Phnom Penh, Cambodia: DJ Camera

DJ Camera, my tuk-tuk driver in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, was beginning to creep me out; not majorly, but I was beginning to dread his jolly, round face, and off-centered dirty baseball cap.


He was everywhere.

I arrived, admittedly thanks to DJ Camera, at the Noura Motel unscathed and found that while the $20 rooms were occupied, the manager was willing to let me stay in a $35 room for $25. DJ Camera had something to do with this and I was grateful, but he lingered about the tiny reception desk for too long.

“OK, Thomas,” he said in his over-excited manner of speaking, “go to your room, relax, come down. I wait for you and we make plans for tour tomorrow. We do many things.”

I looked at him and my heart sank a little. His sweaty brown face was staring at me and smiling. He was selling me something. Cabbies, whether in a car, on a bike, or pulling a rickshaw, in this part of the world are always trying to sell you something.

I handed him the few dollars that I owed him and told him that maybe I would see him later, and if I was to take a tour I would go through him.

DJ Camera shook his head in the negative and steamrolled my hesitation and told me that he would take me anywhere. I told him “maybe” a few more times

The Noura Motel has a layout and atmosphere that reminds one of an Old West saloon / hotel. Stairs lead to hallways that branch in many directions, looking over a small bar lit by dim, flickering bulbs. Idle workers stood talking by empty tables that spilled out towards the street. The street was teeming with beggars, tuk-tuks, and the fire of the setting sun.

I was shown to my room on the second floor. I walked through a reading room and down a hallway that led to a wide open balcony. Just across the street stands the royal Chan Chhaya pavilion, a part of the Royal Palace; its green lawns dotted with barefoot kids, sleeping tuk-tuk drivers, and a few soccer balls.

If I didn’t want to sit in the wicker chair and watch the setting sun, then I could have seen it from the massive windows in my room.



Sure enough, when I found my way to the main lobby to leave for dinner, DJ Camera was waiting for me. He sat at a small table just outside of the hotel. As soon as I was close he sprung up and asked where I was headed, if I wanted a ride, and began listing the things we could do the next day.

I cut him off. I told him that I appreciated his effort, but I wasn’t sure if I would be taking a tour tomorrow and that I might just wander around and take photos.

He looked hurt for a moment.

“OK, tomorrow when you want leave,” DJ said, “I will wait you outside hotel.”

He then grabbed my hand, shook it whilst ignoring the growing annoyance on my face, and sat down again.

I understood why DJ Camera was so eager to seal the deal: “maybe,” and “I’ll call you,” generally mean “no” and “fuck off” in his line of work. That has certainly been the underlying meaning when used by myself. What I could not understand was why he didn’t give up and look for business else where. And why was he still outside the motel!?

I walked towards the Meekong and sat down to a traditional Khmer meal of Italian grinder, fries, and alcohol.

I thought of my smiling DJ Camera and of a taxi driver in Mexico.

It was a few years back and I was wandering up the wrong road on the wrong hill. Drug cartels were beginning to take hold of the edge of town and apparently I was walking straight that way. A cabbie came running up, grabbed me and asked me as polite as possible as to where the fuck I was going and if I wanted to die?

I replied no, that I needed a cheap place to sleep.

He drove me for a while until we came to a hotel on the edge of a bay full of dirty water and men in tin boats hawking fresh fish.

This man had the same anxious tone as DJ Camera and wanted me to take a tour with him the next day as well but there seemed to be something more sinister about him. The hotel was on the edge of town and I became paranoid that this cabbie knew where I was and that my door was only a sliding plastic curtain. Friends from Mexico and guidebooks warn of local cabbies aiming for extortion, kidnapping, or worse.

I slept with my bed against the door and when he didn’t come to kill me and I never let him take me for a tour I felt guilt. I was ashamed of my paranoia.

Still, DJ Camera just wanted my money.

DJ Camera asked me how my dinner was when I arrived at the hotel. I shot him a look but there was no reaction..

“Tomorrow…” he went on again.

“MAYBE!” I told him and walked away.

“I will wait you tomorrow.”



After a few power-outages I headed downstairs to use the wi-fi and have a bottle of Angkor beer, the local version of the cheap, flavorless, working class beer of the world.

The two person bar staff talked in a corner and the tables outside the hotel were swarmed. Laughter rose frequently and the slamming of beer glasses and the clink of utensils against glass plates. Khmer filled the air. I half expected DJ Camera to —

“Hello!” said DJ Camera, standing up from his chair outside.

I stared at him in disbelief. Behind him tuk-tuk drivers slept in their vehicles. People walked by on their way to the bars or restaurants of the Phnom Penh night; but here was DJ Camera, still sitting outside my hotel.

I returned the greeting, disregarded whatever else he said and continued to drink my unfinished beer and then a second when I felt somebody staring at me.

I looked out the door and DJ Camera was stooping in, looking uncharacteristically meek. I stared at him for a moment and he spoke quietly.

“Thomas,” his memory was impressive, “please, it is a happy night. You are in Cambodia. Do not sit alone. Sit with me outside and drink.”



Shit.

I had him wrong like I probably had the cabbie in Mexico wrong. I pride myself in adaptability and openness in travel but here, I had it all wrong.

What the fuck?

I smiled, closed my computer and joined a smiling DJ Camera outside.

The table was full of food and pitchers of beer. There were two men at the table with DJ Camera. They smiled at me. A group of extremely beautiful girls laughed at me as I mumbled awkward “hellos“.

The man next to me was another tuk-tuk driver and the man next to DJ Camera was the manager of the lovely Noura Motel, and a close friend of DJ Camera’s.

“We are like family,” said the manager, a squat smiling man with one of the friendliest faces I have ever seen. “We take care of eachother.”

I felt shame.

I looked at the man who I assumed wanted only to take my money.

“Tonight, Thomas,” DJ Camera said, “you are our new friend and we take care of you.”



They did take care of me. There were pitchers of local beer mixed with a beer from Singapore. They pushed a kind of edible rice cloth my way and it tasted like a neutral rice cake on it’s own but it was heaven in the sweet, fishy dipping sauce.

“Traditional Cambodian,” my new friends told me.

There were questions about me, questions about my time in Korea and Vietnam. There were questions about Cambodia, whose answers were to be expected:

“Cambodia is the best!”

The four of us spoke and drank for a time as we descended into the universal language of drunkeness.

“Thomas,” DJ Camera said, eyes glazed over after declaring that he had left school sometime before high school, “you are my friend!”

“Good friends,” I corrected.

“I saw you alone and I take care of you. I take you to my friend’s motel. Tonight you eat and drink with us. We take care of you. Tomorrow I want you to see Cambodia!”

Finally, I agreed.

Jol Moi! We all said as we clinked our glasses and drank.

“Thomas,” said DJ Camera, “Can you understand my English?”

“Nobody can understand your English!” Piped in the other tuk-tuk.

“Thomas, DJ is very drunk. Nobody can understand!” Said the manager of the motel.

DJ began to introduce me to the girls scattered around in the night. The tuk-tuk drivers parked across the street looked over occasionally if they weren’t otherwise occupied by being passed out.

The night wore on for a while until finally the alcohol was gone. I pulled out my wallet but was hissed at by all three of my companions.

“Thomas,” said DJ Camera, “tomorrow I will wait you. Sleep long. I will be here.”

“Maybe you will have no tour tomorrow,” said the manager, “DJ will probably crash into a tree tonight!”

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On that First Night

What happened when I stepped off of the bus was a whirl wind. I was promptly rushed by three Korean girls shouting my name. Before I could say “hello” my luggage was taken from me and I was soon in a car driving into the Asian night.

There were questions. My god, were there questions. How old was I? Did I have a girlfriend? How long have we been together? Did I have a pet? How many? Did I have any brothers or sisters? What was her name and how old was she and what was her boyfriend‘s name? How old was I? And so on and so forth.

Apparently I am 27 in Korea. It is a bit daunting and I am not entirely sure how they come up with the number. I understand I am born at one year, but where the second year comes from I have yet to be able to understand. Either way I do not like it so much.

We drove through my town, Cheongju. I was told by Larry that it was a small town, but this apparently is only by Korean standards. The streets were jammed with cars and people. Every now and again a scooter would leave the road and cut through the sidewalk as though it were another lane. The night was black, but street level was a whir with florescent stores and neon signs. It was something out of Vegas.

Of my captors, two of them spoke English enough for me to communicate with ease. The one who sat next to me as I stared through the window was Han and the girl in the passenger seat was Boram. The driver, who smiled the entire time with this maniac grin as though she was enjoying my shock like no tomorrow, was the school director’s wife. I still do not know her name.

I was brought to a home goods store. It’s name I do not remember but it was something of an entire Walmart put into the space of a large CVS. There, regardless of any protest I was bought a bunch of stuff I was not expecting and probably would never use.

Here is the short list:
Towels
A dozen eggs
Some sort of instant soup
Two quarts of milk that looked like they came from a designer store

Mandarin oranges

Banannas
Shampoo made out of black beans -enough of which to last me the entire year
A toaster
Beef jerky
8 cans of Budweiser because apparently I exude alcoholism

My shower head.

Shortly after I was brought to my apartment. Through Han, the director’s wife told me that I would be here for only a few days as it was not very close to the school and she wanted me to have a nicer place. So, luggage in tow I stepped through the door to see what I was in for.

Upon walking in there was a tiny kitchen nook. It had a sink, cabinets and a gas range. Up a raised step and through sliding, foggy-glassed doors was the main living space.

Korean Lesson Number One: Do not, even in your own living area, walk in with shoes on. You might start another Korean War. Even before the soles of my shoes (actually they are the shoes of my old roommate Hadley that should have been tossed in the Best Buy dumpsters before we even drove to Florida) hit the floor I was pulled back as though I were about to step on a landmine.

So, in dirty socks I stepped into my temporary abode. Indulge your eyes in the fabulous photos.

My very masculine room.

Perhaps, it is nothing to write the folks about, but I have a certain soft spot for places that remind me of college dorms, and I quite like having my own little place to call my own so I was happy. Also, I find wearing pants to be a bother.

In my fantasy, this was where we all parted ways for the night. I would be left to unpack, calm my mind with one or all of the cans of beer and get to bed at a decent hour. I would wake the next day and confront the crippling homesickness that I knew was hiding behind fatigue and jet lag. That, however is not how it happened.


Again, I found myself in the car watching the neon night pass me by. We finally stopped at a wide open restaurant whose name I never knew. They asked if I was hungry, I replied that no, I was fine; but of course it didn’t matter one bit.


I was beginning to understand what Bilbo felt after his unexpected party; much planning and concern of things happening involving yourself with no say either way (errr, yes that was a reference to The Hobbit).


Barbecue is big in Korea, and barbecue restaurants are the place to be. Do not be fooled though, you do all of the cooking yourself. We sat at a round table, in the middle of which was a grate covering charcoal. Above the pit was a long hose that sucked the smoke and deposited it god knows where.


The waiter brought over the standard yet overwhelming collection of sides, as well as a plate of what looked to be three enormous slabs of bacon. The bacon was tossed onto the heat and soon the place was sizzling with the smell of fat man’s heaven.


We spoke for awhile. I told them that I had never been away from home for longer than a month, and that it was hard for me to leave but that it was important to travel because otherwise the far parts of this world seem irrelevant.


As we munched on the meat and the sides and I demonstrated my almost insulting chopstick abilities, I couldn’t help but feel a little fortunate that I had ended up with this lot. They seemed like genuinely warm and welcoming people. Even the director’s wife, who spoke no English whatsoever, seemed extremely concerned of my wellbeing and happiness. For the first time in my life, I put in the effort to be upfront, social and talkative without being awkward and quiet for two weeks before I said anything. It was 11pm and I felt fulfilled. I was ready to pack it in and call my first night a huge success.


Then the school director walked in.


Albert.


Albert is a slick dresser. He was wearing a shiny dark grey suit with some pretty hip hair. His age I would put at somewhere between 25 and 40 something, though I know he is closer to the latter. He sat down next to me and we talked for a while. I was as bubbly as I could manage after being up for the better part of 48 hours and flying as far away from home as I could possibly get, let alone having a business dinner on top of it all.


At some point Albert started ordering beer. Pouring duty fell on Boram. We had a round or two before the soju came into play. Soju, a vodka kind of drink, is drank like water here and Albert had it decided that I could not end my first night without at least a taste if the stuff.


Perhaps it was fatigue and perhaps it was the lack of real substance, but the drink hit me and it hit me quick. Before I knew it I was feeling the warmth of a fairly decent buzz. Soon, I began to ramble and talk as though we were all old chums. A round or two later and I was laughing and laughing as Albert smoked his leaf-thin cigarettes. Poor Boram, who had been pouring everybody’s drinks, laughed and told Albert something in Korean which amounted to the likes of: “Albert, look at this poor bastard. Here he is on his first night delirious and drunk off it all.”


“Thomas,” Albert said at 2am, “I am very happy with my first impression.” He then went on to confess to me that he liked to drink, and that we should drink often and that he was very generous.


And so, that is how I found myself at my little apartment, completely hammered on my first night in South Korea.

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