The Culture Shock Club

Distance Traveled:   14,020 kms (BNE-MEL-SYD-BKK-PKT-BKK-CNX-BKK-PP)

Flags Collected:   0
Time Difference: -3 hours (from Brisbane)

Soundtrack:  Haven't had time to listen to music!

Currently Inspired by:   "A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes"

Stacks:   Woohoo!  Finally had a few, and no broken bones.  Slid on some wet concrete in BKK and landed on my butt, and tripped up some stairs and landed on my knees.  Some nice bruises, which in the tradition of my bruises, should still be there by the time I get back to Australia :-/

Words written:   7,532

I cannot believe it's been over a week already since my last post.  WHERE IS THE TIME GOING?? I was planning to do about one of these blogs a month... yeah right, I can barely remember what I did three days ago!  Am having to go through my diary and my photos (thank god for photos).  Alright, this isn't going to be a sequential one because I'm so goddamn pissed off right now I need to rant about what's going on at the minute and then I can get to the fun stuff.

Calling what has gone on in the last couple of days an "unfortunate confluence of events" would be like referring to the Vietnam war as "a bit of a scrap".  I am feeling at my least adventurous today.  Crushed in spirit.  Craving people who speak English perfectly, non-dangerous transport, menus that I understand (or just the ability to make a damn sandwich would be nice) and toilets that flush or that you don't have to squat over (I'm five foot TEN people. It has not been fun).

...Three hours, a lovely dinner, some friendly conversation and two Jameson and sodas after writing that last paragraph...

...I no longer have the spleen to vent.  However the circumstances do deserve an airing, so I shall discuss them matter-of-factly.  Yesterday, I arrived in Phnom Penh and was collected at the airport by a driver arranged by IndoChina Travel (the people I am doing my tour with) and taken to the hotel that was also arranged by IndoChina Travel for my stay.  I went to withdraw Cambodian riel (the national currency) at the airport and discovered to my chagrin that the atm only dispensed US dollars.  So I withdrew USD, then went to the exchange counter and changed for riel at a rate of 1 USD = 3,800 riel.  Got to the hotel - it's nice, quite swanky, and I was only mildly annoyed when the toilet kept running and overflowed all over my bathroom floor and I had to call them twice to fix it because they didn't do it properly the first time.  I looked at the paperwork that was handed to me by the rep which had info on my tour, which was ostensibly starting today (Sunday), and discovered that the tour itself wasn't starting until Monday and we were just meeting in the hotel foyer to discuss the itinerary on Sunday night.  Wondering why I had only received 1 breakfast voucher when clearly the tour company would have booked me here for my entire stay (no?) I went to reception and was informed that no, I was only booked in for one night.  So I was bewildered but calm, thought "ok, oversight" and tried to book another night in the hotel.  However the receptionist advised me that they would charge me too much to book over the counter and I should go on the internet and find a better deal, or get IndoChina, who booked my first room, too book the others for me.

I was feeling a little stressed at this stage, and annoyed, the way any particularly organised person gets annoyed in the face of such blatant incompetence and poor customer service.  So I emailed IndoChina in the hope they may clear things up for me and I wouldn't have to book and pay separately.  "Was not all my accommodation from when I landed in Phnom Penh included in the price I paid for the tour??" I wondered.  Three emails, one phone message and 16 hours later I had not received a reply and needed to check out of my room in 2 hours so I went online to a service called Agoda (great for booking cheaper rate rooms in Asia) and went to book my room for one more night when it occured to me to check the itinerary one more time.  Yes, the tour started on Monday, but we didn't actually leave Phnom Penh until Wednesday, according to the paperwork.  So I needed three more nights, not one.  It was then I noticed there was no itinerary for Tuesday, it just jumped straight from Monday to Wednesday.  So I'm like "Are we leaving on Wednesday and they've skipped Tuesday's itinerary, or are we leaving on Tuesday and they have the days wrong, because this affects how many nights I am booking for!!"  I sent one more email in the vain hope of receiving a reply, and emailed and vented to my Australian travel agent also (even though it was Sunday and I knew she couldn't do anything).  Finally, I decided to book until Tuesday and then just book an extra night if I needed it.  I did, went to reception to give them the voucher number, they received my booking and we were all set.  UNTIL... about 5 o'clock I received a phone call from my tour guide changing the meeting time for tonight, which was fine, followed almost immediately by a phone call from reception, saying that they had received a double booking for me, because IndoChina had booked me a room until Tuesday and they had also received an Agoda booking for me for the next two nights, so I needed to go online and cancel my Agoda booking.  I patiently explained that their staff had told me I was only booked for one night and in fact only given me one breakfast voucher at check-in and he didn't care.  He said if I didn't cancel the Agoda booking they would have to charge me twice (????) Riiiiight.  So I went online to use Agoda's self help cancellation service, but because it was the same day as the booking, it wouldn't permit me to do it and I had to email their customer service, who I am still waiting to hear back from.

I went out today, took a tuk tuk ride through the city to check it out and went for lunch at an awesome restaurant called Friends which takes street kids and retrains them in hospitality.  The food and service were excellent (dear by Cambodian standards but a worthy cause) and I had a great time doing a tour of the city.  The traffic is so much more crazy here than anywhere else I've been I feel safer in a vehicle than walking, because at least I don't have to cross a road on foot!  See pics from the back of the tuk tuk tour by clicking here.  Unfortunately on the way back we smashed quite hard into a bike with a guy and a girl on it and they both went flying and rolling onto the street.  It was pretty scary, particularly because a) they wear no safety gear here b) all the other million of bikes and tuk tuks and cars were just speeding around them and c) the girl took ages to get up.  Turns out they were OK, but my driver just stopped in the middle of the road, went up to them, a witness said the bike smashed into us, so they just nodded at each other basically and we drove off.  No information exchange, nothing.

Then when I got back my toilet flooded the bathroom again. (It's not me, I swear.  I'm not even flushing toilet paper!  It goes in the bin here.  Gross, but necessary).

So that's that stuff.  Now onto the money.  Remember I said I exchanged my US dollars (that I already paid conversion fees on from my AUD) for the national currency, riel for 3,800 riel per dollar?  Well, turns out they accept US dollars EVERYWHERE here, and in fact it's the preferred currency, and you get penalised for using riel, to the tune of 200 riel per US dollar (exchange for purchases: 1 USD = 4,000 riel).  Unless of course, you're in a swanky establishment (such as say, my hotel) where the exchange for purchases is 1 USD = 4,100 riel.  This means in essence that I am getting ripped off 300 riel for every USD I spend.  You can imagine I'm not impressed.  We're still not talking huge amounts of cash, but it's the principle!  Especially when traveling on the Aussie dollar is supposed to be so great.

*sigh*


Those are my annoying things, but like I said I feel pretty fine now and have no doubt that after a good night's sleep and the prospect of my exciting tour starting tomorrow, I will wake up fine and bouncy and not homesick at all.  So!  Onto the fun stuff...

I miss Chaing Mai :)  What an amazing time I had there!  Of course you know all about the tigers and elephants and temples and floating lanterns etc etc, but in my last week I had two more really fantastic experiences and met some more lovely people.

Cooking Classes.  I recommend this as a great skill builder and also just a really really fun and awesome day out for anyone travelling to Asia. Met two awesome couples over here on their honeymoons and made (and ate) 6 fabulous dishes and a curry paste from scratch with the cutest teacher who first picked us up and took us to the fresh markets where we got to touch and smell all the different herbs and ingredients we'd be using and learn about all their properties.  I made: pad thai, prawns in tamarind sauce, chicken in coconut milk soup, spring rolls, pa nang curry (with paste from scratch) and sticky rice with mango.  Definitely doing cooking classes in Cambodia and in Vietnam also.  Hello, dinner parties?!?!?!  Unfortunately the Aussies will have to wait until next October next year.  Londonians, look out!  You'll be my guinea pigs!  You can see just the dishes I cooked here in my food album, as well as the dishes I had at Friends restaurant today.

Doi Inthanon.  Click here to read more about this mountain / national park if you wish.  I went with my friend Amy, who I met in CM the week before.  It was fabulous.  A gorgeous mountain, very high (I think we were at about 2,600 metres at one point?) and full of the most gorgeous jungle.  I am fairly certain I saw Blyton's Enchanted Faraway Tree in there.  I looked up to see if I could see Moonface and Silky but our guide walked too fast and I couldn't stop and stare.  I'm pretty sure I saw a cloud moving suspiciously at the top though.  I wonder what world it was going to? :)  We stopped at two waterfalls, Siri Than and Watari Than (although I can't remember the name exactly), 40metres and 35 metres tall respectively.  Watari Than seemed a lot taller however because we were able to get so close to it (close enough to get drenched!)  It was a pretty fabulous day.  To see the photos of the Cooking School and of the trip to Doi Inthanon, click here.

It is now Wednesday, and this blog left off last Friday.  I am going to leave it here except to say that on Friday I flew from Chiang Mai to Bangkok (no I didn't see any water on the ground, but HEAPS from the plane), stayed in Bangkok for one more night and then flew to Phnom Penh on Saturday, where I proceeded to have those experiences outlined at the beginning.  I will try and send a blog next Sunday with everything I have done this week, because it's a shitload already, and I also need to say that I freaking LOVE Cambodia now, and everyone in it! (Almost). It's been annoying, scary, frustrating and very very sad so far at times, but also warm and loving and sweet and friendly heart-string-tugging and if I don't come home with a Cambodian baby or three in tow then it means for whatever reason it was impossible. :)  Can't wait to tell you all about it!

However, I also have three massive issues I need to rant about and have decided to keep them "separate" from the blog for the overly sensitive or stick-head-in-sand types who don't want to hear about it.  Anyone who has known me for more than five minutes should realise that I am virtually incapable of going to to third world country and blogging nothing but "this is what I saw today, tralalala", so here it is.  Up front, the three issues I want to rant about are 1. Sex trafficking in SE Asia 2. The Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot and 3. The treatment of animals in third world countries.  I will do one each, for the next three blogs, starting with sex trafficking now.  Types mentioned above, please stop reading NOW, please don't read, get upset and then bitch at me, because you were warned. 

The Sex Trafficking Industry

Let's look worldwide to begin with.  Apparently, the sex trafficking industry is worth an estimated $12 billion worldwide, annually.  I speak of sex trafficking specifically because it is also estimated that 80% of human slave trafficking is for sexual purposes, and of those 80%, an estimated 92% are female, and a massive percentage of those females are under 16 years of age.  In Cambodia, it is estimated that there are 100,000 prostitutes (in a country with 14 million people), and that over 60% of them are HIV positive, and about the same number are underage.  A much larger percentage of those are unwilling victims of the sex trafficking trade.  To give it some real perspective, a fabulous NY Time Journalist who I wholeheartedly endorse, Nicholas Kristof, is currently filming a doco in Cambodia about sex trafficking and is interviewing Somaly Mam.  If you don't know about this absolutely incredible human being, click here to learn .  She is truly inspiring.  So one of the girls she saved is a young child who was sold by her family at age 6, locked in a brothel and raped every single night for three years, by at the very least 15 men, usually more.  From ages 6 - 9.  Whenever she tried to escape she was brutally tortured.  Escape she did, however, at age 9 and with the help of Somaly and is currently trying to rebuild her life.

As horrifying and touching as this girl's personal story is, it got me wondering about statistics.  We talk about the number of women / girls, the finances involved... why do we never talk about the men?  Because even if some of them were repeat customers coming back for more, times 15 (at least) men per night, x 365, x 3, and the numbers looks pretty scary.  And that's for ONE six year old girl.  How many of these girls / women are there out there right now?  We know of at least 100,000 in Cambodia.  So times that number by 100,000, then use the ratio of 100,000 to 14,000,000 to work out a possible worldwide figure, and what you end up with is an absolutely terrifying number of men who are willing to a. engage in sexual activity with a prostitute or b. enagage in forced sexual activity with a prostitute, c. engage in forced sexual activity with a child or d. all of the above.  Don't kid yourselves.  Guys who think nothing of going to SE Asia and paying $20 for a bj are at the very least guilty of the most incredible selfishness and thoughtlessness.  NONE of it is harmless.  Every dollar that goes towards that industry simply perpetuates the abject human misery involved in its victims, whether or not the actual prostitute appears to be "willing" or not.  It is a disgusting activity, and yes absolutely I judge the men who participate in it.  The lowest end of the scale is obtaining services from an apparently willing adult, the worst end of the scale is rape / peodophilia / abuse / kidnapping / pimping.  They may be at opposite ends, but they are still on the same scale, because they both support the industry.

Most of us probably think we don't know anyone who has ever harmed a woman either through domestic violence or accessing a brothel.  Again, don't kid yourselves.  I don't know if it is a self preservation thing or what, but we tend to paint these people as a whole as these faceless psychopaths with a stamp on their forehead saying "wife beater", "peodophile", "rapist".  It isn't so.  All these men are someone's brother, cousin, uncle, father, friend, workmate.  Statistically speaking, if you have met 40 men in your life, 10 of them have harmed a woman in some capacity in their lifetime, even if it was a slap across the face or copping a feel on some passed out girl at university.  We need to stop thinking that these things are separate incidents.  THEY ARE ALL AS UNACCEPTABLE AS EACH OTHER.  Women deserve to have the power to choose what they do with their own bodies and children should ALWAYS be safe from this kind of predation.  Unfortunately, here the dollar is king, and there are more than a few corrupt officials who are happy to turn a blind eye to the sex trafficking trade in order to receive kickbacks from it.

What can I do?  I hear you ask.  Well, I'm glad to answer.  Respected organsiations such as Amnesty International are very active in this kind of area and of course Somaly Mam, who helps by giving practical help (such as soap and condoms, things are not supplied) and advice to women in brothels and also is responsible for several raids on brothels that are known to contain children, taking those children and helping them to rebuild their lives.  You can help her organisation by donating (a small amount to us goes a long way for them), or by hosting a fundraiser, or by starting an online campaign.  This topic is not a popular one among celebrities because of society's bizarre and antiquated "slut-shaming & victim-blaming" attitudes towards women who have been the victims of sexual abuse.  Let's focus on the perpertrators as the "dirty" and "ruined" ones, with their black hearts and souls.  The women are innocent and deserve a helping hand.  I will be visiting a Somaly Mam Foundation centre while I'm here and seeing what I can do, as well as buying a bunch of clothes and stuff to take in.  If anyone would like me to buy some clothes or anything like that on their behalf, let me know and we can arrange something.  If you have any questions for me, let me know and I will try to find some answers for you about this.  Never be afraid to start a discourse with me or anyone about this kind of stuff.  Raising awareness is CRITICAL.  In the meantime, see links below.

Amnesty International:  http://www.amnesty.org.au/get-involved/?gclid=CLGe0KziqqwCFaMF4god7yad2w

Somaly Mam Foundation: http://www.somaly.org/about-smf/somaly-mam

Til next we speak
*LOVE*
Nat