Cambodian Wobbles

Well Cambodia is certainly playing havoc with our emotions so far. And we are having a minor wobble. The fact is that Cambodia, despite being much less developed than its neighbours Thailand and Vietnam, is really surprisingly expensive. There is a dual currency with US dollars, which are the favoured mode of payment. In Phnom Penh we had noticed this, but assumed it was because this was the capital. Prices are close to English prices, which makes our budget per day, difficult to meet.

I am not sure how this is sustainable, even given the likelihood of slightly lower 'local' prices, for the local people. Perhaps this partially answers my most burning question about Cambodia so far, given its atrocities were over around the same time as Vietnam freed itself from the 17 year war, why is Vietnam so much more recovered? Why do we see so much more and apparently greater, poverty here? Perhaps Cambodia's citizens have been 'priced out'. In Vietnam, H told us that everyone, even the poorest people could afford to buy some land and start to haul themselves, albeit painfully, up the ladder towards being, if not rich, at least relatively comfortable. The government ensured that the same price was payable by rich or poor so the rich couldn't price the poor out of the market. Here we are seeing more poverty, it seems more helpless, people are begging as much as scraping a living on market stalls, and I don't know how anyone earning very little can be affording to eat. 

We arrive at our small room with a gas hob which is slightly out of town, deliberately chosen to be more where the locals live. It's close to the local market (a big food focused affair and a far cry from the tourist versions in town). It is part of a few similar rooms around a green, jungly, palmy garden. It sounds amazing and it's what we wanted. But somehow when we spill, hot and dusty, off the bus, we feel suddenly unsure. 

The rooms are very basic and the cooking utensils even more so. We have no kettle, only one hob and a handful of cutlery. The shower seems cold (though we work that out later) and the bamboo structure that is our 'wardrobe' is very authentic but doesn't contain any hangers. Its a forty minute walk into the comforting tourist trap in the town centre, along a dust road in the intense heat. We said we wanted to keep it real. We didn't want to surround ourselves with other travellers, with English menus and English breakfasts, and just troop along to all the same old sights without gaining any experience of basic life here. Cooking for ourselves, for example, shopping on the local market. Getting around on foot rather than by tuk tuk or taxi. Doing some volunteer work, walking in the countryside, learning some Cambodian, doing a little yoga.

And oh look, we have landed somewhere which is the perfect setting for most of those things. Only we seem to have gone soft.

To make this rather more pronounced, M has discovered some sort of paradise hostel in the middle of town which offers free yoga classes every day for residents (though we can still join these for five dollars each) has a rooftop terrace with yoga mats and candles, shows an English language film in its own cinema every evening and a 'local documentary' in English every afternoon. Oh and there's a pool. It's right in the tourist district. You can fall out of the door straight into a tourist market and buy friendship bracelets. 

It's much more expensive than our place. It's much less authentic. There's a shared kitchen but I don't know if you can go to the market and fill up the shared fridge. And for every Amok Soup we try to create there will be somebody next to us warming up pizza. The things which really draw us are the yoga and the documentaries. We can definitely do the yoga, if we can get up at a decent time and walk there, and its likely we can pay to see the documentaries.

But I don't know. It just seems easier.

We talk about this for a while. We could move into the hostel. But we are both quite aware that this is a cop out. For a holiday the hostel would be perfect. But this is supposed to be an adventure. Our place has a bench surrounded by jungle type foliage where I could write at midday in the shade, when everyone else is having a siesta. It has a market bustling with local life and the noise we hear is all human. It even has a little cat.

And as for the money issue, we'll do it the way we did in Vietnam, and follow an expensive day with a quiet, cheap one. And maybe we can get it to add up in the end. Tomorrow, we say, we will go to the market. Tonight we are tired and a little pathetic. We lack oomph. We are so pampered and spoiled we may as well just check into one of the huge expensive spa resorts and be done with it. We have lost our integrity among genuine poverty and we are a little ashamed, very hot, and overtired.

We walk the forty minutes into town. It's about five by now and the heat is abating. The forty minutes don't seem so far and when we get there we discover a miniature version of the water festival in Phnom Penh. Our spirits lift. We walk through some markets on the way to our vegetarian cafe. The markets are touristy. But nice. I buy a pair of elephant trousers. I love my elephant trousers more than I have ever loved a garment. They are red and there are different kinds of elephants all over them. They are brilliant. Our spirits lift a bit further. We stop to eat a lovely vegetarian meal featuring meat free versions of Cambodian specialities. We realise how hungry we were.

We walk back through the markets to go home. In the middle of a crowded market alley a woman approaches us carrying a child. 

"Please" she says, "I don't want money. Just milk." 

I hesitate. Money is one thing but food for a child is different. I make a split second decision, grab M who has turned away to take a picture and hurriedly tell him I am buying milk. 

"OK" he says and I am gone. I follow the woman to a shop across the road. I am a little confused that M is not following or even watching but I am only going to be gone for a minute. We enter the shop and the woman points out a large can if milk formula. I know that a lot of mother's are not well nutritioned enough to produce milk for their babies. And I know that all of this could be a scam. But I don't want to take the risk. If I get scammed once, it isn't going to kill me. If people resort to scamming, perhaps they still need the money.

I take two cans to the cash desk.

"Fifty dollar" says the lady at the till. I blanche a little and then think, a little grimly, that I am here now, that I will just have to get on with it, that I can afford to lose fifty, that I will just have to not give to anyone else for a while. Or eat much.

I pay. I am escorted back across the road. The woman is very grateful and her child waves shyly at me. Then they are gone. I make my way back to M.

As soon as he sees me, I realise, watching the relief mingle with anger in his face, that maybe he didn't quite understand where I was going.

"Where the hell have you been?" He begins, then trails off suddenly and hugs me, fiercely and doesn't let me go for some time. 

Something about the fact that I was going across the street to buy milk had got lost in translation. I am sorry. I hadn't meant to scare him. At the same time, shamefully, I am enjoying the being hugged. Even if you know it really, sometimes it's nice to see that you are something precious. Something your spouse thinks they can't afford to loose.

We walk on, half elated, half subdued. I tell M what I paid for the milk.

"You got scammed" he says, "there's no way that's what milk costs."

But when we drop into a supermarket to try to buy water, there is a whole shelf full of milk powder. And it's twenty five dollars each. That supermarket is expensive so we don't buy anything but when we try another, much cheaper one nearer to home, we find similar prices. I don't know whether there has been some sort of brainwash by baby milk manufacturers here, or whether it is true that not many women can make good milk due to poor nutrition. But it's really expensive. How do people get by? 

I think we need to research volunteer opportunities. Both to help a tiny bit more effectively and to understand.

We walk home. And we still feel a little out of sorts. But we are not starving. And this, the dust, the market, the flies and the greenery, is, however we like it, the Cambodia we came for.