The Toxic Lake of Phnom Penh

By Lillie
Catch more of her posts at http://www.aroundtheworldl.com

There is a toxic lake at the heart of Phnom Penh. If you swim in it, your flesh may sizzle, or perhaps the effects will cancerously explode in a few years. Regardless, though naked children slide through the brownest rivers of the Cambodian side roads, there is not a soul amid the silvery waves of Boeung Kak Lake.

Naturally, this is where I spent my first night in Phnom Penh.

All six hours of the bus journey from Siem Reap were in Spanish, as I fell in with a fabulous Colombian crew across the cramped aisle. When we got off the bus I decided to let Camilo do all the tuk-tuk haggling, as his skills were quality after a month as a photographer in rural Vietnam and Cambodia. His thick Spanish-Australian accent battled the choppy English of the Cambodian driver until we had a ride to the lake for a dollar.

Warnings of this seedy "backpackers-who-no one-wants" area abound in the guidebook, but so, too, do reports of the strikingly beautiful view and vibe, as well as the great prices. Sure enough, the moment our feet hit the rocky pavement, we were offered opium. (Opium! Do people even DO opium any more? Rest assured, we fully declined.) Also, sure enough, once we walked through the pool-table-filled narrow alleyway past the stray animals and grubby children, the gorgeously rickety veranda spread its arms wide to show: the lake!

Floorboards creaked and almost broke under the weight of us plus the skittering geckos. But potted plants, hammocks, soft chairs, and inviting tables lay all around, and as the sun set, the toxic chemicals of Boeung Kak mixed with the air and gave an otherworldly glow to the whole scene. Gorgeous!
We took our $2 room which hovered on stilts over the water (twinkling through the giant cracks in the wood). My bed had fleas in it; Camilo's had ants. I requested two extra sheets and a towel and slept on those. We were offered drugs again and declined.

Over hot chicken amok and rice, we watched the eerily empty piers on either side creak with the forlorn dance steps of the Cambodian workers. It is low, LOW tourist season in Cambodia. It is so low that tons of places are utter ghost towns, with the Cambodian staff idly playing games, texting on cell phones, and throwing blue-lit nightclub parties which they pray will bring in the three tourists. On either side of us, music thumped in an empty echo: plaintive wails of Cambodian music on one side, reggae on the other, yet both giant over-water dance stages had no one on them but two small children and a drug dealer.

I awoke with no bedbug bites! Yes! A miracle.

Camilo hopped a moped to the airport to fly back to English lessons in Melbourne. I told him as he left that he had to follow his true love who moved to Africa. One must always follow true love!
By now I had contact information for my Aunt's awesome co-worker, whose house I walked to. On the way to the riverfront cafes, we dodged screeching mopeds on this city with no sidewalks. Mike and I had a wonderful, informative chat, and I bow down to him for surviving Phnom Penh for a whole year. It is an intense, intense city.

I was supposed to go to the Killing Fields to see the bones and bashed-in skulls of the hundreds of thousands of Cambodians massacred under Pol Pot, but I felt so nauseous just thinking about it that the sun set before I could even make it nearby. I stalked the STA Travel tour group my friend Adie is on and moved my backpack out of the insect-infested lake and into the sweet residential area in which the group was staying.

Adie, who is the nicest person ever, had a love fest with the owner of the Cambodian sports bar which went something like this: Adie ordered a ton of food the day before. The owner was so happy he refused to take Adie's money the next day. Adie was so happy he went upstairs and got a brand new England soccer shirt and gave it to the owner. The owner's was so happy he pulled off his own shirt and put on the new one, then came out with a giant plate of green mangoes and chili sauce for Adie. Adie was so happy he ordered a ton more food. No tuk-tuks were around by midnight (which is the craziest moment I've had so far in Cambodia, given that every other second of every other day the grown men are literally fist-fighting to get you into their vehicle), so the owner revved up his own red mo-ped and took me back to my hostel himself, protecting me from weird street-lurkers until I was safe upstairs. So sweet! Adie ordered a ton more food. Thinking of both their beaming smiles in this friendship one-up-manship makes me grin all over again.

At the crack of dawn the next morning I had the most amazing vegetable noodle breakfast soup in history, then hopped the six hour bus to Sihanoukville in order to, 1) Get the heck out of crazy Phnom Penh, 2) Continue hilariously and somewhat loserishly stalking the STA Travel group (which was in a much plusher bus fifteen minutes ahead of me, and, 3) Hit the beach!

I found out on that bus ride that the toxic Phnom Penh lake is being slowly filled in and erased. This is both good (given that it is, you know, toxic), and sad (given that all the lakeside dwellings, including the neat hotel in which we stayed, will be razed and the dwellers displaced).

In some ways, this toxic lake at the center of the capital city reflects the horrific recent history of Cambodia. My friend showed me photos of the Killing Fields; teeth, arm bones, and tattered clothes of the massacre victims are still strewn along the path the tourists tread each day. How can a people move on from this toxic history? Can it really be "filled in" and converted into an educational memorial for tourists and Cambodians alike? One has to wonder whether a filled-in toxic lake sometimes just creates toxic land.

The People Working - AND LIVING - in and Around Angkor Wat

By Lillie
Catch more of her adventures at http://www.aroundtheworldl.com/
His tiny form flitted past the hole in the stone wall so fast I thought he might be a forest spirit. But then there he was again: sparkling eyes, tiny body in a grubby orange shirt, barefoot... He disappeared again, and I was ten minutes further into the thick jungle path to the next temple when he materialized right beside me.

"Hello lady!" he said with a smile. "This used to be the Grand Palace, almost a thousand years ago. See those big and small pools over there?" I looked, seeing glistening water through the sunlit green foliage. "Big pool for woman, small pool for man. You know why?" I didn't. "One king, many concubines!"
The boy continued his informative chatter by my waist for the next three jungle temples, and to tell the truth I could use the company, as these sites, though extremely famous, were eerily deserted at this time of day. But I suppose I knew the inevitable would come soon enough.
"Do you live here?" I asked, gesturing to the tangled expanse. "Yes, I have no mother and father, so I live with the monks here," he said. "In the afternoons I go to school and learn Khymer, English and Thai." Indeed, his English was excellent.

I neared my meeting point with Sopheak, and so I turned to wish the little one well. When he realized I was leaving, his eyes turned suddenly dead.
"Give me some money for school," he said so quietly and robotically that I could barely hear.

"I'm sorry, but I don't give anyone money at the temples," I said truthfully. Much has been written about how young children are being pulled out of school across Cambodia to shill trinkets to tourists, and to beg for money-- all of which goes right back in the pockets of the unscrupulous adults.

"Give me some money. Just one dollar," the tiny boy intoned, holding out his hands. The dark jungle framed his body, and the incense from the nearby shrine wafted past us.
"Just a dollar. Give me money," he began chanting over and over, following me slower and slower until I reached the road. I could still hear his voice as I climbed into the tuk-tuk. By now, ten more children had surrounded the car, holding out scarves, postcards, flutes.
Every visitor who has been to Angkor Wat will remark on the intensity of the selling and begging. The moment your tuk-tuk or motorcycle pulls up, a hoard of young Cambodians will sprint up, screaming any and every combination of the following: "LADY! You come here, lady! Where you from? I give you good price. Scarf? For your mother? Nice cold drink? Batteries for your camera? Guidebook to Angkor Wat? You buy, you buy from me, okay? Maybe come back later, okay?"

Every visitor has different reactions-- all difficult. If you buy from her, are you supporting an unethical adult? If you buy from him, what happens to the forty children behind him that you don't buy from? The most common and consistent solution is to hold off on giving any money to these children, and rather make a larger donation to a reputable Cambodian organization.
Meeting this little boy, however, I became intensely curious about just who is living in and around Angkor Wat, and where. We know, since it is a working temple with many active shrines, that there are monks here. We also know from the boy that these monks have some orphans in their care.

I asked Sopheak, gesturing to the hundreds of rickety vendor stalls along the temple roads, "Do these people also sleep in the temple grounds?" "Oh no," he replied, "Police don't allow. They pay off police so they can sell here, maybe five dollar a month. But to live they have a village right outside."
I nodded. However, as the day wore on, I began to spot small tents and hammocks hidden in the jungle right behind the more obscure temples. "Are you sure people don't live here?" I asked Sopheak again. "Well," he said, "Sometimes, yes."
Imagine arising in your tattered tent, right under the eighth wonder of the world!

The Angkor Wat complex of temples stretches for miles upon miles, and in between there are villages. Sopheak and I drove nearly an hour straight each way today, and the villages we passed were as beautiful and fascinating as the temples. First, there were the stunningly green rice paddies, shimmering wetly, smattered with water buffalo, rice workers, and tiny children.

Then there were vendor stalls lining the road. So many stalls! Could they possibly sell more than two items a day with all that competition? While they waited the interminable hours for a customer to stop, the families cuddled together under palm roofs, playing with each others' hair and cooking smoky food. Slick naked bodies peeked out of the brown rivers we passed, and half-clothed men worked on engines. Whole families crowded onto mopeds and zoomed by us, the fourth child in the pile sometimes waving with glee.

And the mines. Cambodia is one of the most heavily landmined countries in the world, and thus you must never stray off a beaten path. Sure enough, six jungle patches we passed displayed signs: "Landmine field cleared by Japanese Armed Forces". We saw many group homes for people who had lost limbs in the explosions, signs saying they were funded by German or American organizations. Musical groups formed of amputees grace the paths of many temples.

Of course, not all the Cambodians in and around Angkor Wat are there to sell to tourists! Angkor Wat provides free entrance to any Cambodian national, and thus at least ten percent of the awe-struck temple viewers are from the land itself.
Today we passed a small Cambodian family climbing off their moped, laying out a blanket by the Angkor Wat lakeside, and diving into a rollicking picnic lunch. Beautiful!
"Hey honey, where should we take the kids to eat today?"
"How about in front of the biggest temple in the world?"
"Sounds good to me."

Angkor Wat by Sunrise

By Lillie
Catch more of her adventures at http://www.aroundtheworldl.com/
At four thirty am, my cellphone alarm exploded me awake in my ridiculous supply attic room (pictured left-- no joke).

Was a torrential lightning storm going to foil my plans like yesterday morning? There are no windows in my supply attic room, so I padlocked the door and barefooted down to the second floor to peer out the grated balcony. Clear! Dark! This meant ten minutes to throw on clothes and meet Sopheak at his tuk-tuk downstairs. Woo hoo!

We hit the road fast, joining a parade of tuk-tuks, bicycles, minibuses, and maxi-buses, all headed for the same glorious destination: Angkor Wat, the biggest temple in the world, at sunrise.
Twenty minutes later, we squealed into the packed, muddy parking area as the first glimmers of sun wavered though. "Run that way!" Sopheak urged in his soft, sweet voice, pointing to the beautiful line of humanity streaming through the gate. "I meet you at the big tree there in two hours!"
Through the giant stone gates I ran, clutching my camera, and easing past Japanese tourists of all ages. A massive stone walkway rolled out beyond the gates, and at the end, the most delicious peaks of architecture pointed up to the dawn sky: Angkor Wat! It's you! Hello! You're gorgeous!!

At first I got confused and ran right in the looming temple itself, but soon realized that the inside the pitch black masterpiece was a dumb location to watch the sunrise. Out again I sprinted, and made straight for the hundreds of enraptured people clustered by the side of the lily-pad kissed lake.

For the next hour and a half, we were awe-struck paparazzi. Each inch more of sun brought fresh gasps of delight and sparkles of flashbulbs. "Ooh yes, that angle there," you could almost hear the Japanese grandfather cooing as he adjusted his giant tripod. "Stunning, honey, stunning-- now just a little more in the light so I can see that graceful curve..." Everyone passed around their cameras to everyone else to take different permutations with and by strangers. Everyone became less strangers and more family, united in the cause of timeless, centuries-old wonder.

Cambodian children and adults milled around the crowd, selling coffee, water, and books. I snapped a photo of a man wearing an Angkor Beer shirt in front of Angkor Wat itself and chuckled. Indeed, one can see from the fact that Cambodians name and shape everything from their beer to their border gate like Angkor Wat that the temple is the absolute pride and joy of their country. The Lonely Plant Guide emphasizes that it was to this heavenly, distant past, that Cambodians clung when Pol Pot was massacring their countrymen and women.

After the sun was fully glowing above the temple, we all began to flow inside. One can basically climb over and up nearly any part of Cambodian temples, and often I would look up in shock to find a tourist way out on an overhang.
The inside of Angkor Wat is breathtaking, boasting ornate carvings on every surface, painstaking sculpture work, and columns, halls, stairs, and turrets to make Cinderella drool.

And yet-- that wasn't even the end. From 7:30 am until one in the afternoon, Sopheak took me and my English lady friends to about fourteen other temples in the "small circuit" of the hundred temple complex. Tomorrow we go back for the "Big Circuit", and the day after to the far-off sections. WOW.
Truly, Ankor Wat deserves its title as the Eighth Wonder of the World!

The Cambodian Child Sex Trade

By Lillie
Catch more of her adventures at http://AroundTheWorldL.com/

In Phuket, Thailand, I spent some creepy time chatting with womanizing older German men. They all had twenty-something year old Thai girlfriends already, but they had big other plans.
"Every day vee play Poker together," said Hans with a leer, "And vee put money in a pot. Vhen we have a full pot, you know vhat we do?" I didn't know. "Vacation! Cambodia!" he gave a wink. "They haff niiiice young girls there. Very young."
Cambodia is notorious for it's horrific sex trade, most notably, providing older Western tourists with very young girls, and sometimes boys. Upon entering the country, I was slapped with numerous billboards that stated "PROTECT OUR NATIONAL TREASURES," showing a photo of a young Cambodian child. "A CHILD IS ANYONE UNDER 18." said the poster. "It is illegal to sexually exploit a child." At the bottom of the poster, a telephone hotline was provided for bystanders to report sexual wrongdoing.

Today, eating spicy green mango salad in a sun-drenched cafe, I suddenly wished I had written down the hotline. Across from me sat two large, pasty Western men, lecherously feeding Sprite to two EXTREMELY young Cambodian street girls. My breath came faster and my blood churned. What should I do? I glared at the men, scheming a plan.
Then, two more young girls appeared, begging every tourist they met to buy their small trinkets. The two Western men gestured them over. They sat them down at the table with Sprite, gave them crayons and paper, paid the bill, left a stack of money for the four grinning children and walked away.
The girls enjoyed their sodas for a hour, giggling and gossiping, with huge smiles on their faces. I snapped a photo.
Maybe the men came back later to collect favors from the children, but I like to think they actually just wanted to be nice. Sometimes paranoia is necessary, but sometimes people are just sweet.

The Trap on the Cambodian Border

By Lillie
Catch more of her adventures at http://AroundTheWorldL.com/
Part of the reason I stayed so long in Bangkok (besides the wonderful people) was I was terrified to cross the infamous Thailand-Cambodia border at Poipet.

I was right to be scared.
"This is NOT the border," said Thomas. "We asked the tuk-tuk to take us to the Cambodian border and this is NOT the border."
The man in the suit grew exasperated. "This IS the border, sir. Here-- here is my credential." He showed us a badge and a certificate. "Please just fill out these forms, and you can get your Cambodian visa." He again fluttered the official-looking documents at us.
Flo and I didn't know who to believe. The whole five hour bus ride from Bangkok to Aranyaprathet, the two Austrian brothers and I had been comparing the scary research we had done regarding border con artists. I looked at the document. It was stamped with a color seal of the Kingdom of Cambodia, and looked like every other official document I've filled out, with its careful blue and white grid. Twelve other men in suits watched us from across the office.
"This is NOT the border," said Thomas again. "You are trying to get money from us. You don't work for the government."
There was a bustle as the men in suits talked loudly in Khymer and flipped open their cellphones to make calls. The three of us began to believe that maybe we were just being paranoid foreigners. Maybe we were being plain old rude. Ignorant. Flo sat down at the table and picked up a pen. It's not a good idea to upset a government official. Had we just been reading too many horror stories?
Suddenly, the first man in the suit strode back. "Ok, you can go."

"Huh?"
"You can go."
I was aghast. Just like the internet pages had warned, the whole thing-- the official papers, the suits, the badges-- had just been a scam.
We shakily climbed back in the tuk-tuk and glared at the long-haired woman driving. "The BORDER, please," said Thomas. The motor started, and the woman said nothing.
"Consulate," she said, two minutes later, stopping the vehicle. We looked up at the Consulate of Cambodia, and could see new men in suits descending the lawn towards us. "NO!" we said in unison, "THE BORDER. THE ACTUAL BORDER!" The driver stared at us from behind her giant dark glasses, immobile. The heat was sweltering and the three of us barely fit with our backpacks on the tiny, three-wheeled tuk-tuk.
Finally, we were moving down the highway again. I couldn't believe our driver had tried to sell us to sham artists TWICE to earn her paltry commission from them-- but we had been amply warned that this is how it goes.

Ten minutes later, we began to see barbed wire, looming, fence-like buildings, and dozens of men in uniforms. We also saw streams of people on foot with coconut-stacked wheelbarrows and checkered head scarves walking purposefully towards the gaps in the barbed wire. We angrily paid the tuk-tuk driver her undeserved 80 Baht and walked to the sign marked "Foreigners". We got our exit stamp from the real Thai official.
In the nether-world between the two countries, we entered the "Visa on Arrival" booth. The heat and dust were choking, and the lines of coconut wheelbarrow folks continued past us, now joined by dozens of tiny children who shrieked "Hallooo!" and tried to follow us. We filled out the ACTUAL visa application (which looked nothing like the fake one the scam artists had given us), and I walked to the official to pay. "900 Baht," ($25) he said. I handed him two five hundreds. He looked at the money, then at my visa application. "Actually," he said, "1000 Baht." I started to argue, completely paranoid and rattled from our earlier encounter, but Thomas shushed me. "This man actually IS an official," he whispered. "Just let it go. It's three dollars more."
We got on the free shuttle bus to the bus and taxi depot nearby. The bus from the depot to Siem Reap is cheap but takes five hours or more, and often sells you to guesthouses for commission. The taxi takes just two hours and, while the $48 price is exorbitant for Cambodia, most tourists pick it, as it's a worthwhile cost when split among several people.

A tout led us through a throng of loudly talking men to the shabby taxi and we got in, expecting the driver to do the same. Instead, he dove into a ten-minute argument with the throng of men, all of them gesturing wildly. "It's the tourist trade mafia," whispered Thomas. "They are negotiating who gets what share of our money. Did you notice how there is no good public transport to Siem Reap, even though a quality bus would be easy enough to create? The tourist trade mafia keeps it that way so they can charge the crazy taxi fares."
A third man came to our window. "You pay half now, half in Siem Reap," he said. "We need to pay the police." We looked over and suddenly saw a man in a police uniform silently writing on a pad, seemingly presiding over the argument. "Where's our driver?" said Thomas. At last we spotted our diminutive chauffeur, engulfed in the waving arms and loud debate. "When our driver sits down, we'll give you the money," said Thomas. At last the driver came, the money changed hands, and the policeman issued the cab an official-looking certificate for the window.

We were off! Electric green rice fields, pancake flat and laden with dully glinting brown pools... Cattle on the fields and also trotting along the road... Giant blue sky with swollen puffs of white clouds... Tiny towns with rickety shacks and wares sold on dusty platforms... "We're in Cambodia!" I whispered, awe-struck.
Suddenly a rooster crowed, and we stopped short. The rooster turned out to be the driver's cellphone. He answered and began yelling in Khymer. "He's trying to sell us to guest houses for a commission," Thomas whispered. Five minutes later, we were driving again, but throughout the two hours on the road, the rooster would crow again, the phone would ring, and the haggling would continue. Was he calling several guest houses? Tuk-tuk drivers? Touts? Just one and arguing a price? Who knows.

Sure enough, once in Siem Reap, we were greeted by another ten men in possibly-but-likely-not-official attire. An effeminate tout led us to a tuk-tuk, assuring us it would take us the the guesthouse of our desire at no extra cost. At this point, I had no idea who or what to believe, so I just shut down. "Lady!" he said to me, as the tuk-tuk swayed on the rutted road, "You look mad! You mad?" "No," I replied with a smile, "I'm so glad to be here. I'm just tired!" Indeed, I had left my Bangkok hostel at 6am, and it was now five in the evening. All I'd eaten all day was a custard bun and a taro cake at Mo Chit bus station.
We bopped between guest houses (there was confusion with Thomas's reservation), but when we finally walked into one, the tout from our tuk-tuk started yelling angrily at the man helping us with our bags. "What's wrong?" asked Flo. "He's angry at me because our guest house doesn't pay touts commission," said the man. "It's the transportation mafia versus the guesthouse mafia!" whispered Thomas. We were in the middle of a catfight.

So now I'm in a totally weird all-window room on the fourth floor of this pretty house-- and my bathroom is on the first floor. Fifty Baht says this is a former office turned into a guest room for extra cash.
And now to end with two positive notes. One: dinner was DELICIOUS and cost $2.75 for a HUGE plate of Khymer curry, rice, and drinks. Two: I just got an email from a friend of a friend explaining how much she loved working in Cambodia, and how great the people are. These two sweet things are reminders that a few rather rotten scam artists should not sour a tourist on the wonders of a deservedly famous country. Angkor Wat tomorrow!