Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Boeng Kak Lake Area,
28-02-2010.
My walks around bustling phnom Pehn have by now become down-trotted pathways imprinted on the grid system street lay-out of greater Phnom Penh, stopping every so often at one of these numerous French colonial coffee houses, a plain old restaurant for my midday meal and more coffee, walking under a burning hot sun, well into its forties these last few days, my sketchbook and glasses inside an old 7/Eleven plastic bag still originating from my latest stint in Thailand and dangling from my wrist...
I have a sit-in at Phnom Wat to read my book, drink cherry flavoured ice tea, watch the monkey troop that seems to trive here at this little mount on which the Wat is built, apperently housing several Buddha images found a few hundert years ago by an old woman called Penh - Phnom Penh, get it? - a few young passing ladies eye me curiously soon returning and wanting to know if I like Yam-Yam, massage or maybe B*om-B*om, a few pictures later and a quick sketch I send them on their way, looking for another fat-wallet Farang or whatever they call us here...
The gasoline station across the road always a great stop for a quick noodle soup - I am not all that much impressed with local Cambodian food - reminding me of the great noodle soup they do back in Thailand...
Thailand where I will soon be again, my room in Pattaya where I often wake up to the smell of acrylic paint, the sounds of Hot Mommas waking up, maybe Miss Jiff doing her laundry in my bathroom using my shapoo, where i actually feel like I am under the influence of Lord Buddha's benign ways when I drink my early morning coffee on the boulevard, picking my models for the afternoon's painting sessions...
Yeah, painting always feel like going back to my soul, especially so in Pattaya where I have history aplenty and where I am always surrounded by the most beautiful women, posing for me in my room, joking and gossiping with their friends...
Maybe I should get a bit more proffessional about these art projects, instead of leaving all my stuff behind - or most of it anyway - take it home, expose it, live Pattaya long time and always be surrounded by stunningly beautiful women - who could blame me???
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
The Magic Sponge Bar
Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Boeng Kak Lake Area,
26-02-2010.
The Magic Sponge bar is to be seriously considered when one wants to enjoy the more ancient way of life like smoking soft Cambodian grass which according to Andy the colorful bar man, goes back many hunderds of years in this Asian country with the locals not just smoking this dark green vegetable but also using it for cooking purposes...interesting way to get the whole family stoned out of their communal heads I suppose...
Half drunk and feeling pretty lightheaded I watch the show taking shape with young kids hung with plastic baskets full with copy printed Lonely Planet travel guides, read about how it is as a Farang inmate in Bangkwang or Yard Lao prison in Thailand, smoking poppies while searching for your daughter among the hilltribes of Northern Thailand, and of course a whole selection of books about the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge regime...Buy a book and support child labour or maybe the bootleg culture of Southeast Asia...
A few chicken wander in despite the late hour probably hoping for a few stray grains of white rice. nobody paying them much heed nor the fish heads in front of the entrance lying in their own sticky blood, most likely left behind by the fish vendor who passed by earlier with all of his mercandise loaded on an old crappy bicycle....
The same two local ladies entering as last night. I don't need to turn my head to recognise them, the cloud of heavy parfum going up my nostrils is enough to guess the identity of the owners. They are probably hunting for customers but have come to the wrong establishment...
According to Andy who can roll a joint in under two minutes, he has got to pay three different charges to the local constabulary to stay in business. Not that they make much of a secret about it arriving on motorbike taxi to demand their weekly payments/Baksheesh as the Indians call it - makes me wonder if all the these hustlers outside in the street pay baksheesh too, they are definitely just as open about their business not caring much about coppers walkking by while they try to sell me their underaged sisters or maybe just plain old cocaine, heroine or a little boy, their younger brothers?
Anyway, I got my Thai visa yesterday so I guess, my time in Phnom Penh is slowly coming to an end...
26-02-2010.
The Magic Sponge bar is to be seriously considered when one wants to enjoy the more ancient way of life like smoking soft Cambodian grass which according to Andy the colorful bar man, goes back many hunderds of years in this Asian country with the locals not just smoking this dark green vegetable but also using it for cooking purposes...interesting way to get the whole family stoned out of their communal heads I suppose...
Half drunk and feeling pretty lightheaded I watch the show taking shape with young kids hung with plastic baskets full with copy printed Lonely Planet travel guides, read about how it is as a Farang inmate in Bangkwang or Yard Lao prison in Thailand, smoking poppies while searching for your daughter among the hilltribes of Northern Thailand, and of course a whole selection of books about the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge regime...Buy a book and support child labour or maybe the bootleg culture of Southeast Asia...
A few chicken wander in despite the late hour probably hoping for a few stray grains of white rice. nobody paying them much heed nor the fish heads in front of the entrance lying in their own sticky blood, most likely left behind by the fish vendor who passed by earlier with all of his mercandise loaded on an old crappy bicycle....
The same two local ladies entering as last night. I don't need to turn my head to recognise them, the cloud of heavy parfum going up my nostrils is enough to guess the identity of the owners. They are probably hunting for customers but have come to the wrong establishment...
According to Andy who can roll a joint in under two minutes, he has got to pay three different charges to the local constabulary to stay in business. Not that they make much of a secret about it arriving on motorbike taxi to demand their weekly payments/Baksheesh as the Indians call it - makes me wonder if all the these hustlers outside in the street pay baksheesh too, they are definitely just as open about their business not caring much about coppers walkking by while they try to sell me their underaged sisters or maybe just plain old cocaine, heroine or a little boy, their younger brothers?
Anyway, I got my Thai visa yesterday so I guess, my time in Phnom Penh is slowly coming to an end...
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Cambodian grass
Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Boeng Kak Lake Area,
24-02-2010.
My room at the Green Lake guest house was a small cell-like place, claustrophobic and damp, hot at night while trying to fall asleep, with a dirty tiny bathroom where I could barely turn my bare *ss. Barking dogs snapping at my heels when returning home and local prostitutes in the restaurant, dope-pushing staff more interested selling soft Cambodian grass then correctly adding my beer consumption to my bill, a dank alley so typically Asian with open living-rooms from which emerge the sounds of family life, TV and children...
Instead I moved down the road where the hustlers are absent, not offering me all the vices of life whether it be boy or girl of questionable age, cocaine or heroine, local grass or Thai Yaa-Baa, speed and amphetamine should be seriously considered, a 18 year old lady of the night that looks like she just left her puberty or maybe is still in full bodily development...my new hotel is just a mere hunderd meters down the dusty and busy road but is a mayor improvement despite the neighbors marital disputes last night, but then I was well under the influence of the aforementioned Cambodian soft grass...so their arguements were more of a laugh than a hassle....
delivering me mental freedom from the turmoils my gray brain mass was going through, green leaves reinforcing the notion of Miss Ohn's messy death, reminding me fully of Miss Moo's present on-coming demise, in my mind's eye she is still lying there on that stupid foldable beach chair, the lustre gone from her once lively eyes, waiting for the inevitable....
This grass feel a bit like Nong is doing her little Karen magic on my stupid Farang mind again, her local superstitious parlor tricks, somehow always reminding me that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from simple rural magic that often goes back thousands of years
24-02-2010.
My room at the Green Lake guest house was a small cell-like place, claustrophobic and damp, hot at night while trying to fall asleep, with a dirty tiny bathroom where I could barely turn my bare *ss. Barking dogs snapping at my heels when returning home and local prostitutes in the restaurant, dope-pushing staff more interested selling soft Cambodian grass then correctly adding my beer consumption to my bill, a dank alley so typically Asian with open living-rooms from which emerge the sounds of family life, TV and children...
Instead I moved down the road where the hustlers are absent, not offering me all the vices of life whether it be boy or girl of questionable age, cocaine or heroine, local grass or Thai Yaa-Baa, speed and amphetamine should be seriously considered, a 18 year old lady of the night that looks like she just left her puberty or maybe is still in full bodily development...my new hotel is just a mere hunderd meters down the dusty and busy road but is a mayor improvement despite the neighbors marital disputes last night, but then I was well under the influence of the aforementioned Cambodian soft grass...so their arguements were more of a laugh than a hassle....
delivering me mental freedom from the turmoils my gray brain mass was going through, green leaves reinforcing the notion of Miss Ohn's messy death, reminding me fully of Miss Moo's present on-coming demise, in my mind's eye she is still lying there on that stupid foldable beach chair, the lustre gone from her once lively eyes, waiting for the inevitable....
This grass feel a bit like Nong is doing her little Karen magic on my stupid Farang mind again, her local superstitious parlor tricks, somehow always reminding me that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from simple rural magic that often goes back thousands of years
An African man in Phnom Pehn
Cambodia, Phnom Pehn, Boeng Kak Lake area,
23-02-2010.
The mosque at the end of the Boeng Kak Lake Area was already under renovation three years ago, today I saw some local construction workers knock down a wall...I don`t believe much more of this so-called renovation work has been done since my first stay.
Still this pinkish-colored mosque does make a nice addition to my sketchbook - under renovation or not....
"hey mon, that is really great what you are doing there", being transported back from the drawing world into the present reality of Phnom Pehn, I look up into a friendly African face, sharply dressed and flawless English though with a strong Western African accent...his whole bearing and behaviour, his friendly voice and smiling eyes, in fact all about this bloke brings me back to the nineties in Bangkok when sharply but trying hard to look casual dressed Africans swarmed all over the Bangkok tourist district...I remember often seeing them back in pictures in the bankok Post on page two, handcuffed with their heads bowed down and in front of a table loaded with platic bags containing 20 to 40 years imprisonment in Bangkok's finest hotel...
I decide to go on the offensive rather that on the defense showing this friendly chap the paintings I made of African women in my house in Amsterdam - nothing like modern technology coming out of a digital camara - asking him about his roots and what he is doing in Phnom Pehn, "are you some sort of investor, looking for business opportunities, my friend"....
I tell him about all my Africans friends back in Thailand's capital, staying in first class accomodation courtesy of King Bhumipol's Asian realm, not about to leave that Asian nation anytime soon due to typical Thai hospitality...
My new friend doesn't take well to my obvious sarcasm telling me these are all stupid Ghanese people, "me from Nigeria, is not the same" before leaving me to my sketchbook...too bad because I would have really liked to have an African face in my sketchbook!!!
23-02-2010.
The mosque at the end of the Boeng Kak Lake Area was already under renovation three years ago, today I saw some local construction workers knock down a wall...I don`t believe much more of this so-called renovation work has been done since my first stay.
Still this pinkish-colored mosque does make a nice addition to my sketchbook - under renovation or not....
"hey mon, that is really great what you are doing there", being transported back from the drawing world into the present reality of Phnom Pehn, I look up into a friendly African face, sharply dressed and flawless English though with a strong Western African accent...his whole bearing and behaviour, his friendly voice and smiling eyes, in fact all about this bloke brings me back to the nineties in Bangkok when sharply but trying hard to look casual dressed Africans swarmed all over the Bangkok tourist district...I remember often seeing them back in pictures in the bankok Post on page two, handcuffed with their heads bowed down and in front of a table loaded with platic bags containing 20 to 40 years imprisonment in Bangkok's finest hotel...
I decide to go on the offensive rather that on the defense showing this friendly chap the paintings I made of African women in my house in Amsterdam - nothing like modern technology coming out of a digital camara - asking him about his roots and what he is doing in Phnom Pehn, "are you some sort of investor, looking for business opportunities, my friend"....
I tell him about all my Africans friends back in Thailand's capital, staying in first class accomodation courtesy of King Bhumipol's Asian realm, not about to leave that Asian nation anytime soon due to typical Thai hospitality...
My new friend doesn't take well to my obvious sarcasm telling me these are all stupid Ghanese people, "me from Nigeria, is not the same" before leaving me to my sketchbook...too bad because I would have really liked to have an African face in my sketchbook!!!
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Tuol Sleng Torture Museum
Cambodia, Pnhom Pehn, Boeng Kak Lake Area,
22-02-2010.
The reign of man's inhumanity against man is unbearable. A small but moving bit of graffity on one of the walls of the Tuol Sleng Torture Museum in Pnhom Pehn...
Walking through the crowded streets and multible alleys of this vibrant city full with human activity it is difficult to imagine that the Pol Pot regime pretty much emptied this three million inhabitants town, marching the population of to the country site, to a certain death by disease, starvation and 12 to 15 hours of hard labour under a glaring hot sun, bad nutrition and no medication, sh*t not even a tooth brush or a bar of soap was allowed for the infortunates...
Coffee houses with a strong French colonial feel to it bring my tested emotions some relieve after my first visit to Tuol Sleng and its strong tangible horrors of the past, faded photographs showing thge stunned visitors the madness of a insane regime, once again convincing me that the Beast within the human race is easily enough released but not so easily restrained...
Chinese flop houses give the city a feeling of what it must have been during French colonisation, no high rise buildings like Bangkok where the sky train runs on top of a three storey highways full with congested motorised traffic, instead I walk through a maze of small alleys bordered by four floor high Chinese flop houses so common in Yaowarat in Krung Thep, or the Chinese districts of Singapore or Penang where the usual mode of transport is the inevitable motorbike, where every house has its own little Chinese temple, incense burning and a bowl of food offerings to please to spirits of the ancestors - one never knows what a displeased spirit might be up to after all, reminding me of my own little Thai Phra Phum temple back in my house in Amsterdam...
Countless visits to these Asian superstitutious countries, long and difficult conversations with the locals and numerous unexplained spiritul happenings in my own Farang life have convinced me not to take the concept of Asian spirituality too lightly...though one has to open up once mind before it can take root, especially so when the mind is western trained, educated to ridecule anything else but the Cristian/Protestant faith as heathen and therefore bad...
Well, the spirits calling out for revenge at the Tuol Sleng Museum were real enough...in my mind anyway!!!
22-02-2010.
The reign of man's inhumanity against man is unbearable. A small but moving bit of graffity on one of the walls of the Tuol Sleng Torture Museum in Pnhom Pehn...
Walking through the crowded streets and multible alleys of this vibrant city full with human activity it is difficult to imagine that the Pol Pot regime pretty much emptied this three million inhabitants town, marching the population of to the country site, to a certain death by disease, starvation and 12 to 15 hours of hard labour under a glaring hot sun, bad nutrition and no medication, sh*t not even a tooth brush or a bar of soap was allowed for the infortunates...
Coffee houses with a strong French colonial feel to it bring my tested emotions some relieve after my first visit to Tuol Sleng and its strong tangible horrors of the past, faded photographs showing thge stunned visitors the madness of a insane regime, once again convincing me that the Beast within the human race is easily enough released but not so easily restrained...
Chinese flop houses give the city a feeling of what it must have been during French colonisation, no high rise buildings like Bangkok where the sky train runs on top of a three storey highways full with congested motorised traffic, instead I walk through a maze of small alleys bordered by four floor high Chinese flop houses so common in Yaowarat in Krung Thep, or the Chinese districts of Singapore or Penang where the usual mode of transport is the inevitable motorbike, where every house has its own little Chinese temple, incense burning and a bowl of food offerings to please to spirits of the ancestors - one never knows what a displeased spirit might be up to after all, reminding me of my own little Thai Phra Phum temple back in my house in Amsterdam...
Countless visits to these Asian superstitutious countries, long and difficult conversations with the locals and numerous unexplained spiritul happenings in my own Farang life have convinced me not to take the concept of Asian spirituality too lightly...though one has to open up once mind before it can take root, especially so when the mind is western trained, educated to ridecule anything else but the Cristian/Protestant faith as heathen and therefore bad...
Well, the spirits calling out for revenge at the Tuol Sleng Museum were real enough...in my mind anyway!!!
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Back in Phnom Penh
Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Boeng Kak Lake Area,
20-02-2010.
A vibrant and chaotic city full with life, street vendors and multrible markets where apperently everything you could think of is for sale and probably even a bit more, countless Remorks and motortaxis hassling me at every street corner while i walk the short distance to the Boeng Kak Lake Area which is the main budget guesthouse centre in Phnom Penh...
Three years ago I arrived on the back of a motortaxi whose driver was so determined to get me into the guesthouse of his choise he drove me all the way up the wooden boardwalk to the reception making sure he would get his commission - needless to say I decided to walk this time already knowing the area after all..
I also remember I got dragged away from Phnom Penh by a lovesick Polish woman just two days after arrival having planned to stay at least a full week, a week full of walking , visiting the numerous museums, the oh-so-typical Asian lively markets and just wandering around its busy and dusty streets full with people on a mad search as usual for subjects for my sketchbooks and photographic opportunities - instead I ended up in the sharp long-nialed claws of that Polish nympomaniac who dragged me off to Anchor Wat and then straight on to Kho Samet, making sure her last two weeks of her yearly three week holiday were full with tropical sun on a light-brown colored sandy beach with enough male attention to fullfill her physical needs....
Well, it takes two to dance the tango, so lets not be too vindictive and concentrate on this "new" city in my life, prepare myself emotionally for tomorrow's visit to Number One Sh*thole's extermination and torture school for the fanatic students of his crazy reign the Toul Sleng Museum, the Killing Fields just outside the city and more of this gruesome sh*t that I have no doubt will be an attack on all my Western trained senses, will doubtlessly turn my tear ducts into disarray...
20-02-2010.
A vibrant and chaotic city full with life, street vendors and multrible markets where apperently everything you could think of is for sale and probably even a bit more, countless Remorks and motortaxis hassling me at every street corner while i walk the short distance to the Boeng Kak Lake Area which is the main budget guesthouse centre in Phnom Penh...
Three years ago I arrived on the back of a motortaxi whose driver was so determined to get me into the guesthouse of his choise he drove me all the way up the wooden boardwalk to the reception making sure he would get his commission - needless to say I decided to walk this time already knowing the area after all..
I also remember I got dragged away from Phnom Penh by a lovesick Polish woman just two days after arrival having planned to stay at least a full week, a week full of walking , visiting the numerous museums, the oh-so-typical Asian lively markets and just wandering around its busy and dusty streets full with people on a mad search as usual for subjects for my sketchbooks and photographic opportunities - instead I ended up in the sharp long-nialed claws of that Polish nympomaniac who dragged me off to Anchor Wat and then straight on to Kho Samet, making sure her last two weeks of her yearly three week holiday were full with tropical sun on a light-brown colored sandy beach with enough male attention to fullfill her physical needs....
Well, it takes two to dance the tango, so lets not be too vindictive and concentrate on this "new" city in my life, prepare myself emotionally for tomorrow's visit to Number One Sh*thole's extermination and torture school for the fanatic students of his crazy reign the Toul Sleng Museum, the Killing Fields just outside the city and more of this gruesome sh*t that I have no doubt will be an attack on all my Western trained senses, will doubtlessly turn my tear ducts into disarray...
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Chickenfarm street in sihanoukville
Cambodia, Sihanoukville, Victory hill,
19-02-2010.
Chickenfarm Street is a collection of ill-lit wooden sheds built on stilts over putrid water just beyond the harbour where a huge colony of local trucks is parked waiting sometimes for days to load or umload supplies. Considering the main business of Chickenfarm Street - cheap s*x - the location must be perfect, young sluttily dressed local ladies sitting on worn plastic chairs waiting for customers who arrive mostly on the inevitable motorbikes, filled up with enough booze to bolster their courage but too much of that not-so-elusive stuff for certain bodily parts to be still in working order...
A small army of Farang tourists have also discovered this dusty street where white-colored cows are beiing chased away from stealing bananas from the spirit houses and a fat swine accompanied by five or six piglets is on the way to their nocturnal roosting place, a muscular German storming from shed to shed carelessly fluttering a five dollar note in his hand, I presume his need must be great...
A thin Dutch lady whose blond hair is streaked with multible strands of grey betraying her advanced age, is my company for the night having picked her up in the bar of my hotel - or did she pick me up looking for male Farang company in such a "dangerous" tourist attraction...
I happen to know from three years ago that most of the action starts late at night with UN personal from Pnom Phen coming over in huge cars with personal driver - so much for the tax-payer's foreign aid being wasted here on such luxuries as cheap s*x and private local choffers -
I also happen to know that their female counterparts usually arrive during the day trying to talk some sence into these early Western p*nters, - but not the local ones - giving them a lecture about the morality and ethics of sleeping with young local prostit*tes who have very little choice in the matter considering the destitute poor background of their rural families - I wonder what they would think seeing male UN employees here late at night drinking cold cans of Anchor while trying hard to bring the price down from the habitual five bucks a shorttime to the local price of two dollar fifty, something probably not talked about in their UN headquarters back in Phnom PHen...misguided female martyrs on a serious mission while being duped by their male colleages...
But who am I to question their motives???
19-02-2010.
Chickenfarm Street is a collection of ill-lit wooden sheds built on stilts over putrid water just beyond the harbour where a huge colony of local trucks is parked waiting sometimes for days to load or umload supplies. Considering the main business of Chickenfarm Street - cheap s*x - the location must be perfect, young sluttily dressed local ladies sitting on worn plastic chairs waiting for customers who arrive mostly on the inevitable motorbikes, filled up with enough booze to bolster their courage but too much of that not-so-elusive stuff for certain bodily parts to be still in working order...
A small army of Farang tourists have also discovered this dusty street where white-colored cows are beiing chased away from stealing bananas from the spirit houses and a fat swine accompanied by five or six piglets is on the way to their nocturnal roosting place, a muscular German storming from shed to shed carelessly fluttering a five dollar note in his hand, I presume his need must be great...
A thin Dutch lady whose blond hair is streaked with multible strands of grey betraying her advanced age, is my company for the night having picked her up in the bar of my hotel - or did she pick me up looking for male Farang company in such a "dangerous" tourist attraction...
I happen to know from three years ago that most of the action starts late at night with UN personal from Pnom Phen coming over in huge cars with personal driver - so much for the tax-payer's foreign aid being wasted here on such luxuries as cheap s*x and private local choffers -
I also happen to know that their female counterparts usually arrive during the day trying to talk some sence into these early Western p*nters, - but not the local ones - giving them a lecture about the morality and ethics of sleeping with young local prostit*tes who have very little choice in the matter considering the destitute poor background of their rural families - I wonder what they would think seeing male UN employees here late at night drinking cold cans of Anchor while trying hard to bring the price down from the habitual five bucks a shorttime to the local price of two dollar fifty, something probably not talked about in their UN headquarters back in Phnom PHen...misguided female martyrs on a serious mission while being duped by their male colleages...
But who am I to question their motives???
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