FUGITIVES AND FOREIGN MISFITS

Beach in Sihanoukville. Many misfit expats live here, some are hiding from the law.

Chris is a twenty-something from England, with beard stubble, and a dark t-shirt. I met this friendly Brit one night at a no-name bar in Sihanoukville, where he worked as a bartender. 

He doesn't earn much, Chris only gets six dollars a day for eight hours of night time work. “Slave labor,” he tells me. But he does get a free meal every night, and free drinks. “I’m a bit of an alcoholic,” he admits to me.

Like many young folk I've met in Asia, Chris has been traveling around for months, and stopped to work in Cambodia for a while. I asked him if he had ever been to the states during his travels. His response wasn't what I was expecting. 

“They won’t give me a visa,” Chris said, “since I was convicted of production of cannabis.” Apparently Chris has a hippie side to him, which got him in trouble with the UK police a few years back. 

While we're chatting in this beach side hang out, a grungy, older Aussie that Chris knows walks into the bar. I’d seen this shabby guy yesterday on the street. He’d asked me for a cigarette, but I don't smoke. 

The Australian asks Chris, “You want to buy some weed? Two dollars a bag? I have to pay my hotel bill,” he explains. Chris declines, since he doesn’t do drug transactions while he's working. I also decline, since I stick to beer. Obviously the Aussie was in dire straits; he looked like a transient. He probably won’t sell marijuana for long here either, since local pushers won’t like him competing for their business.

Checking out the Aussie, I notice a large infected cut on the back of his hand. It was so infected, that his whole hand was swelled up. I figured he must have injured it in a motorbike accident, the usual way that foreigners get injured in Cambodia. But I was wrong. 

“A whore cut him”, Chris told me, after the Aussie walked away. Apparently since the Aussie didn’t have money for rent, he didn't have money to pay a prostitute that he took home either. 

Chris and the old Aussie are just two of the down-and-out examples, that make up the soap opera scene of foreigners living in Sihanoukville. Long time expatriates call the town ‘Snookville’ or just ‘Snook’, for short. During my days checking out the beach, I learn that there are many expats hanging out here with skeletons in their closets. 

One night out at a restaurant with a group of foreigners, I was introduced to a German lawyer. I don’t recall his name, but it was probably an alias. That's likely, since I was told that this tall Aryan looking guy, was wanted for murder back in Germany! 

I already met a Swede in Phnom Penh who was hiding out from the law, but he was a peaceful guy, wanted only for media piracy. 

Could it be that this tall German with thinning hair, was really a killer? I noticed the German had a scar to one side of his forehead; an intimidating looking fellow. 

I wonder, just how did he got that scar??

* * * * *

The strange 'Airport' disco.

I’m sitting at the controls of a Russian aircraft. It's an older two engine, Antonov 24 airplane. I reach for a gauge on the control panel, and the knob comes off in my hand! 

Obviously, this plane has seen better days and fortunately, I'm not airborne. In fact, I'm not even in a real airport. But I am in a disco in Sihanoukville that is named 'Airport', and this plane is parked right over the middle of the dance floor below me! How weird. 

I peer out the cockpit windows, where the building housing this night spot resembles an old airport hanger. Adding to the odd ambiance, old photos with advertisements from long gone airlines line the walls. I can see the need to stand out in Sihanoukville's night life, but this is just unreal. 

I leave the cockpit to go aft inside the plane, and find the passenger compartment in total disarray. The seats have been removed; it's dusty and grubby. Apparently this old plane is still being renovated for the club. I imagine they'll add more tables and chairs before it’s finished. 

It's fitting that an old Soviet plane is parked in here, because this strange disco is owned by Russians. Of course that helps the disco to attract a Russia clientele, but not tonight. I exit the plane and descend down to the dance floor, into a disco that's nearly empty. It's the off season, so fewer Russians are flying down from Siberia to Cambodia while I'm staying here. 

With the house music blaring, I finish my beer, and head for the door. This plane is yet another foreign misfit in Cambodia. 

LITTLE LIVE MUSIC, TOO MUCH HUMAN TRAFFICKING

For popular western music, there are few live bands in Cambodia (photo: Wikipedia)

One hopping Saturday night in downtown Phnom Penh, I went to Touk Bar, a reputable upstairs venue with a view of the Tonle Sap River. For once they had live music; a four piece band playing cover tunes. Years back I was a drummer myself, and listening to this ensemble, I'm amused. The band's drummer was really screwing it up. He was so out of touch with the other musicians, he didn't know when to stop playing as each song ended. Obviously he’d never played with this band before.

I asked the Canadian bar manager what was going on. Her answer: “Their regular drummer is in hiding. The police are looking for him on a charge of human trafficking.”

It's not surprising that the state of live music performance in Southeast Asia, is far less developed than in western countries. An odd phenomenon of live music in the region, is that although western music is very popular, few local bands can play western music well. Where there is live music in the capital cities, the best bands are from the Philippines. With more English speakers and freedom to perform, Filipino bands have filled the gap.

A popular downtown place for expats is Huxley’s a straight-laced English Pub. Unlike many of their neighboring bars, Huxley’s doesn’t allow prostitutes inside. Again, I went in on a rare night with a live band. Their name: ‘Stiff Little Punks’. I’d seen flyers advertising this gig, they promoted themselves as “The Worst Punk band in Cambodia”. It's more accurate to call them the only punk band in Cambodia.  

Playing in a tight upstairs space, I saw they were also the smallest band in Cambodia, with only two members. They included a lead singer, and a guitarist who sang background, and added digital music through foot pedals. Of course these weren’t full time musicians. I knew the lead singer, and his main job is teaching English. After hearing them play, I had to agree. They were the worst punk band in Cambodia.

As far as Phnom Penh's night life went, this is a tame place. Another night I happened to walk past Huxley’s, when I saw a big crowd across the street in front of Iris Bar. This was a ‘hostess bar’; a euphemism for a girlie bar. Prostitution is illegal in Cambodia, but police still allow it. There were many policemen present, an unusual sight. Their presence drew an even larger crowd of Khmer onlookers.

Across Southeast Asia, visiting bands from the Philippines play the best rock and roll.

The police were in the process of shutting down the Iris Bar. Before I arrived, they had arrested the Korean owner, and all the Khmer women who worked there. Everyone was hauled away in a police truck. The police then loaded all the bar's furniture into another truck, and hauled that away too. When the bar was emptied of its contents, the police locked up the front doors for good. I asked around as to why this bar was raided. It turns out that the Korean owner was unpopular in the neighborhood. He had forced his hostess women to work as prostitutes.

Fortunately not all bars and discos are of ill repute. But unfortunately for the women that work them, there is a stigma. Since Cambodia is still traditional and conservative, a ‘good woman’ would never work in a bar. Of course not all bar hostesses work as prostitutes, but given the low hostess salaries, it's not surprising that many turn to prostitution to increase their income. Such work also exposes innocent women to exploitation, as in the case with this Korean owner.

Predictably, Khmer values also look down on other things culturally accepted by western women. “In Cambodia, ladies who smoke are prostitutes,” a local woman once told me.

“Only prostitutes have tattoos,” was another prejudiced comment I heard. With the growing influence of western culture in Cambodia, such untraditional behaviors and fashions are becoming more common for women in Phnom Penh.

A week later, I walked this street again. Across from the closed Iris Bar, the police raided another nightspot; ‘Cheerleaders Bar’. I'd never been inside here either, but the police tactics were the same. The Khmer ‘hostesses’ were all packed onto the back of a waiting police truck. The furniture was carted away, and the English owner arrested; jailed just like the Korean owner had been. They weren't alone; the police had raided five city girlie bars in the past two weeks.  One was owned by a Singaporean; he had been trafficking women in from the Philippines for forced prostitution. Additional bars were raided and shut down in the city of Siem Reap. All were owned by expatriates. This must have been a campaign to reduce the girlie bars, or so I thought.

I was only partly right. An American owner of a legal bar filled me in on what was really happening. The police had shown up at some of the expat owned bars known to have Khmer women dancing. Some had pole dancing. None had strippers, though most had hookers. It seems that the police didn’t want Phnom Penh to turn into the next Bangkok. So they told the owners: remove those dancing poles, give the police $6,000, and they could stay open. If they didn’t comply with both of those directives, they were shut down.

The police also shut down a couple of Khmer owned bars, but not many. The American owner said that there just wasn’t enough money in them for the police to bother. For the expat owned bars, he had this explanation for me. “Cambodians don’t like anyone pimping their women, except Cambodians.”

Another American I knew in town, who spent too much time with prostitutes, was upset at all of these arrests and closures. He complained, “This is the US embassy’s fault! It’s all because they gave Cambodia a poor rating on the human trafficking list.”

The American had his anger and blame pointed in the wrong direction. Besides closing a few bars, Cambodia still has major problems with human trafficking, even worse than human trafficking in Vietnam. Many thousands of Cambodians, mainly women and children, are still victims of human trafficking every year. In addition to prostitution, many are forced to work in sweatshops as slave labor. The Cambodian government does little to stop the human trafficking scourge.

FOREIGNER HITS ROCK BOTTOM IN PHNOM PENH

I awaken in the “Indochine 2”, a curious name for a hotel, since nobody refers to Southeast Asia as Indochina anymore. It’s a comfortable place in downtown Phnom Penh, easy on the wallet, and only a block from the Tonle Sap River.

Decaying downtown building where 'Broken Bricks' was located

It’s a lovely day outside, and I check out the scenery outside my window. Pulling back the curtains, my entire view is taken up by a large old French colonial across the street. This was once a beautiful building, but no longer. The French shutters, detailed ironwork, and stylish balconies are all seriously decayed. Many windows are broken. The faded yellow structure is mostly abandoned. Except for one apartment holdout and a cheap ground floor restaurant, this old shell sits dark and empty.

The humble little restaurant has a history of its own. It used to be a bar with a rather unusual name: “Broken Bricks”. The former owner of this bar spent years in Phnom Penh, and his story is worth telling.

'Steven' was from England, and first came to Cambodia back in the 1990’s, a time when Cambodia was even more lawless than it is now. Steven liked to party, and he fell in love with the place. He also fell in love with a local Khmer woman, and they eventually married.

One tragic day, a grenade was thrown at the house of his neighbor. It exploded outside, and a piece of shrapnel penetrated his home, and struck his wife, killing her. Attacks such as this to settle scores were common here in those days. Predictably for Cambodia, the killer was never caught.

Despite this tragedy, Steven didn’t leave Cambodia. He still liked the place, and he opened a bar known as the “Peace Bar”. His establishment became very popular with the expatriate community, and for some time business went very well.

Steven also began his own personal program of disarmament in the city. Back then there were many machine guns and other weapons left over from the war, that were now in private hands. As the weeks passed, Steven found himself in possession of a sizable cache of small arms. Then the Khmer police found out about it. His storage room was raided, and all the weapons confiscated. Steven was arrested. Eventually, after a great deal of explaining, he was released. The police kept the weapons.

Of course, Steven was no weapons dealer. He was planning on hauling all the guns out to an open field, dumping them in a pile, pouring on gasoline, and setting them all ablaze. (This had been done with other disarmament programs.) He just hadn’t gotten around to the bonfire part yet.

As years went by, it became apparent to Steven’s friends that he was enjoying himself far too much. By this time, he had become a drug addict.

“Too much ‘yaba’, one of his Kiwi friends said, referring to the local slang word for crystal methamphetamine.

Trying to stay in the bar business, he opened “Broken Bricks” in this dilapidated building across the street from me now. But this bar was very small, and business faltered. His Kiwi friend complained that when he stopped at the bar for a drink, they didn’t even have any beer.

Then one night, things finally went too far. While working at Broken Bricks, an argument with his Cambodian waitress escalated into violence. The fight escalated, and eventually his angry Cambodian neighbors jumped into the fray. If this angry mob hadn’t been stopped, they would probably have beaten Steven to death. But he was pulled from the melee by acquaintances and the police. He was arrested, and finally put in jail.

Upon examining his passport, police discovered that his visa had expired years ago. Since he was an almost broke drug addict by this time, he didn’t have the money to pay a lawyer to try and get him out of this legal mess. After a month in jail, his remaining foreign friends in Phnom Penh took up a collection. His ‘fines’ were paid, and they bought him a one way ticket back to England. He was then deported. Last heard, he was wandering the streets of Birmingham.

Steven’s story is not unique. There are occasionally foreigners who come to Cambodia, and they get completely caught up in a free for all of excess. They party far too much, they stay far longer than they should, and sooner or later, they hit rock bottom. Some of them are now in prison. Others end up dead from drug overdoses.

A cautionary tale, he is one that got out alive.

BAR FIGHT AND SAIGON NIGHT LIFE

A daytime view of the Hotel de Ville, originally built by French colonists

It’s a Friday night, and I leave Godmother's Bar, on my way to meet Chris, another American in town. Leaving the the Pham Ngu Lao tourist neighborhood behind, I cross into a city park. Even in the evening, HCMC is fairly safe. Although theft and corruption are common, violent street crime is a rarity. Culturally, the Vietnamese don’t like confrontations. I’ve only heard of one foreigner mugged in Vietnam, and it happened in the park I'm walking through. The German victim was so drunk, that he could hardly even walk when thieves spotted him. Stumbling drunk through a dark park at 3am is just inviting a mugging.

But tonight, there’s little to worry about, it’s only 9pm; at this hour it's safe enough. I've plenty of company; the park is full of Vietnamese couples. There are few places in Vietnam for romancing pairs to be alone, as single men and women usually live with their parents until marriage. Good Vietnamese women usually don’t go to bars, and most young men have little money to spend on restaurants or movies. Going to a public park is a cheap date. On weekend evenings, the city’s parks are full of couples. Tonight is no different, countless couples are cuddled up together on park benches, occasionally sneaking a kiss in the dark. With all benches taken, late arriving couples sit on the seats of parked motorbikes. Some nights, older couples take over the park’s gazebo. I’ve often seen them ballroom dancing, despite the tropical heat. They don’t need an orchestra; music from a boombox will do.

I recall another night when I walked through this same park, and the park’s occupants weren’t Vietnamese. On that particular evening, every single bench in the park was occupied by a sleeping African. There were more than 40 of them. During that weekend there had been an immigration crackdown. There were a number of Africans in HCMC who had overstayed their tourist visas, and didn’t have enough money to get home. When the police raided their hotel rooms and apartments in another district, they fled to this park to sleep until the raids were over.

Passing Ben Thanh Market I scare a couple of rats, and take a slight detour. I turn down Pasteur Street, named for the famous French doctor, and come to one of the most stunning colonial buildings that still survives. Bathed with bright exterior lighting, is the magnificent Hotel de Ville. More than a century old, it’s now an official government building occupied by the People’s Committee. The Classic French architecture, contrasts with the armed Vietnamese police outside. They sit bored in their security posts, hardly looking as I walk by. I’d love to have a look around inside the grand old building, but I’m not allowed in. Since it’s no longer a hotel, it’s closed to outsiders. Ah, if these walls could talk…

Looking up, a Vietnamese flag flies high above the old hotel’s center tower. In a slap in the face to the French, the Vietnamese installed a statue of old Ho Chi Minh sitting in the park right out front, reminding them just who it was that bested the colonials. Floodlights light up the entire front façade every night. As I walk past admiring the scene, I notice that all over the yellow painted exterior, there are… lizards! Small gecko lizards, all over the walls. The lighting attracts insects, which in turn attract the lizards. I give up counting them after I pass 100. Back in its heyday, this hotel hosted governors, presidents, and the rich and famous. Now, the only thing living here are little reptiles looking for an easy meal.

Entrance to Apocalypse Now, from asia-bars.com

Returning to the main boulevard, I continue on to my evening destination, a disco. In a country that seeks to forget the war, one of the most popular nightspots in town is called, “Apocalypse Now”. Taking its name from the intense Francis Ford Coppola war movie, this strangely themed place opened in the 1990’s when the city’s nightlife was more liberal than now. If you’ve seen the movie and thought it was rather bizarre, well, so is this place. The décor is dark and dramatic. Spherical white light fixtures are painted red, giving the appearance that blood is dripping down them.

On the wall, a surfboard is painted with that famous line from the movie, “Charlie Don’t Surf.” Upstairs the bar is made of sandbags, much like a military bunker. Old US made army helmets from the war have been turned into more light fixtures. The wall's top is lined with barbed wire.

Despite the drinking and partying, the club isn’t as wild as you’d expect. There's some hugging and kissing among the patrons, but not near as much as in clubs in America. On the dance floor, there is far less hip grinding and suggestive dancing. One of the contradictions of Asia, is that sexy dancing, or public displays of affection aren’t considered acceptable. Partying is done in a more conservative manner; there are no go-go dancers here. The government doesn’t want HCMC to turn into another Bangkok.

Prostitution unfortunately, is part of Vietnamese culture. As in many bars in poor countries, some ladies present are prostitutes. Others are Vietnamese ladies hoping to find a western husband. I ignore the advances of a pair of working ladies, and make my way through the crowd to my buddy Chris at the bar. He’s a business consultant in town for a few weeks. As I order a Tiger beer, he tells me about his last weekend, at a karaoke place with a big group of colleagues. He enjoyed the evening, but the next day he had one of the worst hangovers of his life. He couldn’t understand why, since he didn’t drink heavily. I ask what he was  drinking.

“We had three bottles of Johnny Walker Black,” he answered. “We bought the expensive stuff. The first bottle tasted ok, but the second and third bottles tasted a lot different.”

What he didn’t know, was that the first bottle was genuine Johnny Walker Whiskey, and the other bottles were counterfeit liquor. The karaoke workers figured they were drunk enough after the first bottle not to notice the difference! Their 2nd and 3rd bottles of premium imported $100 whiskey, were actually only cheap moonshine. It's a common scam. Johnny Walker Black is supposed to be 12 years old; that’s why it has the darker color. For booze counterfeiters, that’s nothing a little water coloring can’t fix.

Some time later, there's a commotion by the bar. I turn just in time to see a bar stool sailing into the crowd near me, flung by an angry Chinese drinker. The Vietnamese woman he was aiming for responded with her own weapon; she took off her shoe and counter-attacked with her high heel! Her girlfriend also jumped into the fray. In the melee that ensued, the group was gradually pulled apart by black shirted security. Fortunately no one was seriously hurt. Since I’m an American, a bar fight is nothing new. America is probably the world capital of bar fights, and although I’ve broken up a few brawls, I’ve managed to never get attacked myself. US bar fights are usually one on one fistfights between belligerent drunkards. The fracas usually lasts only a few seconds, until bouncers charge in and shove the combatants out the door.

Bar fights in Asia however, are altogether different. As noted from the previous instance, Vietnamese rarely use their fists, and will attack with whatever weapon they can find. In bars, you'd think that their first weapon on hand would be a beer bottle, but they always reach for something else. I once saw a Vietnamese drunkard try and club his opponent with a motorcycle helmet. When Asians go to bars, they go out in groups. In the same manner, when they fight, they never fight alone. Like the woman with her high heel, I once saw a group of Vietnamese remove their shoes, men and women, and fling them all at a belligerent foreigner on the street. Apparently Iraqis aren’t the only ones who throw shoes at their enemies.

Fortunately, bar fights in Vietnam are much less frequent than in the states, since Asians are generally less prone to violent outbursts than Americans. (Surprising, given Asia’s violent history.) But when a bar fight does happen in Vietnam, watch out for those flying bar stools. Or shoes.

With the battle royale over, the excitement in the club dies down, and the crowd gradually thins out. As Apocalypse Now closes, patrons weave towards the exits. As the lights go up, the last song played was that memorable 60's tune from the Doors: “The End". Jim Morrison would have felt right at home here.

NIGHT LIFE AND CORRUPTION IN SAIGON

Qing Bar in Saigon's District 1, an upscale wine bar that closes on time

In Southeast Asia, pubs and discos are excellent places to meet fascinating people, from a variety of backgrounds. In the bars of Vietnam people of all kinds are generally more friendly, and more open to meet strangers, than they are back in America. This has nothing to do with the hustlers or scammers either. Most Vietnamese are hospitable people, with a friendliness that is infectious.

One night at a bar/restaurant in Pham Ngu Lao, an English friend introduced me to Truong, a young Vietnamese. He was on his way to a disco called Gossip, where he would dance until the wee hours of the morning. Although I’d just met him, Truong invited me to go along.

Feeling tired I declined, but before he left, I asked him, “how can the discos stay open until the morning in the city? I heard there's a law, that bars and discos cannot stay open late.”

“There is a national law, that no bar can stay open past 12 o’clock,” Truong said.  “Everybody know that if bar is open after 12, they are paying the police.”

This corruption of bribes for bars to stay open doesn’t end there either. According to Truong, bar owners had to entertain the police regularly. “They don’t just pay the police,” Truong continued. “They have to take them out to dinner. They have to pay for everything, food and drink.”

Truong had a rather humorous take on the corruption system for bars. “My father is policeman. The bar give money to my father. My father give money to me. I give money back to the bar,” he said smiling. “Recycle. Recycle.”

Corruption is nothing new to Southeast Asia, existing here in one form or another for centuries. With the re-introduction of capitalism to Vietnam in the 80’s, foreign investment money has flowed in. This has brought enormous potential for graft to government officials with low salaries.

Truong proceeded to tell me about a corrupt government official. “Next door, this restaurant is owned by man in prison now. He worked in government petroleum. He in prison for corruption. In prison, he have good life. He pay the prison guards, he have good TV, telephone, nice room. His son and daughter, they go to university in America. In Vietnam, if the father go to prison for corruption, the son has a good life.”

A reputable organization which does surveys on corruption, Transparency International, annually ranks the world’s perceived level of public sector corruption. Their 2011 Corruption Perception Index, ranked 182 of the world’s countries. Vietnam was tied for 120th place, along with Senegal, Kosovo, Moldova, Egypt and Algeria.

Old Ho Chi Minh would be very displeased at the current level of corruption that exists in the 'communist' government that he left behind.