Playing For Crickets

We disembarked and per usual the moto drivers were there at the riverside port and bus station clamoring for our business. There was a van for the Royal Hotel and this was exactly where I wanted to go. I climbed aboard with a tall gawky red head from Oxford named Andy. The Royal Hotel is right down the street from the old market, built sometime around 1900. It has a poured concrete pyramidal architecture that must have been revolutionary for it's day. The hotel has huge hallways. They have covered over the tops of the stairwell with sheet metal, where sunlight should pour in and sustain an elaborate indoor garden. Still the rooms are generous and the toilets flush. There is cable TV and corny seventies furniture and cheap bordello drapery. The best feature is it's rooftop restaurant with good clean food, a view of the city and beggarless dining. I felt I could spend some time here.

I spent some time walking around the dusty city streets the next day. Battambang is blissfully unaware of the tourists. It is a working class town and the people go about their business without harassing you.

You see it immediately in the dress. Most of the Women in Siam Reap are style conscious and wear blue jeans but even there I had noticed the occasional woman, riding by on a bicycle or sweeping the street, wearing cheap, western, sleepwear or... pajamas. Here in Battambang it is an explosion. They are everywhere. And Hello Kitty is the favorite.

The pajama as we know it, was originally typical silken pant leg clothing in Asia. It was adapted as sleepwear by the early colonialists and imported to Europe for use as such. I base this fact on my experience watching antique British films and reading Noel Coward scripts. My hypothesis is further supported by vague memories of comments made by Carey Grant and Spencer Tracey whenever they had awkward sleeping arrangements with single women.

If you walk along the river, past the narrow old wooden bridge that still carries hundreds of motor bikes every day, you cross by the Museum and into the rich part of town. The rich part of town has broad arbored streets. As far as I can tell there are only two, maybe three houses in the rich part of town, The governors mansion and two others. There is also the central police headquarters. Across from a construction site for a luxury hotel ,that seems to have faltered years ago, is the Victory Club. It is as if someone had taken the Westford Swim and Tennis club and plopped it down on top of a shantyville, crushing all the residents save a few bedraggled cats which continue to haunt the place. There is a high wall around the weed filled tennis lot and the adjoining clubhouse and swimming pool. It isn't the wall that keeps people out. It is the 4 dollar entrance fee. This is a town where the deputy police chief makes 24 dollars a month. I went swimming there four days in a row and I never encountered a single person save two very fat Chinese kids and their athletic, business man, dad.

There is not much nightlife in Battambang except for the few local bars. I had noticed a crumbling movie theater near the town center and thought it would be worth checking out. There was a large poster tied to the front of building advertising what looked like a Cambodian historical epic. All the text was in Khmer but the times were in Roman numerals. The only evening show was at 7 pm. The admission price was 12.5 cents. I went back at the appointed time and the place was nearly empty. A few rough looking teenagers hung out on their motor bikes in front. There was an old man with a long scraggly white beard sitting on a hand made wooden bench in the entrance. He led inside to the wreck of an auditorium bathed in red light. I waited 10 15 20 minutes and nothing happened. I gave up and went home.

I saw Andy outside his room when I got backed. I was not eager for another night of TV so I joined him at the small wooden table by the staircase of that vast hallway. Andy just graduated and like a lot of Brits is spending six months traveling before he joins the rat race. I strummed the guitar while he smoked cigarettes. Her was trying to quit, so he was savoring his daily allotment. One rarely hears about young Europeans trying to quit. In fact they make a point of it. It is a symbol of defiance toward the perceived American culture. They know all about our Draconian smoking regulations and openly smirk at us.

In order to cut down Andy had been buying loose cigarettes instead of packs. What we in Harlem call "loosies". A pack of cigarettes here goes for 25 cents and a loosie 1.25 cents. A hundred riel therefore gets you two.
"The cigarettes here are dreadful." He complained, "Especially these."
He was smoking Alain Delons. Here it is pronounced (one word) aLAINdelon. It is a popular brand in South East Asia bearing the actors name. There are signs for it everywhere with the slogan "The Taste of France."
"Yeah." he said. "If you've ever been in a Parisian pissoir you get the idea."

Some French NGO workers informed me that there was a circus school in town. I mentioned it to Andy and we decided to check it out. We got there at the alleged start time, 7pm, and once again nobody was there. This time though the performers were warming up on stage. So we had hope. It was not until nearly 8pm that a crowd of French tourists and Cambodian children descended on the place. I was starting to get it.

The performance revolved around the life of a group of street kids who collect cans for a living. It was a poor circus. There was no fancy lighting or special effects. There were spectacular acrobatics. There was inventive music performed with a collection of self made and native instruments. There was an electric guitar that desperately needed new strings. It was hilarious.

Afterwards we went, with the NGOs who had invited us, to a riverside bar. All eight of us boarded two motor scooters, Khmer style. We passed a huge statue of Vishnu with a snake in the middle of a roundabout. I know about Shiva and the snake but Vishnu, that must be some local tale. At the bar we spoke a mixture of English, French and Khmer. They ran the circus school. These guys were all volunteers. For their good works they actually made NO money. At the end of a few rounds the bill came. It was seven dollars for the eight of us. It was my pleasure to pick up the check.

The streets were empty as Andy and I walked home. The only place open was an ATM for Candida Bank. It was so brightly lit that I bet pilots can see it. The ATMs here only despense US dollars. Soon they will only dispense Euro and not long after,Yuan I bet. A guard slept in a hammock in front of it. Andy loaded up on cash while I watched the zillions of insects beyond the bullet proof glass clamoring to get in.

We got the the Royal and Renee was out front playing blackjack with the moto drivers. They were playing for crickets. Renee is a tall striking blonde. She works in Los Angeles as a film editor. She is the kind of woman I usually make absolutely no impression on.
"Would you like one?" she offered. I was shocked that she had detected my presence. Andy, stood dumb faced next to me. It was like watching somebody get struck by lightning over and over.
"Nah. I've gotten them as close as my mouth but I never put one in." I replied lamely.
Andy went off to bed. I sat outside for awhile playing guitar to no effect.
The women here, who would love to speak with you, speak no English and the women who do speak English have no desire whatsoever to speak to you.

I gave in finally and took a local tour with one of the more persistent moto drivers. First he took me to his home to soften me up. His name was Mo. He was a decent guy with a wife and baby girl. They lived in a little wooden shack owned by his inlaws in a poor but well kept community. Chickens roamed about while I swung in a hammock exchanging the few Khmer words I knew with his family. They proudly offered me a piece of fruit from their tree. It was like an apple only inedible. With the conversation lagging I resorted to making farting noises by whetting my palms and blowing. This delighted the throng of neighborhood kids who had gathered to see me, this western curiosity.

In the background I could hear the Cambodian xylophone and drums. It created a magical ambiance in this primitive village as it lilted through the dense forest. I asked him what it was about.

"It funeral. A little child dead. She drown. Only eight year."
This is the real deal I thought. I imagined myself in the clubroom at the Museum of Natural History sipping a macciato while chatting with Margaret Mead.
"Is it possible to go see." I inquired.
"Not so interesting I think." He replied anticipating my curiosity. "It cassette."

We spent the afternoon cruising around the surrounds of the town. We passed another huge statue in the middle of a roundabout. This time it was the ancient Cambodian king on one knee with a staff perched across the other. He was as black as Ma Rainy's bottom.
"If this is royalty" I thought. "What are all these skin whitening products were about?
He showed me a place where a family made rice pancakes for spring rolls. He took me to another place where an old woman stuffed rice with coconut and mung beans into roasted bamboo stalks, making an instant lunch box. We passed a blacksmith fashioning tools over an open fire. We saw the factory where young girls smashed fish into paste, a dank thatch covering over a concrete floor with an overpowering smell. Everything was hand powered using simple machines. The smarter people rising above the rest.

Outside the city it was much cooler. The little dirt roads were shaded by the jungle canopy. We came to a temple on the banks of a little creek. A cow grazed in an open field. A monk chanted on the temple balcony. There was a monument behind a stone wall just beyond the temple. It rose about ten meters from the ground. On each of its four walls were two great glass windows that revealed the entire structure to be filled with skulls and bones. There was a crude bas relief along the ground level that portrayed the horrors of the Khmer Rouge. They were not ones for wasting bullets, preferring to beat their victims to death with whatever they could find. Mo told me his parents had been merchants in the city when the solders came. They closed all the markets, schools, hospitals, everything, and forced everyone out into the fields to work. Pol Pot needed every hand he could get to raise rice. The rice he used to pay China for the landmines that still plague Cambodia to this day.
"School teacher, doctor, anyone clever they kill." Mo told me.
"Hmmm." I thought. "I wonder what would have happened to a loud mouth like me."

That evening I made the mistake of sitting al fresco at the White Rose. If you sit outside in Asia you are constantly besieged by hawkers and urchins. This place is a popular with the ex-pats but I didn't trust it. There was something wrongly grimy about that it. I had a vegetable curry which I thought would be safe. It was dripping with ghee and about half way through I gave up on it. I tried to pawn it off on the beggar family that controlled the turf in front of The Rose.Two of the dirty little raggedy girls ate a few mouthfuls before turning up their noses. With that they finally left me alone at my table.

After eating or trying to eat I thought I would make a final attempt to go to the movies. I walked towards the theater. Motorbikes loaded up with teenagers out for a Saturday night blazed by, honking their horns, momentarily blinding me. I arrived a half hour late which I thought according to the local traditions would be appropriate. When I got there the place was closed. The posters had been ripped down. A huge antique Chinese lock held the rickety folding gate closed. I headed back along the dark rubble strewn streets to the hotel.

My stomach was feeling worse and worse. There was a weird gaseous disturbance going on down there that began to erupt. Holding my ass cheeks together as best I could I hop skipped back home as fast as possible. As I reached the hotel, Renee was in the lobby using the Internet. I grimaced hello and tried to breeze past but she became extraordinarily determined to engage me in conversation.
"We tried to find the circus you told us about but you were right. They left town today. We saw them parade out though." She babbled on long after that but the sound was like rain in a puddle. Unable to flee I had done what any good solider would have done. I pooped in my pants.