Cambodia - Part 10

Sunday 1st July 2007

Study Tours and Dengue Fever

Dengue fever sucks. No two ways about it. It just bites. It is like having the flu really really badly – your body aches, cracking headaches, you burn up, get the shivers, you can’t eat, you eyes constantly burn, a metallic taste fills your mouth, an ugly rash appears and you feel nauseous. And then, just when you start to think you are getting better, you become overwhelmed by dizziness and exhaustion every time you stand up. You just have to lie around and get through it. But then comes the boredom. Apparently, I have hair loss to look forward to as well…

So, dengue - yeah, I’ve had it. I reckon that makes me hardcore now. It is also makes me the first amongst my intake to get dengue. We had a bet going to see who would get dengue or malaria first. I took line honours by two days when two of the other girls from Battambong showed up at the emergency clinic in Phnom Penh with distinctly similar symptoms. It turns out there is something of an epidemic in dengue through out Cambodia at the moment. Worst in 20 years. People are dropping like flies. Well, dropping like the little white and black day time mosquitos they carry the fever. Heaps of westerners came into the clinic while I was there. Everyone looked like crap.

When I first came down with it, I was in Sihanoukville. I had spent the night burning up, feeling awful, tossing and turning in a hotel bed. I had to go home via Phnom Penh anyhow, so decided to leave early and go see a doctor. I got to Phnom Penh after a four hour bus ride feeling worse – I had started turning blue and had the shivers really bad (due in part to the arctic air conditioning on the bus), despite the fact my temperature was almost 40. At the clinic they put me straight to bed and I had to spend 24 hours on a drip. Some of my mates in PP heard that I was sick and came down to visit. So, it wasn’t so bad in the clinic – I had my own nurse and they got me food from one of the nicest hotels in PP (not that I could eat it).

Eventually, my temperature came down and they released me from the clinic on the proviso that I didn’t ride any moto’s, I had someone to check up on me and I could come back every few days for a check up/blood test. The first few days I spent with Lainie in a hotel room – she bore the brunt of my moaning and generally whiney state, but was a complete angel about it. The next few days I spent at my friends Kate, Bek and Sophie’s house, in their spare room. By the end of the week I had watched so much crap TV (including all six episodes of star wars) and was sooo bored I was almost bouncing off the walls, but my white blood cells and platelet count had improved and I could go home.

So here I am - back at home in Kampong Thom, feeling good for the first time in a week and a half. Allegedly, I got off lightly. I was only knocked out for a little over a week. Dengue can be far worse and in some cases even fatal (mostly in children). But I got into the doctor pretty early and my body started making anti-bodies fairly quickly. On the up side I am l unlikely to get it again in Cambodia – there are several strands, but I have had the common one found in Cambodia. We will see. If I catch one of the other strands, it will be worse. Far worse.

While I was in the clinic I signed a waiver, so I could be flown to Bangkok hospital for medical treatment if necessary. Alas, it wasn’t necessary. Shame – I could have gone shopping…and I could have flown someone in to ‘look after me’.

So, it is nice to be back in Kampong Thom. I haven’t been here for over two weeks. It so peaceful here compared to the ‘big’ city of Phnom Penh.

Speaking of which I have a bit of bone to pick on the pronunciation of ‘Phnom Penh’. There are no silent ‘p’ in Khmer language. You pronounce the ‘p’ at the start of Phnom Penh. Somewhere, someone started saying ‘Nom Penh’ and now every traveller says it. It is infuriating. And it is wrong. Speak to some Khmer people – they pronounce the ‘p’ at the start. If anything they draw out the ‘e’ in penh more so it sounds more like p-eh-n. ‘Phnom’ it means mountain. If you want to anglicise surely you should say ‘fnom’ and be a real wanker. Sorry. It’s been bothering me.

And another thing – while I am dispelling myths about Cambodia – there are heaps of old people here. Admittedly a lot died during Pol Pot’s reign, but there are still heaps of them. I think that visitors might get the wrong impression, firstly, because Khmer people all look so young and, secondly, because the tourist areas attract young workers who have learnt to speak English. But there are heaps of older Khmers. Many of whom can speak French and attempt to speak it with people like me. Thankfully, I know how to say ‘I don’t speak French’ in both French and Khmer and English.

But I digress - back to my adventures.

As I mentioned, I was in Sihanoukville when I got sick. Sihanoukville is right down in the south of Cambodia on the Gulf of Thailand. There are beaches and hotels and bars and karaoke places and a massive problem with sex tourism (and the associated problems with that). Now to dispel another myth – the problem is both with Khmer people and foreigners. Although there are quite a few sleazy looking foreigners milling about, there are far more sleazy Khmer guys. They go down to the karaoke bars get drunk with the boys, singing and dancing, and then all the boys rock down the local brothel or hotel and sleep with their ‘girlfriends’ (girlfriend is often used as a euphemism for a sex worker). Inevitably, their girlfriends have contracted HIV and pass it onto their boyfriends who then pass it on to their wives and the rest of their family. A side effect of this is that there are increased numbers of orphans and vulnerable children, who then with a lack of support from their parents, are more open to being exploited by employees and child sex tourists. And the cycle goes on…

This is not to say Sihanoukville is ugly. Quite the contrary, it is the nicest part of Cambodia that I have been to. The long drive there winds through thick green tropical mountains. Absolutely beautiful. And the beach – well it’s a beach, with surf, islands, bungalows, bars and boats. Unfortunately we were there on a study tour rather than a holiday, so I got to see the ugly side as well.

It was great to go swimming though. I even tried to teach some of the guys from the office how to swim. But they refused to put their heads under the water properly, so I gave up. The first time we went swimming the guys from the office saw my hairy chest for the first time and I heard the words ‘oh my god, you are hairy like a monkey’. I told them that in Australia you are not considered a man unless you could grow hair on your chest. That shut them up. Well, for a little bit.

While we were on the beach we saw quite a few western women getting around in bikini’s. The Khmer girls go in pretty much fully clothed, so it really stands out when someone is wearing a bikini and they are white. It looked to me like they were practically naked. A point not missed by the guys from the office, who got very excited when a near naked women walked passed. One, to my dismay, even broke out some binoculars. I am not sure who was more in the wrong though – the guys for drooling so much over a little bit of flesh or the girls for not being culturally sensitive.

Study tour - another euphemism. When it was first mentioned that we were going on a ‘study tour’ I thought ‘cool, a couple of us will go down there, see what’s going on by day and chill out with a few beers in the evening’. I wasn’t entirely wrong. What I didn’t expect was that the whole office was going and that half of the office was also bringing their friends and family (including the kids). It was a bit more like a big family holiday than a study tour.

About 30 of us crammed into a little mini bus for the 7 hour drive to Sihanoukville (another 20 or so were crammed into the bosses four wheel drive). Thankfully the guys at work realised I was a little bigger and needed ‘two’ seats in the bus. ‘Two’ seats by Khmer standards is actually what I would consider to be ‘one’ seat. And a small seat at that – on the front seat next to the driver. I had the gear stick under one leg and the other pinned against the tape player (every time we hit a bump, my knee changed the direction of the tape). But still, it was better than being stuck in the back five to a bench seat.

We got to Sihanoukville, after about 200 snack and pee breaks. Anytime anyone was hungry, we all stopped, which meant it was really slow going. But we got there.

I think it seemed particularly long to me, because I had spent 7 hours getting back from Poipet the day before. I had gone to Poipet to visit Lainie for the long weekend. Lainie gets a bit more adventurous with me around and we took a long moto ride out amongst the surrounding villages which was quite nice, but almost ended in tragedy when we had to negotiate a small river to get back on the main road.

In Sihanoukville, most of us (there were too many of us to stay in one place) stayed in a little hotel opposite the beach. I said I didn’t mind sharing and ended up with four other guys in a twin bed room. I was actually sharing a bed. But it was with one of the other guys from the office (the beds were doubles) and everyone left their clothes on so it wasn’t too bad. I contemplated freaking them out and going nude, but decided against it.

Now, there are times where I really like aspects of Khmer culture and other times when it is completely frustrating. I like that they want to be inclusive and get everyone to go to do things together, but it is also annoying. Particularly when there is 50 of you and you spend hours waiting in the car park for one person to have a shower or something. I have been cramped in a van for hours. I can see the beach. I have my swimmers on. It’s hot. I am sweating. I want to go swimming. So why am I waiting in the car park!!! And so the pace for the week was set. There was a lot of waiting about, particularly in car parks, but I compensated by being slower at getting dressed.

The study tour itself was interesting though. We visited an organisation that was working on projects dealing mostly with sex tourism and HIV/AIDs projects. We went out to some of the villages (shanty towns in the shadows of massive hotels) where HIV was rife and visited a support group for ‘Men who have sex with other men’ (MSM).

The MSM group was basically a group of cross dressers and gay men - they meet once a month in a little hairdressing salon to swap stories and beauty ideas. Most of the MSM work in with sex tourists. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from my colleagues or the gay men themselves. But in a strange way, it seems to be quite acceptable to be gay in Cambodia. They have their own TV show. Not bad considering their low numbers. The guys from the office didn’t really seem to have much of a problem with it and asked lots of questions (in typical Khmer style – they are very curious people and not afraid to ask). We watched a ‘lady boy’ competition on video. It was really sad. I had to try and not to laugh. I could make a better woman than some of them and I certainly could dance better than the majority of them. Basically the ‘show’ consisted of them getting dressed and made up like a traditional Khmer princesses and walked slowly back and forth across a stage. I wanted to get copy and send it to my gay friends back home. They need some help - A bit of queer eye for the queer guys intervention is definitely in order. But you know, at least they are trying.

So after a day and a half of ‘study tour’ we had another day and a half ‘free time’ (while my boss went to meetings). We spent one afternoon driving around and seeing the sights of Sihanoukville. There is a beautiful old art deco hotel (the king’s former summer residence – a legacy of French colonialism) that is perched atop a cliff with lovely private beaches. There are some other really nice resorts too. After that some of the guys took one of the cars and headed to Kampot, but I have been to Kampot, so I decided to stay on in Sihanoukville and enjoy the beach.

After four days of constant contact with the guys from work (eating, drinking, swimming, playing soccer, study touring and sleeping), I decided it was in my interests of my mental health to do a runner and go for a walk on my own. So I snuck off to the more ‘western’ part of the beach to eat a hamburger. Alas, it was also then that I started feeling ill. It was possibly karma, but I doubt it. And so started my bout with dengue.

Tonight it is much cooler. It is raining and I can here the rain tapping against the metal awnings. I can be so peaceful here. I am going to sleep well tonight. Although, I am not looking forward to splashing myself with cold water tomorrow morning. I really must fix the hot water system.

I hope all is well at home.

Take Care,
Erin