Quite Random

Asia-go-go!

At last, we’re in Siem Reap, Cambodia. I’m sitting in Earthwalkers writing this, with geckos above me chattering away in the rafters, Johnny Cash on the stereo, and several frogs and crickets outside competing to provide their own musical accompaniment. The occasional frog skulks across the floor as if they got lost on their way home. I’ve been minding the guesthouse this afternoon while the staff are all off on a trip to Sihanoukville, to spend a few days on the beach. The place is closed while the rooms are being renovated, so it’s quiet.

Two flights, an interminable queue at immigration and a bus ride, and Hannah and I got to Bangkok six days ago. We stayed in the Sukhumvit area, right across town from the backpacker Mecca that is Kao San Road. That’s twice I’ve been to Bangkok now and I still haven’t been there – maybe I’m doing this all wrong. Bangkok was fun, but it was good to get away. Our last night there ended drinking kamikaze cocktails in a gay karaoke bar with three English teachers on a mission to drink until it came out of their eyes.

Before we left Thailand we took a day trip up to Tamarkan to see the bridge on the River Kwai. This was the place where many thousands of British, Dutch, American and Australian prisoners of war and conscripted local labourers died constructing a rail link between Myanmar and Thailand, to facilitate the Japanese occupation of Myanmar (then Burma) during World War II. I don’t know what I was expecting – maybe just a bit more solemnity. The place was rammed with tourists, all over the bridge, in the market playing knock-off Red Hot Chilli Peppers CDs, wandering the stalls. The cemetery for prisoners of war at Kanchanaburi was by contrast immaculately tended and quiet.

So now, we’re in Siem Reap. The place has changed in the last two years. There are ATMs now, lots of them, where there were none two years ago. There are more huge, ostentatious but characterless hotels with giant cement Apsara heads in the front drives. There are more Land Cruisers and big cars. There are supermarkets selling Mars Bars, Pedigree Chum and Jacob’s Creek wine for more than a local labourer makes in a week. Many of the street children have gone, arrested and taken to a rehabilitation centre to deal with various addictions. All of the bars on Pub Street seem to have doubled in size. Siem Reap is doing very well, apparently.

Hannah and I have accommodation near Earthwalkers – in a village-type community outside town. The rooms are big, basic, and quite comfortable enough. Most of the other rooms in the building are used by taxi girls (a polite term for prostitutes), and the building is guarded by two bumbling puppies, a small flock of ducks, and about three million crickets. I’m enjoying being back, looking forward to finding my feet, and looking for someone to teach me Khmer.