Baguettes, Nudity and Poor Infrastructure.

Those are pretty much the main themes of Cambodia. We got a bus from Bangkok to Siem Reap in Cambodia and at first, it was pretty comfortable. Then we hit the Cambodian border and changed vehicles from a nice big bus to an oversized mini van. 25 of us crammed into this thing and proceeded along the worst road in the world. I was actually getting thrown into the air from some of the bumps we hit. I, however, had an iPod and legroom so I think I was the only one on the bus that actually enjoyed it. You notice how different Cambodia is as soon as you enter it. The countryside is nothing but flat farmland as far as you can see and there are poor people playing in garbage all over the place. It's what I imagine Saskatchewan looks like.
Naked kids are all over the place. Half of the population is under 15 so they just own the show. I'm pretty sure I've figured out how the clothes system works. You're naked when you're born and stay that way until you're about 7. Then, you might get sandals. You're happy with your sandals because they allow you to walk further to new garbage to play in. Then, at around 10, you get either underwear or a shirt. A shirt is preferable because it means you can still go to the bathroom with minimal effort. Finally, at around 12, you're fully clothed. I had to stare at my feet a lot of the time so I wasn't the creepy western guy who kept looking at the naked kids.
Cambodians, or "Cambos" as we called them, are the happiest people I've seen. They are always smiling and all the young kids wave at you and shout "hello" when you pass. If you wave back they have a fit of joy, it's pretty funny. Considering how poor most of them are and how violent Cambodia's history has been, their happiness makes you feel pretty guilty about ever complaining about anything. If I were in their shoes I would probably spend my days throwing rocks at children and buying puppies just to drown them.
Angkor Wat was pretty cool. It's a bunch of huge, elaborate temples built between 800-1300 A.D., around the same time Europeans were just learning how to not roll around in their own feces all day. We had an encounter with a group of old Koreans that was kind of funny. Koreans are a funny race. For example, in Seoul airport, we noticed that Korean couples are always dressed the same. As in shirts, pants, socks, shoes, hats,
everything. Seeing this in person has been one of the main highlights of the trip so far. Anyways, Trav, Alana, and I were just chilling on one of the temples when a Korean woman asked something about a picture and gestured to her camera. Alana thought she wanted her to take of picture of her and her friends so she tried to take the camera. The Korean woman shook her head and told us that the entire tour group wanted to take a picture with us. So they are at some giant impressive temple and three white people are the main attraction. Someone in Korea now has a picture of Trav, Alana, and me surrounded by around 15 geriatric Koreans.
After Siem Reap and Angkor Wat we headed down to Phenom Penh, the capital
of Cambodia. We shot off some guns at the shooting range, saw some museums, etc. One night we went out drinking and we asked the owner of a restaurant where all the good bars were. He gave us a name and we were off, only to find out that it was a quasi hooker bar. We had fun laughing at the weird couples of fat, old western men and hot young Cambodian hookers. Apparently, one of the ways hookers get your attention is to throw peanuts at you. By the end of the night we were in a peanut fight with a table of hookers and were all covered in salt. We did meet a Cambo named "Bambi" who seemed to think he could speak English but I wasn’t convinced. But we laughed when he laughed and nodded along. Two nights later, we ran into Bambi as he was getting off work and he decided he was going to hang out with us. We had just had some "happy pizza" however, and were pretty stoned so it was kinda awkward. He came back to our guesthouse and hung out, watching HBO while speaking "English" to us. I was chuckling the whole time about how a Cambo named Bambi was sitting on my bed watching HBO, laughing his head off about the joke he just made.
After Phenom Penh we headed down to Sihanoukville on the South coast of
Cambodia. It had fairly nice beaches and ridiculous beer prices. Pitchers of beer were $1.75. I was considering having one for breakfast by the end of our stay. The kids here were vicious. We would sit on the beach enjoying a 50 cent beer, and streams of them would come up and try to sell you fruit, drinks, lobsters, bracelets, anything, and they don't take no for an answer. They would just keep demanding that you buy fruit. I think they learn in school that white people love coke and fruit and if we don't have these items in constant supply we will die. Their only flaw however, I discovered the second day on the beach, was that they were quite trusting. So, I would say that if I wanted fruit in the future, I promised to buy it from them. They usually made me pinky swear, thinking this sacred ritual would surely bind me to this agreement. Apparently years under colonial rule by white people didn’t teach Cambos to not trust us. A conversation:

Cambo: You like to buy fruit mister?
Bouche: As you can plainly see, I am eating fruit right now, why would I want
more?
C: Why you not want fruit? It very good.
B: I'm sure it is, but I'm all fruited out.
C: Buy fruit!
B: No!
(A couple seconds of silence)
C: I have good mango.
B: So do I, right here, in my giant bag of fruit.
C: You want to buy fruit mister?
B: Listen, I'll buy from you in 2 hours.
C: You promise?
B: Of course I promise, I'll even pinky swear.
C: OK, in 2 hours?
B: Yeah, 2 hours, you better be here though. If you bail on me I'm going to be one angry fruit-hungry white guy.
C: I be here, I be here.
B: OK then. (Under my breath) Sucker.
(Trav and I run off 15 minutes later, never to return)

Trav got himself in a little bit of trouble with this promise thing though. He promised one girl he'd buy fruit off her later but then another girl came up and challenged him to a game of tic-tac-toe. If he lost, he would have to buy her fruit. Somehow, Trav lost the game. I didn't even think losing tic-tac-toe was possible. So he bought fruit. The first girl came back to discover Trav eating fruit that was not hers. She was almost violent she was so angry. She kept on insisting that he buy more fruit from her. We had to make a quick getaway.
Ok, well, we're in Vietnam now where beer is even cheaper. It works out to around 40 cents a beer. I'm convinced that sooner or later it will just be given to us. Sorry about the length of this one, I know most of you despise reading. We have free Internet though and we're waiting for a museum to open. Some pictures should be up soon. Have a good Festivus,



BOUCHE

P.S. Cambodian TV is so bad it hurts. They insist on playing it on every bus ride at full blast, even if there are no Cambos on the bus. I'm pretty sure the basis for every show is two Cambos, dressed in ridiculous costumes, shout and scream at each other over who looks the more ridiculous. This goes on for hours.