We are loving the coffee here. The way it's done is it comes in a small cup and the bottom layer is sweet condensed milk. On top of that sits a rather strong espresso layer. The idea is you decide how much of the sticky milk you want and mix accordingly. A brief stir for a hint of dairy sweetness and a vigorous churn for an extremely sugar, milky treat (feat. strong coffee) which in the case of this morning's concoction ended in a sugar induced head-rush then later brief crash, reminiscent of the vanilla hot-chocolate I had at Max Brenners in Melbourne. Pictured here is the iced-coffee version which McGee has really gotten into when the afternoon sun is at its least forgiving.
Thursday 26 March 2009
Have you heard about this coffee?
We are loving the coffee here. The way it's done is it comes in a small cup and the bottom layer is sweet condensed milk. On top of that sits a rather strong espresso layer. The idea is you decide how much of the sticky milk you want and mix accordingly. A brief stir for a hint of dairy sweetness and a vigorous churn for an extremely sugar, milky treat (feat. strong coffee) which in the case of this morning's concoction ended in a sugar induced head-rush then later brief crash, reminiscent of the vanilla hot-chocolate I had at Max Brenners in Melbourne. Pictured here is the iced-coffee version which McGee has really gotten into when the afternoon sun is at its least forgiving.
I'm on a boat
I caught a fish! The three of us start the day by heading out into the river on a canoe. It has water in it with live prawns (our bait) jumping at our asses the whole time. Rowing around reminds us of apocalypse now. It's awesome and the river is really quiet and peaceful. I'm pretty happy with myself having caught the only fish for the day using a mineral water bottle, a sinker and a hook as a rod. We gave the fish to the canoe hire lady who was really nice even though we couldn't communicate verbally. Sarrat says she'll cook it for dinner.
A lot of the people here fish and farm to feed themselves and trade. We went to Sarrat's house and met his mum and dad. They have a rice field and lots of chickens. Also his girlfriend was there looking for him but Sarrat's mum doesn't want him hanging around with her. She's not so fond of her as it turns out.
Sarrat plays an old guitar that he hasn't been able to use as he doesn't know how to tune one. The machine heads are so rusty and the body is battered, the strings more rust than steel but I managed to do it and we took it to this hammock cafe on stilts to play while we had our Cambodian coffees.
We finally had Lok Lak for lunch, a Khmer favourite. Really good. A Chinese company purchased this part of the river to build a dam. We went up as far as we could to a security booth where the police guys there told us that foreigners are not allowed. No pictures either. Also there were a couple of machines guns on the wall, mounted. Don't see that everyday. So the three of us got back on Sarrat's motorcycle and headed to another 'bar' on stilts. That was amazing too. Now we're at the guesthouse contemplating dinner and cocktails of some variety.
Wednesday 25 March 2009
McGee Blog - Kampot
We are in Kampot now, a little village in the South of Cambodia that sits on bay that comes from the ocean.The guest house is on stilts over the river and we have been lazing around in hammocks on the balcony watching all the fishing boats head out to the sea for the morning fishing. The river also totally pongs but we have been smoking cigarettes to fend off the pong.
The view from here is totally stunning. Across the river are layers of hills, indistinct with a low mist. Palms line the banks, interspersed with tall, boxy houses on stilts.
Both Josh and I were really affected by our last few days in Phnom Penh. We took a bus from Seam Reap which as Josh explained is kind of torturous, not because of the roads or the bus but because of the relentless presence of asian Karoake in all its synth glory.
At one point we got off at a little market town for a rest stop and Josh and I were totally unprepared for it as we got off. We were hit by a throng of people selling, begging, tugging at our clothes. We stepped into the shade of the bus for a cigarette but instantly several kids surrounded us demanding " you buy mango! you buy pineapple! Only 2 dolla!"
There were a lot of beggars, many with no legs or no arms. We felt stifled and anxious by it all and tried to ignore everyone and just smoke but it soon became overwhelming- the heat, the dust, the people.
Trying to get back on the bus we had to fight of the sellers. Out of the corner of my eye i ssw this little boy, maybe 5 or 6. He was scrawny and his hair and clothes were filled with dust. He put his hand out for some money and i shook my head. Then i realised that he was leading man, his father or his grandfather mybe, and the man had no eyes. I don't mean he was just blind, I mean he had no eyes. Just these rough hewn mass of scars where his eyes should have been. Shocked i shook my head again and got on the bus.
As we drove on to Pnomh Penh I just watched the countryside pass by. I felt guilty and wilfully ignorant for not giving that kid something. Like my fear had just propelled me onto the bus before my humanity could jump in with some compassion. I thought about this man with no eyes a lot. How had he lost them? It had to have been an act of violence of some sort. Was it torture under the Khmer Rouge? Was it a mine? I just thought tht t some point in his life he could see and then he must have endured some terrible violence- deliberate or accidental. And now this is how he makes his way- this tiny kid and him begging money off rich tourists passing momentarily through their lives.
It's the same with so many people we meet here. The violence and trauma is everywhere. Beggars with no limbs, a woman in the market selling postcards with scars that have melted her face, shoulder and arms.You would think then tht the people here would be suspicious and fearful and yet culturally everyone here is so open. As Josh said to me one night, as soon as you get talking to the kids they are just like every other kid. They want to be entertained, their attention moves from one thing to another and they are delighted by new things.
Phnom Penh was this dirty, colonial glory of a city faded by war and dust. Its probably the most dangerous city we have been to and you felt that walking through the streets. It gave us a chance to learn more about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. The crazy thing is tht he was only in power for a few years but the damage he did in that time was beyond comprehension. 2 million died, either killled or by starvation. He evacuated all the cities, including Phnom Penh and moved everyone into co-operatives in teh countrywhere they were to farm rice that was exported to China even as half the country starved to death.
Pol Pot was, basically, a genocidal nutcase with a dream for communist Utopia. He believed that the taint of the old world had to be completely eradicted and so he killed everyone who was educated, who lived in cities with professional jobs, who spoke more thn one language. Even wearing glasses could have you killed.He also believed that you had to destroy the rotten tree you had to kill the roots, so he also killed everyone in the family, babies, kids and grandparents.
The Toul Sleng museum that Josh wrote about is the most brutal of the 'security centres' that these people were sent. Called 'S-21'20,000 people passed through and only 7 survived. Here they were tortured with calculated,efficient brutality. They were numbered and photographed and their confessions recorded for posterity. Now, the main building is an eerily peaceful museum that still feels like the school it once was. Some of the rooms have been left as they were. Stark and disturbing they contain bedframes, shackles and shell casing. On the wall of each cell is a huge photograph, maybe a metre and a half square, of someone who was tortured and died in the room. They are bleached with age, the dark spots of the starved, brutalised bodies look like bloodstains on overexposed film.
One floor of one building is simply rows and rows of stands set up lengthways down the halls. On each one are hundreds of small photos in black and white. These are the photos they took of each person to come through. Each is a different face, some are old, many are children. Some of their eyes are wide wtih fear, but surprisingly few. Most are just blank, or haunted or numb, depending on how you interpret. Walking through these long corridors of faces, the simple horror of it is overwhelming. Sometimes you stop, pick a face and just stare. Trying to see past the picture and into the life of this person, into their death.
After Toul Sleng they were taken to the Killing Fields. This dusty parcel of land is so banal. Just dust and trees and the huge indentations of dirt that mark the place where thousands of bodies were dumped. I was a bit of a mess within a few minutes of being there, just looking at the piles of skulls in the stupa. So matter of factly organised into 'female- 0-20 years, female 0-30 years' and so on until at the top level are the oldest. Walking around we scuff over human teeth jutting out of the ground and thousands of bone fragments that have been pressed into the hard dirt. I think its maybe the worst thing i've ever seen in my life.
We have definitely fallen in love with this country, and its tragedy just makes what it is today even more contradictory. It's by no means a happy country, the corruption is immense and the poverty is everywhere. There's also a strange disconnection to its history. Kids aren't even taught about the Khmer Rouge in school- maybe because some of them are still, i do not lie, high in the government. Still, moving on from here is going to be a relief though i will never forget that stupa with its skulls or those thousands of faces at Toul Sleng.
The view from here is totally stunning. Across the river are layers of hills, indistinct with a low mist. Palms line the banks, interspersed with tall, boxy houses on stilts.
Both Josh and I were really affected by our last few days in Phnom Penh. We took a bus from Seam Reap which as Josh explained is kind of torturous, not because of the roads or the bus but because of the relentless presence of asian Karoake in all its synth glory.
At one point we got off at a little market town for a rest stop and Josh and I were totally unprepared for it as we got off. We were hit by a throng of people selling, begging, tugging at our clothes. We stepped into the shade of the bus for a cigarette but instantly several kids surrounded us demanding " you buy mango! you buy pineapple! Only 2 dolla!"
There were a lot of beggars, many with no legs or no arms. We felt stifled and anxious by it all and tried to ignore everyone and just smoke but it soon became overwhelming- the heat, the dust, the people.
Trying to get back on the bus we had to fight of the sellers. Out of the corner of my eye i ssw this little boy, maybe 5 or 6. He was scrawny and his hair and clothes were filled with dust. He put his hand out for some money and i shook my head. Then i realised that he was leading man, his father or his grandfather mybe, and the man had no eyes. I don't mean he was just blind, I mean he had no eyes. Just these rough hewn mass of scars where his eyes should have been. Shocked i shook my head again and got on the bus.
As we drove on to Pnomh Penh I just watched the countryside pass by. I felt guilty and wilfully ignorant for not giving that kid something. Like my fear had just propelled me onto the bus before my humanity could jump in with some compassion. I thought about this man with no eyes a lot. How had he lost them? It had to have been an act of violence of some sort. Was it torture under the Khmer Rouge? Was it a mine? I just thought tht t some point in his life he could see and then he must have endured some terrible violence- deliberate or accidental. And now this is how he makes his way- this tiny kid and him begging money off rich tourists passing momentarily through their lives.
It's the same with so many people we meet here. The violence and trauma is everywhere. Beggars with no limbs, a woman in the market selling postcards with scars that have melted her face, shoulder and arms.You would think then tht the people here would be suspicious and fearful and yet culturally everyone here is so open. As Josh said to me one night, as soon as you get talking to the kids they are just like every other kid. They want to be entertained, their attention moves from one thing to another and they are delighted by new things.
Phnom Penh was this dirty, colonial glory of a city faded by war and dust. Its probably the most dangerous city we have been to and you felt that walking through the streets. It gave us a chance to learn more about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. The crazy thing is tht he was only in power for a few years but the damage he did in that time was beyond comprehension. 2 million died, either killled or by starvation. He evacuated all the cities, including Phnom Penh and moved everyone into co-operatives in teh countrywhere they were to farm rice that was exported to China even as half the country starved to death.
Pol Pot was, basically, a genocidal nutcase with a dream for communist Utopia. He believed that the taint of the old world had to be completely eradicted and so he killed everyone who was educated, who lived in cities with professional jobs, who spoke more thn one language. Even wearing glasses could have you killed.He also believed that you had to destroy the rotten tree you had to kill the roots, so he also killed everyone in the family, babies, kids and grandparents.
The Toul Sleng museum that Josh wrote about is the most brutal of the 'security centres' that these people were sent. Called 'S-21'20,000 people passed through and only 7 survived. Here they were tortured with calculated,efficient brutality. They were numbered and photographed and their confessions recorded for posterity. Now, the main building is an eerily peaceful museum that still feels like the school it once was. Some of the rooms have been left as they were. Stark and disturbing they contain bedframes, shackles and shell casing. On the wall of each cell is a huge photograph, maybe a metre and a half square, of someone who was tortured and died in the room. They are bleached with age, the dark spots of the starved, brutalised bodies look like bloodstains on overexposed film.
One floor of one building is simply rows and rows of stands set up lengthways down the halls. On each one are hundreds of small photos in black and white. These are the photos they took of each person to come through. Each is a different face, some are old, many are children. Some of their eyes are wide wtih fear, but surprisingly few. Most are just blank, or haunted or numb, depending on how you interpret. Walking through these long corridors of faces, the simple horror of it is overwhelming. Sometimes you stop, pick a face and just stare. Trying to see past the picture and into the life of this person, into their death.
After Toul Sleng they were taken to the Killing Fields. This dusty parcel of land is so banal. Just dust and trees and the huge indentations of dirt that mark the place where thousands of bodies were dumped. I was a bit of a mess within a few minutes of being there, just looking at the piles of skulls in the stupa. So matter of factly organised into 'female- 0-20 years, female 0-30 years' and so on until at the top level are the oldest. Walking around we scuff over human teeth jutting out of the ground and thousands of bone fragments that have been pressed into the hard dirt. I think its maybe the worst thing i've ever seen in my life.
We have definitely fallen in love with this country, and its tragedy just makes what it is today even more contradictory. It's by no means a happy country, the corruption is immense and the poverty is everywhere. There's also a strange disconnection to its history. Kids aren't even taught about the Khmer Rouge in school- maybe because some of them are still, i do not lie, high in the government. Still, moving on from here is going to be a relief though i will never forget that stupa with its skulls or those thousands of faces at Toul Sleng.
Tuesday 24 March 2009
Kampot
Kampot province is pretty much hammock town. Everyone is lazing around in hammocks. Shopkeepers, kids, fishermen, they are laying low and easy in the shade. Our guesthouse is on the river, on stilts. I'm drinking Angkor, the local brew. Dry, easy-drinking and tasty.
We met a local guy named Sarrat who is really cool. He took us to a local 'bar' where they make and serve the 'palm wine' that I've heard so much about. This place is a shanty by a water hole with mats rolled out in the spots of shade. He translates the chirpy old lady who runs the place, turns out we're the first foreigners to grace this fine establishment. He does the ordering and we get some chili pork and also some chili duck. Delicious.
The palm wine is like a spirit, it tastes fine and sweet by god damn it gets you drunk. Fast. The three of us shared a small water bottle and get ultra-tipsy while this old guy orders a bottle for himself. We pay next to nothing for this meal because Sarrat does the ordering. There is a foreigner tax for EVERYTHING here. If you don't speak the language people try to get you to pay a good 90% more. We're fortunate that Sarrat agrees to be our guide for the next day.
Monday 23 March 2009
Ain't no party like a Cambodian bus par-tay-ho-hey
Cambodian local buses. Allritey, here's how it rolls. Two words: Cambodian Karaoke. There's a TV there in the front, there's speakers above your head (mine is the only one working for this particular journey, typical) and yeah. It goes nuts really. The whole 6-hour trip. Hit after hit. Off key, bad takes, HORRIBLE SYNTH TRUMPET they just love it. McGee half-jokes that we should get off at an earlier town to escape the wailing. I half-agree, we're trying to sleep but the volume fluctuates randomly. At one point it sounds like a kettle slowly comes to boil in the background and I wonder if this effect is intended by the artists, or if I've overlooked kitchen appliances in my own music production. One song ends, there's three seconds of silence tops before a synth drum fill introduces the next symphony of horrible noises and I nearly wet myself laughing every time because it's as grating on the senses as it is hysterical. Ah the public bus. Looking forward to the next one.
Sunday 22 March 2009
Phnom Pehn
Phnom Penh is unlike any other place we've seen in southeast Asia thus far. It's dirty, and everybody wants your money. I don't feel safe here at all. This kid selling us books is telling us how often the kids will try and see if you have a lot of cash on you and then phone an older brother or someone who will then follow you around for a while and find the appropriate time to rob you. He says he saw this happen a month ago, this guy slashes a tourist's money pouch with a knife cutting her arm in the process. He reports it to the police and runs away, because corruption is big here and this mugger is probably going to beat the crap out of the kid. Luckily the mugger is in jail for 15 years. The kid says he's confident that he'll be big and strong enough to defend himself from a middle-aged man when the sentence is up. I'll be he's right.For McGee's birthday we went to a highly regarded and recommended Italian restaurant run by a real live Italian gentleman. We're both craving not-rice at this point and I order a carbonara. You can't go wrong with carbonara. Pasta, egg, bacon, cheese oh how I've missed you all my friends. Instead of a regular birthday cake we had banana pancakes in our room which was pretty neat. I had burgers for the following two nights here then it was off to Kampot on the first local bus in the morning.
Thursday 19 March 2009
Tuol Sleng (S21), Phnom Penh
Again, this isn't a very pleasant read to skip it if you like.
Horrible pictures alert
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