I witnessed many of these claims, but have decided that Cambodia would be more aptly dubbed the Wild East: A modern day lawlessness with guns, drugs, and prostitution, but with its own identity. There are no saloons with double swinging doors or brothels with girls calling out of the top floor windows, but you can certainly get anything you want from the motorbike drivers hanging out on every street corner. Rooms are $2 a night, you can blow up cows and chickens with RPGs and grenades, and drug deals go down right next to the rarely manned police station.
It really all comes down to the motorbike taxi drivers. In Thailand, outside of Bangkok, the motorbike drivers only ask if you “Want motobia?” In Vietnam they ask if you want “Motobia? Smoky?” In Laos they add “happy mushroom?” to the offer. And in Cambodia they regularly run the whole gambit: “Want motobia? No? How about smoke something? Mushroom? Opium? Heroin? Nice lady? Nice boy?” They often have to follow you walking by to get it all in, and sometimes will even show off their drug inventory for inspection in the middle of the street.
A few days ago I was getting a ride on a motorbike to Hotel Cambodiana on the other side of Phnom Penh to see a hash runner buddy’s band play. The driver dude went down the inclusive list while we took off and concluded with, “You want lady boom boom?” to which I replied, “Nope, I’m good, thanks.” He then points to some girls riding ahead of us on the road and says, “How about these girls? Very nice?” Once again, I say, “No. No boom boom.” My driver then proceeds to catch up to the girls, keeps pace beside them, and talks to them in Khmer. After a minute he asks me, “30 dollar US ok?” “No,” I say, “no boom boom.” He turns back to the girls to renegotiate, and then comes back with, “Ok, 20 dollar US.” I laugh at the hilarity of the situation for a second, then reaffirm, “No thank you, no boom boom for me.” He nods like he understands, but then speeds down the road only to find another set of girls on a motorbike. The whole proposition and negotiation process is repeated and my driver even gets the going price down to $5 for one of these girls. The guy definitely understood English well enough to know that I didn’t want boom boom, so he must have thought that I’d change my mind if the right girl quoted the right price. Can’t be sure about that, but it’s certainly insane that these random girls driving down the street didn’t flinch, react with shock, or take offense by my driver’s proposal – instead they calmly and sensibly considered the offer and then quoted a price. This is the Wild East.
I can see why many relate Cambodia’s smaller towns to the Wild West – the architecture often sports the two-story, double balcony terrace deal which looks to be straight out of Wild West movies. And when you have the dirt road to go along with it, it’s close enough. Seen a few good examples, but don’t have good photos to show for it yet.
A note on money in Cambodia: they use US dollars for almost everything and ATMs dispense American bucks, but they don’t use US coins. Instead they use the Cambodian currency, which is Riel, for everything under one dollar. 4000 Riel is 1 US dollar, so if something costs $1.50, you use an American dollar bill and 2000 Riel. Change often comes in both currencies, so it’s a bit confusing at first, but not too bad once you get the hang of it. Pretty interesting the way it works here.
The US dollar is the international currency and is often accepted in all SE Asian countries, but only for select things and you’ll likely get screwed on the exchange rate. With the intensity in which the value of the dollar is dropping, however, I think it’s only a matter of time until the Euro takes over as the international currency. Much more stable. Damn Americans buying houses they can’t afford and making my money worth 3% less every week (no joke).
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