Bokor is Open Again

The following is an intro for people unfamiliar with Cambodia. Bokor hill station was established by the French colonials in the 1920’s as a high elevation escape from the sea level heat in the January to May hot season. It wasn’t all that successful until it was shut down by WWII in 1940. It was then opened again in 1963 only to be closed again as a result of Cambodia’s troubles when it became a sometime battleground. It stood in ruins until recently when Cambodia’s richest man was given the concession to develop it into a billion dollar casino, resort and luxury villa complex. It was and still is an interesting place to visit historically. It’s part of Bokor National Park, but national parks don’t mean much in Cambodia, since most have recently had large chunks of their areas sold off for agri-businesses or resorts.

After three years of construction, Bokor is finally open again and it’s free too. I’d been there twice previously, once via the old road and then when the new one was under construction. The old road was left over from the sixties with a pavement that hadn’t been maintained since then so it was like very holy Swiss cheese all the way up with small pieces of pavement surrounded by gaping potholes. It was great for an adventurous dirt bike ride, but for the SUV I was in the 30 kilometers to the top was a tedious two hour crawl. On the other hand, esthetically it was a beautiful ride with a narrow right-of-way slicing through the forest. The trees were so close at times they almost made a canopy over the road.

The second time, about 2 years ago, I went up with my ‘88 Camry. The road was under construction and it was torturous washboard surface for the old beast to manage. After that when people asked to go up I said not until the road is finished. The road is now probably the best quality highway in the country. It’s a wide surface with two thick smooth layers of asphalt in contrast to newly reconstructed national highways which are a thin layer of bitumen sandwiched in between two layers of gravel. Though National Highway 3 hasn’t been finished all that long it’s already deteriorating and needing extensive repairs in some places.

As for the Bokor road, the right-of-way is far larger than is needed, which is especially problematical in steep terrain. For much of the distance the right-of-way can accommodate an additional two lanes of pavement. The flat area is so wide it required very large road cuts which have eroded so quickly that before the complex was even open for visitors they had already begun repair mode on the brand new road right-of-way by bolstering up the hillsides to protect the pavement from washing away. You can easily see the gaping gash on the mountainside from Kampot.

They wanted to make the road able to easily accommodate large tour buses and the virtual city they are planning up top, but they could’ve easily done that by widening the road a bit here and there and straightening out some of the difficult curvy spots. They could’ve done that with far less money and maintained the wonderful feeling of passing through leafy green forest, but we know Khmers don’t have much sense of green esthetics and they love vast expanses of pavement so the result is the road passes through a wide and ugly road cut. Curiously, they’ve planted trees on the extra wide level part but not on the hillsides where they’re needed the most to prevent erosion, but at any rate, the road is finished and we can at least go up and check it out.

Not far from the top is a giant Buddha, maybe 10 meters tall, that was under construction at the time we went by. I’m not sure what relevance a giant Buddha has to a massive casino complex, but maybe after you’ve lost your shirt you’re ready to give up all earthly desires and join the monkhood. I fortunately got weaned off any gambling desire as a teenager after playing poker with friends: some were adept at cheating and I’d consistently lose my cigarette money. After that I’d sit back and watch and let the losers bum fags off me.

Across from the Buddha is an abandoned relic, erstwhile kitchen for the workers. It is fronted by roadside snack vendors, the only place you see them, there are none up top. Down the dirt track from the former kitchen are two abandoned houses to peruse. One has an especially interesting wing-shaped design. Along the way are several immense old Agave plants, evidently doing fine on their own for decades without any care or maintenance.

The first thing to check out up on the plateau is the large scale model of the project. It’s so big a friend I went with took two minutes to walk around it, though admittedly he was taking pictures as he went. Also the building housing the model is twice or three times the size of the model itself and thus mostly sits empty, they might even have a plan for the space. I hope it’s not a bad omen but many of the buildings on the hilly parts of the terrain in the model are listing at steep angles seemingly ready to topple over at any time. For sure they have grand, even grandiose, plans for the area with hundreds of villas and large apartment houses and hotels as well as the casino complex. There’s also the 18-hole golf course and a tram to take people from the lower level golf course up to the casino and developed area. By the time this article is published the casino will have had its soft opening. Just in time for me to change my tack, go up and blow my pension check on the chance to get rich quick. Or maybe not.

We next headed for Populvul waterfall. The previous time I saw it was on a Khmer holiday. For three years while the road was under construction they only let people up during holidays and the place was jammed. There’s not a lot of watershed upstream of the falls so you’re not likely to see much water except in rainy season. Still, it’s a very large and dramatic falls consisting of flat rocks, sometimes huge, stacked up about eight or ten meters above the lower pool. Water flows through the cracks as well as over the top. All parts are accessible so you’ll see people clambering about on all levels. Downstream is very steep with massive boulders strewn about, some of which have perfectly square corners.

In a national park in a typical western country there’d be well marked trails that would allow for hiking downstream to see the dramatic creek bed. There are no marked trails that I know of in the park or I expect, any park in Cambodia. The only exception being Kep National Park and those signs were put up by a restaurant owner. The plateau is actually a tiny part of the park. There are places to enter Bokor on foot from the periphery where the forest is largely intact, though any natural area in Cambodia that isn’t watched 24/7 will have been degraded somewhat. One such trail leads to what we locals call the hidden waterfall. The lack of trails means the only way to see it is by hiking up the creek bed. Actually it’s more like clambering over sometimes huge rocks that are very slick and wet in rainy season, the only time you really want to see a waterfall. When it’s raining hard it’d be downright dangerous if not impossible to make it up that way.

This time on a weekday there were only two Khmers at Populvul. The signage wasn’t in place and it took a while to figure out how to get the 100 meters from the road to the falls. They’ve taken one of the feeder creeks, which didn’t have much water in it, and added large relatively flat rocks to give access to the falls. I’m sure they’ll construct better access because one thing you can’t miss is the very large building under construction no more than 20 meters from the falls. The only use I can imagine for the building is a restaurant or food court. I guess it’s designed to serve about 300 people. That’s the absolute last thing I would develop at the site. Besides where are all the customers going to come from? I just don’t see it. A viewpoint I could understand, but a huge restaurant practically hanging over the falls?

On the way back, heading into the heart of the complex we passed by the casino. It’s a large and impressive building tucked into a hollow in the sloping land. Alongside is a 200 or 300 car hillside parking lot. In the back, I assume, are the hotel units. By itself the building is a bit grand in a garish kind of way. It’s a typical casino style building so it’s somewhat overdone and thus a little out of place up on the mountain. Casinos are supposed to look impressive and as an aside reflect the huge amount of money the owners make off people’s weakness. Still, all-in-all, it’s not bad looking.

Next we stopped at the old hotel which is fenced off and being restored. Well, that’s good, at least the developers have a bit of respect for history. Just back of the hotel is the steep 1000 meter drop-off from the plateau to the ocean. Unfortunately, for the third time, as I somehow expected, I wasn’t able to see the water. The plateau itself was mostly in sun, but everything below was shrouded in clouds and mist; you’re looking down into the cloud. You could see the moisture rising up the mountainside and then dissipating as it reached the top. The first time was identical to the above. I’m told the clouds often envelop the plateau as well. The second time it was raining like hell and not even possible to check out the steep mountainside. There are even rare occasions which are cloudless and offer great views of the ocean… I’ve seen pictures so I know it must be true.

Which brings up another point, for a good part of the year the weather is really shitty: wet, windy and uncomfortable. For the rest of it, cloudy, threatening weather is very likely. It’s much cooler up there, a definite plus, but in balance, it’s not a pleasant place to be over the whole year so I wonder how many people will want to buy million dollar mansions up there. The French built it as a hill station to escape the sea level heat in the March to May hot season, but it’ll get very chilly around December and January and constantly pissing down rain in September and October.   

Up on the hillside is the old trashed-out church, which I’m told is now being used as a crash pad for construction workers. When you wander a little further you come to the abandoned king’s house and nearby barracks for his bodyguards. Then there’s the reservoir, old casino and a few other relics to visit. The area is good for a leisurely afternoon’s exploration and interesting from an historical perspective, but I personally wouldn’t go again unless it was to escort others; especially now that my favorite place, the waterfall area , has received such a garish treatment.

On another note, a community of expats oriented towards civic and environmental activism organized “I love Kampot River” day on March 14 in conjunction with International Clean Rivers Day. They solicited contributions from local businesses and used the money to put on a fun environmental awareness event. This involved bringing hundreds of kids out to clean up the river and a flotilla of tour boats to ferry them to places to do their good deeds. They set up a tent on riverside park a block north of the old bridge, provided t-shirts and food and there was music by the Kampot Playboys at sunset. Damage and/or injury was just barely avoided when one of the tents started blowing over around sunset; a bunch of guys grabbed it just in time before it could cause any problems.

I did a lot of that type of activity during my time in Portland, Oregon and went to one of their meetings to check out what they were up to. It reminded me of the large amount of organizing work it takes to put on an event of that magnitude. It also indicated the presence of a whole subset of activist type expats who are taking root in the town.

Also, related to road construction, River Road in the center of town is getting a brand new high-quality asphalt pavement. It was only a year or so ago that the original surface, which was solid, but rough, was torn up and replaced with a gravel and bitumen treatment. The old surface could’ve been patched and then lasted a long time, though still been somewhat rough, but that’s okay in that kind of touristy, entertainment-type location because you don’t want people to drive fast to begin with. The bitumen surface started breaking up after only a few months and in only a year had been thoroughly patched twice. Now the new asphalt surface is so smooth, it’s almost hard to believe.

They sure are bringing in the money to improve Kampot: along with the new pavement, upgrading of riverside park is nearly finished as well as the restoration of the old market, but with Bokor open and the new port under construction and the obvious surge in tourist arrivals, their interest is probably warranted. Too bad it’s so often misguided like the way they emasculated Kampot’s century old trees.

Still, I’ve also got plenty of gripes about the way the US has been developed, and in the end result, Cambodia doesn’t look all that bad in comparison. For instance, Cambodia is in the process of selling off vast tracts of national park and other ‘protected’ areas for corporate plantations. In America, starting in 1946 (and continuing to the present) the US government has sold off 90% of the giant trees of the national forests of the Pacific Northwest. Trees up to 100 meters tall and 800-years-old were chopped down like toothpicks.

Still, one wishes the Cambo government wasn’t so intent on imitating the worst aspects of western development by selling off so much of the nation’s patrimony. Those resources should’ve been maintained in perpetuity for the common good. The country’s officials believe they’re making the right decisions for the country’s future, but like the filling in of Boeng Kak Lake in Phnom Penh, the end result will eventually be realized to have been a mistake.

Stan Kahn   

Raise Your Kids in Cambodia Versus America?

I was hanging out having drinks with friends a while back. It was sort of a gathering to welcome back for a visit a guy who’d lived in Cambodia a long time but had migrated to the States several months earlier. He remarked that he hadn’t had a chance to get together like that for quite a while. Why is that, I asked. Well, there aren’t many bars around - he’s out in the far burbs of Chicago - and besides the people he might meet in them were all conservative crap-heads. His co-workers were at the same dismal level of consciousness, nobody he’d want to hang out with.

He had two primary reasons for going back. One was a good job opportunity, the other was to better the lives of his children; worthy causes for sure. As to the former most of us, based on necessity, have at times lived in places which we disliked or even desperately wanted to leave, but couldn’t because we were trapped; maybe from the need to stay with a good job; possibly family commitments or limited resources kept us tied down. Many of us also have done jobs we’ve hated or been bored silly by because it was our fate. In my case for most of my early life I had to take the first job offered or else be on the street and hungry a few weeks later. At least he’ll be accumulating a stash in furtherance of long term goals and he’ll have the wherewithal to change his life when he wants to.

Still it seems a bit of a sacrifice to be in a place where you feel isolated, where you have no friends to hang out with… but, who am I to judge. Cambodia has its good points, but would certainly never win a prize in the ‘normal’ department, so maybe he needed a change of pace and even likes the burbs and doesn’t care all that much about hanging out with friends over a few beers .

 As for improving his children’s opportunities in life, if the parents are regressive, narrow-minded crap, then so, most likely, will their children be and if he can’t stand the parents why would he want to subject his children to spending their school time, which is a large part of a kid’s life, with their politically retarded offspring? By the way, a recent study confirmed what many of us have known all along; that conservatives are dumber than average, most likely because that ties in with being selfish, intolerant bigots who lack sympathy or empathy for others.

On the other hand, there’s no question it’s easier to get your kids a basic education in America, especially in a better class suburb. Opportunities for learning are far better in the West. In Cambodia anything but the most expensive international school will be weak or inadequate in teaching the ABC’s and 3 R’s. However, education is a lot more than that rote learning. Personally, while not discounting the value of basic knowledge, I feel that learning from life is more important and, tied in with that, the fundamental part of education can be gained through personal initiative and inspiration from parents.

Another friend has a kid nearing school age. He’s intent on moving back to the states because he finds Cambodian culture lacking and believes his kid will suffer intellectually if left in the hands of her grandmother and other Khmer relatives for much of the time. He’d be moving to a hip part of  Los Angeles so at least she’d be growing up in a more open minded, culturally advanced society compared to the suburban Midwest.

But it’s also a place where the air is unfit to breathe from 50 to 90 days a year. It’s an endless city where you can literally drive for two hours at speed - on 10 to 14 lane freeways with everybody driving at 60 or 70 miles an hour less than a car length apart - and always be in view of a suburban wasteland.

On the other hand, LA does have a lot going for it besides being the home of frou-frou Hollywood. It’s probably the most multi-cultural, multi-racial city in America, if not the world. It’s highly entrepreneurial with every type of industry and commerce represented. It’s got a climate that’s very mild and pleasant almost all year and, if you can get past the traffic, it’s got ocean, mountains and desert within reach.

I have been back only a few times since I left in 1964. One image, one scene most impressed me as the essence of the city. LA is actually very dense in spite of a lot of people living in single family houses and there are endless rows of two or three story apartment buildings. The dry climate makes stucco the preferred construction material and it’s all painted in pastels because it naturally fits the sense of sunny southern California. Nearly every apartment, at least those built since the sixties, has big picture windows or sliding glass doors but in my experience they’re always covered in drapes and the residents live in shady darkness inside. So pastel on the outside, darkness on the inside. The apartments are designed to be light and airy but nobody wants to relate to the outside world so prefer to stay private and cloistered inside. That’s only an impression, and even possibly a dated one, my friend may be thinking of a very different living situation.

As for education in California, it’s one of the states hardest hit by the economic downturn and budget crunch and so public education budgets are constantly being cut. Class sizes are ballooning. All the extras that used to be an essential part of school life - music, the arts, sports - have been cut back. Teachers are treated as greedy and undeserving cheats because they earn enough to survive in very expensive California.

American culture in general? A mixed bag for sure. It’s got a lot going for it if you’re part of a counterculture or subculture but otherwise it’s a failing society run by and operated for the 1%. No matter how much the elite are able to mold the country’s laws to their own benefit they always want more. No matter how crooked the banksters have become or how much they’ve brazenly defrauded the people, they show no remorse, rather they demand and receive bailouts to cover their malfeasance. It’s savage capitalism at its best.

On the other hand, I’d love to be able to catch an art flick on a big screen in Portland Oregon, one of the coolest cities anywhere, get out there and demonstrate with the Occupy Wall Street movement, do some mountain and forest hiking in the Pacific Northwest on well marked and maintained trails, debate the state of the world with life-long friends, etc., but what a price to pay. Outside of a few centers of urbanity and sophistication it’s a plasticized, homogenized, suburbanized, motorized landscape of fast food joints catering to the easily brainwashed and big box stores selling food in bulk to a society of lardasses - 60% of Americans are overweight, 30% obese. (If you’re one of the lardasses referred to, forgive me, no personal slight was intended. We all have our failings and addictions, yours just happen to be weighty and obvious.)

American kids are taught early how to eat an unhealthy diet. There was a study done a while back with 3 to 5-year-olds. They were offered a McDonald’s hamburger in a plain wrapper and another in a corporate wrapper. By a wide margin they thought the one in the McDonald’s wrapper tasted better. They did the same regarding fries and baby carrots, the latter of which McDonald’s doesn’t serve. Loyal junk food customers at an early age.

For breakfast they’ll have a sugar-bomb bowl of cereal consisting of genetically modified corn-syrup sweetened, genetically modified corn flakes, covered in milk from cows fed with genetically modified corn and treated with growth hormones. The hormones, which are actually a fake estrogen, are said to cause breasts to grow on very young girls. As for the GMOs, another recent study in a long line of them showed genetically modified food gave terrible stomach problems to rats that ate it. Maybe some of you remember the Monarch Butterfly GMO experiment of several years back. Monarchs make a very long migration from many parts of America to a small area in central Mexico. They eat only milkweed. Researchers fed Monarchs milkweed that was dusted with GMO corn pollen: half died very quickly the others developed serious digestive problems. The control group fed milkweed dusted with natural corn pollen had no problems whatever.

The US Food and Drug Administration has always accepted Monsanto’s word for the safety of its GMOs regardless of the often glaring evidence to the contrary. Lately, within the last couple of weeks, Obama appointed a lobbyist for Monsanto to an important post in FDA so nothing can possibly change on that score. Nearly all processed foods in America contain soy or corn or canola oil and almost all of those crops are now genetically modified, so virtually all processed foods contain GMOs.

Here in Cambodia I studiously avoid buying processed American food. There is usually a European alternative. There are no GMOs in Europe, not because they aren’t allowed, but because they have to be labeled as such and once that happens nobody will buy them; it’d be like including a skull and crossbones on the package. They aren’t labeled in America, though surveys show the vast majority want GMOs to be identified, because the industry owns the government. The people aren’t allowed to know what they are eating.

Chickens and pigs in America are raised in such terrible conditions they wouldn’t survive without massive doses of antibiotics: they spend their whole lives in cages too small for them to turn around in, where the stench of urine and faeces is overpowering. Some 90% of all antibios used in America are given to animals - with the result that you get a dose every time you eat them. Even the rivers, and thus many people’s drinking water, now contain antibiotics. With so much antibiotics floating around a lot of bacteria are becoming resistant and many people are becoming infected with untreatable strains.

You can avoid those poisons by buying organic, but most people, even those who can well afford clean, untainted food will look at the price differential of twice or three times as much for organics and give them a pass. Why bother, huh? They look and taste the same don’t they? Besides opposition to GMOs is actually a part of a conspiracy of radical, socialist, ecofreaks who also believe in myths like evolution and man-made global warming. It’s a sad, disgusting and demoralizing fact that nearly half of Americans are such whackadoodle morons they don’t believe in evolution. Imagine.

At least in Cambodia, cows eat grass which is real cow food, not the corn they are fed in America, which in fact has led to serious outbreaks of E. Coli. And pigs and chickens are raised somewhat normally and there are no GMOs except those imported as part of processed foods from the US.

An ungodly number of American kids are fed prescription drugs to combat Attention Deficit Disorder. The kids can’t concentrate. They’re restless, nervous and can’t sit still. ADD is a new disease created to help boost drug sales. But what would you expect when they drink super-sugary (a 12 ounce, 350 ml Coke contains the equivalent of 9 spoons of sugar) caffeinated soft drinks all day while they also spend hours in front of the TV where there often are ten images a second screaming by their eyes? It’s no wonder they are unable to sit quietly in class, but instead are jumping out of their skin. Would you feed coffee to a 1 or 2-year-old? Giving them Coke is no different.

There are a fantastic array of the latest gadgets available in America for those who have the money to buy them. There are 500 channels to choose from on the TV but only a handful worth watching (can’t go wrong with the Discovery channel). You certainly can’t expect any real news from corporate broadcasters since their focus is on mind-numbing drivel designed to divert attention from the real challenges of our times. It takes an especially inquisitive and open-minded person to overcome that brainwashing: people who take their kids to the West have the opportunity to counter that deceit and disinformation, but it takes some effort. It can be done which makes you feel good about the protests happening across America, not that I believe anything will come of those demonstrations - the forces of greed there are much too powerful.

Cambodian kids will also watch TV a lot (and drink Coke) but it doesn’t come with the same pressure here and besides, expat-Khmer combo kids raised in Cambodia have two worldviews, two cultures to draw from. Another recent study showed that people who are fluent in two languages get Alzheimer’s five years later on average than people who know only one and seven years later if they know three or more.

American researchers are always looking for mechanistic solutions to mental and physical problems. Instead of trying to understand socially and culturally why people slide into dementia they look for cure-all drugs. Just take this pill and you will magically become whole, whereas the point of the study is that people who keep their minds fresh and open and ever learning will have much less likelihood of Alzheimer’s. People who understand more than one culture have a wider view of life and a better chance at staying healthy.

Living in two cultures, learning two languages is therefore worth as much, in my opinion, as access to better basic education, especially if that education happens in the context of a nation wallowing in regressive right-wingnuttery.

Not saying that Cambodian culture doesn’t leave a lot to be desired. There is, for instance, no Cambodian literature. They hardly ever read books and when they do they’re the equivalent of B grade romance novels. Corruption is rife, Cambo ranks 164 out of 183 countries on Transparency International’s corruption index. Cambodians routinely make up stories and tell outright lies, many times for no apparent reason. The elite act with an impunity even greater than they do in the States. And so on… but we expats here have created, are in the process of creating, our own subculture so whatever negatives our half-Cambo kids get from their home culture can be counterbalanced by the western culture they receive from us.

There are always trade-offs in life, but parents could do worse than raise their kids in Cambodia.

Stan Kahn

Khmer’s Love to Burn

Khmers love to burn and they don’t care what it is. You don’t notice burning much living in Phnom Penh, but where I am at the edge of Kampot, the stench of all types of materials going up in flames, including toxic ones, is a frequent and unwelcome visitor, especially in dry season.

Speaking generally and ecologically, there’s nothing good about burning unless there’s a special or particular reason for it (which I’ll get to later). In the grand picture, it adds to climate change and closer to home pollutes the air. Personally I’m not that worried about inhaling small amounts of smoke here and there from burning organic material, though it definitely can result in health problems for people who breathe it in on a regular basis, but I’m positively aghast when I see, for instance, young kids gaily feeding bits of plastic to their fun little fire. I yelled out something to them which had little meaning and they wouldn’t understand if it did, but I just had to do it.

Plastic today is made from petrochemicals and just the nasty acrid smell given off when burning it is proof enough that it’s a disaster for your respiratory system. Plastic bags are the scourge of the modern world and that’s especially true in a place like Cambodia, where scattered waste plastic mars city and country both. While petroleum-based plastic articles may quickly lose their integrity and not be usable in their created form, or not be easily recycled for various other reasons, it takes thousands of years before they fully biodegrade into the environment. One great thing about the coming depletion of the world’s oil will be the end of petrochemically based plastics. Most people don’t realize it but plastic can be made of corn or other organic materials as easily, but obviously not as cheaply, as from petroleum. If you buy a package of cookies, for instance, from Vietnam, Malaysia or China, you get a giant puffed-up plastic package with a few lonely cookies inside. I can’t wait for the container to cost as much as the food it contains and they are forced to cut back on wasteful, deceitful packaging.

If, on the other hand, you toss a plastic bag or drinking cup made of corn on the ground it’ll be part of the earth in a few months. That’s the way it’s supposed to be: sprung from the earth, returned to enrich it when it’s outlived its usefulness. I’m a dedicated composter. Ever since I became hippified and went back to the land back in the early seventies composting has been something I have to do. Even when I returned to city life in the later seventies, I spent a year on a composting project. It was one of those government programs leftover from Johnson’s War on Poverty that targeted the long-term unemployed, a category which included slackers, hippies and out and out freaks, of which I could easily claim some of all three. As a result of that year, I also have the technical side down.

Any kind of organic material can be composted, including anything you might ingest, except salt… A famous guy from the past once said, You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt looses its flavor, it’s not even worthy of a dung heap.   

  Composting has been around as long as agriculture itself, it therefore burns me (oops.. ha-ha) to see all that good organic material going up in smoke. It’s especially important here in the tropics to get that material back in the ground because rainfall is so heavy it leaches most of the nutrients out of the soil. Organic material also adds tilth; that is, it helps to make the soil light, aerated and fluffy.

A while back I purchased land with the idea of doing lots of gardening. It was seriously overgrown so I first hired my Khmer neighbors to cut it back and clean it up. I naturally (ahem) wanted to compost everything possible so I told them I wanted them to place the accumulated brush in piles. They refused. If I wasn’t going to burn it they wouldn’t gather it into piles. And I thought I was the one paying for the work. They did make one point in their favor saying piles made homes for snakes. Now if you do composting right with the correct level of moisture and the pile is of sufficient size - about one cubic meter - then the microbes get to working in the middle of the pile and it’ll heat up to 160º F or about 70º C. Certainly no home for snakes. Even if you can’t get the pile to the proper heat level, what’s the big deal about a few snakes?

After that first clean up I needed somebody to maintain the place on a regular basis. That turned out to be a lot more difficult than I imagined, especially since I wasn’t around every day to oversee their work. I thought I was providing a good deal but twice guys I hired would work for a few days and disappear, usually forgetting to leave the tools I had just purchased for their use. On my third try I hired an older guy recommended by a Khmer friend. We went to look at the place with local friends who could translate for me. I explained to him that I didn’t want any burning. He later remarked to a Khmer friend that he understood that foreigners don’t like burning. So what did I find when I returned to check out the land after a short sojourn in Phnom Penh? Burn piles everywhere! What the F**k? Who’s land is it anyway? If you want to burn so badly, get your own damn land. Not long later I was burned out (oops again) on the land for several reasons and gave up trying to make something of it.

On the way to the land (I’m now trying to sell it) which is about 200 meters from the main road, is a narrow track which can get muddy in places in wet season. To counteract the mud somebody has spread rice straw on the road from the last crop. Meanwhile the road passes by small parcels of croplands characterized by bare soil. What a waste. If you spread the straw on the soil around the plants - referred to as mulching - it holds moisture longer so you don’t have to water as much and by the time the crop has been harvested the straw has melted into the earth, enriching it.

Much rice straw is used as cow feed. A lot of what isn’t along with the stubble left after the rice has been harvested is burned, often creating big clouds of smoke. The thing about burning is that it’s easy. Light a match, stand back and all that organic, or otherwise, material is gone in a few minutes. And there are benefits to burning if it’s strictly organic; the ash fertilizes the ground with phosphorus and potassium and all the weed seeds are incinerated.

Weed seeds are not a problem in rice cultivation since they all die when the paddy is flooded. In contrast to burning, returning the organic material to the soil adds nitrogen as well as the same nutrients as burning does but also conditions the soil for increased fertility.

Anything organic will merge into the landscape eventually. With sufficient size, aeration, warmth and the correct level of moisture, that process can be quickened to as little as three weeks; however nothing about the process is easy like burning. To do it fast, the compost pile needs to be turned over every day or at least very often. Speeding the process also requires that branches and woody material be chipped up into small pieces.

The most difficult part, which is also the part that’s most beneficial in soil building, is dealing with food waste since it’s messy and often smelly. There are two kinds of bacteria that break down organic material; aerobic - with air - and anaerobic - without air. Toss your food waste on the ground and there’s no smell (aerobic), but put it in a sealed container and a few days later it’s rank and putrid (anaerobic). Actually, with some effort anaerobic composting can also produce methane gas that can be used for cooking and what’s left after the gas is extracted is still good for spreading on the land. This is happening on a small scale in Cambodia, mostly by farmers who have manure to deal with. You wouldn’t get much gas from a family’s food scraps. It’s actually a simple process - though I can’t get into it here - but nowhere near as simple as aerobic composting so that’s the way those of you inclined to composting who are reading this, who live outside the city and have the option, will do it.

The first problem is finding a container to store your food scraps in until you get around to composting it. Ideally that should be a container that’s both aerated and sealed against bugs. I’ve seen fancy and expensive ones in America that would fit the bill but here I’m relegated to using a plastic bucket, which means it turns really smelly after a few days. If I wasn’t so lazy and tossed it in the compost pile more often, it wouldn’t be a problem. If you are going to use a bucket for food scraps, line it with a layer or two of newspaper, that way the food won’t stick to the sides. Any kind of paper that isn’t coated with plastic composts fine.

Some people recommend against putting meat scraps in the compost for fear of attracting rodents, but I’ve never found that to be a problem. The bones won’t do much for the soil unless they’re ground into a powder, but also won’t hurt at all to be there.

Now that you’ve saved your food waste, the easiest thing is to dig a hole and put it in the ground, preferably where you plan to have a garden. A couple of months after you’ve dug it in, you can go back and your old spaghetti will have been magically transformed into light, crumbly, sweet smelling soil. Alternatively you can build a little bin to toss it in. You actually need two bins so when one fills up it can have time to fully compost while you put fresh stuff in the other. After you dump your food waste on the pile, you need something organic - leaves or straw - to cover it with… because it’s ugly and to discourage animals getting into it.

Finally, there is shit. Most Cambodians don’t have toilets so they just shit around. If they dump their loads in paddies or cropland it’ll go to some good use. As long as Cambodia is starting from scratch, the best bet would be composting toilets. It’s exceedingly simple: you build a toilet on top of a bin that’s has venting for air flow. After every use you toss a little straw or leaves or what have you on top, as well as your food scraps, and, just like magic again, you have good quality compost in about 3 months. They love their shit in China and don’t even bother to compost it. They take raw fresh stuff and place it directly on the soil around their crops. That’s why they never eat anything fresh: all their vegetables are either cooked or pickled. In rural China farmers build outhouses by the roadside hoping travelers will gift them with their good shit.

The big question is - assuming you’re not a compulsive composter like myself - Why bother? Why go through all the trouble when it’s so much easier to just put all your trash in a plastic bag and toss it in the garbage or, if you’re in the countryside, just toss it by the roadside or in the nearest vacant lot? Besides, most of you reading this live in the city and don’t have the option of composting, so maybe you’re getting bored with all this shit talk.

Well, looking at the big picture, the coming depletion of fossil fuels is going to play havoc with the growing of food. Modern industrial agriculture is totally dependent on heavy doses of petroleum for fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. This all began in the late forties when farmers realized it was a lot easier to deal with one kilo of chemical fertilizer, which requires natural gas in the production process, to get the equivalent energy of forty kilos of manure. Industrial agriculture also depends on petroleum in every step of the process starting with the heavy machinery used to plant, cultivate and harvest to the processing and shipping of food worldwide.

Now I’m not going to save the world with my little compost pile, nor you if I’ve inspired you to do the same, but it’s important for all to realize that the world will have an extremely difficult time feeding itself without access to cheap fossil fuels and that’s true even if every morsel of plant, animal and human waste is painstakingly collected, composted and returned to the earth.

Reliance on chemical fertilizers has the singular defect of masking the soil’s basic infertility, especially if it’s been done that way for a long period, since plants require trace minerals as well as the three primary nutrients; nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. The latter two are not derived from fossil fuels but a lot of energy is expended in them being mined and shipped around the world.

The sudden loss of fossil fuel fertilizer will leave the land barren and unproductive and even with heavy doses of organic material it will take years for it to regain its natural productivity. Thus to avoid the coming food crunch, every city and country should be working on retrieving all organics possible from the waste stream and composting to the greatest extent feasible... which we all agree is extremely unlikely… in Cambodia or anywhere.

So what the hell… burn, baby, burn.

Apartment Hunting in Phnom Penh

About six weeks after I arrived in Phnom Penh near the end of 2001 I was determined to get my own apartment. Guest houses are fine for a few days but a combination of teaching and thus needing a place to keep things together, a private space to bring home a companion, the ability to make my own coffee in the morning and thus greet the day at my leisure, and maybe most important, a spot for my hammock, required my own space.

Wandering around near the Old Market, I spotted an expat having noodle soup at a local restaurant and thought it was worth checking it out. Those were ancient times when we expats were few and far between – there are ten times as many westerners in Cambodia now than back then – and I was new to the place and tended to trust an eatery if there was another foreigner there. After soup he showed me his place. By the way, the restaurant, at the corner of Streets 13 and 110, is still going strong.

As I remember, he was paying $120 for a clean, really nice, partly furnished place in the area. It was one of those places with tiles half way up the wall. It looks kinda silly, but is a lot easier to keep clean. That rent level was way above my means as I was just starting work and tight with cash. He mentioned a place he’d seen for $50 a month that he’d rejected for being too funky. I checked it out: it was as he’d described it, but I easily adapt to funky so figured I could handle it for the 4 months or so I’d be around.

The apartment had a red and white tiled floor that was commonly used back in the sixties when the place was built. The great thing about ceramic tiles is they never loose their structural integrity; that is, with the exception of a few chips here or there, they’re just as solid after fifty years of use as the day the were laid in place. The same, however, cannot be said of their decorative aspect as the colors can be worn off to ugliness after a couple of decades and they can become discolored in many ways. Still, for fifty bucks a month for a full flat I wasn’t complaining.  

The place was barely furnished, a few plastic chairs, a bed and two or three pieces of hardly usable old wooden furniture. The one thing a landlord will provide, if nothing else, is a sleeping arrangement of some sort. It already had a wooden bed so he provided a mattress, pillows and a sheet. The sheet was pure polyester which my skin reacts to with abhorrence so my first task the next day was to find something to sleep on with a little cotton in it. The mattress was very cheap and lost its shape with a soft space conforming to my body after only two nights so not very comfortable, but once again for the price I had to take it as it came.

The apartment was very strangely designed with the public stairway in between the kitchen/bath area and the rest of the living space with two lockable doors to the two areas. I hesitated a bit because of that but figured since I was on the third floor with only one apartment above me, there wouldn’t be many people going through my space. What I didn’t account for was that I’d essentially be going through other people’s apartments. My oversight became especially clear when I’d escort an overnight companion down the stairs in the morning with everybody lolling around in the midst of their wake up routine staring at us. We were like a two-person parade. If it hadn’t been that the gate to the outside was locked I could’ve let her go by herself, thus avoiding some embarrassment. It’s much better in my mind to have easy access to outside, especially if you’re up high and have to walk down and up lots of stairs twice when anybody visits. Don’t forget, ceilings are so high here that three floors here is equivalent to 5 floors in the states.

Having the gate locked didn’t stop me from being ripped off, obviously an inside job. When I told others in the building that I was living alone they were very surprised since all of the other flats were occupied by at least two families. At any rate there were lots of people with access within the gate. It wasn’t very secure to begin with, since the lock only went through two relatively small steel eyelets and it was a snap for the thief to pry one open. The landlord responded by buying very big eyelets and having them welded shut.

So the first question regarding renting an apartment is access from the outside. Many places in the city require you to go through the owner’s first floor apartment to get to yours and they’ll never give you a key. That’s okay if you don’t care about your privacy and if you’re typically in bed early. But if you’re out till the wee hours nearly every night and have to bang on the door and wake the owner to get in, well, it just wouldn’t work out very well for me.

After I returned from my annual trip to the states, I needed once again to find an apartment. This time I had the help of a friend’s Khmer wife. Commissions are always paid in those circumstances, so helping you isn’t a selfless act. First she took me to a flat that had been converted into small windowless rooms, each with a bathroom, which were partitioned off rather than built with walls that went to the ceiling. Great privacy there. For that they wanted $40 month. Obviously unacceptable.

They also had a larger room with a small window that was set up for air-conditioning. Take this one, she urges me. I don’t like air-con I respond. That’s okay, don’t turn it on. Well now, it doesn’t work that way since if it’s set up for air-con you pretty much have to use it. Air-conditioning requires that you be able to seal the room off from the outside. It had one small window, not enough to provide much natural ventilation, so without manufactured cold air it’d be a hot, stale, airless room. For an apartment to be survivable - if not necessarily comfortable - in very hot weather without air-con there has to be cross ventilation so breezes can blow through and dissipate accumulated heat.

Next she shows me a place that was perfect for my needs: full flat also close to the Old Market, second floor, good cross ventilation, easy private access, eighty bucks a month. It was on Street 17 which is only a block long so had limited traffic. The floors were recent so not grotesquely ugly like the first place and some wicker furniture was included. I asked for ceiling fans and they were happy to oblige. If a landlord thinks you’ll be around for a while and are trustworthy, you can make a lot of requests when you move in. Some people like wind blowing in their faces, like being in front of a small fan. I far prefer those big ceiling fans since they provide a lot of air movement without making you feel you’re in a wind tunnel, besides being a lot quieter, especially at low speed.

Just a couple of months ago I was offered an apartment next door to that one for $120 month so rents haven’t changed all that much if you’re dealing with Khmer prices. If you are new to the scene, thus not aware of true rent levels, and dealing with a landlord who knows how to relate to expats, you’ll be asked to pay a lot more.

The only deficiency of the place was the tiny kitchen area. Even in newer apartments, kitchens are often designed almost as an afterthought. I was not into cooking at the time - my food preparation limited to tuna sandwiches and such - so that wasn’t a problem for me. Khmers will prepare meals squatting down in the living room so adequate kitchen space generally isn’t important to them. They also have a strange habit of locating their refrigerators in their living rooms, why that is, I really can’t fathom.

That place worked out well for two years but when I returned from my annual trek the second year, I settled in to listen to the BBC in the early evening and had to turn the volume way up to hear it, thus the one drawback to natural ventilation: sounds can enter as well as air. Traffic noise was only a small part of it. Mostly it was screeching kids and boisterous adults having a good time along with multiple blaring TV’s and stereos.

Over the two years I’d been in the apartment I’d visited people who lived in top floor apartments that were half outdoors so included lots of space for plants and also some that were in quiet places, so it felt like time to move again. I mentioned my quest for one of those quiet airy places to a friend and he said there was one exactly to my wishes next door to him. It was perfect: second floor, big outdoor spaces in front and back which eventually accommodated about eighty potted plants and end of an alley so very quiet as you might expect. It also had no taller buildings around it so offered distant views and even fireworks from the river. They got me a small fridge, ceiling fans and hot water, all for $140 month.

It had an unusual set up for the toilet and shower facilities as they were in separate rooms. That I really appreciated since I always have fungus growing between my toes here in the tropics and having to walk in shower water every time I have to pee is not good for the toe rot challenge.

They also cut a window into the bedroom, which had been set up for air-conditioning and thus had only one small window on one side, for cross-ventilation. With no other buildings around, except on the south side, the air could move right through without hindrance and it could get very breezy. Cross ventilation doesn’t make a space cooler than ambient temperature, it only provides for no-cost air movement and keeps the place from being a heat sink. My friend didn’t stay long in his place next door to mine since the length of his apartment faced south, was open to the sun and was very hot. Mine, looking north, was much more comfortable. Thus I learned preferred orientation from being in that apartment. It’s best to face north since the sun comes from the south about eight months a year and the remaining four months – May to August - are often cloudy. Next best is facing east because the morning sun is much cooler than afternoon sun. Orientation makes a very big difference for comfort when not air-conditioned and in electric cost when it is artificially cooled.

I did get a shock from my first electric bill: $25. The previous apartment I’d paid only four bucks a month. I am very frugal with power, always turning off lights, fans and computer when not using them and don’t use fans much, preferring to sweat except in extreme heat. I didn’t believe the small fridge and hot water could add that much. Oddly enough there was a meter in the apartment as well as the one the electric company read, and I checked and saw I wasn’t using anywhere near that much juice. Meanwhile a friend who lived next door who was a snowbird and had just returned from Canada had a bill for $80 when his bill normally came in around $35. Thinking something underhanded might be going on he hired an electrician to trace the wiring and sure enough someone had tapped into our lines, and subsequently my bill went down to $9.

Which brings up electric bills. I’ve been very fortunate in that I’ve never been overcharged on electricity in the four apartments I’ve rented in the city. I’ve always paid the exact bill. Many landlords will pad the bill and charge you 1100 or 1200 riels per kilowatt hour when they pay only 650 riels. One friend got his first bill in a new apartment that was twice what he’d ever paid before so he balked. He asked to see the bill, the landlord said, No bill, just pay. He didn’t stay there long. Everybody in Phnom Penh pays the same 650 riel rate, if you’re being charged more you’re getting ripped off. Actually, the rate is less for people who use very small amounts of power.

After 5 1/2 half years there I was encountering financial problems and by then it was used only as a second home, my primary home being in Kampot. In addition, there was construction happening all around and my outdoor space which had previously been in the eyes of only a few neighbors was now in view of dozens of windows with more happening all the time. It was, in other words, becoming like a fishbowl. I reluctantly gave it up and for a couple of months I bounced around between hotel rooms and a place a friend offered me on a temporary basis. I was still spending 8 or 10 days a month in the capital and couldn’t stand not having my own space, so once again started looking for an apartment. BTW, that apartment is now renting for $200, so not that big a change after 5 1/2 years.

Sometimes, when looking for a place, you’ll see a for rent sign, but that generally means it’s located on a busy street. Otherwise unless you’re really good at the language, you’re going to need local help. The exceptions being if a friend knows of a vacancy or if you’ve got lots of money to spend for a place that caters to westerners. If you don’t have a Khmer friend to help, then one of your best bets is a moto or tuk-tuk driver. They know lots of people and get around a lot. If you don’t know one as a friend, then you go to the general area you want to live in and ask one of the guys who works the area.

My moto friend first took me to a smallish but acceptable space except for being a fishbowl apartment with lots of people around who would always know your business. For that they were asking $100 month, which was a bit much for what you were getting. The second one he showed me, also for a hundred bucks, was a small apartment in back of the owner’s house. That required going through a gate and passing by two noisy little dogs as well as the owner’s possibly prying eyes. Not for me.

The third one turned out to be perfect. It too was $100 but a full flat. It’s third floor but I look at it as good exercise. It’s not a pretty place having one of those ugly old red and white checked floors. The kitchen is small and not easy to use and it was barely furnished: two plastic chairs, a tiny fridge and a sleeping pad which is just thick enough to make sleeping tolerable but not thick enough to not feel my bones touching the hard floor. As soon as I have the dough, I’ll buy a cheap bed and a thin pad to augment the one I already have. Anyway, for my needs, cheap is better than nice.

The best thing is the location and access. It’s on Street 13 right close to the museum so it’s near everything I need to do in the city and the access is perfect.  In the previous apartment the motodops and everybody who was interested was aware of every visitor to my place. You don’t realize what’s happening when you don’t know the language, but local men frequently bad mouth girls visiting foreigners, especially when they are old farts like myself. Khmers are tolerant enough to not interfere in other’s lives but that doesn’t mean they don’t verbally harass the girls.

What makes access at the new place perfect is the small alley that serves my building also serves two other buildings. I just have to bring a visitor one time. After that, unless the locals that hang around the entrance are very astute and observant, they have no idea who’s coming to my place. Also being on the top floor, it once had a big outdoor space facing the street. That was later filled in, thus there’s a lot more privacy than if it’d remained outdoor space. Today, that’s better for my needs. The motodop friend said, Offer him ninety, but it was so right for me and cheap enough at $100 that I didn’t have the heart to bargain.

Good luck apartment hunting.