Upon walking over the border into Cambodia, I get pulled aside by two customs guards wearing official uniforms and white latex gloves. They pull me over to a long table under an ominous sign reading, "Quarantine." The female customs official tells me to open my mouth and she proceeds to hold up a device that looks like a lit-up ear thermometer. "To check for disease" she says, "go ahhhh." I'm slightly scared and not sure what she is testing. After shining the device into my mouth for a few beats, she quickly pulls it away, slaps me on the shoulder, and with a big smile says, "just kidding!" She and her male customs official partner proceed to laugh at me. After the prank is over and the laughing has settled, she introduces herself and comments that we are the same height. "I like you. You my height. So small, like me," she says. I tell her it's so I can more easily look deeply into her beautiful eyes. She laughs again, gives me a hug, and then escorts me through the customs gate.
The sun starts to fall as we cross into Cambodia and the streets change from paved roads to rocky dirty paths. Around 9pm, after the sun has completely fallen, our bus passes by around two dozen gated trucks bringing workers back home after the day's labor. Except someone didn't organize the carpool properly. Each truck bed carries about forty men and women cramped shoulder-to-shoulder covering every single inch of space in the vehicle. Others hang off the sides and bumper. They are packed like sardines between large metal gates, while the cabin accommodates six passengers. The men and women stare at our VIP bus with solemn expressions, faces covered in dirt and grime from the day's chores. As it's pitch dark I couldn't get a proper picture, but it's something like this:
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| Somewhat like this |
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| And this |
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| But not this bad |
Around an hour outside Phnom Pehn our bus boards a ferry to wade the Tonle Sap River. The boat is so small our group is certain the bus won't fit on. Even when it manages to our worries turn to whether or not we will be able to float as the boat looks like its been in use since the 1920s and the bus has around sixty people on it.
Once we depart into the water, we all unload to enjoy the view and take in some fresh air. Almost the second we step off the bus we are inundated by packs of small children, attacking us like ravenous hyenas. Some sell souvenirs and postcards while others beg for cigarettes despite not being much older than eight. I'm guessing they're nicotine habits have already started, potentially at birth, as these Cambodian children are so hungry for their fix that many try to rip cigarettes out of tourists' mouths. Other frantically search recently finish butts to ensure there is not an ounce of tobacco left intact. The non-addicted, non-selling children pull at our clothes and simply ask for money. Between the mosquitoes and equally leeching youth, suddenly the stuffiness of the bus is becoming a great deal more appealing.
We arrive in Phnom Penh around 10pm and I immediately meet Amit, Elaine, and Louise at Hostel 88. The hotel is infinitely more luxurious than I'm used to -- swimming pool, billiards table, full bar and restaurant. The establishment has a distinctly European feel, maybe Moroccan actually, with ornate white columns decorating an illuminated blue outdoor pool. The hotel's entrance is a large open-air foyer with dark wood tables and stools, teak fans, and a convivial bar. Patrons eat satays, toast pints of beer, and check their email while the resident kittens and puppies scamper about. Hostel 88 is really a misnomer; it really deserves the name "hotel." With an attentive staff, large private rooms with hot showers and en suite bathrooms, and a surprising level of cleanliness, "hostel" is really an insult.
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| From Google |
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| From Google |
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| From Google |
As Elaine has passed out in the bed, Louise, Amit and I go for a quick stroll throughout town. Although its 11pm on a Thursday night, the Cambodian capital seems positively empty. The only sounds coming from the recommended live music bars are crickets. We're the only patrons at most of the bars, but we still enjoy a few rounds of refreshing draft Angkor Beer and roasted peanuts. We find more revelers at Heart of Darkness a short tuk-tuk ride away, on a busy street lined with night clubs and street vendors. Heart of Darkness is a bordello-esque bi-level club adorned in shades of black and red. The lower level is a giant dance floor with thumping house beats where hundreds of revelers gyrate under a giant chandelier and shimmering disco balls. For a club with flashing strobe lights, terrible loud music, and overactive smoke machines, the decor at Heart of Darkness is surprisingly impressive. Due to all the impressive relics found throughout the club, it could almost act as an art gallery of Khmer history. There are Angkor-inspired statues of Buddhas and carvings of famous warriors sealed in glass boxes. The second floor of the bar is an intimate lounge with long leather sofas and walls of exposed brick. Several sections of the brick have been carved away and surrounded by lavish gold frames, creating an ad-hoc exhibition area for sculptures of ancient Khmer queens, illuminated due to candles.
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Joseph Conrad's novel of the same name describes the horror found during the Belgian colonization of the Congo, including brutality towards the natives and the darkness within all human beings. As such, Heart of Darkness night club's name could not be more apropos as the venue is a breeding ground for people's darkest depravities. The venue has a long history of gang violence, including a fatal shooting in August 2005. Weapons have become such a problem at the bar that huge signs anoint the entrance prohibiting guns, knives, and grenades. But rumor has it that high-ranking Cambodian youth and their bodyguards easily float pass the security points, unchecked. Lonely Planet warns of rampant pickpocketing and "large gangs of rich young Khmers […] some are children of the elite and rely on their bodyguards to do their dirty work."
Although fatalities are infrequent, the colonization that Conrad alludes to is out in the open on a nightly basis. Like Ho Chi Minh City's nightclubs, Heart of Darkness is overrun with prostitutes, most not even two decades in age. Many are my height, yet due to enormous heels, tower over me and are able to look the much taller patrons directly in the eyes. The ladies float throughout the second floor lounge among the neon lights and warrior statues, searching for customers. Many stand at the edge of the mezannine, looking down at the dance floor below for those who are ready to make poor decisions. The black leather sofas are filled with middle-aged Westerners groping teenage Cambodian prostitutes old enough to be their daughters. With some couples, the men are probably more than triple the girls' age. Some stories paint even more grotesque pictures of teenage women being sold off to child abusing ex-pats for ~$150 in order to pay off family debts. Although Heart of Darkness was written at the turn of the twentieth century, and about an entirely different continent, one look at the modern Cambodian bar that shares its name proves that only so much progress has been made in the third world. The same darkness that Conrad described in 1902 certainly prevails today.
***
The night ends with some post-midnight "chicken wings" from a street vendor outside the club. As we open the styrofoam container, eager for a crunchy, greasy, meaty snack, our expression quickly changes. They're as fake as the masquerading laughter that emanated from the young prostitutes at the Heart of Darkness, as they effortlessly tried to please their elder Western colonists. But we're hungry and drunk. So chicken feet will have to do.
Note: Images from Google, Heart of Darkness' FB page
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