Blood, Money and Action in Cambodia

Up until yesterday, I pitied the Cambodian people. Having gone through so much hardships and having to live in such poor conditions...

Then, I visited the Angkor region (including Angkor Wat and countless other temples in the jungle). The Angkor archaeological site is awe-inspiring. Just Angkor Wat (the most famous of the Angkor temples) is enough to keep you busy for many hours. But then there are so many other marvels including a walled inner city; artificial lakes; pond systems; temples overrun by jungle, etc.

One problem is all the hawkers. They are REALLY annoying. One tactic used is to send the children after the tourists. They look more vulnerable and many people will feel pity or compassion for them and buy some of their stuff. Some of the children are pretty clever. They speak better English than most mainland Chinese people in the tourist industry and many speak another language or two as well (French, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, ...). They'll often ask you where you come from and then name half a dozen cities in that country and ask you from which city you are. Others will give you free items that they crafted from simple material and ask you to consider buying from them (say, a soft drink) on your way back from the temple you are about to visit.

So far, everything is all right. But, others will use deceitful tactics to extort some money from you. It can be children saying they'd like you to take a picture of them and then ask you for some money for having had the privilege to photograph them. Other people will look happy to explain features of the temple and then demand to be paid for their services. Even the police officers do that! Did I mention the police can't be trusted in Cambodia? Never trust anyone here.

Two kids around 5 years of age wanted me to take pictures of them. Of course, I declined. Seeing I wasn't going to pay them for a picture, they asked me if I wanted to "boom boom". I was caught off guard; a 5 year old was trying to pimp a fuck to me!!! I smiled (because the situation was funny in a twisted way) and just walked away. Then, I starting thinking... Was the little boy trying to pimp a woman he knows to me or was he trying to pimp himself out? Cambodia is well known as a destination of predilection for pedophiles since it has so many homeless or piss-poor children that will do anything they need to in order to survive. The smile was gone from my face.

The whole day was spent enjoying the ruins and fending off hawkers. A couple of hours before the archaeological park closed, my tuk-tuk driver was trying to convince me that the day was over and that we should go back to my hotel. I had to threaten to pay only half the agreed sum of money to stay until the end of the park closure. Angkor is so huge, I didn't feel like losing precious hours. Anyway, at the last temple I visited that day, a 11 or 12 year old deaf and dumb boy wearing large woman's hearings and trying to be feminine started following me and insisted to be under my umbrella (it was raining by then). He was trying to beg some money from me and/or sell his ass to me. I wanted nothing to do with a dirty transvestite child, so I walked faster from him. Still, he'd follow me. I didn't have the heart to push him away forcefully just yet, so I started running away from him, figuring he'd get the message. However, the temple's stones had become quite slippery because of the rain and, trying to circumvent the kid, I slipped and badly hurt both my hands. That was the final straw.

At that point, I didn't care that he was poor as can be and that he had to beg and sell his body to disgusting old men to survive. I just had enough of all this. Feeling the pain in my hands and looking at the blood dripping from them made me snap. I looked at him and I told him that I would beat the fuck out of him if he stayed. He was paralyzed by fear. I took a step towards him and told him again to get away fast or face a serious beating. This time, he fled. After that event, I became a lot firmer with touts and hawkers. I'm usually quite good at making them go away (by ignoring them), but some of the kids I saw that day were kind of fun and made me warm up a bit too much.

Today, I hired a car to explore the sites. I went to Angkor Wat again as it is quite a wonderful piece of architecture. I just wanted to take a few more snapshots before moving on to temples and palaces I had not seen yet. When I came back, I couldn't find my car and driver. The cars are all Toyota Camri's (go figure why) and all the drivers look similar (same shade of skin, same hair color, same approximate build, same kind of crappy clothing). I was greatly annoyed and, since I was to pay AFTER the day was over, I figured just leaving him to rot there without any revenue for his day was punishment enough for him and I hired a tuk-tuk to complete the rest of my day.

Things went on pretty well that day up until I was done will the last temple that I wanted to see on the main site. My plan was to get back to town where there is plenty of drivers competing against each other to get another driver to take me to another group of temples. So, I tell the driver we're done and we can go back to town. "So, you'll pay me 20$ when we get there?", the driver asked. We had agreed on 10$. I was already pretty close to the edge because of the events of the previous day and because of the fact that my original driver for the day had disappeared, so I busted a fuse. I got so angry. And, remember, I still have this fantasy of making a dishonest taxi driver pay dearly for his ways.

So, I just walked out from the tuk-tuk and told him to get lost. I wanted to hire another driver without paying the first one. I figured that would make him and his family starve for a few days and that's precisely what I wanted at that point. I was really and the driver saw it and saw that I was serious about leaving without paying so he agreed on the original 10$. But, I was so angry at him that I didn't care at that point. I just wanted him to lose the 10$ to make him suffer. None of the other drivers would take me since I looked like I was about to kill someone and they knew I was leaving the first one without a penny. I know the rational thing to do would have been to go with the original plan and hop on his tuk-tuk and pay the agreed price. But, all the irritation I had accumulated during my week in Cambodia was exploding out of me at that moment. During all this time, a police officer was sitting on a log with his shirt off and was smiling at the scene with no intention whatsoever to do anything about it.

So, I just walked away with a big stick with nails stuck into it (in case things got nasty). The driver then alerted other people and I was starting to feel that I might soon need the stick. When I felt that too many people were closing in on me from the road, I dashed into the jungle. That was a pretty intense adrenaline rush. It's not everyday that you are on the run from a group of starving tuk-tuk drivers with an account to settle in the middle of the Cambodian jungle. I felt like I was in a movie. I saw many weird things in the jungle: strange bugs; millions of termites running along paths; people living in shacks in the middle of nowhere, ...

On a few occasions, I saw the road, but I also saw some of the driver's acolytes waiting for me (in case I'd find another driver). This was getting way out of hand for a mere 10$. What kept me going in the jungle on muddy paths for over an hour was that it wasn't about the 10$ anymore, but rather about saving my pretty face.

Then, things got fucked up.

I was intercepted by two officers with machine guns. 10$ is a lot of money for the average Cambodian, so the driver contacted the authorities and many armed Cambodians were looking for me! At that point, I was really nervous. The Cambodian police is known for being corrupt and they could use this whole story to extort a lot more than 10$ from me. I was taken to the tourist police where I gave my version of the story. The tuk-tuk driver was called in. The man at the tourist police office (I never got to know his name or title) eventually told me to just give the driver the 10$ and everything would be over. A man with the police would take me back to my hotel. I was very unhappy: I was trapped and the driver would not starve this week.

I was then forced to sign a document written in Khmer only. It was some kind of police report. I was told it was just a formality and that the line or two of notes written in the explanation field were just a statement in which I agreed to give 10$ to the driver. I said I would sign the statement after it was translated in English. The officers then all came around me and told me to sign it WITHOUT translation. Furthermore, I had to "sign" not in the usual way, but rather by applying my thumb's print on the document. I was feeling trouble closing in on me. I protested. For all I know, I was asked to sign a "confession" that would give them all the leverage they need to put me in deeper mud. In the end, a guy told me I could just sign with a pen if I preferred. Which I did, but not before writing a one-liner saying that I was settling the matter by paying 10$.

I'm worried now. The police knows where I'm staying, has my passport number and has no one to answer to. I won't have complete peace of mind until I have left the country. I won't stick around too long...