February 2006 in Cambodia

Hi all,

As February closes I can only say that this has been a busy, stressful and sad month

Darren



February 2006 in Cambodia


Thursday the 2nd
Off to Kratie
After a long absence of field trips, I seem to have been roped into several this month.

This afternoon I am heading off to Kratie with Kimchhea; he is the vice chief of the office that I work in and I get on very well with, so I am looking forwards to a few days in the provinces and the provincial fishing villages with him.

Kratie is a province (County, State, or whatever) in the North-East of Cambodia

2:00 PM – Kimchhea is still not back from his trip to Siam Reap, this could be cutting it fine for getting to Kratie before sunset.
2:30 PM – Kimchhea finally arrives, slightly flustered and rushed

3:00 PM and we finally get on the road, I am slightly concerned that we will now not reach Kratie before nightfall; and driving along barely marked dirt roads, miles from anywhere, with lights is a slow and painful process.

5:00 PM - Out past Kompong Cham (about halfway) the driver takes a ‘short cut’ the ‘new road’ it is only a short cut in distance, not time, as the road has not yet been built, it is just a semi rough, bulldozed, red dirt track, dusty, bumpy, full of potholes, ridges, lumps and drops; it cuts 100Km off the over all journey, but reduces the speed to an average of 10-20KPH. Personally I would have preferred the extra 100Km on a faster, tarmac, road, but the amount of petrol used on the extra distance is the deciding factor for the driver who is being paid a flat fee to get us there.

6:00 PM – sunsets and we are still on the red dust equivalent of a roller-coaster at 5KPH

7:45 PM – and we crawl into Kratie town at last, tired, hot, dusty and battered from the bouncing. We check into our usual Kratie hotel, the Heng Heng 2 Hotel. It is not much different to the dozens of other places to stay here, apart from one thing; there is a large balcony up on the second floor which over looks the wide Mekong River, from which you get an absolutely beautiful view of the sun setting behind the river and the trees on the other side, the sky filled with purples and reds, the clouds black silhouettes amongst these colours, wide a vista dozens of miles wide to either side.

Of course, because we were late, we had missed it.


Friday the 3rd
In Kratie
Breakfast at 06:30 in the Heng Heng Hotel restaurant and then on the way to our meeting at 07:00

While I was stuck in a room with several dozen fishermen and provincial government lackeys. Yawn, yawn.

The main attraction for Kratie province is the dolphins in the town of Kampie. These are some of the last remaining ones in South East Asia. Unfortunately on this trip I did not have time to get out and see them as I was working.

Irrawaddy Dolphins
Or freshwater dolphins
Latin: orcaella brevirostris. Khmer: Trey Pisaut

Are an endangered species, especially so in Cambodia where there is now less than 80 of them left. Five died (or were killed) in 2004 and no calves were born in 2005. In January 2006 8 more died or were killed by illegal fishing or by becoming entangled in fishing nets.
The WWF and the MRC both have projects here assisting in trying to protect and save them, but they seem to be fighting a losing battle.

At the end of the day, we all meet back at the hotel and I finally got to watch my sunset :-)

After which, I was happy and the Khmers were slightly perplexed, but we all went out for dinner – yes, fish and rice… The Mekong Restaurant; Tom Yam Trey (fish soup), fried fish, minced beef in gravy (?sort of?) and a stir-fry of pork and mixed vegetables (my choice!)


Saturday the 4th
Off to Kompong Cham
05:30 and there is a knocking on my hotel room door?! What is going on, what time is it, aghh. It is my colleague Bo who cheerfully informs me that the taxi is now coming for us at 06:30; I think that I nearly flattened his nose when I slammed the door shut!
0615 and I am standing on the pavement outside the hotel loading my rucksack into the boot, uggh. Far, far too early.

10:30 and the taxi is filled with red dust from the ‘new’ road, I am blind, thirsty and more than a little irritable when I am dropped off at the crossroads outside Kompong Cham town. The boys are heading back to Phnom Penh for the weekend, I am stopping off for a night in the provinces to visit a colleague.

Before embarking on the next stage of transportation

A bowl of chicken noodle soup and 4 iced coffees helped take a couple of layers of dust off the inside of my mouth and throat, only a couple more left…

11:00 and I climb into a minibus (22 people plus luggage in a 12 seater) for the 18 kilometre trip to Oraing Au village. Once at the village market I phone Rena’s brother for specific directions to their house, Surprisingly he is in the market waiting for us and he turns up on his moto a few minutes later, the house is actually further out into the province, about another 20 kilometres away, so I get on the back of his Honda Cub 90 (with luggage) and set off down yet another dusty red dirt road. Blind again after 10 more seconds!

Arriving at the house I find a medium sized marquee being set up at the front of it, a dozen small round tables with chairs being carried in and lots of old Khmer women at the side peeling vegetables and scraping the flesh out of coconuts. After a round of hellos and introductions I am shown into the house and where I will be staying.

It was a fairly lazy afternoon, sat around drinking tea and most pointedly, yet politely, turning down repeated offers for a glass of homemade snake wine. A large plastic jar, similar to an old sweet shop jar, filled with neat homemade alcohol, in which has been marinating for several months the corpses of three medium sized snakes, half a dozen scorpions and god knows how many poisonous centipedes and millipedes. No way on earth am I touching that !

Early in the evening, an hour or two before sunset, several of us head off to be shown some local ruins – a place of ‘great magic’. After we hike through the hard and dry rice paddies for about 30 minutes we come to a small group of rather large, old, trees. Inside this ring of trees there are several large mounds, 6 to 8 feet high, 12 to 15 feet in diameter. The largest and most central of these mounds has a small offerings shrine at the base, where the Khmers light incense and mutter some Khmer prayers for ‘health, wealth and happiness’ as is the custom. They explain to me that the Bo tree turns into a giant snake during certain magical nights or festivals and that it will then hunt down and kill any tomb raiders or looters that have disturbed this sacred place, the look of wonder and certainty on his face prevents me from smirking or questioning this local belief.

Offerings made and local myths explained we then head back to the village, where people stop and chat and it starts to feel slightly like a royal procession; all of the local family’s friends have to be introduced and they all want to shake the hand of the white man.

Arriving back at the house we discover that even more distant relatives have turned up for what ever party / festival / ceremony this is.

Dinner is being served and the drinks are starting to flow – brandy and beer … mixed together…
Dinner is a curious mixture of dishes: barbequed spareribs (good) chicken heads soup (bad) beef mince soaked in gravy (okay) fried chicken stomach, intestines and offal (very bad)


Sunday the 5th
Back to Phnom Penh
Feeling somewhat groggy after all that beer and brandy; not too mention the early wake up call this morning, courtesy chanting monks and multiple guests arriving at 05:00
So it is off to the local market for breakfast, and more importantly, coffee.
A 15 minute moto ride there with two of Rena’s brothers

Having had some rice and coffee we head back to the house to discover that the ceremonial eating has begun. I am sat down at a table with the old woman whose house and ceremony it is and we are all fed beef and sugar palm root curry…

All too soon it is midday and time for us to head back to the main road to try and flag down a minibus that is heading to Phnom Penh. The family ask us all to stay another night – ‘tonight we have Khmer dancing and karaoke!’ as appealing as that sounds though (ha right) we have to be back in the office on Monday.


Monday the 6th
Back in the Office
My provincial wanderings on hold for a couple of days, it is back to the office and the work – and of course, the power cuts… three or four hours every day in the office and a couple of hours three or four nights a week at home


Tuesday the 7th
Another semi-interview today
This one with a business here that offers management training to other businesses, NGO’s and Government Departments. No current job opening but more of the usual ‘ifs and maybes’
Nice Thai meal in the restaurant next door though, ran by the boss’s wife !

Also, just been told this afternoon that we are going on another field trip tomorrow to Prey Veng province – yes, another dry, dust bowl, of a province. At least this one is only a couple of hours away from Phnom Penh and only involves an overnight stay. Think I will have an early night.


Wednesday the 8th
Off to Prey Veng
Taxi to Neak Loeurn town in Prey Veng province: beggars, hawkers, gawpers’ ratty hotel, dusty roads, oppressive heat, rice and fish three times a day. I have to say, Neak Loeurn town is not my favourite place in Cambodia. The only reason for the town’s existence is that it is the only point at which you can cross the river if you are heading East, South-East or travelling overland to Viet Nam. While you are queuing to buy your ticket, buying your ticket, waiting for the ferry, on the ferry and shuffling off the ferry at the other side you undergo a constant barrage of people trying to sell you things, pressing tings in your face, grabbing your arm, begging and generally trying to part you with money (which is your only reason for existing in there eyes)

The one saving grace of field trips to Prey Veng province is that the fishing communities are quite remote from this horrible little ferry town, which means that we get to spend most of the day travelling up and down the river on boats, picnicking for lunch on an island under coconut trees and enjoying the peace and quiet - if only the picnic had not consisted of rice and fish…


Thursday the 9th
Back to Phnom Penh
Early start off to Prey Veng town, the provincial capital. The deputy chief of fish for Prey Veng province stayed at the hotel with us last night – I suspect that he and Chhea were out singing karaoke until the small hours while I was in bed early suffering with a cold and headache - not sure which would have been more suffering, the cold or the karaoke?

However, they are up early, if not bright, and we take his car for the 85K trip; a journey that takes us nearly 2 hours thanks to bad roads and his amazingly slow driving. The afternoon saw a meeting with the local chief of fish and some paperwork, bit and pieces.

Afternoon - Over crowded taxi back, 5 people in the front – including one between the driver and the drivers’ door, 5 of us on the back seat, the boot full of plastic bottles containing cheap petrol smuggled in from Viet Nam – close my eyes and just pray …

19:00 and back in Phnom Penh. A quiet night in for me, after a very long shower washing off all the dry, red, dust that had welded itself to me over the last 48 hours.


Saturday the 11th
Hello, Goodbye
Had leaving drinks for Lorna, with Margaret and Pete. We all arrived in Cambodia at the same time, on the same flight, to start roles as volunteers here. Nicky, the other member of our arrival team has already left, Lorna leaves on the 14th and Peter and Margaret leave in March, leaving just me out of our Feb 2004 group.

Quite sad really.


Thursday the 16th
Off to Kompong Thom
A slightly better quality field trip this one, Dr Ito the head of JICA, the Japanese organisation that funds this particular project, is going with us; so rather than a small, overloaded, shared taxi we are travelling up in his huge Toyota Prado, with only 4 people in it !

Taking a midmorning coffee break at the town of Skun we get out of the car and are beset, as always, buy vendors of deep fried tarantula. Their round plastic trays piled high dozens of the provinces best known snack. A couple of years back, full of bravado and beer at the time, I tried to eat one. All I managed was a single bite. That fleshy body lump was cold, greasy and so unpleasant tasting that I could only chew it a couple of times before spitting it out and claiming defeat, much to the amusement of my Khmer travelling companions who were happily munching their way through half a dozen of them.

Poor Dr Ito, a relative new comer to Cambodia had to look at their trays for a couple of seconds before he realised what they were, when he did he backed away very slowly and very perplexed. It seems that they had killed his appetite as well.

Arriving in Kompong Thom we meet the local chief of fish, outline the plans for the next stage of the project and generally get his okay for the work that is going to be done is his jurisdiction. He ups the ante a little by requesting various other things to be done, then suggests that he can arrange for the work to be carried out if we just give him the cash and go back to Phnom Penh…

Thankfully Chhea is fairly senior back at the Ministry and he is able to deal with this non too subtle attempt at bribery in a Khmer fashion – he ignores it and then says that we are leaving the meeting to go and do the work ourselves !


Wednesday the 22nd
During the afternoon I got some news that really shook me.

The Ginger Monkey Bar in Phnom Penh opened a couple of years ago, about the time that I arrived in Phnom Penh. We used to go there quite regularly at one point. The owner, a guy from Birmingham called David Mitchell, was funny and friendly, the bar was the most decorative and interesting in Phnom Penh; the owner of the building was a sculptor, making copies of the bas relief’s at Angkor Wat for tourist and the local market and when he left, he left the walls of the bar covered in huge recreations of ancient battles depicted in stone carvings.

Dave the owner seemed to give away more free beers than he sold, was always happy and joking and we had many good times there.

Well, it seems that late Tuesday night, early Wednesday morning a homeless drug addict broke into the flat at the back of the bar, where Dave and his girlfriend Jane live. The actual sequence of events is a bit blurry and has been reported slightly differently by different agencies, but the upshot of whatever happened is that Jane was slashed very badly about the face and throat and Dave was stabbed to death trying to save her.

The police caught the assailant not 15 minutes later; the criminal mastermind being 25 yards away from the bar washing blood off of his clothes and knife.

He claims that he was looking for food and got scared.

Pointless, stupid, pathetic, shocking and utterly meaningless.

Jane is in Bangkok getting treated for her wounds; nobody is quite sure yet what funeral arrangements are for Dave

News:
http://www.channel4.com/news/content/news-storypage.jsp?id=926042

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10369787

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3582472a10,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1717376,00.html

Friday the 24th
Update

Was watching Khmer TV last night, well it was on in the background as I was reading, when the Khmer equivalent of Crimewatch came on. This program usually consists of the local police in the local police station showing which criminals they have caught that day, parading them around before the TV camera, along with the evidence. There is a large Ghanaian guy standing handcuffed next to the police chief’s desk, the police chief opens up a FedEx box in which half a dozen bags of heroin are spilled out onto the table. The police chief for the district points at the accused, points at the heroin and is talking about something I can not be bothered to try and follow in Khmer. The only reason I looked up from my book is that it is very unusual to have a Westerner arrested.

I should also point out that this show is on every evening, usually before the accused is even charged in the courts the following morning.

Then ‘he’ comes on screen; 18 year old Tong Chen. Homeless street urchin and drug addict. Charged that very morning with the premeditated murder of Dave Mitchell.

The handcuffed Chen holding the long bowed knife he used on Dave and Jane, held is instructed to hold it up further for the cameras. I feel somewhat light-headed.

Next the police show crime scene photos on their digital camera, Dave laying on the floor, eyes closed and covered in blood, I fight down the urge to vomit. Transfixed by the unimaginable horror of this image before me I can say nothing, do nothing, just stare unbelieving and numb at the screen for the next 30 seconds until the next criminal is presented to the viewing public.