Nov Field Trip - Part one

Thursday in Kompong Cham


So it is our 2nd night of the field trip, and the moment I had been dreading arrives.

We had just finished our dinner - Fish and lemongrass soup, fried fish in ginger and spring onions and fried assorted vegetables – as we are wondering out of the restaurant, my colleagues turn right and start wandering down the road. Strange, I had thought that the hotel was to the left…

Knowing the answer from long suffering field trips with my Khmer colleagues I ask the question anyway.

“Where are we going?”

The answer that I knew was coming was indeed the one I was dreading.

“We go karaoke, maybe one hour? Maybe two. Very good here”

Yes, we were heading towards the dubious pleasures of a Khmer Karaoke Club.

As we enter the dark unlit stairwell, I feel a wave of resignation wash over me. My colleagues are warm, friendly, well meaning, but they have no idea what a trail they are about to put me through – again!

Reaching the second floor at least two of the lights in the corridor are working. Upon seeing us a gaggle of girls leap up from there plastic stools, the bored looks instantly replace with Formica smiles and lots of ‘hello’ ‘hello’ ‘how are you’ ‘what is your name’ et cetera.

We are led down the corridor to one of the converted hotel rooms, upon entering it looks pretty much the same as all the other private karaoke rooms I have been dragged kicking and screaming to over the last seven months.

Three of the four walls are taken up with sofa style seating, a large low coffee table in the middle of them. The fourth wall is covered with a large television set and enough speakers to produce a Led Zeppelin concert.

The three of us take a wall each and the girls start shouting, screaming, to try and outdo each other:

“Anchor” “Lao” “Tiger” “Heineken” “San Miguel”

My colleagues look at me expectantly, the girls suddenly concentrate their yelling at me and move closer, pressing themselves around me, mobbing me as if I was John Lennon and this was the sixties, all the while screaming beer brand names at me, feeling claustrophobic and more than a little heady due the amount of cheap perfume in close proximity I yell at random ‘San Miguel!’

Silence.

Five of the girls walk out in silence looking forlorn, the sixth girl – Ms San Miguel – smile at me, walks over to the table and picks up the phone. A few moments later, more girls appear bearing litre bottles of San Miguel, glasses and a large bucket of ice.

Three of the girls sit down, one next to each of us, fill our glasses and theirs with ice, and Ms San Miguel goes around topping up each of the six glasses.

She then perches on the end of my sofa and pours herself a glass – then the ritual chinking of glasses and toasting begins – they start out with the K’mai – soka peap la’or – excuse spelling! – Good Health. Then the girl next to me raises her glass, looks me in the eye and says ‘Cheer!’ I smile and say cheers, clink glasses and down my glass in one, this of course initiates everyone else having to do likewise.

I may have to sing later, so I need a few drinks inside me, plus if these guys are going to make me sing [something I do not do well] then I am going to make them drink [something that they do not do well!]

So as Ms San Miguel is topping everyone’s glasses up, in comes another girl, this one carrying the karaoke menu, my colleagues pour over this as if it is the Priory of Sion keystone describing the resting place of the Holy Grail.

Choices are made, songs picked, orders barked.

The girl picks up the phone and a minute later the music starts.

Yes, it is some sort of Khmer love song.

You know the sort, a lone woman walking through a field looking for her one true love, whom she then runs into, which means that they have to go and sit on a rock by the river.

So I endure several of these, drinking as much as I can, waiting for the next step in this little dance.

So it came, ‘Darren you sing one song!’

‘No, no, maybe later’

So on they go with the karaoke, the field is replaced by a forest and off they go to sit by a rock next to a river…

Several songs later, several beers later, some discussion in K’mai later, my colleague starts singing in English ‘I don’t like, to sleep alone’

Yes, that is the next step in this particular dance. With me having declined the direct request to sing, they are working around it by singing a song in English themselves.

I could almost count backwards from 10 for the next step in our little dance…

‘Darren you sing one song with me, we sing together’

This is invariably the point at which I have to sing my first song of the evening.

This was the point at which ‘Hotel California’ was murdered like it has never been murdered before – well, since I was last forced to sing it - me, tone deaf and half drunk, my colleague, half drunk and pigeon English – Don Henley will haunt me like Banquo’s ghost for the rest of my years.

As we finish, the polite applause follows cries of ‘very good, very good’

I am temporarily let off the hook.

All the while that I had been singing the girl sat next to me had been massaging my shoulders and neck. As my colleagues carried on singing in K’mai she started giggling and talking to Ms San Miguel, putting her thumb and index finger around my wrist, giggling some more and pointing at my wrist to Ms San Miguel, who reaches over and encircles my other wrist?!? Now they are both giggling and holding a wrist apiece. A third girl nearest us shuffles away from one of my colleagues, near to us and also has a grope of my wrist – what the hell is going on!?!

The three of them are highly entertained.

Opposite, the fourth remaining girl with my other colleague is far to busy trying to fend off his octopus-like arms and hands from her breasts and butt to notice the great mirth and hilarity that my wrists are causing among her friends.

One of the girls starts to massage my legs, which again, results in some ‘ooo-ing’ so all of a sudden I have a girl massaging a leg each and the third one stroking my arms, plucking at the hairs on them muttering ‘sa’aat nah’ you are very handsome…

Damn, I need more beer, reaching for my glass I raise it in a toast, chink some glass and down it – the girls suddenly remember that it is there jobs to get us to drink [thus spend] as much as possible so they chink glasses and drink as well, do a quick tour of the table topping up everyone’s glasses and then return to the business of poking and prodding me while giggling and talking amongst themselves.

After an hour or so of this my friends call for the bill – thank god.

We settle up for the beers and I end up having to tip three girls instead of one as them had all descended on me for the majority of the time there.

As we leave the room Mr Octopus hands is seen scurrying ahead of us with his girl swiftly in tow, no prizes for guessing what is going on there…

The other girls take their places back on the seats looking bored; my other colleague is off down the stairs as I bring up the rear.

Then I feel a hand on my waist, I half turn and there is Ms San Miguel grinning at me saying ‘me massage you?’

‘No thank you, I reply’

‘Me massage you?’ she repeats, rubbing her groin against my hip and tightening her arm around my waist so that the stupid barang gets the message.

‘Oh, sorry’ I say, ‘I have to be up very very early tomorrow’

She pouts – Khmer girls do that so well, do they get special training in pouting and looking hurt? ‘You no like me!’ she accuses me.

‘No, no, you are lovely, but I have to go now, I have to be up very early tomorrow’

Pout, pout. More groin gyration, more hugging.

‘Sorry’ I say one more time and walk towards the stairs.

But suddenly I am unable to walk, my left ankle is in a vice like grip, I look down and Ms San Miguel has thrown herself on the floor and is clutching my ankle with both hands!?!

‘Me go with you, me go with you’ she cries

Not knowing quite what the hell to do I look around, my colleagues have vanished, the other girls sat on their little plastic stools are watching this exchange intently, pointing and a few are giggling.

I crouch down, and say to the girl, ‘sorry, not tonight. I come back tomorrow, I see you tomorrow’ as I say this I slip a couple of bucks out of my pocket and hold them out towards her.

This puts here in quite a dilemma, in order for her to take the money, she has to let go of her vicelike grip on my ankle.

She says, ‘ I see you tomorrow?’ ‘Yes, yes’ I promise.

She takes the money, leaps to her feet, kisses me on the cheek and runs off down the corridor – thank god!

I walk swiftly down the stairs before she can change her mind, hop onto a nearby moto and thank god that we are leaving for Kratie at the crack of dawn tomorrow.