can frequently be seen carrying around the items people have given them in monkpurses. 

Above: Hot Monk likes camping and motorbikes.  

Below: Hot monk, being hot AND Buddhist.

Both: Pictures lifted from facebook.  I'm officially creepy.

The university also runs an English meditation retreat in the mountains outside of Chiang Mai.  Hot Monk, who is Burmese and also hot, ran the retreat.  We were supposed to be silent the whole two days, but there were some yappity yappities in the group who were probably talking during the 14 times that Hot Monk said that the retreat was silent.  He facilitated our practice of walking, standing, sitting, and lying meditation.  I'm really good at lying meditation.  While meditation means lots of things to different people, the beginner brand of meditation Hot Monk wanted us to practice is the kind one uses to concentrate on clearing the mind of its thoughts.  For two days.  Uh oh.  Personal growth travel journey vehicle brakes screeeech.

Here’s a sample of what meditation sounds like in the head of a busy, East Coast person who probably has adult-onset ADHD and definitely likes naps:  “Okay.  Time to meditate.  Ready, go.  Hmm, lying meditation is way better than the other kinds.  Hey!  No more thoughts.  Just clear, like, no thoughts at all.  Like, not these thoughts.  Or does this count as concentration?  Am I concentrating on concentrating by thinking about concentration?  Am I meta-meditating?  Is that a thing?  That sounds special and fancy!  Is this enlightenment!?!!  Am I a Bodhisattva?!?  Probably not.  Good thing no one can hear all of this.  Okay, shhhhh.  Waterfalls…  Puppies….  I’m doing better!  Yay!  Shhhhh…  ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz.”

A for effort?

Namaste, bitches!