Cambodia - Part 19

Monday 30th October 2007

From dust I have come and to dust I shall return…

A few weeks ago the Cambodians celebrated Pchum Ben, a time of year when most Khmers go back to their home town, to meet their family and pay respect the dead. For three days they go to the local pagoda, make offerings and remember their relatives who have passed on. In one of those strange coincidents that haunt life, my grandmother passed away and I returned to my home town to meet with my family to pay our final respects.

It is always strange to go home; to go from such an extremely poor and underprivileged area to such a rich and comfortable one. It is hard to hear people complain about, what seem to me, trivial problems. I have to keep reminding myself that people only have their own experience and everything is relevant to that. But on the flight home to Sydney I had the displeasure of sitting near a particularly arrogant buffoon, who kept complaining to the stewards. ’I need more Tabasco for my bloody mary.’ ‘My fish is too dry I can’t eat it. Get me another one.’ I could have clocked him the head. I wanted to shout at him ‘You are on a plane! You are in economy class! Get over yourself!’. But I kept it in and ravaged the best meal that I had had in months. Either airline food has come along way or I was desperate.

Although, I have been expecting it for sometime and I thought I was prepared for it, it was still difficult getting the news about my Nanna. No doubt this was further exacerbated by the fact that I was in the middle of nowhere with no one really close to talk to about it. Even though I have travel much further a field in my times, I don’t think I have ever felt so far from home. At first I didn’t know what to feel and what to do. I was in reeling wandering around the house. I guess that is shock for you. But I got it together and got back home fairly quickly in the end.

Back home, everyone was much happier, making jokes and being more upbeat then I had imagined they would be. We don’t get together much these days, with us all living in different parts of the world. My parents, sisters and I have not stayed under one roof in about 10 years, so in many ways it was a happy reunion. But as usual everyone tried to boss me around.

The funny thing about families they can be simultaneously the most critical and supportive people in you life. They know the right and wrong things to say and don’t care if they offend you. But it was really nice to see them and my friends, to go to the funeral and to say one last goodbye along side them. I am not sure how I would have coped if I had stayed in Cambodia.

After a week at home, I flew to Bankok where I met up with Lainie. Prior to the news of my grandmother we had planned a two week holiday that was cut down to one week.

In some ways it was even more challenging being in Thailand than going home. Thailand, especially Bangkok, is so much more developed than Cambodia. They are right next to each other, but they seem worlds apart. Thais have free education, a better medical support system than in Australia, roads, gutters, efficient transport, drinkable tap water, tourism and stacks of people. But there are heaps and heaps of sexpats lurking about.

From Bangkok we went to Chaing Mai where spent a few days looking at things around the moated city and a few more days trekking in the national park. Despite the fact it rained and, due to a pair of cheap Market bought shoes, I spent much of the trek sliding down muddy slopes on my arse, it was, by far, the highlight of Chaing Mai. We spent three days walking through the beautiful mountains staying with local Karen people (a minority hill group). We also went out to visit a Hmong village and to several pagodas.

The next few days we spent in Phuket, where the tourism and over development almost destroys the natural beauty of the beaches. The water was so clear and the sand so white. Paradise with people. Fortunately, we were staying a bit away from the busier beaches, so it wasn’t too bad. Lainie’s sister, her husbands (Lainie’s sisters husband that is) and their baby girl were staying in Phuket for a week, so we went to meet them. On one of the days we took a tour out to the islands, with about 500 other people, and saw the magnificent natural formations of Phi Phi Island, and went snorkelling on some beautiful reefs. Despite the people, it was still nice.

So I have been back at work this week and I have heaps to do. I only have two months left now and I wanted to make the most of it work and travel wise. This weekend has been another long week – Coronation Day. Long live the king! Today we went out to visit a friend of a friend of mine who is building a cultural village about an hour away from Kampong Thom. They are making a mini Angkor Watt, Prah Vihear, some mountains and islands with villas. It is in a nice spot and will be quite nice when it is finished – alas, that is about 3 years away.

On Saturday, Shin and I had a busy day back in Kampong Thom.

First, we went out to a farm with some of Shin’s colleagues where I had another run in with death as they slaughtered a goat. We got to watch as they cut it up. I have never watched an animal be slaughtered from start to spit, so it was all kind of gross to me. I am such a city boy. For some reason I was particularly put off by the splitting of the ribs and, because that is the way my life works and I had that thought, I got the ribs to eat. It was almost enough to make me want to be vegetarian. Cambodians, like most Asians, are not squeamish when it comes to meat. They eat the whole thing. It was a male goat, and perhaps predictably, Shin and I were also given the penis and balls to eat. I ate it, but I felt violated. So, if you are wondering what goat dick tastes like, you take a piece of string, wrap it in lamb fat and char grill it beyond recognition and it wouldn’t be far off. The balls, on the other hand, were far more diverse in flavour and texture. A very chewy outside or ‘sack meat’ that tasted similar to the penis, and stayed in my mouth far too long, with a softer tofu like consistency inner bit that had an odd egg white lamb-esk taste. I almost retched. But I got it down in the end – I swallow rather than spit - and we washed it down with copious amounts of beer. It is with a mixture of pride and gut churning illness that I re-count this event.

In the afternoon we headed out to watch the annual Kampong Thom boat races. We had been trying to angle our way onto one of the boats but, alas, had failed. So we contented ourselves by drinking beer with the locals and watching the races from the bank. It is a fairly big event on the Kampong Thom province social diary - heaps of the villagers came into town to watch. The crowd was 10 deep at the finish line and about 40 boats racing two by two. The boats are narrow long and brightly painted with, you guessed it - dragons! In the bigger boats about 50 stand and row with their whole bodies. It is amazing that they keep in time and don’t capsize. The bests boats go to Phnom Penh for the big races during the national water festival in November.

In the evening, I went along to another party. There is a new foreigner, Oskar, in town with his Khmer fiancé and they were having a house warming. The party was a typical Khmer affair. Men on one side of the room, women on the other. Great food, loads of beer and dancing around a table. But it was still fun. I realised while I was there just how much my Khmer has improved. I was having conversations right, left and centre.

On Sunday I followed up my hangover with another party. This one was for one of my drinking buddies’, Peng, kids birthdays. Another drinking friend, Taut, has just had a new born, so it was a bit of a double celebration of young life. It is a bit unusual for Khmers to celebrate birthdays, but the richer ones do. Again there was great food, beer and dancing around a table. The kids sprayed foam and silly string while the fathers threw cake at each other. I was enjoying dancing with the kids (sometimes I get the feeling I get invited to things for my entertainment value) but owing to the excitement of the previous day I made my excuses and left early to watch a ghost movie on TV.

Last week, when I got back from work I noticed that one of the staff (who lives with my boss out the back of the office – I am not sure how they are related) had two black eyes and appeared to be nursing his ribs. The other staff told me he had been in a bad traffic accident a few days before. It was too expensive for home to stay in the hospital so the family were looking after him. He had been on a moto with two of his friends when they crashed with another moto. One of his friends died and the rest were badly injured. Not wearing a helmet - he was lucky.

The other day I also had the miss-fortune of walking in on some staff watching a graphic Police video from a tourist bus crash in Vietnam. The video featured dead people missing all sorts of body parts, one especially terrible decapitation, lying contoured over the road. It was clearly a terrible accident and nearly the whole office was watching it together. I was both repulsed and intrigued by the video. I had never seen anything quiet so graphic before.

And so it is that I have been thinking about death a bit of late. I use to think that the Khmers had a certain nonchalance to death, that they did not value life as much as we did; that they had more children in order to compensate for their lack of life span. Certainly the way they flaunt safety on the roads and on building sights gives that impression. But the reaction of my Khmer friends from work when I told them that my grandmother had died was both tender and compassionate. To them, it was clear that I should go home and grieve with my family. For Khmer people, it is important to look after your family and to grieve with them. But I have come to realise that I was, yet again, brining my own cultural prejudice to the fore. I was judging their ways from my own experiences. Khmers don’t know how to do things more safely, or if they do, then the cost of doing things safer, exceeds the value of doing something. Like us, they take calculated risks. It is just that calculations in a developing world are lower than in the developed world. Death is more frequent, public and accepted - but it is still a time for grief and respect.

I hope everyone is well.

Good bye Nanna. I miss you.

Erin