Cambodia - Part 23

Sunday 6th July 2008

I blog therefore I spam

It has been a strange and uncertain few months. It feels like my life has been in a state of constant flux. After my contract with IDP ended I decided to stay on in Cambodia and look for some more international work. So for the first time since I was 13, I found myself unemployed. At first it was kind of fun and liberating, but then it got boring and tedious as I spent days searching for jobs, writing applications and waiting, waiting, waiting for people to get back to me. Dull. So I to pack up my bag and hit the road for a while.

My first trip was to India. I had been wanting to visit India for a long time. I had very strong and exotic images of what I thought India would be like in my mind - inspired by the works of great Indian authors such as Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy. I imagined great crumbling cities filled with colour, aromas and bustle. And in many ways I was not disappointed – this India certainly existed, but there is so much more. It was so diverse and there was stunning natural beauty I was just not prepared for…

My trip started in Dehli where I met Emma, a good friend of mine from Sydney. We use to work together at the City of Sydney, but now Emma works full time as a Massage Therapist. She has her own business back home, but had been working in India massaging for 20-20 cricket teams.

I arrived late at night in the crumbling Dehli airport terminal with no plan or guide book (I had recently decided that I don’t like guide books any more – it is much more fun/interesting to talk to people and find your own way around AND you don’t get caught up in the whole paranoia that you might be getting ripped off because the guidebook says so – give yourself over to the experience I say – getting ripped off occasionally is part of that) and only a vague sense of how I was going to meet up with Emma. Thankfully India has telephones (that was a safe bet because I have spoken to numerous telemarketers on the subcontinent). So I called her and after a little confusion (mostly from me) I found myself in a van with an Aussie family heading to a swish hotel near the airport where I would rendezvous with Emma and her friend. After a quick hello and my first Indian lime soda (soon to be a staple) we jumped back into the van and headed to a beautiful old Maharaja fort cum hotel overlooking a small town outside of Dehli. Not bad for my first night in India…

Initially, I planned to stay in India for 3 weeks and return to Cambodia to hear about jobs, but while I was traveling it became apparent there was no need to rush back, and so I ended up extending my trip 6 weeks in India.

For the first 3 weeks I traveled with Emma. Our first stop was in Jaipur with it’s pink city and grand fort perched atop a big hill – across Agra to see the perhaps greatest tribute to love and in of the most iconic buildings in the world: the Taj Mahal (And it was an arranged marriage. Go figure.) – back to Dehli for a flight – up over the stunning Himalayas to the sublimely beautiful town of Leh and the surrounding Ladakh area in the far north – back down (past the disputed territory) to Kashmir Jammu which was unremarkable except for the wild hemp plants growing along the side of the road – across to Dharamshala/McLeod Ganj where the Dali Lama lives and hippies thrive in the green green foot hills of the Himalayas – down to Shimla woodlands a former British summer outpost – down the to modern grid-planned city of Chandigah to meet some friends of Emma and back to Dehli.

It was a lot of fun travelling with Emma. I often travel alone, so it was really nice to share the experience with someone. A lot of funny things happened to us. All the Indians assumed we were married and we played on this a lot. On one train ride we told these two young university students that we were in an open relationship. They were in awe - it was funny. Another time we pretended we were on the verge of getting divorced ‘this was a make or break trip and, to be quite frank, it broke’.

Emma had been telling me that she had some problems, as a young woman, with guys (both Indian and foreigners) in India and it was quite strange travelling with her – despite the fact she was dressed conservatively and was clearly travelling with me nearly all the guys would stare at her. Outside of the big cities or tourist areas, young women don’t get out much, they are still kept at home and marriages are still arranged. The women’s movement still has a long way to go in India, there is still a lot of discrimination against women, which I found a bit incongruous given how open minded people were towards religion. It was not uncommon to see people walking around with the Hindu dot on the forehead, the red string of the Buddhists slung around their wrist and a Christian cross dangling around their neck. I guess they were just covering all their bases.

I remember when I was at primary school, it was a big joke that in India people eat with right hand and go to the toilet with the left – so you never touch anyone with your left hand. Even so, it came to me as quite a surprise that this is still largely the case for ordinary Indians. I can’t say I got very good with either. Although I must say - eating with your fingers is fun, except when you are trying to eat rice with curry. Those juicy little buggers are had to scoop up! Having said that – the food in India was fantastic (better than Indian Home Dinner in Newtown!); curries, breads, pickles, fruits, sticky sweets…yuuuuuuummm…I don’t think I had a bad meal, nor did I get sick (I reckon I have had every bug imaginable in Cambodia – my immune system is so strong now). Which is probably a lucky thing because, due to the lack of toilet paper, I would have had to use my left hand to clean it up…

Anyhow, so Emma left after three weeks to return to Australia and I kicked on for a few more weeks solo. From Dehli I flew to Mumbai (aka Bombay) and the meandered down the west coast through Goa, Mangalore and Kerela.

Each state of India was so distinct and diverse. This really surprised me. Although most Indians speak Hindi and many speak English, most also speak a local dialect and maintain local customs. In the far north the people are much more Asiatic in appearance (sharing more in common with their Nepalese neighbours than the mainland of India), they eat lots of stews and noodle dishes (including a new favourite momos; similar to a Chinese dumpling, but maid with a more bread like outside), the landscape is mountainous, every little town has a beautiful old monastery perched above it and the religion is mostly Buddhist. While in the far south of Kerala, the men wear dhotis (like a sarong) instead of pants, the local breakfast is dosa (pancake stuffed with vegetable and meat), there is a lot more seafood, the people are much darker (distinctly Indian) and the landscape is tropical – large fresh water lakes wind around islands and peninsulas clumped with coconut trees. Strangely, despite their differences both of these areas (the far north and the far south) were my favorites in India.

But I had some good times in other places – in Mumbai I went to a 20-20 match where I was the only white guy in the crowd (Sachin Tendalker’s Mumbai team thrashed Warnie’s Rajistan team) and went through the slums which was interesting - much more vibrant and colourful than I thought it would be. Did a little yoga retreat on the beach in Goa and met some locals who took me to eat the best fish I ever ate in my life…

After six weeks though, I was bit over traveling, especially on my own. Although I met some lovely fellow travellers and locals, I also bumped into my fair share of hippies and morons. It’s funny that places like India (and Cambodia) seem to attract really diverse personality types. Personally, I could not imagine how one could be ‘traveling’ for ten years or why you would go all the way to India to learn about Buddhism without every having read about it…but that is what some people do.

So by the time I got back to Phnom Penh I was ready to follow up my job applications and to, hopefully, finalise something. Sadly, I was to be disappointed. Although I had a few prospects, none of them were moving particularly quickly, meanwhile my visa was running out and I was starting to run short of money. I had decided while I was in India that if nothing came up in within two weeks after me returning to Cambodia then I was going to go to Thailand and Laos before flying home (arriving home broke). The prodigal son returns. So, half packing my bags ready to go, I searched and waited for two weeks. And nothing. So I packed my bags, organised my visa’s, organised a bus ticket and then the phone rang…I had an interview for a job in Phnom Penh I hadn’t rated myself on getting – mostly because they advertised extensively on popular international development websites (and would have gotten hundreds of applications by my estimation).

I went to the interview and it went well. But I still had my doubts and continued with my departure plan (all the while sleeping on the floor at my friends houses). Three days before I intended to leave, I got a call back – they wanted me to come back for a second interview the next day. The second interview also went well and was considerably less formal than the first. I was starting to suspect they liked me. So I left that interview thinking that I still had to leave because my visa was due to expire. Later that day they called me back and asked me to come and meet the local staff. So, the day before I was due to leave I went in and met the staff. After which I started to feel more confident. They then told me that I should go to Laos, sort out your visa and come back ‘you can be pretty confident at this stage’. And so it was that I went to Laos (via Battambong and Bangkok) feeling confident that I would have a great new job when I got back. A job which I am happy to say, I will be starting tomorrow!

The new job is with an International NGO called Pact. I will be working as the (inhale deep breath) ‘Strengthening Governance and Accountability – Monitoring, Evaluating, Reporting and Learning Coordinator’ (why do I always get jobs with really, really long titles?!). What that means in layman terms is that I will be measuring the impact of to projects across Cambodia. The first being a project aimed at improving the effectiveness and accountability of local government and the second aimed at reducing corruption (there is a lot of room to move with this in Cambodia – it is consistently rated internationally as a poor performer in this area). I have a strong interest in both and am looking forward to working with Pact on these issues. And I am getting paid to do it! Another great thing is that it ties in directly with my Masters. So, I am happy and relieved at the moment. I was really worried about going back to a boring desk job in Australia.

And so it was that I also went to Thailand and Laos. After months of travelling on a budget, it was nice to let go a little bit. In Bangkok I went a little wild at the markets and bought heaps of new clothes. I also went to the cinema for the first time in at least a year and a half. Something I have really missed here. The cinema was great! But the movie itself was lame – saw ‘the happening’ with Mark Walberg. I am sorry but Marky Mark can not pull off being a science teacher.

After Bangkok I flew up to Luang Prabang in the north of Laos. In many ways Laos is similar to Cambodia, but at the same time there is definitely a stronger Thai and Vietnamese influence. It surprised me how developed and clean it seemed compared to Cambodia. I was under the impression that Laos was the poor cousin in SE Asia. But (the tourist areas at least) are much better maintained than in Cambodia. I guess the corruption in Cambodia really stops things from happening. Someone really should do something about that…

Luang Prabang is a picturesque town set in lush green hills. The fat brown waters of the Mekong sweep around a little town made up of neat wooden houses, restaurants, pagodas. I was there in the ‘off season’ but there were still plenty of tourists around. A lot of people go to Laos for the ‘adventure’ holiday. There are vast tracks of unspoiled forest (the Laos government is the only one in SE Asia to preserve their natural heritage before most of it was felled) containing lots of waterfalls and rivers where your adventure tourist can go swimming, caving, kayaking, abseiling, hiking…whatever turns them on really and there is a massive tourists industry taking advantage of this. I spent a few days in Luang Prabang taking boat rides, swimming and checking out some beautiful waterfalls before heading south to Vang Vieng (keeping on a well worn tourist track).

Vang Vieng is another town set in beautiful location. The Nam Song river cuts quickly through the town and a number of makeshift bamboo bridges perch over the river – offering easy access. Around the town there are several big caves hollowed out of the vast stark grey/green limestone cliff faces. But in the town itself, it is a bit like a big frat party. Along the main road backpackers hang about in small bars watching endless reruns of Friends and Hollywood movies…it’s a surreal place. It is like someone took a bit of Bangkok and whacked into the middle of this sleepy little town.

After Vang Vieng I headed down to the capital ‘city’ of Laos – Vientiane. Perched on the banks on the Mekong Vientiane would have to be the smallest and most relaxed city I have ever been to. The population is only about 300,000 – making it about a tenth the size of Phnom Penh which ain’t saying much…

The food in Laos was surprisingly good as well. They love to BBQ - especially fish and chicken. They have a great snack made from river weed (like sea weed) covered in sesame seed and deep fried. And the national dish Laab (minced meat and herbs served on rice) is also very tasty.

So I am back in Phnom Penh and have spent the week settling back in – looking for a new house, buying some clothes for work, etc, etc…looks like I will be here for another year at least.