Beersalot

After finishing my article about local beers in the June issue of Bayon I realized there was lots more beer tasting to do since I hadn’t touched on the dark beers and stouts. And since I made such a point of the superior quality of bottles over cans, I also thought I ought to see if I could taste the difference.

One thing I realized in the process of writing the last beer article was that downing a brew is different than drinking for the purpose of critiquing it. While some beers will impress you right off, whether positively or negatively, in most cases you don’t have clear thoughts about what you’re drinking unless you’re concentrating on thinking about describing it.

Further, I thought I should try to be a little more scientific about the tasting and rating by setting up a blind taste experiment. Three of us participated, two blind tasting, the third did the pouring so knew what he was drinking. The blind tasting is important because we all have prejudices which affect our choices. That is similar to how people in medical experiments who receive placebos think they’re getting better.

The first experiment was with five stouts; ABC, Black Panther, City Black, Guinness and Angkor Extra Stout. The last two were in bottles, the rest in cans. Black Panther and City are cheap beers in the $.50 retail category, the other three cost over twice that amount. All are 8% beers except for Guinness which is 6.5%. There are actually quite a few varieties of Guinness circulating in both cans and bottles - awhile back I came across a can that was only 4.5% alcohol which seemed very strange to me. At any rate, I only saw the 6.5% bottle when I went out buying so that’s what we tasted.

As it turns out, somewhat to my surprise, all three of us were in substantial agreement with only minor differences. We all placed ABC and City in the top two spots with ABC rated highest by two of us and City by the third. I wrote ‘bright and bubbly’ for ABC, my pick for first, ‘good but lighter than (ABC) for City my second choice. The other blind taster wrote ‘nutty, alcohol taste, full body, hoppy, lingering after taste’ for ABC. For City he wrote, ‘not impressed, caramel notes, sour, sweetish; but in the end after tasting all five he picked City as his first choice. All three of us placed Guinness at number 4, practically a shock considering its worldwide popularity. I wrote, ‘not great, a little bitter’. The other blind taster sniffed all five glasses before tasting any and correctly picked out Guinness by its smell. He wrote, ‘nutty, semi-heavy, fruity, not much aftertaste’. Myself and the pourer placed Angkor at number 3 and Black Panther at number 5. My fellow blind taster placed them just opposite. For Angkor (which I imagined I would choose as number 1 before the tasting began) I wrote ‘thin but good taste’, the other blind taster put ‘soapy, light, bitter, not much after taste’. For BP I wrote subtle, thin, not much to it. The other wrote ‘sour, light body, (thin).

After touting City lager in the last beer article, it was quite gratifying to see City Black rate so highly in the blind test. I had my doubts, considering how cheap and obscure City beer is and how quite a few people have trashed it, but at least in this case my taste buds came through. They are two different beers so one doesn’t necessarily carry over to the other, but still…

As for non-stout dark beers there are only two that are produced regionally: Kingdom Dark and Lao Dark. Both are lagers, Kingdom is 5%, Lao is 6.5%. The tasting came after drinking the five stouts, which meant I was already climbing way up the tipsy scale. The pourer had shorted himself on quantity – not sure why – so the remaining two of us drank about two mugs worth of stout – equivalent in alcohol content to three average beers – in a relatively short time. That might have been a mistake. The drunker you get the less discerning your palette – at a certain point you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the worst beer and the best.

First to come up was Kingdom, which I correctly identified, though of course I didn’t know that till later. It’s got that expensive-ingredient craft-beer taste, which I like, besides I’m very familiar with it. I wrote ‘bright, light, sweet’. My fellow blind taster wrote ‘sweet bubble gum, light weight body, slight caramel, bright in mouth’. For Lao he wrote, ‘first (choice) at first sip, light, heavier body than (Kingdom)’, (after further tasting) he wrote ‘still number 1’. I wrote ‘thicker’. The other two guys chose Lao over Kingdom, I preferred the later. In hindsight, just for comparison’s sake, I should’ve picked up a bottle of an expensive imported dark like Leffe. I’ve drunk Leffe a few times and it never impressed me as worth several times the cost of a cheap beer, but, as remarked above, you don’t really know a beer until you drink it for the purpose of describing and rating it.

My greatest disappointment regarding beers in Cambo is the dearth of dark beers and the total absence of ales, not to mention bitters, porters and other oddball varieties. I’m not sure why it’s so easy to produce stouts and seemingly insurmountable to brew ales, but I can’t wait for the day that some brave local brewmaster takes on that task. In fact, we do have an unusual homebrew here in Kampot: Angus at Café Espresso is brewing an 8% alcohol ginger beer. It’s not always consistent, but still ranges from good to excellent. Back in my commune days one of the guys put together a few kegs of homebrew. You buy a ready-made can of malted barley flavored with hops with yeast included, toss in an equal amount of sugar, fill the keg with water and keep warm and in a few days you have green beer ready to bottle. It was excellent. However, there were times when we couldn’t wait to let it age properly and guzzled it down green. Wow was it bad tasting, but it sure got you blasted when it didn’t also make you barf it all back up. At one point he flavored his beer with local indigenous herbs. It tasted great and I wonder why nobody has thought of producing herbal flavored beer commercially.

The next day I set up an experiment involving three sets of bottles/cans to see if we could discern the difference. That involved Angkor, Heineken and Cambodia. First up was Angkor, which I thought sure was Heineken. I also got the bottle/can thing wrong. My fellow blind taster got the bottle/can difference correctly and described Angkor bottle as ‘full body, smooth, balanced, and the can as tinny, bright, sour. As for Heineken, which I thought was Angkor, I couldn’t even guess regarding the bottle/can difference. Once again the other blind taster got it correctly. For the can he wrote, ‘tingly tongue, sweetish, heavy for a lager’. For the bottle he wrote, ‘skunky, non-descript’. He was right on about the skunky smell, though I doubt if I would’ve noticed without him mentioning it. Still, anyone who’s ever been within a mile of a skunk that’s let loose knows that smell intimately. If you happen to be in close proximity when it does its thing, you have to throw your clothes away because there’s nothing you can do to get the stink out.

The third set was Cambodia, or was supposed to be. Somehow between the time I dropped off the beers to be sampled the day before at the friend’s place and tasting time the next day the Cambo can had mysteriously disappeared. Well not so mysteriously, it obviously had been mistakenly imbibed. So what was the poor pourer to do after searching in the fridge high and low? He decided on double blind testing us by pouring a Ganzberg in place of the Cambo can. By then I’d gotten everything wrong – though of course I didn’t know it yet – and continued my losing streak by mistaking the Cambo bottle for a can. The other taster got the bottle thing wrong, his first mistake. Neither of us caught the Ganzberg substitution. Most surprisingly, both the other guys chose Angkor first for taste and Ganzberg second. I was totally flustered by then and couldn’t even choose which beer I liked best.

Compared to the first day when everything, or almost everything, was consistent and clear and we were in substantial agreement, the second tasting day was largely confused and out of sorts, although I’m obviously saying that because I simply was useless at telling the bottle/can difference. The other blind taster got everything right except for the double blind substitution, which nobody could be expected to get. If there actually had been a choice between Cambo bottle and can he might have also gotten that right. There’s a good reason why good quality beers are always put in bottles, not cans, in spite of the extra cost, but I sure couldn’t tell by tasting.

Aluminum reacts with food compared to glass which doesn’t so there must be a subtle difference. In fact I should buy bottles instead of cans out of principle because, regarding food, I never cook out of aluminum pots and am very reluctant to eat cheap, down-home local fare because the food sits in aluminum pots all day. My aversion is helped by the knowledge that they use massive amounts of salt, sugar and MSG, though, except for that, it usually doesn’t taste all that bad.

The blind tasting was edifying and fun and I’ll have to do it again sometime, meanwhile a couple of comments on Kingdom, still my favorite local beer. Whatever financial problems they might’ve been experiencing (if any) have been mitigated somewhat by Brunty ciders leasing one of their bottling lines. For at least a year they’ve got an extra income stream. If Brunty’s is successful, they’ll set up their own plant. So far, they say they’re doing well. I tried a strawberry; it was good but had an unpleasant aftertaste.

One complaint/suggestion I have for Kingdom has to do with the graphic arts on the bottle. The artwork, the animal drawings, are very nicely done but so indistinct I can’t tell what animal it is without my glasses on, and then still not easily. Considering most beers are consumed at night and many of those in dimly lit venues, that’s surely a deficiency. Sharp and clear is what is what all marketing and product design needs to be. Ditto for the writing on the back. The font is so small I can’t possibly read it without glasses even in bright light, though I can read a newspaper under those conditions, though not easily.

Cambostan

Plants in the Pot, My Kampot Garden.

I've finally got it together to post some pictures of my garden, one of the reasons I love my tropical small-town home. At last count I had 175 different varieties growing on a small 15 meter x 30 meter (50 ft x 100 ft.) piece of land. I love getting my hands in the dirt and making new plants so I sell duplicates of ones that are more valuable or interesting. Pictures don't always do them justice, but here they are nonetheless.

They Don't Like Good Beer

It Amazes me that most of the people I know in Cambodia prefer cheap, average to awful beer to the good stuff. But first, before you start feeling insulted because I may begin to lambaste your taste in beer, let me state very clearly that, 1) I’m a highly opinionated person, so take that into account, besides how else can you be a critic? and 2) As the French would say, chacon a son gout, (I hope I got that right, it’s been more than 50 years since I took French in college) which loosely translated means, There’s no accounting for taste. No matter how atrocious your taste in beer may be, you not only have a right to your opinion, but your taste buds may actually signal a swooning adoration for what, in my opinion, or even the wider opinion, is swill.

I’m certainly no expert in brewing aside from spending a lot of time in Oregon, one of the hot spots of microbreweries in the states, and having a long and enduring relationship with the suds. There aren’t many days that go by without me downing at least a couple of beers. In fact, the only time I won’t imbibe is the night after a blowout when I can’t bring myself to drink even one. It’s not even that I drink all that much, six or seven beers over a long night is about my maximum, not a lot by a serious drinker’s standards. In fact, I’ve saved tons of money over the years just because my intake is so limited. I do like spirits and other alcoholic beverages occasionally, but 90% to 95% of the time I’m after a cold, thirst-quenching beer.

We will certainly disagree on the quality of different beers but the one thing we (me and all you dedicated beer drinkers out there) can agree on that beer is the elixir of life, or one of the most important ones at least. It opens up our happiness centers, smoothes out the hard edges in our daily grinds, breaks down our inhibitions and allows us to relax and have fun. Even if we are not plagued with daily grinds as such, it still gives life an ease and pleasantness that’s difficult to achieve otherwise. The world is nuts, whatever it takes to surf through the big waves is good enough.   

Admittedly, all that happy, happy has its drawbacks. There’s only so many good times allocated to us before the happy, happy turns into total washout. It’s so much fun, you don’t know how to stop. That’s the way it is here in Cambodia… the bar culture is so much a part of the scene, and it’s so cheap, and all your friends are also out there having a good time, and… well, ‘nuff said.

Still, the quality of the suds has to make a difference to people spending hours and hours in imbibing mode, thus I’m baffled by the widespread indifference bordering on disdain on the part of many friends towards Kingdom beer, the only widely distributed craft beer in Cambodia. It’s far from the greatest of craft beers and equally far from the worst, coming up somewhere in the middle I would guess compared to the range of Oregon beers, which still makes it pretty good. Before I go any further, let me say I have no financial or other personal interest in Kingdom beer other than the desire to see it prosper so it stays available, so I can drink it whenever I can afford it.

What exactly are the complaints? One friend called it too hoppy. For me that’s the point. I like a rich, full-bodied hoppy flavor. Another, along the same line said, Yes, it’s got lots of flavor, but I don’t like it. A bar owner friend said, Nobody buys it, why pay $2.50 for a Kingdom when you can get a Beer Lao for half the price? (I can’t believe he chose Lao to make that comparison, more on that later.) Indeed, why drive a Lexus when a Corolla will get you there just the same for a quarter the price and maybe more on topic, why drink Johnny Walker Blue when Red will get you where you want to be at a small fraction of the cost? On the other hand, it makes total sense to drink down-market if you haven’t got the dough. But we’ve carried it too far, we’re so deep into a cheap canned beer culture we can’t deal with quality beer. However, cheap beer is also one of Cambodia’s strong points; you can have a good time every night without pissing away your life savings.

The dislike of Kingdom has gotten so strong it is widely rumored to be going out of business. They definitely were disappointed at the beer’s reception and were forced to make corrections in their business plan but I doubt if they’re about to fold. First they lowered the price of a case of bottles to $20 from $26, which definitely makes it easier for me to buy it. They also went into the cheap beer competition by producing Kingdom Gold in cans and pricing it about the same as the big three - Anchor, Angkor, Cambodia. They’ve recently set up a tent on a main street in Kampot to promote Gold, which doesn’t look much like they’re going out of business. The Gold is a lager and is competitive in quality and taste to the big mass produced beers – I like it better than those, though Cambo is hard to beat.

Another friend said, Sure it tastes good, but it’s not a beer you can drink all night. He actually had a point, though he didn’t realize it. That’s what I do, start with Kingdom then switch to cheaper beer, though that’s mostly because I don’t want to spend the extra money. However, I certainly wouldn’t do that in Oregon: I’m there so infrequently, the cost be damned, I’d never switch to Pabst or Miller from drinking quality beers unless I was in the direst of straits.

Well, what is it that makes Kingdom cost $20 per case as opposed to the mass produced beers that cost half as much, and the off brands which cost as little as $7.00 per case? In addition to the extra cost of putting beer in a glass bottle – in the case of Kingdom a custom bottle – as opposed to an aluminum can, there are only two basic factors that account for cost. Quality beer is the direct result of more expensive ingredients and the extra care taken in the brewing process. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll taste better, only that it has the potential to taste better.

The other valid reason for not drinking Kingdom exclusively is it’s a lot more fattening. Based on American-sized 12 ounce containers – about 350ml – an average cheap beer has about 140 calories; light beers contain about 100 calories; craft beers about 250 calories. So my friend, who can easily down 10 beers a night would be getting a full day’s calories just from beer if he only drank Kingdom, compared to 2/3 of his necessary daily intake from cheaper beers. Craft beers have more calories because they use richer, higher quality ingredients, like the difference between ice milk and ice cream. And they generally taste better because they use, for instance, more expensive malt and more than one type of better quality hops. An award winning Oregon craft beer uses a blend of five different varieties of hops; that’s not something you will find in a cheap beer.

The friend who accepted that Kingdom has more flavor but still didn’t like it is able to down Anchor draft without grimacing. Until recently, I could barely drink it and started looking for more expensive and less ecological alternatives. The quality seems very erratic; recently, it actually tasted good a few times, but then descended back into its normal bitter awfulness. It is advertised as smooth because there isn’t much to it, though it’s not the fact that it’s a pilsner, since Kingdom in bottles also has a pilsner along with a dark lager. I tend to think it wasn’t my taste buds playing tricks on me, but rather that they accidentally, mistakenly produced a better tasting beer, then realized they’d better get back to their regular awful taste so as not to confuse their customers. Anchor in cans is not that bad, though if faced with a choice between Anchor and Angkor, I’ll choose Angkor about 2/3 of the time, it’s got more to it.

I felt Cambo was better from the first taste, and thankfully the two bars I most patronize both have it on draft. Cambodia is sweet and light without a hint of harshness or bitterness. A friend who doesn’t like it called it too sweet, but sweet’s the opposite of bitter so that’s what makes it good. Cambo recently won third place in a category of 4% to 5% lagers in a beer tasting competition in London. I wasn’t surprised as it’s exceptional for a cheap beer. What did surprise me was that Tiger came in second place, which required that I buy one to include in this essay. I’ve drunk a few Tiger’s over the years but somehow it never impressed me as being worth the extra cost, but after drinking one for the purpose of describing it I’d have to say it’s pretty good and more flavorful than average. It’s clearly higher quality, but probably not enough for me to choose it above Cambo, for instance.

   Then there’s the environmental aspect. Draft is easily the least damaging to the planet, at least in Cambodia, since the kegs can be reused practically indefinitely, so I’ll nearly always go for draft first. But it does have its negatives since it has to be kept cold once it’s tapped and there’s a need for gas to bring it out of the keg. It’s also less consistent than cans or bottles depending on how long it takes to finish the keg – after three or four days the quality plummets. Cans are next on the environmental scale since aluminum is valuable and easily recyclable. But beer in cans simply cannot taste as good as in bottles or properly handled kegs. Nobody producing a quality beer would ever put it in cans, but that’s a problem here in Cambodia since the empty bottles aren’t recyclable, nobody wants them.    

Not saying many of the bottles couldn’t be designed to be washed and reused. Except for Kingdom, the bottles used by Angkor and Cambodia and other local breweries are all standard and interchangeable. However, they’d need to be purposely designed for washing since that requires a thicker glass than disposable bottles. Reusable bottles last an average of twenty washes, and if the energy necessary for the process were renewable then their ecological footprint would be about the same as draft, with better consistency and quality.

While we’re at it a discussion of other locally available beers is in order. My bar owner friend who thoroughly dislikes Kingdom and has Cambo on draft, sometimes prefers Klang, which I find astounding, sort of the outer limit of chacon a son gout, since I find it harsh, heavy, bitter and it leaves an unfriendly aftertaste. I don’t want to use up my entire repertoire of  negative adjectives on it or the list would be a lot longer. Klang which means strong in Khmer originally had a big 7% on its can but that caused a problem for some in power – I’m not sure why since the stouts are all at 8%. As a result they lowered the content to 6% and ceased to make a big deal of it. Even if I thought it tasted good I’d try to avoid it since I’d drink it just as fast as the 5 percenters, but it’d get me drunker sooner and send me home that much earlier. It’s super cheap, that much I can say for it - lately as little as $7 case. While we’re on the topic of nasty brews, Zorok, from Vietnam and Special deserve mention. Once I’ve paid for and opened a beer I’m going to drink it as a matter of principle, but man is it difficult with those two; both taste like weak dishwater with Special especially grotesque.

I recently tried a can of Phnom Penh beer; it was actually kind of bright and tasty, nothing like the cruddy suds that I remember from the last time – I’d actually buy it again. There’s a new beer called Ganzberg, which bills itself as German style. It’s good quality with a subtle, gentle taste, but not as flavorful as some of the others available. Beck’s is available at a reasonable price in a few places. It’s a good example of a hearty, strong tasting brew without a hint of bitterness, definitely worth the small extra cost.

I recently came across City beer. It’s available in only one place that I know of in Kampot. It’s brewed in Kampong Chhnang, though I had to get a Khmer friend to translate for me since there’s no info as to its genesis in English. It’s super cheap at $7.50 per case and is my favorite local beer aside from Kingdom bottles. After me going on about equating good beer with expensive ingredients you might rightly question how I could like one of the cheapest beers available. And I still wonder myself, but as often as I drink it, thinking maybe I’m missing something, it still comes out as one of the best; it’s light, bright, sparkly and full of flavor. It doesn’t have the quality of Cambo, but I like it better. And besides it’s cheap, which, when balanced out, makes it a bit easier for me to justify spending all that extra on Kingdom.

As I was touting City amongst friends at the bar, one fellow scoffed and said the motodops think it’s so bad they won’t touch it. Now this fellow often prefers Beer Lao to Cambo draft, so I retorted by saying, I’ve drunk lots of Lao over the years but I’ve never, ever thought, Gee, I’d like a Beer Lao tonight, it just never occurs to me. Just to make sure it was indeed as I remembered it I bought a can and yes, it was thick, syrupy, bitter and seriously lacking in bubblies. So chacon a son gout to you too buddy!

September in April

It’s been September in April in Kampot. In the week or so centering around Khmer New Year we had close to 12 inches – 30cm – of rain with two very heavy deluges and the rest of the time it was dark and cloudy with lighter rainfalls almost every day. That is exactly what you’d expect in September, our heaviest month which in fact receives an average of 12 inches of precipitation.

This is my eleventh April in Cambodia and I’ve never seen anything like it. At least 3 or 4 of those years saw no precipitation whatever, not a drop. They were characterized by a relentless overbearing heat. In the five years I’ve lived in Kampot my cistern, which collects rainwater from the roof, has gone completely dry twice. This year it never got down to half. Climate Change anyone?

Just before the first torrent we had temperatures in the high 90s – 36-37C – which is very rare for Kampot since we are close to the sea and its moderating effects. Since warmer air holds more moisture, it follows that rainfall will increase with rising temperatures. At some point the use of the term global warming morphed into climate change, and it’s a bit more accurate since, for instance, climate change actually is bringing unusually cold wintry weather to places like the UK. Still, there have now been 336 consecutive months in which global temperature has exceeded the twentieth century average.

Almost all climate change predictions have underestimated the pace of change. That is partly because of the impacts of feedback loops. For instance, when ice, which reflects sunlight melts, leaving much darker blue sea or rock, more heat is absorbed. Each measure of melting then accelerates the loss of additional ice. While there’s no way to definitively attribute individual climate events to man’s impact on the climate, erratic or unusual weather is exactly what the models predict.

Nonetheless, Cambodia is doing its part to make things worse. But first, around the beginning of April there were news reports of  serious power outages in the capital. Why is that, the national electric company was asked, when the Kamchey dam near Kampot is now finished and working? When there’s water behind the dam it can provide almost half of Phnom Penh’s total demand, which is 400 megawatts (but growing at 20 to 25% per year). Unfortunately, in April, the time its power is needed most, there’s (usually) no water so the dam was working at only 10% of capacity. A few days later, representatives of the dam said they’d found a way to conserve water, so could send more juice the capital’s way. Mysteriously, right after that our water pressure went limp. No water at all for a couple hours a day. So water pressure is back with the heavy rain and I expect there’s a lot more water to pass through the generators at the dam.

If it hadn’t started raining, Cambodia’s first coal-fired plant which is due online in June or July, would’ve taken up the slack. At 700 megawatts, it can supply nearly twice the capital’s demand. The nice thing about coal is that it’s relatively cheap, but that’s its only saving grace. Under the best conditions it’ll produce large amounts of CO2. Being built by the Chinese it’ll also almost certainly spew lots of other more immediately toxic gases and particulates into the air. Modern coal plants can be relatively clean on matters other than CO2, but it’s hard to imagine the Chinese builders giving a damn about Cambodia’s air quality, considering China’s own air is among the worst in the world. Air pollution controls make a plant cost a lot more, so it’s extremely unlikely to happen, especially with Cambodia in such a subservient position.

Most new power projects in Cambo, both hydro and coal, are structured as BOT or build, operate, transfer. The developer finances and builds the plant, operates it for 30 or 40 years and then turns it over to the government. Cambodia, in its haste for power and development at any cost, has accepted whatever terms the Chinese – they’re almost all Chinese – have offered. This usually includes penalties for not using power. In other words, if there’s a surplus of power, the government pays anyway. And that’s understandable, nobody’s going to put up hundreds of millions of dollars without some guarantee of payback. Still that could potentially be a very big problem in the future.

Is this exceptionally wet April a harbinger of extreme rainfall later in the season? Impossible to say, but it’s remarkable nonetheless. It could turn hot and dry next week, normal for this time of year, but if it is a portent of things to come we could be in for some serious flooding. As mentioned previously, right at a natural bottleneck in the river, across from the government buildings at the southern end of town, there’s been extensive landfilling, making the river even smaller there.

Being an estuary, thus essentially part of the sea, the water level reflects the tides more than anything else. The exception being in case of very heavy rainfall bringing water down from the mountains combined with a storm surge and high tide that brings large amounts of water in from the sea. In that case, that bottleneck will serve to flood large areas of the city. I’m not looking forward to it.

In other Kampot news the riverside walk is being extended south to the old port, Cambodia’s first port. There are sometimes large fishing boats docked there but mostly it’s for small boats. A wood boardwalk about 1.2 meters wide is being built there, I assume to provide a place for the small fishing boats to dock in the early morning when they return from the sea. There isn’t a lot of development there at present but a lot of property has changed hands and a one hectare lot just south of the government buildings has been cleared – they cut down lots of healthy trees but did leave one sugar palm – so I expect a substantial development is in progress.

At the other end of town river road is in the process of being widened and paved, I believe all the way to the road the leads to dam, about 11 kilometers. That work has involved felling lots of nice old trees which beautifully graced the road, sometimes making a leafy green canopy. That was my favorite bike ride, but no more, it’ll just be a wide busy highway you use to get somewhere, not someplace to take your time and enjoy on a bicycle.

I know progress is inevitable and important and that road had to be done eventually since it was a disaster for anything larger than a motorbike, but I’m still personally disappointed at the loss of  green and tranquility. The one aspect I do have to take exception to is that they’re widening it more than needs to be. That extra capacity won’t be needed at least for the next decade or so, so the trees could’ve remained a little longer, but Cambodian officials love their pavement so they had to go.

Cheeky Thieves

First a correction from last month’s article. I caught some heavy flack because of my erroneous history of the old market. I was first told the market was built in 1904. That sounded way too early and considering where the info came from that date seemed suspect. Guy and his wife, both in their sixties, owned a bar called Bonkers. The bar wasn’t all that successful and they both in succession drank themselves to death, so you see what I mean. Later when I read that it was built in the early sixties, I ran with it. However, our amateur historian kinda snarled at me as he searched out the net and found a aerial picture of Kampot from the thirties which clearly shows the market. Still, hard as he tried, he couldn’t find a definitive date for its opening or a time or reason for its abandonment. I expect it’ll all be clear when our new museum is open. There must be some locals who know about it. Will keep you posted.

Around the middle of February my house on the edge of Kampot was broken into… while I was sleeping. The window in the kitchen as well as those on the sides of the house have traditional wood shutters and, at least until recently, six vertical metal bars and one cross-piece. With such defenses, you tend to feel quite safe and secure, but as it turns out, those metal barriers aren’t much of a deterrent to wily, dedicated thieves.

It was about 3am and I heard a clunking sound. The time between 3am and 4am is the least active part of the day. You can be out and about and if you’re a thief, and possibly high on yama, you’ve got the streets to yourself. I’m a very light sleeper, partly from needing to wake up and trudge off to the bathroom to pee at least a couple of times every night, which comes from a combination of drinking beer every night and nearing geezerhood. Even without the need to relieve myself, I rarely sleep more than 2 hours continuously. All that considered, I easily heard the sound of the wood shutter in the kitchen being pried open. I made it a bit easier on the goniffs by not latching the top of the shutters, mostly from being lazy. (In fact, for a long time I left them open at night just to keep the air flowing.) The additional sound might’ve jarred me awake instead of remaining mostly asleep.

After prying open the wood shutters, they used what must’ve been a quite substantial crowbar to leverage one of the vertical metal bars out of the relatively flimsy wood casing it was set into. That too wasn’t soundless. Once the bar was out of the casing, they – there had to be at least two of them – bent it out of the way so one of them could squeeze through. It had to be a kid or a runt because it’s only 20cm – 8 inches – between the bars. And it had to be at least two because it took quite an effort for me to bend the bar back into place. The little bastard who slipped through the bars was definitely not strong enough.

At any rate, while that was all happening I’m thinking to myself, in a three-quarters dream state, wondering what I could use to throw at intruders or what I could otherwise do to fend them off, in case that was what was actually happening. As I was pondering that weighty question, they were rifling through my stuff in the living room. My bedroom is quite small and I’ve been lazy about getting shelving so I just toss the clothes I expect to wear in the near future on top of the spare bed in the living room. They managed to nick my $30 Nokia and find $10 in a pocket of the pants I’d worn the night before. It was near payday and I’d just borrowed the tenner to help get me through. Right after payday they might’ve gotten a couple hundred dollars. They didn’t take my computer because it’s a desktop, so it wouldn’t be easy to make a quick getaway hauling a lunky one of those around. They didn’t take my alto sax, because they probably wouldn’t have the slightest idea what to do with it or how valuable it actually is, and they didn’t grab my precious $55 Sony short wave radio, undoubtedly thinking it’s just a copy that goes for about $5 new.

After a similar break-in happened to a neighbor several months back (though in that case entry through the kitchen was much easier) my landlady urged me to keep the door between the kitchen and rest of the house latched at night. But, as mentioned before, I have to wake up to piss often during the night and that would’ve meant hassling with the door every time, so my laziness and casualness triumphed.

Even though my house was built in 2001 and is made of concrete, it maintains the Khmer style of treating the kitchen/bath area as a separate add-on, so while the main part of the house has a high concrete ceiling, the kitchen has a lower, metal shed roof. At any rate, the kitchen is somewhat isolated from the rest of the house so the sound of the shutters being pried open was somewhat subdued. The same would not have been true if the door between the kitchen add-on and the remainder of the house was closed and latched since that’s a lot closer to my bed and I definitely would’ve fully woken up with the sound of that being broken through.

It must’ve been cosmic intervention that kept me from fully waking up, since I’ve been known to challenge ne’er-do-well’s in that context, but I would’ve been naked and had access to nothing to defend myself with and what could I do, half asleep, against a couple guys, each wielding a big crowbar or knife, or what have you. It’s possible my blood-curdling lion’s roar might’ve sent them scurrying away, but I also could’ve taken a chance of getting seriously injured.

Well, I showed the landlady the damage and she said she’d bring somebody by the next day to reinforce the metal bars by adding four cross pieces. Tomorrow never came but I hated to complain since the house is perfect for me and I’ve been there for 5 1/2 years in which she hasn’t raised the rent and we generally get on very well. So I let it slide thinking the thieves weren’t likely to return, especially since they got so little the first time. Like her I was being trusting and lackadaisical instead of serious about security.

Tomorrow, in fact, did come about 3 weeks later, except it wasn’t for improved security, but a second break-in. This time, fortunately, I was in Phnom Penh indulging in a three night marathon of drink and debauchery. The only reason why the latter is relevant, is that when I arrived home, the landlady was there to show me the damage. They came through the same compromised kitchen window and then broke through the wood door between the kitchen and living area, which I’d gotten into the habit of latching. They probably were the same guys. The real question is whether they had cased the place and knew I was away or thought they could invade a second time while I was sleeping. The second time I would’ve been a bit more prepared since I followed a friend’s advice and I now keep something substantial near my bed to swing at possible intruders.

The second time they got nothing. They hung around, opened a couple beers which they didn’t finish and made some noise which the next door neighbor heard, but didn’t notify the police of because she thought it was me. I never make noise at night be she wouldn’t necessarily know that.

The landlady was ready to bring in the workmen right then to reinforce the metal bars, but I absolutely refused since I was thoroughly drained from overdoing Phnom Penh and the drive back and it was past my nap time, so I said tomorrow and hit the sack for a fitful hour’s sleep.

When I awoke the landlady and a couple of police and others were out front so I dressed and went out to greet the commotion. As it turned out, the cops weren’t there because of the break-in but to hand me a document and have me sign off on a copy that I’d received it. But I refused since it was all in Khmer and I asked how I could sign something I couldn’t read. “Maybe it says I’m a bad man and must go to jail”. They got the message and left the document without getting my signature. More on the meaning of that after I finish the security aspect.

Since I’d refused to have the window reinforcing work done that day, I was left with a house that the thieves could practically walk right into, so I had to do something to protect myself for that one night. It was very unlikely that they’d return so soon, but I couldn’t take the chance so I put a heavy object in front of the flimsy wood door so they couldn’t walk right through it and then dumped a big basket of empty aluminum cans at the door so they’d make an ungodly racket trying to get into the living room, a noise which I couldn’t possibly sleep through. It sure was a hassle going through my makeshift barricade to pee three times that night, but I had no choice.

Well, the metal barriers on the windows did get reinforced with four extra cross members welded into place and the light duty wood door between the kitchen and living space has been replaced with a strong, practically impenetrable steel one. At this point nothing short of a blowtorch or wrecking crew is going to gain access into my house and no way I wouldn’t know when that was happening. Still it is a bit disconcerting to think how bold our thieves are becoming to hit the same house in such a short timespan. Of course, it could’ve been a different set of thieves, but I doubt it.

As for the document in Khmer that I didn’t sign, turns out it’s a notice to all those who are working in Cambo as well as those who hire non-citizens that they need to have work permits which, I later learned, cost $100 per year, with an extra $50 for expediting the process. The Phnom Penh immigration police are here to check us out and make sure we follow the rules. They are asking for back fees up to seven years, so a lot of money. They also told Bokor Mt. Lodge, located on the river in Kampot, they wanted them to add a 10% tax on room rates and 12% on restaurant meals. Hassle is coming to Cambo. If we have to start getting permits and paying taxes, that’s justifiable and maybe unavoidable – nobody could think it was always going to be so easy to live here - but backdating for up to seven years is pure robbery. The story is still unfolding but deadline looms so expect an update in the next issue.

In other news the second annual I Love Kampot River event was held this month. Various estimates gave the number of children attending at 600 to 1200. They sent out about 30 boats filled with kids who spent a couple hours picking up garbage along the river banks and they brought back about a hundred large sacks worth. They taught the kids a song about protecting the environment in which all sang together and all in all they had a good time and learned good civics lessons. Certainly most will not be as likely to casually toss their garbage around. And it’s great to see expats taking an interest in the community and volunteering for good deeds.

Kampot Update

The old market, a fine bit of architecture, was built in the late sixties but was gutted by fire just a couple years after it was completed and lay abandoned until recently. The above was published in my March Bayon Pearnik article. I caught some heavy flack because my history of the old market was way off. I was first told the market was built in 1904. That sounded way too early and considering where the info came from that date seemed suspect. It came  from a Brit and his wife, who were both in their sixties. They owned a bar called Bonkers; it wasn’t all that successful and they both in succession drank themselves to death, so you see what I mean. Later when I read that it was built in the early sixties, I ran with it. However, our amateur historian kinda snarled at me as he searched out the net and found a aerial picture of Kampot from the thirties which clearly shows the market. Still, hard as he tried, he couldn’t find a definitive date for its opening or a time or reason for its abandonment. I expect/hope it’ll all be clear when our new museum is open. There must be some locals who know about it. Will keep you posted.

Cambodia’s troubles kept it derelict for a long time until rehabilitation began about a year ago. It is now filling up, though mostly on the outside, none of the inner stalls have been rented yet. And in a curious juxtaposition, it’s bringing Khmer owned and oriented businesses to the riverfront. Until the market opened nearly all the businesses on the river were western owned or catered to westerners. In contrast, most of the new shops are clothing stores typical of everywhere in the city, but there’s also a tailor, a fancy “Mans Hairdresser” shop, tour/travel agents and a mini-mart. I expected more of the souvenir, specialty traveler clothing type to inhabit the market, but no, at least not yet.

At the front of the market facing the river are two restaurants that provide a study in contrasts. One is western styled with a thatched roof covering part of the large space, very nice plantings and a pleasant ambiance. The other is a Khmer style fast food place specializing in deep fried snacks, including chicken feet and meatballs and assorted other foods on a stick. The atmosphere is strictly bare-bones, cheap-plastic-chairs and -stools. It’s open only for late afternoon and early evening snacks and does a booming business though rent is high and margins are low so it remains to be seen how successful it will be.

There are lots of people around, the place is hopping, with new guest houses, restaurants and bars opening up regularly. I don’t mind having all those tourists around, especially knowing it’ll quiet down considerably in a couple months. There’s also been some very fine restorations of historic buildings. Kampot is a very old town, the country’s first port, and it’s old district is relatively well preserved.

The former governor’s mansion at the south end of the river promenade is being converted to a museum which they plan to make free. They’ve removed the air-conditioners to save in maintenance costs. Doing that has allowed them to open up and aerate the building: it’s looking good. Just a bit further south the riverfront park has been extended another 200 meters almost to the Aquatic Sports Center. I wouldn’t be surprised if they intend to extend it even further. That area is largely undeveloped but the way things are going, I expect it won’t stay that way long, especially with a new park on the river.

 The government has been going all out laying asphalt on nearly all the city’s thoroughfares. They evidently think westerners will be impressed by lots of nice pavement. They’ve improved all the park strips and traffic circles, so what else is there? There’s no real park the way we think of them in the west, but Cambodians don’t seem to grasp the concept of large natural green spaces with miniforests, ponds, grassy areas, picnic tables, and sports fields and courts. As a result, all they know about improving the city is to lay more pavement. In my neighborhood, just north of new bridge road, they’re going all out paving in concrete. I guess since it requires no special equipment – as asphalt does - only lots of labor which is cheap, it’s easier to do it that way.

As a measure of where Kampot is going, as well as Cambodia as a whole, I’ll recount my land experience. I purchased a 3000 meter plot 3 kilometers from town in 2008 in the last throes of the late property boom for $4.60 per square meter - $14,000. In between the time the contract was signed, but before the hard title was ready about 6 weeks later, the owners were offered $20,000.

Within a year or so, I decided the country gentleman/farmer life was not for me. At the age of 67 I couldn’t stand having my mind constantly boggled by house construction and maintenance, working the land and hiring local help; it was more than I could bear. However, by then the market had crashed and the land was barely worth $2/meter - $6000, so I was forced to wait to try to sell it. In the beginning of 2011, I offered it at $9000 and found a buyer, who as it turned out, couldn’t finish the payments. Last year I had two different people who really wanted it at $12,000 but didn’t have the money.

This year I offered it at $5/meter and still no buyer: everybody agreed that it was a nice piece of land and the price was fair but buying land is not like buying a cheap cellphone, it has to be the right person. About a month ago a real estate guy who I’d talked to 2 years before called and asked if the land was still available and what I wanted for it: I said $15,000 - $5/meter. He showed it to friends (who didn’t know I had land for sale) and said I wanted $6/meter! The longer I wait the more it’s worth, pretty soon it’ll be $50/meter. Well, probably not. Anyway, I’d just as soon sell it now at its current price before the next crash. It might not happen for a couple years, but I’d rather not take the chance. Meanwhile, it’s looking up for Kampot and Cambo.

On a sad and disturbing note, a naked young French tourist washed up on the river about a kilometer from the guest house she was staying in. By various accounts the police have a suspect or suspects, but we all hope the got the real culprit(s) and not just fingered the first bad guy who came along in order to have a quick resolution to the case. While that type of thing can happen anywhere and Cambo is far safer for us than a lot of other places in the world, it’s no less heart-rending and a cause for concern.  

Overload and Disconnect: About three years ago Highway 3 between Kampot and Sre Ambel, where it connects to Highway 4, was an excellent road, but once the reconstruction of route 3 between Phnom Penh and Kampot was finished, it became an alternate route for big trucks heading from the capital to Sihanoukville. As a consequence, until recent patching was done, it had become a shambles. It’s 20 kilometers farther going via Kampot, but evidently, considering the tolls on Highway 4, it must still be cheaper.

The reconstruction of route 3, as all the national roads that I’m aware of, was done with a layer of bitumen tar between two layers of gravel. The lower layer of gravel is rolled and packed down, the tar is added on top then a second layer of gravel is just tossed on top with the action of vehicles running over it creating a road surface. That works fine for a road used by light vehicles, though even there, potholes will develop quickly. As long as they are patched as soon as they appear the road can last quite a long time. That type of surface is used because it’s a lot cheaper than higher-quality asphalt pavement. If you’re driving on route 3 you’ll notice that the pavement on the bridges is asphalt, making a much smoother ride than the rest of the roadway which is bitumen. I’m not sure why that is, but it’s standard practice.

It’s a completely different story when overloaded trucks, especially giant ones, use the road. In that case, within a few months large sections of the surface are trashed. Cambodian truck drivers have an obsession with getting as much as they can on their rig, regularly loading 10 tons of material on a truck designed for 2 tons. Just recently in my neighborhood one such truck packed high with 50 kilo sacks of salt backed over a newly installed concrete drainage pipe buried under 10 or 15 cm of dirt and caved it right in. To tell you the truth I didn’t feel all that sorry for the trucker as I watched him as he was emptying most of the load so he could get the truck back on the road, and then, of course, having to reload the whole thing. I also wouldn’t sympathize all that much with him when his rig breaks down from overloading… though I guess even stupid and/or inconsiderate people deserve sympathy sometimes.

Overloading trucks actually doesn’t save all that much money when you factor in expensive repairs, highway breakdowns - which cost a lot more to fix - and the extra fuel needed to carry an excessive load. Probably the worst offenders are the rock trucks used in construction. The owners regularly raise up the sides 20 or 30 cm and then pile the rock as high as they can. They are so heavy they can barely do 40 kph at full throttle with the engine screaming. What’s more, some of the trucks that ply our roads are so large to begin with, even before their capacity has been expanded, that they would be too heavy to be allowed on American roads, so obviously pure disaster for roads here made of a thin layer of bitumen. However, even the new roads constructed of more durable asphalt are breaking up after only a year or so.

With no firm regulations and no enforcement of weight limits, the authorities will probably spend as much money repairing roads as building them. The only completely legitimate way to enforce weight limits would be by installing truck scales, not very likely here in the near future. On the other hand, it isn’t that hard to determine the weight of some materials, like a cubic meter of rock, and then measure the truck’s capacity to determine how much weight it’s carrying. The biggest trucks aren’t necessarily the worst offenders since it’s weight per axle that counts. Some of those, which are never seen in America, have triple rear axles and double  front steering axles. Along with the rock trucks, there are lots of giant stake bed trucks, with only single rear axles, loaded to the top with heavy materials.

The big truck problem is compounded in Kampot by the location of the access road to the new bridge - finished in 2010 - passing by the main entry to the public market. Public markets are notoriously congested so having lots of miscellaneous, extraneous traffic including giant trucks with their belching fumes, noisy engines and driver’s tendency to excessive horn blowing, doesn’t do much for the neighborhood’s ambiance or safety and is really not the way you design a city.

I have a degree in urban studies and have spent extensive mental energy mulling over planning concepts all my life so the problem was obvious to me from the start, but in this case the disconnect is so clear that several people with no such background have mentioned that problem to me. The planners faced a serious, though not intractable, dilemma since there was no easy alternative; that is, there was no other street they could’ve used that didn’t require purchasing expensive urban land. Except for the need to purchase almost 200 meters of right-of-way the street one block north would’ve been perfect since it’s largely fronted by industrial uses, which since they already tend to be noisy and polluting, mesh perfectly with highways. When developing greenfields, essentially blank slates, planners are free to design at will, but when dealing with the city ‘as built’, they are seriously constrained. In this case neither the bridge nor the market are going to be moved to accommodate good planning.

Ultimately, the only answer in this situation would be a bypass road or in the distant future a freeway. You never want through traffic, especially when that includes large trucks, going through a town or congested area. Until recently there was so little traffic in Cambodia that that didn’t matter much. Besides, the country was lucky to have any decent roads let alone modern limited-access highways.

One change likely to make a difference soon is the completion of the Phnom Penh – Sihanoukville rail line. Toll Holdings, an Australian company that has the concession to run the operation, has run a test train over the track and for some time has run a train to the Kampot Cement plant which is about halfway from the capital to Kampot. Bulk cargo is always cheaper and less damaging to the environment to transport via rail compared to road, so hopefully most heavy freight now busting up our highways will switch to rail. Also hopefully, they won’t wait long to start passenger service. The tracks are built for 80 kph trains and it’s only 150 kilometers from PP to KP so even with several stops it shouldn’t take more than 2/12 or 3 hours to make the run. Won’t that be great.

Also, bus services have improved immensely since I first started making the trip 6 years ago. Back then the trip took six hours or more, considering the condition of the roads, the extra distance of going through Kep (at the time the southern leg of highway 3 was almost impossible for large buses to negotiate) the road from the highway to Kep was a 15 kph dirt road, and the bridge 10 k’s east of Kampot was under construction. Now there are two big-bus lines going direct which cuts the trip down to 3 1/2 hours, and two ‘luxury’ minibus lines offering a very fast and comfortable ride. Still, nothing compares with a train ride where you can easily get out of your seat and walk around. Trains are also far superior scenically since the tracks go through the countryside as opposed to buses passing by lots of trashy roadside buildings, not to mention, here in Cambodia, honest-to-goodness roadside trash.

Blackjack Scams in Phnom Penh

There’s been a long running thread on a popular Cambodia forum about Filipino blackjack scammers. Well, it isn’t just Filipinos and it’s been happening for a long time. The following is the write-up of my experience with blackjack scams back in 1992 during my first overseas trip, with updates and background added. I covered 8 Asian countries in one year and started in Thailand.

My first day in Chiang Mai, Thailand's second city, I stopped to rest and peruse on one of my exploratory walks and Rudy approaches. When traveling, one of the things I most like to do to get the feel of a new place is pound the pavement: I walk endlessly. This makes you available for a lot of potential happenings. Rudy starts with, You Italian? ...America, what a coincidence, I was born in Hawaii. He’s 63, was raised in Indonesia, but his story, background, is confusing and hard to figure. After a few minutes of light conversation he asks if I have any important engagements otherwise he’ll take me to meet his nephew, have a few drinks. He also has a young niece I’d like to meet. The way he sweet-talked the young girl in the shared taxi on the way to the nephew’s, I thought his story of having nineteen kids with six wives might actually be true.

The sweet young thing I’d like to meet makes a cameo appearance, says hello and disappears. Rico, his nephew, who looks to be in his mid-thirties, has a nice house in a residential part of the city. He's conversant in English and we spend maybe 20 minutes talking about recycling, the work I’d just left, amongst other general topics. Then after our perfunctory bit of small talking he explains he’s a pit boss for a chain of casinos, but to make a little side money he’s looking for a partner to learn his program for winning at blackjack. If I can do it he’ll stake me and I’ll get a 25% cut. He says there are lots of Japanese and Chinese high rollers who practically enjoy losing their money. He assures me I can make $25,000 in one sitting and he’s persistent about showing me how it works, in spite of my repeated attempts to decline the invite.

Rico’s dealing; in the real game that I’m training for, the guy that likes to lose his money bankrolls the dealer. I’m sitting across from Rico playing against the house. Rico gives me hand signals or shows me the cards… if you don’t get it on the first show, touch your eyebrow. He likes the way I shuffle, I talk about playing blackjack as a teenager (I almost always lost). Yes, he thinks I can learn his program and explains that he can’t use an oriental, they would be suspect, whereas I would make a perfect cover. He says he tried a black American guy once but he got greedy and demanded an unfair 50%. I don’t know Rico, this is kind of sudden, I’ll have to get back to you.

Meanwhile I’m visualizing my throat being cut by one of those Japanese or Chinese patsies who love to lose their money should they become apprised of what’s happening. Rico then repeats a story about his wife being in the hospital and he’s in dire need of $3000 to get her out. He goes on to say that there’s a guy in town who has $5000 to lose, he can set up a game for that afternoon and we can make it a practice run. Rico, I’ll have to think about it.

Rudy tried mightily, but unsuccessfully, to get me to go with Rico’s scam, meanwhile there is somewhere else he really wants to take me and it turns out to be a working class brothel. He says the girls are between 15 and 19 and while Asians do tend to look young in European eyes a couple of them looked decidedly younger. At one point in our conversation over beers at the knocking shop he kisses his cross, explaining he’s a Catholic, and a short time later he’s telling me that the owner gives him first crack at the virgins, but says he’s not interested and jokes about them being too small. (Fascinating, isn’t it, how people can profess their faith one minute and then almost instantly become the antithesis of piety?)

It was my first brothel experience - being very drunk it was hard to resist - but set the tone, with very few succeeding ones, of it clearly and definitely not being my bag. He made the whole brothel thing sound so commonplace – with me being totally new to prevailing attitudes towards the Asian sex scene – I asked him if he thought it would be okay for his own daughters to be prostitutes. Oh no, they don’t have to, he replied. As I was leaving he asked me for 100 baht ($4), said he was broke… big talker, small time beggar.

Eight months later I was in the Philippines in Bagio, a sweet little town in the mountains north of Manila. When I arrived it was overcast and rainy, and being at 5000 feet - 1700 meters - I got chilled and that, compounded by my trying to travel too far too fast, thus stressing my system out, got me a serious cold and I spent several days recovering.

As I began to perk up I took a little walk and Robert pulls up to begin a conversation. He seems like a decent guy and I haven’t had the opportunity to relate much so I agree to sit down for a cup of coffee. He’s traveled some around Southeast Asia and says one of his sisters is about to go to the US to study. She and his mother would both like to meet me, talk and ask questions about America. On the way we meet up with a cousin and head for his house. He offers me a cup of tea and I spot some medicine - a bottle of J & B - and offer myself a shot. No sign of sister or mother.

After a few minutes of small talk he tells me that he works in a casino and he’s looking for a partner to win some money in a private blackjack game. Seems like there are lots of Japanese and other gamblers who like to lose their money and I can make $2000 in an afternoon. Haven’t I heard this one before? I try to head him off but he insists on seeing if I can learn his method. His hand signals for showing me the cards were almost identical to the ones used by Rico back in Thailand. He had the same rap about me being a good cover, that he couldn’t use an Oriental, the sucker would suspect, and even the same story about working with a black American guy who got greedy and demanded 50% instead of 25%.

He too had a female relative - this time a sister - who needed medical attention that very day and a loser who could be called over to part with his money in two hours. He was persistent in spite of my refusals so I told him about Rico back in Thailand, that he offered me $25,000 in a sitting, that I still wasn’t interested, that I didn’t feel well and had to go. But you haven’t met my sister. Maybe another time, I responded. He then asked me for 100 pesos ($4) to help towards the sister’s (20,000 peso) operation. Fortunately I only had 50 pesos showing (I usually kept most bigger bills in a secret pocket I had sewn into my pants) and figured that wasn’t an unreasonable price to pay for a cup of tea and a shot of J & B. The cousin accompanied me out and offered to sell me a $2 fake gold ring for $200 - to raise money for the operation, of course. Sorry pal, but I only have barely enough money to travel with. Then he tried for an $80 loan with the ring as collateral. Sorry.

The similarity of the two scams was uncanny. I mentioned my experience to a traveler friend who then related a story of an Australian guy he’d met who’d actually gone for a similar scam only to discover there was more collusion working against him than with him. Besides, knowing the cards doesn’t stop them from sometimes going against you; assuming that is, that they were dealt honestly. He narrowly escaped being taken for a bundle of money – they’d escorted him to an ATM, but he’d successfully made a run for it - and had to leave town quick. I kept wondering if there was a book in print with a chapter that described in utmost detail how to bilk an unsuspecting tourist in a blackjack money scam. Did my ‘friends’, 1500 miles apart, in two different countries, read it and study it to the point where they could repeat it almost verbatim? A year later back in Manila while hanging out watching the passing throng, a young guy came by. He introduced himself, started small talk and soon seemed eager, too eager, to have me meet his family. This isn’t one of those blackjack scams is it? I asked him. He left without a goodbye.

One reason I nearly always lost playing blackjack with friends as a teenager was that some were adept at cheating. That experience permanently soured me from a taste for gambling. After that discovery I ceased to gamble my cigarette money (25 cents a pack in the mid-fifties – same as Cambo today) and let the losers bum fags off me. Even if there was no cheating involved, I wasn’t happy about being broke and having to beg smokes from the others. Five or six years later, in 1961, I stopped at a casino in Las Vegas on a cross country trip and lost a dollar, maybe two in a one-arm bandit. It was a full 43 years later, while visiting mom in the fogey home, that I next entered a casino. Twice a month they’d fill up the minibus with anyone who wanted to go to the Indian casino and gave us all a $10 credit to start us off. I’d quickly lose that and maybe another ten of my own money before I stopped.

Unlike in 1960 when you had to drop your coin in the slot and then pull down a large lever to get the lemons to roll, which at least took several seconds, now you have your prepaid card inserted and press a button and presto, in a matter of 2 seconds you’ve lost your money. Well, it is possible to win, but the longer you play, the less likely winning becomes since the house has to have its cut, else how could they pay for those grand palaces they build? All the above is just to say that I’m not a gambler and absolutely not a scammer and wouldn’t go for the blackjack scam under any circumstances, even if I believed it was a money-maker.

However, it was fascinating to watch the casino scene for an hour or so, since, on my own accord, casinos are the last place you’ll ever find me: my interest is less than nil. I was amazed watching a woman playing two slot machines at the same time, I guess she didn’t want to wait one second for the play to finish so needed two machines to keep her occupied.

We were there in the daytime and I appreciated the fact that casinos in Minnesota aren’t allowed to serve alcoholic beverages. Alcohol is the grease that helps losers part with their money. They start drinking to relax and ease tension, then when they start losing bad, it gives them the courage to go-for-broke to try to win back their losses. My brother, who spent a few years in Reno, told me an anecdote about ultimate losers who, after maxing out their credit or debit cards would go to an appliance store – some are open all night – and purchase a TV or whatever (you can still use a card for purchases after you can no longer get cash out of it) and then take it nearby to a pawn shop and off it for 25 or 50 cents on the dollar. You know, last chance to win it all back, except by then the guy is already desperate, which means he takes excessive chances, which then makes winning almost impossible.

I did something very unkind while wheeling mom around (she could walk but not too far). We stopped to watch the action at a high-stakes blackjack table – minimum bet $25 – off the walkway behind a waist high partition. The table was full, the dealer had a 5 showing. For those of you unfamiliar with blackjack, that means he has to take a hit and since most cards are high numbers chances are good he has a high card underneath and will go over 21 and lose. All the players on the table had stayed in after seeing the dealer’s dicey card. One had an ace showing, another, a young gal, had doubled down with two picture cards. She had a big stack of chips on the bet; at least several hundred if not thousands of dollars at stake. When it came to the dealer showing his cards, he had a very small number underneath. He then started turning cards up and when he’d gotten to five, the maximum, he had 21 points, meaning everybody had lost. When I saw the sad look on his face, indicating he actually felt sorry for the table of big losers, I broke out into one of my 90 decibel guffaws, I couldn’t help myself. You could’ve heard me halfway across the casino. The gal who’d lost bad gave me the evil eye, but hell, easy come easy go, right? You don’t gamble unless you don’t mind losing, right?

They call it gaming now, not gambling. You know, it’s a game, just for fun, same as playing Monopoly or Scrabble. I could see it as entertainment if it didn’t cost so much and wreck so many lives and families. In fact, I love a friendly poker game with a maximum 25 or 50 cent bet. Drink and smoke, laugh and joke for half the night and watch the cards unfold. Can’t lose enough to make a difference, can’t win enough to care, just a lot of fun.

 Cambostan