February 17, 2015

I threw up in a car, then I threw a hand grenade

christinelouise Asia, Travel Talk 2015, Asia, Cambodia, gun, handgrenade, mad monkey, phnom penh, shooting

Phnom Penh, Cambodia: Here is a story about semi-drunk people handling weapons and the content of their stomachs. (null)

So it’s Valentines Day and I arrive in Phnom Penh. Even though it’s early morning when I leave the airport, traffic is a bitch, and my ride to Mad Monkey Hostel is taking well over an hour. When I get there, there are still two hours until check-in. When I finally get in my bed, the sweet 14-year old cleaning lady Sopan is being very chatty. She finally leaves me alone so I can get a few hours of sleep.

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When I wake up, the sun has set and I run into Pete, a Pink Palace friend. It’s totally not weird being a boy and a girl travelling together on Valentine’s Day. We eat ramen for dinner and then check out the bar on the top of our hostel. It’s 8 o’clock and we start out with a shot of absinth. Then we do bazookas, grenades, beers, mimosas and basically anything that’s in a glass. Since it’s Valentine’s Day, there’s red and white paint to use on our faces. I paint Pete’s face white and put a red hand print in the middle of his face, naming him Wilson after the volleyball in Castaway.

We end up in a corner with a group of new friends, singing Wonderwall and Save Tonight with Linda on a guitar that’s just lying around. We (and by that, I mean I) go hunting for burgers and find new friends… I think. After Mad Monkey’s bar closes, we go to a bar and do balloons. Pete and I get lost on the way home.

What I’m trying to say is that we had an epic night, but we don’t really remember it. People we’ve never seen before come up and talk about how much fun we had together last night. In the morning, we’re a bit drunk, but not feeling too hung over until we get picked up by a car to go to a shooting range. I am sitting in the back, trying to take deep breaths, while Pete talks about things that make me want to throw up, like food. Since the drive is around 2 hours, I eventually give in and I end up throwing up in a trash can until there’s nothing left to throw up but bile. This is painful and I hate my life, but I continue to giggle over the burping noises I make while spewing. I am being as quiet as possible, and Pete hands me baby wipes and a disposable toothbrush, so I think I’ve gotten away with this without being noticed by the drivers.

Suddenly, we are parked in the middle of nowhere, and a few guys on scooters arrive with some big duffel bags full of weapons. Pete notes that the weapons look old, like the Vietnam War Era old. We are handed a set of earplugs, and within the first five minutes, Pete has an RPG in his hand and is shooting at a mountain.

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After that, they put an M16 in my hand and have me shooting water bottles and coconuts. I am not cut out to be a sniper, I tell ya that. Eventually I hit a water bottle, which sends it flying, and then they hand me a Makarov that is even harder to aim with. It’s just so much fun though! Pete plays around with an AK47, and then he gets a bright idea: I should throw a hand grenade!

They make me do a few test throws into a pit and then suddenly, kinda without warning, the guy pulls the pin. I just hurry up and throw it away and forget all about throwing myself on the ground, until the guy pulls me down and I hear the explosion. That is fucking awesome!

Posing with the RPG just ’cause

We get in the car and prepare for another 2 hours on the road, when Pete gets the bright idea to throw out the clear plastic bag full of my vomit. I want to do it myself when we get back to the hostel, but he just grabs the bag and shows everyone what I’ve eaten this morning. I’m getting a bit embarrassed, because it is really fucking disgusting. And of course, I get angry at him when I suddenly want to vomit again, and the bag is gone.

Back at the hostel, we sit at a table at the restaurant area and hang out with some friends. Eventually, several hours and ciders later, we end up at the upstairs bar. It’s Sunday, so no one is going too crazy. At least not yet. We play songs on the guitar and some foos ball, forcing drinks down our throats and slowly getting more incoherent. The bar closes at midnight and Pete and I feel like going to bed, but we end up partying with all of our roommates but two Californian girls. We get some drinks, a deck of cards and play drinking games for several hours. Pascal from Germany tells me only Norwegians are Vikings, and I get so upset with him that I beat him up with a rose – yes, a rose. Staff keeps coming over to get us to be quiet, but we can’t help it. We decide to go back to our room, but we keep talking and eventually one of the girls tell us to shut up. Oops.

A teapot of booze

We wake up pretty late the following day, not feeling too good. We look into a few things to do, but everything seems so expensive, so Pete goes for a massage and I go to take a nap when Sopan comes in. We talk until Pete gets back, which means I don’t even have the nap I so desperately wanted.

At night we end up drinking pretty heavily at the bar. We play cards and flip cup and beer pong and then a small group of us decide to head to Club 88, a karaoke place in a fancy hotel. Here, we get an expensive private room ($70!) and sing everything from the theme of Titanic to Bon Jovi for several hours.

Without a word, Pete and an Aussie girl leave the room and we don’t see them again, until we walk in on them in our dorm room. Awkward, since I had loudly planned to grab one of Pete’s water bottles by his bed. Grandpa, our roommate who did karaoke with us, tags along to the nearby In N Out Mart for some water and to give the couple some privacy. As soon as we’ve decided their 5 minutes have passed, we walk back to the room to find them gone, but one of our other roommates loudly snoring and swearing in his sleep.

Another morning, another hangover. I throw up and then eat some yoghurt before we get on a bus to Siem Reap, which takes us a total of 10 hours. At one of our restaurant stops we are almost left behind by the driver. I can’t deal with that kind of stress when I’m hungover, to be honest, but we arrive in one piece, and finally find our hostel, and it’s really nice. Now it’s time to tuck in early, maybe we should actually do something with our lives tomorrow.

I also hope everyone back home is hanging in there. #weprayforcopenhagen

June 2, 2014

Phenomenal day out

christinelouise Asia, NovaTOURient, Travel Talk 2014, Asia, Cambodia, phnom penh

As you can tell by the embarassing picture above, this is a much less depressing post. Ages ago, I saw a picture on Instagram of one of my friends dressed up in a traditional khmer dress and I immediately decided I was going to do the same when I got to Cambodia.

So fast forward to the present, where we are heading down to Sihanouk Boulevard, where the vegetarian restaurant we ate at the evening before is. We are craving the food once again, because we actually miss somewhat healthy food, so we go and I got a bagel with salmon and accidentally pick a cinnamon and raisin bagel because I think it’s a wholewheat bagel….FML. After that, we are on the look for a shop where I can get my picture taken (Sara doesn’t want to do it, but tags along anyway). We find a place and I am taken into a studio, where I get my hair and make-up done first. The lady uses white eyeshadow for powder, soo much blush, 5 kinds of eyeshadows on my eyes, a lot of brow- and eyeliner and massive false lashes! Oh, and lipstick and gloss. I look like a drag queen, and I am loving it. Then the make-up lady puts a massive wig-thing on the back of my head and starts combing my own hair over it. Then she takes out the clothes and jewelry – my favorite part! The dress is a corset that’s way too tight and a stiff piece of fabric that has to be folded for ages to make a skirt. And then she put heels on me. What a turn-off. A photographer comes in and takes pictures, but not before moving my body into these awkward poses for me.

Cue overload of me-pictures:

After this shamelessness I promise I won’t show you more pictures of my posing awkwardly in HD, but I will tell you that it would make you cringe.

Anyways, after taking the pictures, they take off the clothes and jewelry, let my hair down and takes the lashes off. The make-up is still there though, so I put on sunglasses and hope for the best. I end up getting the photos on my USB, as I can’t wait three days for Photoshopping to be done. We go back home (me still looking like a drag queen) and I shower. That just had to be done. Then we have lunch and later also dinner at the same restaurant where we had breakfast! We’re awful, we know. It’s called Vego by the way, and it has great salad.

Now it’s time to say goodbye to Phnom Penh and its three massive rainfalls a day. Sihanouk Ville, here we come!

June 2, 2014

Penhful day out

christinelouise Asia, NovaTOURient, Travel Talk 2014, Asia, Cambodia, Choeung Ek, khmer rouge, killing fields, phnom penh, S-21 security prison, tuol sleng

Phnom Penh is the capitol of Cambodia. 39 years ago, everyone living here was forced to leave their homes to start a new life in the countryside under the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot wanted a complete agrarian society, and all intellectuals (doctors, teachers ect.) and anyone who was weak or otherwise in the way, was promptly executed. One of the most popular places to visit in this city today, is the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, an old high school turned into the S-21 security prison and execution center. My source, Wikipedia, estimates that between 17,000-20,000 people were imprisoned in the 4 years it was running as a prison. People were usually charged with working with CIA or supporting the old Non Lol regime, and were tortured until they confessed. There can still be seen blood on the floors of the tiny cells and interrogation/torture rooms.

Furthermore, there is a museum with pictures of all the prisoners, their biographies, and a collection of skulls. There is a graveyard in the playground area for the 14 corpses that were found once the prison was shut down – pictures of some of the corpses hang in the rooms they were found in, like some of the torture rooms.

It’s a creepy experience walking into the empty interrogation rooms with blood on the floor, knowing how much suffering has happened happened in here. Even more so in the rooms with photographs on the wall, taken after the prison was shut down. You have to squeeze through a tiny brick cell to get to the narrow hallway between all the cells of the prisoners, and it feels awful knowing that this is where people were chained for 2-3 months before taken away.

At night, the guards would load trucks with prisoners, telling them that they were going to be moved. They drove 15 km before stopping at Choeung Ek: the killing fields.

With a speaker playing propaganda music to drown out the screams, people had their throats slit with palm bark, or were hit in the skull with different tools. No guns were used, as bullets were expensive. Then the corpses were dropped in open graves.

Visitors leave bracelets around the killing fields to pay their respects

This is the biggest one. There are two other preserved graves – the one of a 100 headless soldiers, and the one of a 100 naked women and children. While a lot of women were imprisoned and killed because they were thought to be working with CIA, a lot of them were killed because of a Khmer Rouge saying: “When you dig up grass, you must even remove the roots”
That meant that whenever a man was killed, his entire family should die too, to prevent someone wanting revenge.

The killing tree is right next to the women and children’s grave. Guards grabbed children by their feet and smashed their heads into the tree, leaving traces of blood, brains and hair in the bark to be found later on. The mother’s were often stripped naked and forced to watch, until they themselves were executed and thrown into the grave with their children.

Finally, a tall building is raised in the field as a memorial, and containing clothes, bones and skulls of found victims. Around 9,000 in total.

So, at least that what I understood from my audio guide. It is both depressing and interesting to see how something so awful has happened – and so recently! Despite all the bad things that has happened, it’s a peaceful day with butterflies flying around, flowers growing all over, and people showing their respect in one way or another. It’s kind of reassuring to experience how calm it can be after such a storm.

Bracelets on the Killing Tree. The one with the peace symbol seems very fitting

I wrote this a bit differently than I usually do, because I wanted to give people who know nothing about this part of Cambodia’s history a chance to understand what I am seeing today. I only really used Wikipedia because I’m lazy. But it’s definitely worth reading more about, especially what really happened in S-21! I recommend Survival in the killing fields by Hain Ngor, which is a great book by a doctor who pretended to be a taxi driver, survived three imprisonments and ended up winning an Oscar for a film about the dark years of Cambodia, but lost everything in the process. Less depressing post coming up.