Sandwiched between errands and an approaching trip to Indonesia next week, I headed to Kratie yesterday in an effort to take in all that I can of Cambodia before my year here comes to a close in a seemingly rapidly approaching manner. Anastasia had it so right when she replied to an email I sent her and Leslie a couple days ago. This is one of the best parts of the year. The grades are in, and it’s time to revel in simply being in and exploring a place I’ve gotten to know so well and can now easily make my way around. I now have the knowledge (plus the comfort of not having a whole unknown year ahead of me) that I didn’t have when I first arrived and feel so much freer to do the things I’ve been wanting to do.
In many ways, it feels like the end of school. The closing of an experience makes you appreciate all of the things you’ve become accustomed to. Just as you’re at the top of the food chain by the end of senior year, I’m also the most familiar with, knowledgeable about, and comfortable with Cambodia that I’ve been since moving here.
It’s also reflection time. And as I’ve thought back on the year, as with the conclusion of any long commitment, I can always think of minor things I still wish I had done differently. Plus, there are the inevitable mental comparisons with other similar experiences, as similar as any previous experience I’ve had could be. I didn’t wholly eat Cambodian food all of the time as I did when in Mexico and probably got out of the habit of even trying to find cheaper, more local places more completely than I would have wished. Unlike in China, I didn’t spend as much time with my students outside of class, even if I got to know them extremely well in the classroom context. In fact, I always felt like all of the extra effort I made to talk personally with them or do things extracurricularly went so well that I should have made more of an effort. But it always required a lot of extra work, and, in all honesty, I feel like I’ve gotten to know them better than the majority of their other teachers probably have.
In continuing to reflect on what I’m feeling like I’m most leaving behind and what’s made this year distinctive from those other experiences (in addition to the length of time) is probably the knowledge I’ve gained of the place. Never before have I spent a year so dedicated to simply learning as much as possible about a country, a city, a culture, and a history as I have this year. While I journeyed on less traveled paths in China, much more isolated from the rest of the world and from other foreigners, I often whisked away with the group for a weekend in a place I appreciated immensely but knew little about. In contrast, here, I can probably tell you about the history, current political climate, and traditions of nearly every area of the country. I can point to all of my travels on a map and even trace the routes that I took to get there. I devour the Cambodia Daily and Phnom Penh Post and even try to catch up on back issues when I’ve been away. In getting ready to pack, I’ve noticed the height of my book collection on Cambodia and “Indochina.” Writing for Asia Life has lead my interview with people I wouldn’t have otherwise given myself the excuse to talk with - from monks to long-term bar owners. Daily chats with Steve in the office have given me insight into recent history that happened before I arrived. Discussions with Boramy have revealed the general trends of thinking in the country, as well as her commentary on those trends. Simply speaking the minimum amount of Khmer that I do has produced smiles that have, in turn, allowed me enter old buildings and explore in ways that I haven’t ever before been able to do.
As my year here is winding down, I’m most appreciative of and also most reluctant to leave this environment in which I really feel that I have become so knowledgeable about.
And so, with the knowledge that I wanted to see the Irrawaddy fresh water dolphins that ply Cambodia’s Northern stretches of the Mekong (and Laos’s Southern reaches), I decided to take a trip to Cambodia’s “Wild East.”
Unfortunately, I hadn’t really checked the bus schedule before I left, and the route to Kratie isn’t one of the more traveled trips in the country, as the ones to Siem Reap or Sihanoukville are. In fact, by showing up at 9 am, I had already missed the once a day bus. After momentary shock about how I was now going to fit in this “must-see” destination before my flight to Indonesia on Sunday, I realized that there was a bus to Snoul around mid-day and decided that I’d find my way to Kratie when I arrived or could spend the night and would simply travel the remaining hour early the next day, thereby maximizing my time in Kratie when faced with the other option of simply departing Phnom Penh on Friday.
As the bus headed North, I found myself unable to concentrate on my book. In general, I can usually find interest in simply looking around, as long as the scenery is changing in some way. Cambodia’s only further cemented this patience and ability to appreciate the scenery, as time doesn’t have the same urgency that it does in the US and as hyperactive stimulation isn’t always as readily available. With two weeks to go, though, I felt too antsy to put my focus on a book. I couldn’t afford to miss any of the scenery outside the bus windows since I know I soon won’t be able to take it for granted.
We passed through the city of Kampong Cham, in Kampong Cham Province. (All provincial capitals have the same names as their provinces, which can be seen as either making their names easy to remember or making everything very confusing when you’re not sure whether someone’s talking about the city or the province). I was impressed by the number of colonial-era Chinese shophouses and hope that I’ll be able to follow through on a plan with Fi to spend a day or two visiting right before leaving the country.
After Kompong Cham, Highway 7 curves East away from the Mekong and towards the border with Vietnam before turning back again between Snoul and Kratie. As we headed into Eastern Cambodia, the landscape changed. The ground began to roll gently and rows of rubber trees appeared to flicker, as in an old movie, as my eye was caught transitioning between each long, neatly arranged row. Throughout, there were still thatched huts and elevated wooden houses, all constructed in traditional Cambodian style. I wanted to take it all in, knowing these sights are such rarities that I’ve come to take for granted. As I stared out the window, I couldn’t help but think of the history that took place in this region. Being in the Eastern part of the country and along the Ho Chi Minh trail, this area was the first to fall to the Khmer Rouge and the Viet Minh but is considered to have been ruled with slightly more restraint than the Chinese-backed faction that controlled the Western areas of Cambodia. It was here that the disillusioned factions of the Khmer Rouge also later enlisted the Vietnamese to invade Cambodia and initially liberate it from the KR’s grip, sending to KR to the jungles along the Thai border until they were mostly extinguished as a fighting force in the late 1990’s.
Somewhere in Kompong Cham Province, the bus pulled off into the dirt parking lot of a rest stop area took. All of a sudden, I was approached by a girl that I recognized. Then I realized that it was one of my students, Dany, who, it turns out, was on her way to her hometown in Kompong Cham to help farm during her summer vacation from school. For the first few seconds, it was hard for me to place her. She looked much older without her school uniform on, and although this sounds funny, she looked like a younger version of many of the older Khmer women I see.
It was nice and a little strange to talk in such a removed context. I was flattered by her telling me out of the blue that many of my students were still hoping I would come back next year and that they could be in my class, even though I had told them that I would be returning to New York for at least the next year. Two girls selling pineapple approached and, after a brief sales pitch, asked if Dany was my girlfriend. It was the first time I had ever seen young sellers like this so healthy, fluent in English, and happy. When I told them that she was not my girlfriend, they jokingly said that I was therefore free to be their boyfriend. Normally, a lot of the children selling stuff at bus stops either just depress me or can be incredibly annoying as they hang off of you demanding that you give them money just because you’re a foreigner, but I actually found these two amusing and so pleasant to be around. I bought a pineapple from them even though I didn’t necessarily want it. It was tasty, though. The driver honked the horn, and we headed back to the bus. No matter how forcefully I insisted that Dany step onto the bus ahead of me, she wouldn’t allow it. After all, even in this context, I was still her teacher.
Finally, at around sunset, we arrived in Snoul, a small town with not too much a mere 15 km from a border crossing with Vietnam open to Cambodians and Vietnamese but not to foreigners. The name alone, pronounced “snool,” would make staying there tolerable until early the next morning, but there really wasn’t much. It was the first place I’ve seen that looked like a true border town and the places depicted in black and white photos from the 1980’s and 1990’s.
The center of town was a small bus station and taxi stand consisting of radiating red dirt and a concrete overhang and seating area. The sun was setting, and the redness of the sunlight only seemed to emphasize the earth that was caked to everything. Music blared from a surrounding building at a volume that made it seem like everyone around was simply mouthing conversation but not actually speaking. The concrete structures around me were crumbling and stained a deep red for nearly the entire height of their first floors. A mini merry-go-round was set up in the dirt, with small lights twinkling in the twilight, and street carts had set up around the concrete pad. It seemed as if the whole town was just wandering around or sitting on the few benches under the concrete roof of the bus station’s overhang, all moving to the beat of the trance-like Khmer music blaring out of the unidentified speaker. Teenagers climbed up on run-down tractors, and a couple of 4x4 Toyota pick-ups loaded and unloaded materials from their beds.
I was torn between getting a few pictures and making it out before darkness meant that I’d pretty much have to spend the night. Unlike in Phnom Penh, where you’re harassed mercilessly and annoyingly by tuk-tuk and moto drivers as soon as the bus is moving slowly enough that they can start banging on the windows of the bus, everything felt calm and friendly.
I’m glad I’ve begun to travel to the remaining areas of the countries that I still haven’t seen because leaving Phnom Penh for destinations further a field in Cambodia has made me realize that I do actually like Cambodia as much as I like Laos. I just needed to get out of the sometimes unpleasant Phnom Penh more. In my mind, Laos almost benefits by not having a city as large as Phnom Penh, meaning that even Vientiane feels relaxed and comfortable.
The Lonely Planet advised staying in Snoul only as a last resort, indicating that the walls separating the rooms of the town’s only guesthouse don’t even reach to the ceiling. Out of curiosity, I asked a motorbike driver how much it would cost to get to Kratie. He replied with $15, but didn’t pressure me when I declined his offer. Another man sitting on a bench a few feet away and who spoke excellent English told me that it was possible to get a share-taxi at seven the next morning if I didn’t want to pay the $15 and could bare staying the night. The friendliness and honesty of both of these people is one of the things I’ve come to see as unfortunately lacking in many interactions in Phnom Penh and which I’ve come to see still exists in the rest of the country during my other recent journeys. When I didn’t have exact change for a motorbike ride a few nights ago, the motorbike driver claimed that he didn’t have any change either and would simply have to take the entire dollar that I had. However, when I told him that I didn’t think that would be happening and to wait for two seconds while I went inside to get some riel instead, he all of a sudden found a wad of riel in his pocket that must have simply slipped his mind ten seconds before.
But back in Snoul, I was deciding whether to commit myself to the town or try to make a break for Kratie. Still wanting to take some more pictures anyway, I decided to think it over. As I snapped my first picture, another man, hearing that I wanted to go to Kratie, came over and asked if I needed a ride because he knew a truck heading that way. I followed him to the Toyota pick-up with a truck axle in the bed and asked the price. The three making the trip onward to Ratanakiri offered to drop me along the way for $5, which I was certainly willing to pay. I didn’t know how much it should be, though, so figured I’d just take a dollar off and offer four for the ride. They nodded vigorously in a way that made me think I probably could have gotten it for only a couple thousand riel, but I didn’t feel ripped off. A motorbike ride of the same length in Phnom Penh would cost around $5, and we were going to be driving partly while it was dark out in a country where it’s hard to both get people to take you anywhere around dinner-time and where there’s an aversion to traveling at night.
I got in and for some reason decided that I wanted to sit inside the cab rather than on the benches in back. I sat on the right side, behind the driver, since Cambodia gets its cars from anywhere it can and doesn’t have any kind of obvious regulations as to whether they must be left or right-hand drive models.
For the first time, I understood how travelers around my age going throughout Southeast Asia survive. Even over New Year’s, when I was traveling with a good friend in a country I grew to love and on a pre-planned route for two weeks, I eventually desired to return to a home base, to regroup, and to be able to sit still for a few days. Traveling can be exhausting, and sometimes there’s something to be appreciated in the familiar. But the thrill of figuring out how to get from Phnom Penh to Kratie and catching the truck by coincidence, which led me the final way in my journey as the sun touched down, was admittedly pretty exhilarating. It was also much more doable without having a time constraint of having to make it back to work by a certain day, which obviously cramps how much spontaneity I felt I could afford during other parts of the year.
At first, the ride was quiet as the two men in front went through four cigarettes, and then they turned on the radio to a call-in show. Since they never changed the channel, I couldn’t tell if the speakers were just bad or if the station was purposely synthesizing everyone’s voice in order to make it echo in an attempt to make it sound soothing. The volume was up so loud that it didn’t at all sound soothing, even though I have the feeling that it was the Cambodian equivalent to Delilah. I was hoping they might switch to Khmer music instead, but they didn’t.
The sky grew dark, and we swerved to avoid cattle and unlit bicycles still using the road. For a while, I was dazing and forgot that I was traveling in Cambodia with three men I didn’t know.
Sure enough, though, within an hour (I was very conscious of looking for landmarks and monitoring the time), the small thatched houses lining parts of the road began to support single fluorescent tubes, and an hour and ten minutes into the ride, streetlights appeared. Throughout my year here, I’ve felt fortunate that I have a fairly good sense of direction and can pretty easily make the transition between map and reality. When they dropped me in town, they thanked me and wished me good luck as I headed to find one of the guesthouses I had been recommended. I’ve learned by now that, with the exception of Phnom Penh, most provincial capitals are laid out in the same way: originating from the river, usually at the focal point of an art-deco market built by the French in the 1920’s or 1930’s. Next come the small streets of colonial-era shop houses and then the newer additions. I spotted the old architecture and walked towards it, then veered right when I saw the darkness a block down, correctly assuming it to be the bank of the Mekong.
I checked into the hotel, into a room with a window overlooking the river and walked around the tiny radius of the town, basking in the laid-back atmosphere and the knowledge that I could never get too far away from where I wanted to end up.
This morning, I woke, as I’ve occasionally come to do for weeks at a time since living here, at around six o’clock. Everyone else is already going by then, and the lights better for photos too. For breakfast, I went to the Red Sun Falling, a small restaurant across from the river that has a mini bookshop consisting of a few shelves of books for sale. First, I found a copy of Mistapim in Cambodia, a book published in 1960 that I’ve been looking for for some time in an effort to find descriptions of what the country was really like before the thirty years of wars forever changed the country. Next, I was really craving a Western-style breakfast and was even wanting the classic backpacker breakfast of pancakes. I looked over the menu and didn’t see any but at the last minute spotted an even more precious find: waffles. They were delicious. They even came with syrup, unlike the honey that usually accompanies pancake dishes in Southeast Asia, and I even wondered whether the owner had imported the waffle mix, they tasted so good. They were thin and dense and were in heart shapes, just like the ones Mrs. Kelly used to make for us on the mornings of sleepovers at Brad’s house.
It’s t minus one month until the election, and the CPP had a huge truck parade coming through town today. With a month to go until the election, Cambodia’s politicians don’t turn to debates but turn more to rallies and convoys of cars and trucks blasting music and plastered with party stickers. I watched as the police and military officers cleared all of the motorbikes and cars out from the route, and I took pictures as the procession noisily made their way through this dusty town past the market and the shop houses. In some ways, it reminded me of the packed blue trucks of New Years in Luang Prabang, only the participants weren’t dumping water and drinking but waving Cambodian and CPP flags. I’ve become so wrapped up in politics here that I’ve come to despise the CPP nearly as much as Bush, but not a single person harassed me about taking pictures and I’m always surprised when, on a personal level, CPP supporters are as friendly as anyone else, instantly shattering the depiction of them that I’ve built in my head.
Although it felt like noon, it was only about 9:30 by the time I headed back to the guesthouse. I sat on the balcony and attempted to meet Edward A. Gargan’s travels in The River’s Tale here in Kratie before I left. Although the book started slow, he’s in Laos now, just exploring Luang Prabang, and I’ve begun to really enjoy it. I can relate to the places he’s talking about, and I can’t tell if the book just gets more interesting as he travels further, or if I really just like reading about Laos much more than the Western reaches of China. I’m hoping I’ll be able to make it to the part when he must pass Kratie along his trip down the Mekong before I leave tomorrow, but chances are I’ll be reading that part in Indonesia.
This afternoon, it’s off to see the dolphins by boat.