Visa Run - Pattaya to Sihanoukville (9 page)

There are many farang women on Victory Beach too, and I paint their nails and braid their hair. Some of them ask me bad questions and seem very interested to know just how far a lovely young Cambodian girl will go with the tourists in order to earn money. Heng gets very angry about this and says they do this in order to make themselves feel better because I make most of them look and feel like hairy white elephants. There are a surprising number of lesbians amongst the travellers and these women are often worse liars and gropers than the men. There are also plenty of good-hearted foreign girls who simply want to make a Cambodian friend.

I will smile and say anything the tourists want to hear so long as they continue to give me money. When I was very young, my family were so poor we did not have enough to eat and were always hungry. I never want to be like that again so Heng and I stash all the money we make in a metal box and keep it in a secret hiding place in case the bad times ever come back again.

I have three brothers; two are the little boys you met by the Cafe de Mar. They are not gifted intellectually, but my eldest brother is very smart indeed. My two younger brothers work with me selling souvenirs on the beach but of course, they never do as well as me. Because of his intelligence we send my eldest brother to school. Books, pens and education are expensive, but we are hoping that when he is older he will be qualified enough to earn a lot of money for our family. Father is a motodop driver downtown. I bought his second-hand motorcycle with money I earned selling trinkets, giving manicures and being nice to farangs on the beach.

Heng does not make so much money from the bar. It wasn’t so long ago that he made more money selling marijuana than drinks as most of the farangs that used to come here were backpackers who were very careful with their money. But during the last few years the type of tourists that are coming to Sihanoukville have changed and the bar does better now. Sometimes we are lucky enough to have rich farangs on visa runs from Thailand adopt the bar and when this happens we do very well as they are often good spenders.

I love my husband and one day we would like to have children, but at the moment this is not possible. When I’ve had a child my perfect looks and body will never be the same again and at the moment, this is where most of my families money comes from. All the farang men want to buy the souvenirs I make and talk to the beautiful young Cambodian girl with the flawless face and figure, but when I’ve had a baby, my breasts will start to sag a little and my face will not be so fresh due to lack of sleep and it will be a different story. In the future there will be plenty of time for a child, but right now I need to work and accumulate as much money as possible for my family in case the bad times ever come again.”

When Jorani and her brothers had left I settled back on the sun-bed and ordered the first beer of the day. When he brought me the drink over the friendly owner of the little bar handed me a gigantic spliff—no doubt hoping to persuade me of the quality of his product in case I might be interested in buying some later. He left the joint with me and walked back to the makeshift counter of his bar. The openness to smoking marijuana in public in Sihanoukville had already surprised me, although I wondered how long it would be before someone decided the town was getting enough tourists and they could afford to start the lucrative profession of bust-bribes, such as has happened in every other puffing haven in history. From the sweet-smelling smoke that hung in the air in many of the bars and the fragrance that drifted from many a sun-bed on a Sihanoukville beach, I could see it wasn’t happening just yet, though.

Not surprisingly, after I had demolished most of the goliath roll-up I felt no inclination to move whatsoever, so I stayed on the beach until evening. At sunset, seemingly almost in an instant, the sea was suddenly full of hundreds of small, colourful wooden fishing boats that sailed out into the setting sun from the nearby fishing village for their night’s work. As the flotilla drifted out of sight past a giant, rusting container ship that was passing by and behind the tree-covered islet they call Snake Island, the gentle waves the boats created lapped around the bottom of my sun-bed. I happily blew out a final cloud of purple smoke and drained the last drops in a can of Angkor beer. I watched a small pair of doves billing and cooing to each other in the delicate foliage of the Casurina tree and wondered if it might be possible to find a girl as lovely as Jorani amongst the bars on the hill. When I paid Heng the three dollars it had cost me for the day’s entertainment I now knew for sure that old Ron had been right all along. This visa run and the old man’s mission were not going to be the nightmare I had anticipated, after all.

C
HAPTER
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IX

Just as I was gathering my things together and preparing to leave the beach, I was surprised to see a monk in a saffron robe walking towards me. During the day, for want of anything to do, I had constructed a large model out of sand on the beach in front of me. It was not the usual sandcastle I’d made, but a likeness of Angkor Wat. I had based the model on the picture woven into one of the bracelets Jorani had sold me and I was rather proud of it. The three spires of my illustrious sand temple rose out of the beach in what I considered to be a most impressive manner and I had built a large wall around my masterpiece to protect it from the incoming tide. In fact, I hadn’t had so much fun on a beach since a day spent building sandcastles with my Dad on a bucket and spade holiday in Clacton-on-Sea when I was eight years old.

The monk stood in front of my masterpiece and regarded it thoughtfully and nodded his shaven head and smiled at me. He looked to be around forty years old and was very well-built and good-looking with twinkling black eyes; it transpired he had much more of a sense of humour than I imagined a monk might possess. I was taken aback when he spoke to me in Thai and he seemed delighted when I answered him in what turned out to be his second language. Later I realized there were plenty of Cambodians around Sihanoukville who could speak Thai, but to get them to do so was another matter. I never discovered why the Cambodian people were so reluctant to converse in the lingo of their neighbours, but there was no doubt that in my time in the country plenty of people understood me when I spoke Thai to them but feigned a complete unfamiliarity with the language when I was sure they really understood every word I was saying.

The monk told me his name was Rainsey and when I asked him what this meant he seemed pleased.

“My name describes the way the rays of the sun retreat from the Lord Buddha,” he told me proudly, pointing a strong, brown finger up at the orange disc of the setting sun. “This means I will always be a traveller.”

Initially I was trying very hard to be respectful when talking to Rainsey but he soon put me at my ease when I asked him why the small offshore islet I had been staring at from my sun-bed all day was called Snake Island. Stupid question. Rainsey looked at me as though I were a bit simple and answered me a touch sarcastically in a voice one might use when speaking to an idiot.

“I think it might be because there are many snakes out there,” he told me seriously. Then the fun-loving monk gave up trying to keep a straight face and burst out laughing and slapped me hard on the back in what I deemed to be to be a most un-monklike manner.

I asked Rainsey about the beautiful, wispy trees that grew in such abundance around the beaches in Sihanoukville instead of the ubiquitous palm trees that are much more common in the coastal areas of Thailand. He told me they are Casurina trees and said if I should ever be caught in a Tsunami or a tropical storm I could do a lot worse than to take refuge up one. Unlike the shallow-rooted palm trees the Casurinas are deeply anchored into the ground and rarely blow over even in the most terrible of weather. The slender, conifer-like trees are planted as wind-breaks by the Cambodian people and Rainsey told me how they helped to save the lives of many desperate people during the famine years as they exude a sticky gum which in a pinch, is edible. All day long the wind whispered through the willowy branches and I found the sound soothing and restful. Rainsey explained to me how from February to April the trees are paricularly striking because they become laden with small, red buds covered in a darker red fur. He also told me how the local fishermen use the bark of the trees to dye their nets a colour that is almost invisible to the fish. So this was the wonderful Casurina tree I had spent all day lying under, that shielded The Cafe de Mar from the scorching rays of the tropical sun.

I asked Rainsey why he had decided to become a monk. I couldn’t help thinking that with his good looks, superb physique, close-cropped hair and aura of fitness he looked more like a professional sportsman than a devotee of Buddha. Rainsey sat down on the sun-bed next to mine and told me something about his life. Despite the aura of well-being and serenity that surrounded the monk, his dark eyes filled with tears as he spoke.

“When I was a young boy my mother and my two sisters and I fled away from the troubles and the famine and across the border to Thailand where we made for one of the many refugee camps there. Life was hard, but it was better than being in Cambodia where we would surely have fared much worse. My father had already been murdered by the Khmer Rouge after they discovered he had previously been a doctor. He was one of the many professional people who were suspected of being educated and therefore killed during the Pol Pot regime. Although I was very young I still remember the day when everyone was driven out of Phnom Penh to the fields on the seventeenth of April in 1975. This was the year they called Year Zero, the year when Cambodia was to sever all links with both her past history and the world and take the first steps to becoming a self-sufficient country of Maoist peasant farmers.

I was a little older than my two sisters and a very cute kid and I used to run errands for a good-hearted Thai policeman who lived on a small farm near the refugee camp and took a shine to my spirit. In return he would give me rice, eggs and fish which helped to keep my family in better health than many of the other Cambodians in the refugee camp. I made friends with the young son of the policeman and as young people learn quickly I soon learnt to speak Thai very well. When I became older I worked for the policeman, looking after his animals and painting, cleaning and repairing the sheds and buildings on the farm he owned. He didn’t pay me much money but with the food he gave me, it was enough.

In 1992 the Thai people considered that the troubles had diminished enough for us refugees to be sent back to Cambodia. I didn’t want to go back at all. My homeland held only memories of hunger and hardship, my friends were mostly Thais and for the first time since we had lived in Phnom Penh my mother and sisters did not have to worry where the next mouthful of food was coming from. But the Thai people had decided they did not want us in their country any more so there was nothing to be done but return to what was left of our previous life.

We were all taken to the border in large groups and told to walk back to Cambodia. The way back was still littered with mines and many of my people lost their lives as we made our way across the dangerous area. All around me people were being killed and injured by the mines as they were detonated by their walking feet. My mother was holding the hands of my two sisters and they were walking in front of me. I had dropped back to help an old lady who had difficulty making her way along and I was a little way behind them. We had very nearly made it all the way back when mother stepped on a mine and both her and my sisters were thrown into the air and fatally injured by the explosion. The old lady I was with stayed with me to try to comfort my mother and sisters as they bled to death. We had to leave their broken bodies in the minefield and I still dream about that terrible day even now.

I just couldn’t get that day out of my mind and when I was back in Cambodia I believe I went a little crazy for a while. My family were all gone and I felt I had nothing to live for. I travelled around and lived alone in the fields and forests for several years and my only companions were the birds and animals. I became very wary of other people at that time and avoided anyone I saw. Eventually, the monks at a temple in Phnom Sia near Kep took pity on me. I was living in the caves there at the time. I began hanging around the temple and they left food out for me as if I were a wild animal. I began to perform tasks for them in return, such as sweeping the yard and washing their robes. I suppose it was inevitable I would become a monk myself one day, as apart from my family and the Thai policeman, the monks were the only people who had ever shown me any kindness.

Like you, I am a traveller, and I cannot stay in one place for any length of time. Although I spend more time in Sihanoukville than anywhere else, every so often I feel the need to wander. I stay in different temples on my travels, although never for very long at any one place. Being a monk gives me a certain freedom and I have been all over Cambodia. Sometimes I travel across the border to Thailand where I have been to nearly every province, and I move from temple to temple for a night or two. The Thai people are very generous when giving alms to monks and I never have any trouble receiving enough to eat as my needs are very simple.

My great passion in life are the animals and birds that are all around us. It was my destiny to be a wandering monk, but if I had the opportunity and my life had been different, I would have loved to have trained as a veterinary surgeon.”

The solemn words of the young monk and the encroaching sunset had a sobering effect on me and Rainsey noticed my serious expression. To my surprise, he stopped talking and gave me a playful punch on the arm.

“But you don’t want to hear about all that!” He said, changing his mood instantly. “You have come to my country to have some fun!”

Rainsey asked me about Pattaya. He said he had never been there before and he wanted to know if the wild reputation of the city was exaggerated. I looked around the quiet beach and the dirt track that led up to the simple nightlife of Victory Hill and I told him it was not, and that everything he had heard about the city was probably true. He asked me about the temples in Pattaya and I said there were many, but that the two largest and best known were Wat Chaimongkoon and Wat Hua Yai. Rainsey told me how he would like to visit Pattaya one day and he asked me where I stayed. I told him about my apartment at the Happy Home and thought no more about it.

Before the monk left I showed him the photograph Ron had given me and he shook his head and said he had never seen the old man or his girl. After I had related Ron’s story and told him all about my mission to find Psorng-Preng, Rainsey looked at me with a strange expression on his face. “I hope you find her,” he said.

The sun was now very low in the sky and Rainsey bid me a good evening and walked off up the track. His bare feet raised little puffs of dust at every step he took and his saffron robe glowed in the last weak rays of the setting sun.

Two months later I was back in Pattaya, snoozing the morning hours away in the Happy Home apartment block, cuddled up to a soft and pretty gogo girl with curves in all the right places. The girl wasn’t as sweet and innocent as she looked and our previous night’s antics had left me in a state bordering on exhaustion. The last thing on my mind was the wandering monk of Sihanoukville. At six-thirty a.m. the telephone next to my bed rang and I cursed loudly. All my mates knew I never arose before ten. I prepared to give some plonker a mouthful and go back to sleep. I picked up the phone and Noy, my favourite counter-girl at the Happy Home, spoke to me in an incredulous voice.

“You had better come down here, Joe, there is someone to see you,” she told me with a definite timbre of concern in her voice.

“Who is it?” I asked her, but true to form the lazy receptionist (that was why I liked her, she was so much like myself) had hung up.

I disentangled myself from the sleeping gogo girl and threw on a crumpled T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Grumbling loudly to myself and wondering what idiot had disturbed my slumbers, I walked down the stairs and into the reception area. Noy pointed to one of the wooden tables that are placed by the little swimming pool and I was astonished to see Rainsey, calmly sitting there waiting for me. He had come all the way from Sihanoukville to Pattaya just to say hello.

We talked together for a while and I couldn’t help thinking that had our lives been different we might have become very good friends. Rainsey told me how he had travelled across on the boat to Koh Kong, then hitched a lift into Trat in the back of a truck full of merchandise belonging to a Thai market trader who bought his wares in Cambodia at knock-down prices. A backpacker at the bus station in Trat had then given Rainsey an unwanted ticket to Pattaya. Apparently the young Australian traveller had met a Swedish blonde at his guesthouse who suggested that he accompany her to the tranquil island of Koh Wai. So here was Rainsey.

The monk told me he had taken a look around Pattaya and agreed with me that the reputation of the city was certainly not exaggerated. He had slept at Wat Chaimongkoon the night before and arisen very early to collect alms with the other monks in the temple. After we had spoken together for an hour he rose to his feet and shook my hand in a grip a lumberjack would have been proud of.

“And now I am off to Khorat,” he said, as if he were simply popping down to the local supermarket instead of beginning a trek of several hundred miles. “Good luck, my friend!”

Rainsey walked out of the gateway of the Happy Home and into the quiet of the Pattaya morning and continued on his travels. I stood under the palm trees by the side of the pool and watched him disappear up the almost deserted street, feeling proud and privileged to have received a visit from the wandering monk of Sihanoukville with the sad past.

Back on The Hill at the Crazy Monkey guesthouse I was in dire need of a shower after my hard day on the beach. I stripped off and turned on the lukewarm water and tried to work up a good lather with one of the microscopic pieces of plastic-wrapped soap the guesthouse kindly provided. As I did so, I noticed that a lizard had become trapped on the slippery tiles in the shower room and was in danger of being washed down the drainage-hole. I have always been fond of the little reptiles and I made a grab at the creature, hoping to save it from a watery grave. Unfortunately, as is the nature of lizards, the creature mistook my attempts at assistance as the attentions of a predator and shed its tail. Many species of lizards do this—the idea is that the predator is distracted by a wildly wriggling tail and the lizard can then make good its escape. Even though I knew I had not hurt the lizard it was still rather disconcerting to see the tail part from the body and squirm around with an apparent life of its own.