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Yesterday I returned from my holiday to Phnom Penh.
Holiday in Cambodia? Didn't I just go on a holiday to Koh Samui and Koh Pang Nan?
Well one of the 'benefits' of living in Thailand is that you often have to travel out of Thailand everytime you need to change your visa, work permit? Yep, leave the country. You're married to a Thai? Yep, leave the country every 3 months. You want to extend your holiday? Yep, leave the country.... you get the idea.
So looking for a benefit in every occurance in life I turn my Visa Run into a holiday, this time in Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia almost 1 year from my last trip to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Since I am on a budget, as being an actor does not pay too well when you amortise your earnings over a year and it is essential to manage your actor money wisely, I travelled overland again by bus.
This time I caught the Thai public bus from the Northern Bus Terminal (Mo Chit) to the Thai/Cambodian border at Aranyaprathet, total cost about $6. Then crossed the border on foot, avoiding all the casinos and beggars in the no mans land between the 2 countries, entering Cambodia at Poi Pet.
Poi Pet is a place I will stay one night at some stage, just now though I want to get as far inland as I can on this day so I catch a mini-van to Siam Riep, home of the ancient Khmer temple complex of Angkor Wat.
A friend I was talking to several days before recommended that Siam Riep was a great place to party you just have to look hard to find the places to party. So doing the smart thing I enlisted the services of a local taxi driver and got him to drive me around to all the places of night time entertainment.
First he took me to a strip of bars that I had heard a little about - unfortunately this strip of bars was located in a small part of Siam Riep that was purely for tourists with nice cobblestoen and pavements and guttering - a nice western place for western tourists to come and spend too much money because they are too stupid to find out the correct prices to pay in a new country. Paying $10 for a meal in a country where a school teacher earns $25 a month is just stupid.
One look at this place and I said - Tourist trap, no thanks! Next place.
Next we went to a Karaoke bar, similar to the soapies in Thailand where girls sit and wait for customers to come in and choose them to accompany them into private karaoke rooms or for a massage. Entering this place was nice, again western style decor got the alarm bells ringing.
My first question "How much for a massage?"
"Only $50"
2 months wage!!! NEXT!!!
Bloody tourist trap.
So off I went with my trusty taxi driver who was somewhat fluent in English, this time he takes me to a large bar, with a peaked Khmer style roof and a stage at the front with a local band and singers singing Khmer songs in Khmen.
(Khmer is the correct name for Cambodian peoples and it differentiates the native populace as compared to Vietnamese and Thais who live in Cambodia, Khmen is the name of the Cambodian language).
This time I sat with the taxi driver and had a talk abolut his life and what was entertained by a variety of Khmer singers and songs - the music has a slightly Indian feel to it. Having had a Khmer girlfriend in Thailand for several months I am quite used to the music and find it relaxing - even if I cannot understand more than 1 word in 50. This is something I am going to work on before my next trip to Cambodia to learn the basic greetings and negotiation words and phrases and the more common questions and answers I'll come across.
The taxi driver told me he used to be a school teacher for small children but he had left that job as it only paid $25 a month, as a taxi driver he could earn up to $20 a day driving tourists around the ruins for a 12-16 hour day and could pick up small $1 fares around the town sometimes. Turns out I paid him $2.50 which was very high but he was honest, took me where I wanted to go, was very friendly and genuinely interested in helping me - Taxi drivers of Bangkok take note.
Sitting in the Khmer bar I was the only foreigner there which brought a few inquisitive stares, or that might have just been the fact that no 7' tall bodybuilder had ever been in their country before.
As we sat the 'pretty girls' who represented the local beer companies came over to try to seduce me into drinking their flavour of beer. This one got me - "Love Beer" I had to order it regardless of hte temptations of the other girls. Honestly the brand was Love Beer, not to sure but after a couple of large bottles I was starting to feel the love....
So off to the Khmer Disco we go. Huge ultra modern, packed full of people including foreigners but mainly locals and a ton of local girls looking to meet a nice handsome foreigner.
This place puts any night club in Sydney to shame, the lights the sound system where unbelievable, the lights were set up so that I was getting blurred vision and drug like effects - man imagine being on something and being there it would be a total trip. The music was a mix, predominantly techo and hip hop buit with a skilled DJ who could mix well and kept the crowd dancing all night.
This was the place to be, staying here for about 4 hours was enough, chatting with various locals and a couple of holidaying Australians. Unfortunately hte prices being asked here were tourist trap material again.
So I left and went back to the hotel for a few hours sleep.
Siam Reip = Tourist Trap. So much for the advice of my friend. No problems. next is Phnom Penh where I know a GOOD party can be had with ease.
Another 5 hours or so on the bus next morning gets us into Phnom Penh, and I head straight to the Walkabout Hotel for a feed and a beer....
This is when the fun starts...
An abbreviatd version is:-
I spent 4 days partying in Phnom Penh, the place is 24 hours, 2 of the 4 nights I did not sleep at all. If you know where to look you can get yourself into all sorts of trouble there, but be careful the place is essentially lawless - meaning step on the wrong toes and get shot dead no questions.
Again at the Heart Of Darkness disco I noticed some stupid tourists drunk rotten and possibly on drugs careening around bumping into people - bad idea - the Cambodians who can afford to come to this place are either from wealthy families or are mafia - piss them off enough and you could disappear.
4 days of fun and drinking and partying my brains out in a city with 24 hour entertainment was enough fun for me for a while. To be honest I have been thinking a lot about Phnom Penh these last few months and to go there and have everything turn out as I imagined it would, including meeting a few people I befriended last time was great fun.
But equally now that I feel I have that out of my system I feel I can now get back to work for hte next few months and concentrate on getting in shape for my upcoming projects.
As a side benefit, 4 days of little food (protein drinks mainly) have leaned me up a bit rather quickly, now to stay with a low carb diet for hte next 2 weeks before heading back into a normal bodybuilding diet should get me to near the bodyfat levels that I want.
Phnom Penh - will I be going back and partying again? YES! Definitely, I loved the place and the people.
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