Cambodia and Thailand – a whitey’s baking bliss

CAMBODIA
Phnom Penh

We arrived in the capital of Cambodia at 10pm, four hours later than the estimated time of arrival (we travel folks call it the ETA, and yes we feel like wankers). Tired and sweaty, we drove around for what seemed like forever looking for accommodation. It was made slightly more entertaining by the many men who ran alongside our tuk-tuks trying to sell us drugs. We finally found a cool little place, right on the lake and sat out on the back deck drinking beers until 3am (yes we were tired but that’s no excuse for being anti-social!) The next day, we wandered around for a little bit, bought some photocopied novels off a flirtatious 8-year-old boy and hoped on the bus to the land of dreams, Sihankoville.

Sihankoville

For the first couple of days in Sihankoville (anyone labour a guess at pronouncing this name? We were there for a week and still referred to it as ‘S-ville´) Anyway, where was I? Oh, well for the first couple of days in S-Ville, all Hayley and I did was lay on the beach, read books, get massages and EAT! It was truly heaven. We became so much a fixture on the deck chairs that once, an Australian man came up to me and shouted “DO – YOU – SPEAK – ENGLISH?”
“Umm, yes, quite well,” I told him, frightened.
Turns out, he just wanted to congratulate me on reading a good book (Life of Pi by Yann Martel, anyone read it? It’s amazing!!) I’m not sure why he was under the assumption I was a deaf foreigner, but still it is lovely talking books.
So as I said, we were very mellow for the first couple of days. To be honest, all we wanted to do after a long day’s relaxing was crawl into bed with an Almond Magnum and watch ‘Titanic’ on cable. But we thought we should experience the famous Sihankoville nightlife so we booked a ‘Booze Cruise’, which we felt tacky saying but which turned out to be loads of fun! It was basically just a small boat with about 40 drunken tourists, one Cambodian man to steer and a little boy who for some reason wore a box on his head. We drove around to all the islands, which were beautiful, swimming, playing volleyball and generally being very Spring Break. That night, we all went to this party on the beach and we danced all night. Unfortunately, my night was cut short when one of the girls, a very spirited 19-year-old who was celebrating her birthday, flung her sandy thongs in the air, whacking me in the eye and leaving me temporarily blind. Very funny trying to explain to people that what was wrong with me was that “I got a sandy thong in my eye!” Especially for non-Australians, to whom ‘thongs’ are a provocative underwear and not a shoe.

The next morning was like something out of CSI. We woke up to loud noises coming outside our room and banging on the door. We opened up and there was our hotel manager, flanked by policeman telling us we had to leave the hotel as it was being shut down! There were policeman and reporters and cameramen EVERYWHERE, right outside our room! They all seemed to be congregating around the room next door and we tried to have a peek but couldn´t see anything. Anyway, it turns out the guy that was staying next door was found to have two little Cambodian girls in with him and he was filming himself molesting them!!!! WE WERE STAYING NEXT DOOR TO A PAEDOPHILE!!!! We could not believe it. We felt so sick. Especially since every morning we said hi to him. So disgusting. Thank god Cambodians are really tough on sex offenders so he´ll be locked up for a loooong time. We moved to another guesthouse, but still couldn´t shake the creeps we had knowing what was going on next door.
Anyway let’s move on from that yucky subject. One thing we really noticed about Cambodia (and Asia in general) is the obsession with being ‘white’. As one of the darkest-skinned races in South-East Asia, Cambodia seemed to be full of advertisements for skin bleaching and pictures of Westerners. While we were sunbaking one day in S´Ville a little girl selling bracelets came up to us. We got talking and she told me that she was a dancer and had just gotten some professional photos taken for her to take to auditions. She showed them to me.
“You look different,” I told her. I couldn´t quite put my finger on it.
“Yes, they photoshopped my skin to look white,” she said.
“Why did they do that?” I asked her, outraged.
“Because I asked them to,” she said. “I want to be white.”
I was furious!
“But you have gorgeous skin,” I told her.
“No, no, I want skin like yours,” she said, stroking my freckled and sun-damaged arm. I told her I lay in the sun for hours so I can have skin like hers. That´s when a young boy on my other side said solemnly, “Aahh, yes, we all want what we can´t have.”

THAILAND
Bangkok

We got to Bangkok quite late in the night, but you know what they say… Bangkok never sleeps (or is that New York?) Well, whatever, Bangkok was still bustling with tourists and stall vendors and prostitutes so we wandered around for a bit looking for somewhere to stay, finding one in this back alley for AU$10 a night (pretty cheap for Thailand). We got the thrill of a lifetime when Belle, our friend who we travelled with in Vietnam, opened the door to the internet café we were sitting in. Of all the internet joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into ours. Very exciting. That night we realised our mistake in staying in a $10 a night place… it backed onto Koh San Road, which is a notorious backpacker area, full of loud, raucous bars. So, with ‘YOU!! SHOOK ME ALLLL NIGHT LONG!’ blaring in our ears and the light from outside shining so brightly, you could’ve sworn it was noon, we fell asleep. The next day, we set about on running several urgent errands including: getting fake student IDs off a street vendor as they guarantee cheap rooms in South America and getting Hayley’s nose pierced. Wild! We then set off for the south islands…

Phi Phi

Anyone who has seen ‘The Beach’ starring Leonardo DiCaprio knows what I´m talking about when I say Phi Phi is like heaven on Earth. Or, it would be, if everyone just left it alone. While the island itself is absolutely stunning, the thousands of overweight, sunburnt British chicks and the muscled, shirtless beefcakes walking around with their undies up to their nipples… well, they are not. We had fun at Phi Phi, we met some really cool people and got to see some absolutely gorgeous sights. But to be honest, Phi Phi is drowning in tourism. Everyone who seems to go there (excluding yours truly, of course) seems to have one mission in mind: get wasted. And, whenever possible, get laid. But I’m sounding very snobbish! We did have a great time there. Highlights include exploring the surrounding islands and having a monkey grab me on the leg and drink from my water bottle, snorkeling in crystal blue water and taking underwater snaps on Hayley´s waterproof camera, and eating the best Pad Thai in the world.

So that was the end of our South-East Asia adventures. Next, was the ginormous and slightly scary land of South America…