The Lemon Tree

PHNOM PENH, Monday June 28th 2004 — It’s 5.00am Sunday morning and I’m awoken by the roar of the market. Having lived in New York, which is considered a fast moving 24hr city, I can honestly say it doesn’t compare to the pace of life here. It seems like the market next to me never sleeps. In the morning the stalls are lined with exotic fruits and vegetables and in the afternoon, as if by magic the vendors are suddenly selling shirts, pants and shoes. I feel the stinging sensations all over my back and feet. Some bastard mosquito, maybe in conjunction with a group of his bastard friends got in under my mosquito net and made a meal of me. I struggle to my feet cursing the fuckers. Then my intestines make a strange movement. I flop back down and wait for them to settle. Ah fuck. Everyone had said it would hit at some stage. I spent the morning lying on my bed scratching my now swollen puncture wounds, which had begun to exude droplets of puss and listened to my internal rumblings.

In the afternoon I felt a little better. I set off for the center of Phnom Penh and decided to treat myself to some plain old food. The Foreign Correspondents Club was originally developed as a retreat for journalists who were covering the Vietnam War. It occupies the corner of street 178 and Sisowath Quay overlooking the point where the Tonle Sap River meets the Mekong River. Sitting on the second floor I gazed out over the vast deep muddy flow before me. The Foreign Correspondents club is an elegant bar and restaurant with wide comfortable chairs and an open air balcony. Adorning the walls are stark and striking photographs of the regions past and present.

Frozen in time, a man lies dead, bleeding on the street as a shocked crowd looks on. In the foreground another man is carefully slipping a watch off the dead limp wrist. In another photo entitled “Hopscotch” a small boy hops along the street, his one amputated leg dangling after him. I spend the afternoon half reading the Phnom Penh Post, occasionally listening to a scriptwriter from LA discuss his latest script at a nearby.

After an hour or two I wandered around the area and picked up a copy of Amitiv Giloba’s book ‘Guns Girls and Ganja – Off the Rails in Phnom Penh” from one of the street kids. The little boy had a small collection of cellophane books neatly arranged in a small basket strung around his neck and had approached me with gusto. “Mister, buy book, buy book, good books mister”. He offered it to me for $7, but being the shrewd negotiator I am I bargained the kid down to $5. In hindsight the little hustler screwed me, later I would find out that the book I bought, which was obviously a copy and was missing a quarter of the pages, could be purchased for just $2. In a store nearby also purchased a colloquial Khmer language book.

Monday morning. I awoke at 5am almost suffocating under my collapsed mosquito net. The market was yet again roaring into action. Like a fly caught in spider’s net I struggled to break free. Fuck, those little bloody bastards went on a rampage yet again. This time they went for a precision strike on my face, five or six swollen bumps itched and pulsated on my cheek and forehead. At work I talked to my co-worker about how to deal with the little the mosquitoes. Without my knowing it he called Pich, my landlord, and they had a discussion about my difficulties.

On arriving home that evening it seemed that the whole building was aware of my losing battle with the mosquitoes. “Hey Mister” Pich’s sister shouted as I approached my building. She gestured mosquitoes biting and tried to communicate with me in Khmer. “Ok, yea, yea, mosquitoes, yes, they bite me…bastards” I replied.

Halfway up the stairs an old woman with a shaven head, deep gold skin, and glassy eyes grabbed me by the arm and wagged her finger at me sternly. For a minute I thought she was going to smack me or something. Again she motioned mosquitoes biting and waved her hands about. Eventually I worked out that she was telling me to tuck the mosquito net in under the bed. Still thinking she might give me a belt I told her I would do as she said and I quickly ran up the stairs. Along the way the builder who was busily constructing my bathroom stopped me and soft Khmer tones seemed compelled to advise me yet again on how to keep mosquitoes at bay. I nodded and climbed the last flight to the safety of my room.

Suddenly Pich’s sister and an older woman stormed in – they were on a mission. I stepped back for fear of being pushed over as they grabbed my tangled mosquito net and went about the business of string it up. Unlike my pathetic effort of hanging the thing from the ceiling they tied it between the windows and my wardrobe making a large tent of it over the bed. It dropped snuggly to the floor. I gestured to my saviors how I had it hanging from the ceiling. Pich’s sister conveyed this to my neighbors who were all congregated on the balcony looking in. In unison their wide smiles broke into laughter. In a small way I felt like the those Puritans that set sail for America over 300 years ago and had to be saved from starvation by the native Americans who thought them how to survive in the wilderness. The following morning I awoke without any new bites.

PHNOM PENH, Sat. June 26th — I awoke at 9.00 by a loud knock on the door. Pich grinned through the metal laths. I struggled to my feet, let him in, and he handed me a small open sachet of liquid and began motioning the rubbing of his hair. He kept doing it until in my sleepy dazed state, not knowing what I was meant to do, I rubbed the liquid on my hair. He looked at me in a very odd manner and finally announced, “That shampoo”. I stood there like an idiot with the thick shampoo sticking to my hair and trickling down my forehead. After having a shower I jumped on the back of Pich’s motto and we sped off to get some breakfast. So far, all my Cambodian meals seem to be the same – chicken and rice, or fish and rice, served for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I gnawed my way, the best I could through the boney chicken. Pich seemed to be able to wolf his down, bones and all.

Afterwards he took me on a tour of the outskirts of the city. Phnom Penh seemed to be growing; schools, factories and apartment buildings were all under construction, rising high above the dilapidated shacks and huts of the poor. As we whizzed along he talked about Cambodia’s two most prevalent issues – economic development and government corruption.

We stopped at his finance’s family house, a large new three-story house surrounded by a high solid metal fence. Inside the fence his finance was washing clothes beside a small red and gold gilded Buddhist shrine. In its center a small Buddha sat serenely, glistening in the afternoon sun. I met her mother and following Pich’s lead I put my hands together and bowed my head. This is the traditional way to greet people of the older generation, Pich informed me. As he chatted in Khmer with his future mother-in-law I watched a Cambodian slapstick comedy. Even with helpful translation from Pich the humor was a little lost on me, but everyone else seemed to be enjoying it. Pich informed me that there is no such thing as morgatages in Cambodia. If you buy a house you pay the full price up front.

That afternoon I lounged in my room and read. In the evening Pich’s sister came up. “Hey mister, bie-saa”, she said while motioned eating. I motioned back at her that I hadn’t eaten and she disappeared into the room next door. Twenty minutes later she returned with a large tray of food. I gave her some money, but she soon returned with it – the old woman next door wouldn’t accept it.

My meal consisted of a large bowl of rice, a piece of spiny fish that appeared to have been cured and dried, a bowl of chicken soup with large lumps of some strange vegetable, and a bottle of water. As I ate my neighbors looked in and found my awkward use of a fork and spoon quite amusing. The old lady then brought in what looked like long translucent worms floating in rice milk. It was sweet and tasty, similar to rice pudding, although a little hard to swallow with the worms slide down my throat. I’m honestly amazed at these peoples generosity, given their poverty, to share what they have is heartening. I only wish I had some Khmer language to express it. I smile and nod a lot however, so hopefully they understand how grateful I am.

PHNOM PENH, Friday June 25th — Phnom Penh doesn’t really have any kind of public transport system. The common means of transport is with a motto driver. The streets are thronged with hundreds of mottos weaving and gliding through the dusty streets. Occasionally a General or rich Khmer passes by in their sparkling Landrover. I was on my way to the center of Phnom Penh to check out some of the bars. As I have learned, you really need to know the directions to your destination. When you jump on the back of a motto and tell the driver your destination he usually nods and gives you a “Yes sir”, then he precedes to drive straight down the street, he won’t turn until you tell him to. This time we managed to reach our destination in a somewhat direct manner.

“The Heart of Darkness” bar, or “The Heart” as locals call it is probably the cities most famous drinking hole. Sat in the middle of the bar is a fat Buddha reminiscent of Marlin Brando in the film “Apocalypse Now”. That film, set in Cambodia, was loosely based on Joseph Conrad’s novel “Heart of Darkness”. It involved Martin Sheen going up river to bring back a Colonel, played by Brando, who went AWOL. In the Cambodian jungle Brando gained a cult following of tribes which he subsequently trained to be his own private milita.

Rich reds and deep mahogany enriched the interior of the bar. Most of the clientèle appeared to be wealthy Cambodians or expats drinking beer and playing pool. A young Cambodian sat next to me and inquired as to what I was reading. After a short discussion I headed down the street to the Walkabout Bar. It was much busier than The Heart with large groups of expats conversing on England’s loss to Portugal the night before.

In the Ginger bar I chatted with the English barman, Geelan, who had recently settled in Phnom Penh after traveling around Southeast Asia for the last 10 months. The night before he was out watching the English game, “Last night we were robbed” he said looking down and shaking his head. “They’re a tough side, Portugal,” I added. “No, our apartment was robbed. Some guys broke in and stole a bunch of CD’s, a cell phone and a Discman”. As Geelan attended to other customers I read the copy of “The Cambodian Daily” – more reports of government corruption.

At Howie’s bar I watched the Greece France quarter final and chatted with a Canadian English teacher who was living in Phnom Penh for the last four years. He said that at this stage he could never go back, “Life is different here, you are not shut away inside your house, car or office” he explained, as the aroma of marijuana drifted across the bar. “People eat, work and live on the street or on their open air balcony’s, it’s a very social way of life”, he went on. Next to us, an Englishman in his thirties and dressed in a union jack t-shirts and flip-flops, talked loudly of some amazing pot he had once indulged in, “Was the best facking high oef my life…made by monks in Nepal, you know…great facking gear altogether”. His tones got somewhat more hushed as he discussed his business of importing and exporting marijuana across the borders.

With France out of Euro 2004 I jumped on a motto and headed for home. It was 3.30am as we approached the house; the road was totally blocked by traders and their carts of produce bustling and honking their way towards the market. I just about managed to climb the 4 steep flights, erect my mosquito and I quickly drifted off to sleep.

PHNOM PENH, Friday June 25th 2004 — Through my job at the government, I was set up with new accommodation. Chenda, my fellow office colleague, set me up with a one-room apartment owned by a good friend of his. During lunch Chenda drove me from the guesthouse to my new abode southwest of Phnom Penh. We climbed up four flights of narrow stairs to my room, which was perched on the top of the building overlooking a lively market. For just $50 a month I could stay there. The room was basic, with a bed, an old cupboard for clothes, a metal-framed wardrobe, and a tin roof. Two large windows opened up on either side of the room. The dust and noise of the street drifted in.A young Cambodian man called Saat stuck his head in the door. He was the same age as me and had been left the apartment by his mother who passed away the year before. He had a strong tall build, especially by Cambodian standards and a wide smile. Next year he was to be married to a young girl who lived out in one of the wealthier suburbs.

There was no bathroom. My landlord Saat was in the process of building one downstairs where he currently lived with his sister. For the next week or so I would share the bathroom with the tenants in the room next to mine. Their room was about the same size of mine, but contained what appeared to be a family of about 8 – five or six young girls who seemed to be in their teens, an old women and a baby.

Chenda told me I could take the afternoon off to settle in and he then left for lunch. After unpacking I felt I should introduce myself to my new neighbors. I leafed through a few pages at the back of the guidebook and picked out a few phrases. Outside my room on the balcony the old women gently rocked the baby in the hammock. On walking out she jumped up of her chair and offered it to me. “Sua s’dei”, which means ‘hello’, I stuttered. Her blank stare gave me the impression that my pronunciation was well off the mark. “Kh’nyohm ch’muah Colm” (my name is Colm). The old lady looked at me very confused. At this point the young girls came out and were giggling amongst themselves. After another few tries and some hand gestures we managed to make our introductions. The girls giggled again as I tried to repeat their names.

I lounged in my room that afternoon falling in and out vivid dreams brought on by my malaria tablets. As I sweated under the hot afternoon sun that shined through the window, a large lizard scurried over the foot high crack between the wall and the roof. It made me jump at first but I figured it would just be something I’d have to get used to. I fell back into my vivid dream-state listening to the hum of the market below.

That evening Saat returned and invited me out for dinner. I climbed onto the back of his motto and we sped off through the Phnom Penh streets. At the outdoor eatery Pich ordered some fish soup, another fish dish, a chicken dish, and a large bowl of rice. “Trai” is fish and “Moan” is chicken I learned. Pich was from up north – about 100km from Phnom Penh. He said that he spent all his money taking care of his mother before she died of cancer. Luckily though his highschool friend Chenda, he got him a job as a civil servant. The salary however, at only $30 a month is not enough to live on, so Pich makes ends meet by teaching English in the evenings. His education seemed like it had been a bit scattered – paying for an hour here and there of English instruction over the years. Now however he is in college and studying law. I think I understand about 70% of what he says, his accent is thick and he chews his words, also the letter ‘c’ is always omitted. It took me a while to understand that ‘rie’ is actually ‘rice’. He dropped me off at our apartment and, as I would find out later, we apparently made an agreement to met later. I would also have difficulties in the future with arranging to meet Pich. He rarely gives a time, or lets me know what we’re going to do, and he also has the tendency to mix up Monday with Sunday.

PHNOM PENH, Thursday 24th June 2004 — The Narin II guesthouse was located in the Psar Russei region. Most of the streets in this area are made of dirt and it has an other-worldly feel to it. The streets are teaming with mottos and people walking around in the hot Phnom Penh evening sun. It seems like no one eats at home, hundreds sit out in the open-air eateries, whiling away the evening hours drinking cold drinks and spicy foods. The exotic smells and the hum of the city stand in stark contrast to western suburbia.

Just outside my guesthouse there is a restaurant serving the western fare and a bar that charges exorbitant prices, by Phnom Penh standards at least. I wandered out a little further, occasionally turning down friendly motto drivers.A few blocks from the guesthouse I sat down at a brightly lit local eatery. I ordered a beer and began perusing the Bangkok Post. The reports mostly involved violence involving the separatist movement in southern Thailand. “Bangkok Post…very good paper” a voice called out from the opposite table. I smiled nodded and continued reading. “Ara cigarettes…very good cigarettes” came the voice again. Jumping on the train of conversation with my new found friend I replied, “Angkor beer…very good beer”. With that Chita came over and began discussing the merits of Cambodian whiskey. Chita was a tuk-tuk driver. He ferried foreigners to and from the guesthouse and various sights around Phnom Penh in his four-seater motorbike drawn rickshaw. He invited me over to his table for some soup.

On seating myself at his table he introduced me to his father and three of his friends, who all looked like they were having a good time, drinking and enjoying the warm air. Apart from his father, they could speak pretty good English even though they had only been learning for a few months. As we sat, they opened their second bottle of whiskey and ordered some more beer. In the center of the table a gas stove bubbled with murky soup. “Try, try…it is del..ic..oous”. Chita poured the soup and I started in. “Ah it has got fish in it” I said, as I bit down on the meaty lumps. “No fish…snak..eee”. I swallowed hard, but it was actually quite tasty.

Beside me Chita’s father grinned and through body language explained how snake soup could ‘keep you up’ all night. As we chatted a bag of large jet black beetles was handed to me to try. Being quite revolted by their sight but not wanting to offend I followed the lead of my new friend, peeled back the wings and bit in. They had a strong pungent taste that made me wince and the table to have a good laugh. I quickly washed the insect down with some beer. “Ah very good…tasty”, I managed to get out as I tried to wash the taste from my mouth. On being offered more I feigned having such a large meal earlier, I just couldn’t fit another one in.

As we ventured into the third bottle of whiskey Chita told me about how there wasn’t as many tourists as last year. On good days he used to make $8 or $9 but now he could only take in between $4 or $6. The direct flights from Bangkok to the Angkor Wat religious complex may be having an affect on Phnom Penh’s economy. A large amount of tourism to Cambodia is day-trippers who fly into Siem Reap in the morning, walk around Angkor Wat, have a sandwich and a coke and leave the same night. This does little for Cambodia’s revenue and doesn’t in any way help Chita make ends meet. “The Thai people are not friendly…not like the Cambodian people…we friendly…like you, you friendly too, I like you”.

During the third bottle of whiskey a slim older man sat next to me. He was introduced as the police officer for the district. He had no English but being of the older generation spoke French. Chita explained that I was here for 2 months and was working for the government. The police officer asked for my phone number and on finding out that I didn’t have a phone gave me his and told me to call him if I needed anything. They were all very friendly and overall I think I was a bit of a novelty for them as well as someone they could practice their English with.

On finishing the fourth bottle of whiskey the eatery was closing and Chita offered me a lift back to my guesthouse, which was just two blocks away. I obliged even though I was unsure if Chita could manage to walk over to his tuk-tuk that was parked across the road. I made my goodbyes to the police officer and Chita and myself wobbled over and climbed aboard. On the way he was quite adamant that I should correct his English. “My English wrong…you tell me”, he slurred as we bounced along the dirt road. He wouldn’t accept any money for the lift but I pushed $2 on him and we agreed to meet next Sunday for a drink in the same place.

PHNOM PENH, Tuesday June 22nd 2004 — The Lazy Fish guesthouse by the lake was infested with lively mosquitoes and laid-back backpackers – I decided to move to a new location. I had heard the area beside the river was nice so I jumped on the back of a motto and was whisked off. After looking at a few hotels and guesthouses I decided to treat myself to a nice hotel overlooking the Tonle Sap river, air-conditioning, clean sheets, TV and a hot shower is what you got for $14 dollars a night. Most of the clientèle were businessmen or Japanese holidaying in Cambodia. Eating lunch in the hotel’s waterfront restaurant English businessmen spoke business. After two days I moved again – to a $4 a night guesthouse.

PHNOM PENH, Monday 21st June 2004 — The bus from Bangkok to Trat was showing “The Day After Tomorrow”. It had yet to be released in theaters. The 6-hour trip was quite uneventful except for seeing an elephant wallowing in a stream by the highway. For miles and miles, in all directions, factories dotted the landscape. The workers, in their neat, pressed, blue, uniforms, sat eating lunch in breezy, open-air canteens. Nearby each factory was a decrepit block of concrete apartments, then acres of barren flat land, highway, and another factory – no community, just efficient industrialization. I guess this is where those low low prices come from.Trat is a small border town on the Thai side. It feels more real than Bangkok – you could buy anything in the open-air market that encompassed the centre of the town. I wandered around trying various local delicacies. I avoided trying the dead insects that were piled high on one stall. Only after 2 hours I spotted another westerner bobbing around, tall and pale, out of place.

The bus for the border was leaving at six in the morning. I had thought that there would be no place to eat that early so I didn’t bother go out and look. When I went to catch the bus the market was hopping. Hundreds of people milling around buying, selling, eating and drinking. After an hour we arrived at the Cambodian border – at that point everything got a little crazy. The heavens opened up and a torrent of rain literally made a river out of the road. I got my Thailand departure visa stamped and started to walk through no-mans land; that area between the official borders, as the rain pelted down. At this point, the water had risen to knee height and a dozen Cambodian guys surrounded me shouting ‘ticket’, ‘ticket’, ‘ticket’. I was led to one room where I filled in a form with my name address, passport number etc, then into another room where I filled in another form that seemed exactly like the previous one, finally into a third room where I was questioned about what I was doing and where I was going. I had thought that by telling them I was going to work for the government I would not get overcharged on the visa – I was wrong. After paying $30 for a $20 visa I was whisked away by one of the ‘ticket, ticket’ guys and deposited into his car. Then the rain suddenly stopped, as quickly as it started.

Soon I arrived at the bus that would take me on the 8-hour journey to Phnom Penh. Stuffed inside the minibus were two old toothless Cambodian women, a few cute kids, the driver, and his co-pilot. In the back I sat beside a cliché of westerners. Eman and Julie were two young backpackers from California. They were both about to start college in the fall, Eman was doing linguistics and Julie was going to study Eastern Philosophy in Hawaii. Eman sweated profusely during the journey and continually needed to stretch his back while Julie snapped digital photos of the rolling jungle. She seemed to be in a constant state of awe and giddy excitement. Jean-Michele sat next to them. He Parisian and had lived in Phnom Penh during its Wild West years of the late nineties. In the bus he reminisced about the hail of machine-gun fire that used to be heard all around the city after sunset. His head flopped back on the headrest and he breathed deep on his Gaulloises cigarettes. Today he was on his way back to visit some friends.

Helen lived in Phnom Penh and was returning from a ‘visa run’ to Thailand. She was an English teacher who after spending a year as a volunteer in Africa had planned to make her way to Indonesia. She ran out of money however and had kindof gotten stuck in Cambodia. Peter was the last traveling companion. He was from Leeds. He got through college by selling pot and had worked for the last 2 years in London. There he had made a bundle of cash working as a credit controller. With a great sense of pride, he told us how surprised he was to find that he had an unusual talent for calling up people and squeezing them into pay their debts. He seemed to have reveled in his work and he had been living the highlife in London, with a penthouse apartment, and clubbing it every weekend on a steady diet of coke and champagne. It all ended however when as he said “I got too greedy”, He never really explained what that meant but he seemed to have taken off fairly quick for a yearlong trip around Southeast Asia and Australasia.

We bounced along the dirt road scarred by ridges and potholes. Upon stopping at the first river, the bus was swarmed by little kids who wanted to sell us chips. “Please sir buy something, I have no money”. We bought a few packs and gave some to the old women in the front; they sucked on them with big smiles. The bus was driven onto what could best be described as a collection of planks of wood with an engine. As the water washed over the planks, we putted our way across the river, listening to the traditional Khmer music from the captain’s radio. The river was calm, thank god. On the other side, there was a steep mud embankment. Our captain busied himself with attaching a to the front of the bus. It appeared that the minibus and us were going to be pulled up the mud embankment. At this point Peter then began to tell us how he had recently read that the day before in Cambodia the rope which was hoisting a minibus in Cambodia up an embankment had snapped. He then explained, how the bus and it’s passengers quietly slipped down the muddy embankment and slid into and under the water. He couldn’t recall if there were any survivors. Almost in unison, Eman, Julie and Helen opened the windows as wide as possible and all of us, with the exception of the smoking Jean-Michael, braced ourselves.

After 8 hours and four rivers, we rolled into Phnom Penh. As we drove, motto drivers knocked on the windows asking us if we wanted a lift. Stopping in the square we were ambushed by about 20 of them all competing for our business. Helen and Jean Michele went their own separate ways and the rest of us found a taxi, and were whisked off to the backpacker’s quarter of the city. We stayed by the lake, in the Lazy Fish guesthouse for just $2 dollars a night. In the evening we hung out by the lake on the guesthouse porch and drank some beers. Julie, who had ordered a Pizza (extremely happy for just $1 more), got kind of high and tried to convince us, and the rest of the backpackers, to sit in a circle and meditate – I declined. I was a bit afraid a drum circle would start up.

While the rest of the backpackers began chanting, Peter planned his itinerary for his two-day stay; giving me all the details. First, he was going to go to the genocide museum, next the killing fields and to top it off a trip to the firing range where you can try out machine guns and hand grenades. Rumor has it that you can buy chickens and mow them down with a machine gun. If however, you are really sick the word on the street is that you can buy a cow and blow it up with a rocket launcher. As I retired for the night Peter was in a deep discussion on assault rifles with one of the locals.