The Southeast was once again the amazingest sans a few minor incidents. My personal experience was a bit different than Yussef’s in many ways, but ‘memorable’ if not traumatizing. First, on the bus to the airport, the dude I was sitting next to threw up on himself. It just spilled out of his mouth with all the accompanying sound effects, then spread all over my and my row’s footspace. On the plane, our flight attendant asked if I was with-child. I’m assuming it was because of the dress I was wearing, but disheartening to say the least. Later on in the trip, I got sexually assaulted by a teenage cambodian boy while I was riding my bike. He creeped up on his moto, reached out and grabbed my breast then sped off into the red, hot, Cambodian distance. From here on out, I was on-guard without any more major incidences until we arrived back in Bangkok where I got hit by a tuk-tuk, once again while I was on my bike. Worst of all though was probably the stares I got for being a Southeast Asian woman travelling with an obviously ‘foreign’ dude, especially while in Thailand.
While meeting up with Yussef’s family, we spent some time in Pattaya, Thailand…the home of sleeze and exploitation for big, horny, western men to get it on with little Southeast Asian women or ‘katoys’ (Thai ‘lady-boys’)…but also the home of some beautiful beaches and fun-in-the-sun. Anyway, my point here is that it was quite difficult to try and enjoy the people I was with when my environment consisted of men and women eyeing me down for some sex or competition. In the rest of the Southeast, I didn’t mind getting mistaken for a local, it was actually quite the icebreaker. But it was in Pattaya where I made it clear that I was neither Thai nor a hooker. So to say the least, I dressed ultra-conservative (think black t-shirts in 100-degree weather), and spoke loudly in my American accent.
All of the sexploitation in Pattaya wasn’t the only negative western-local relationship that I encountered. Across most of Southeast Asia I couldn’t get over the outrageous prices that us ‘farangs’ were paying. From Siem Reap to the Thai border (roughly 150km), Yussef and I took a pick-up (think your dad’s early 1980 model toyota) in the blistering sun with 14 and at times 18 other Cambodians hanging off the back, top or side. It was beyond hot, a bit uncomfortable, bumpy, looooong, dusty, and at times unsafe, but all-good cuz it was a local-thing. We paid USD$15 for the ride, which was a bit much, but justifiable to us because we were traveling with our bikes. During the middle of the ride, we stopped for lunch where we struck up a conversation with one dude who was on his way home to Poipet after working for 2 months as a tuk-tuk driver in Siem Reap. I had a great time talking to him until he told me that he and the others only paid 8,000 riel for the ride…that’s USD$2. ‘Say whaaaaaat?’ One of the other passengers even had his motorbike strapped along for the ride as well. Furthermore, when the truck broke down and we had to switch to another truck, the driver communicated to us that he wanted us, and only us, to pay another USD$5. (In the end, our friends convinced him that that was unreasonable). This was the story EVERYWHERE. We paid USD$40 each to get into Angkor Wat, and were expected to pay almost double the price for every sort of transportation we took (be it tuk-tuk, water taxi, minibus, air-con bus, moto, etc) as well as double for every bit of food we bought. Certainly, we didn’t let this happen to us, and showed off our recently acquired haggling skills.
Certainly many will think that this is unfair of us, being that us Westerners are travelling and using up resources with our higher-valued currency. Whatever the case, I feel that the price inflation is outrageous, and the millions of other westerners who came before me are partly to blame. In many of the high-profile places we traveled to, I haggled the extra 50cents off of my water because I felt that if I didn’t the locals were exploiting me as a traveller. To them, I was a bank with a smile, unknowing of the value of money. At times I felt silly for doing this, but in the end, I had to remind myself that if I didn’t do it, then the next time I came, the practice would be so much more common. Inflation certainly also affects the locals. In Cambodia, we found out that gas prices were on the rise. From what I gathered, they were close to USD$2.50/gallon. Could this be the cause of all the extra money entering the economy? I’m not really sure, but I seem to feel that there’s a correlation between the two, and it seems that high prices for tourists still isn’t helping the local economy. (i.e. only half of the income generated by tourists at angkor wat goes back into the restoration, where the other half goes to the biggest oil company in cambodia, and none go to the villagers who live within. Even the child peddlers need to pay the cops to sell their goods within the grounds.)
Upon arriving back in Bangkok, we stayed in the infamous backpacker mecca of the world, Khao San, where everything ‘hippie’ and ‘rugged’ was sold to make your trip more ‘authentic’. There, they sold big hippie-third world-tie with a string-pants that only your most ‘cultured’ friend from Brazil wears, as well as sundresses, bandanas, neat wooden jewelry, etc. And they sold it at unbelievable prices, where if you just wandered off the avenue, it was sold for half the price. I think the Southeast Asians in the major hubs of the region are definitely attune to westerners being a bit careless when it comes to the chance to get a taste of change, and will charge enough for it. They’ll even give you dreadlocks (which I saw half a dozen men and women getting them ‘done’) for USD$20. All of this certainly can’t be blamed on the locals working to feed their families, I blame corruption in high places and the Westerners who pay the prices.
Future traveling will definitely need to be done in less concentrated areas of tourists. The better half of our trip was like our stay in Lam Say, Thailand, where the exchange of good food and company was done in a hut, on the side of a road, with 9 other Thai people who only had their smiles to communicate with. Or on the road between Trat and Hat Lek where a bunch of teenage boys we came upon paid for our meal just before they left. Or even a bumpy dusty truck where the people had so many questions for us but so little words. Other highlights include spending the night on the beach, hyena-dogs, the last leg to Hat Lek, riding into Cambodia, Sy and the boat ride to Sihanoukville, riding through Phnom Penh, Kampot, trekking Bokor, and so many others that words couldn’t even describe. This is the Thailand and Cambodia that we experienced for the most part, and it certainly overcomes that big rain cloud that is exploitation and greed. I just hope that as a traveller I reciprocated the peace and warmth that they showed me while they were being the world’s best hosts.
christinemarieo. 