Wouldn't You?

“Tuk, Tuk, Lady?”

“Sir, you want tuk tuk?”

“Good price for you”

“Sir?”

“Lady?”

“Tuk Tuk?”

The crowd of tuk tuk drivers at the doorway of the bus is packed so tightly that it’s actually hard to find a place to put our feet as we step, blinking, off the final step of the bus in which we have spent the last 4 hours sleeping. The noise level is huge, each driver speaking over the other, and very fast, like auctioneers trying to make a sale. To move we have to push our way through the throng, which is difficult to do given our British dislike of getting our elbows out.

“No, thank you – we have something, no thank you, no thank you…” we say like broken records, weariness and the general sense of being under siege colouring our words with an increasing sense of impatience. We have to say no thank you continually to each driver. Getting through the crowd is like fighting our way through particularly aggressive paparazzi, though of course none  of this is intended to be aggressive.

Even so, it is intimidating, and it is with some relief that we lock eyes with our pre booked driver, (who I shall call Y), who we have found via TripAdvisor and who has glowing reviews. We have booked him for a days tour of Battambang tomorrow. The combination of the clamouring crowd and Y’s personality, which gives us an instant sense of trust, means that we bound across the car park, where he waits, quietly, shake his hand and greet him like an old friend. Behind us, in the dust created by our departing tuk tuk, the tuk tuk drivers renew their assualt on the next passenger.

The word ‘assault’ is telling, but unfair. There is no malice in the never ending cries of “Tuk Tuk?” as you walk down the street, and no bad feeling when you politely decline. However, to tourist ears it can be, at the best, tiring, to continually say “No, thank you” all day, every day, and at the worst, frightening.

“I don’t like the way I get shouted at” said A, early on when we first met her. I know what she means. All that is actually happening is that we are being offered a service. But essentially, what it boils down to is that as you walk down the street, men are continually shouting at you. As you step off a bus, a crowd of men clamour around you, inches from your face. It is intimidating. Culturally, it’s unwelcome.

For many other people, it’s simply a joke. T’shirts, sold with a kind of sad irony, by Cambodian market sellers, bear the slogan ‘No Tuk Tuk Today, Maybe Tommorrow’. It makes us smile, but how much of a joke is it, really? And when we laugh or complain about it, how reasonable is that? How much are we actually suffering?

“How do people make a living?” we ask Y, noting that there are so many Tukk Tuk drivers and so many tourists turning them down. They earn maybe two or three dollars a ride, but persuading someone to take even one ride a day is far from guaranteed. Y shrugs, “They don’t. We don’t. But we have to do something.” It’s a refrain I will hear from Y a lot in the next couple of days, as we talk about many typical Cambodian industries. It’s not enough to live on. But it’s something.

Many men become Tuk Tuk drivers because they are unemployed. Y himself used to earn some money as a photographer, taking shots of tourists in prime locations. Now the tourists have their own cameras, or have cameras on their phones. It’s just not needed any more.

Whilst mechanisation still hasn’t taken over very much of Cambodian agricultural practices, the use of even simple machines to aid farm work is increasing, causing farm hands to lose their jobs.

Y understands that the insistent approach makes tourists shrink back, and rarely makes a sale. He has built his own reputation based on Trip Advisors reviews websites and his naturally gentle approach. He pays attention to things which upset tourists – hidden charges, for example, or feeling pressurised to do or buy a certain thing. He is very careful to give all the information, charge a fair price which doesn’t change once agreed upon, and always takes the first no as a definitive answer. But essentially the reason so many of the drivers are so apparently aggressive in their sales pitch, is because they are desperate for work. There is so much competition, and so little guarantee that there will be work tomorrow, or a wage today.

“They want to make a sale, so they shout and push”, says Y, adding gently, “wouldn’t you?”

Some Tuk Tuk drivers manage to circumvent the problem partially, by making an arrangement with a particular hotel. They become the hotel’s preferred drover, and whilst there is still no guarantee of work each day, at least any tourists requiring a Tuk Tuk will be directed towards them rather than the myriad of other possible drivers. They are not necessarily better drivers. Often they are related in some way to somebody on the hotel’s staff. We have found ourselves, several times in conversation with somebody in an official capacity, the staff who check our Temple passes at the entrance to Angkor, for example, who will ask if we want to go somewhere the next day, and recommend their brother, or their father, or their husband, as Tuk Tuk driver. Y perceives this as somehow cheating. But he admits, all the same, that given the chance, he would do it. That anyone would, in the same situation.

“Wouldn’t you?”

Y works hard for his sales, impressing each customer so that they will review him well, and bring him further work. But there are days when, even if he has made an arrangement, tourists pull out of it because it is raining. In the hot season, they might pull out because it is too hot.

Y’s wife left him. He is not sure why but he thinks she left for a richer man. His daughter is nine. He gives money to his in-laws, who look after her. When I ask if there is a legal obligation in Cambodia for the father to give money his answer is unclear. What is very clear, however, is that it doesn’t really matter. He loves his daughter. He wants to give her all the chances possible. All the opportunities his money can buy.

I ask what his daughter would like to do when she is older. He shrugs. It depends. Secondary school is expensive. In Cambodia you have to do what your family can afford.

Y would like to move to Siem Reap, where there are more tourists. But the rent is too high.

When I ask what he would do if he wasn’t a Tuk Tuk driver, if he could do anything, he says he would like to fix air conditioning units. But it involves carrying heavy equipment and isn’t strong enough in his shoulders.

It seems, in Cambodia, for many people, dreams themselves are expensive. They have to be realistic.

Later, we discuss religion with Y. He tells us he can’t understand why people are so insistent on thanking the Buddha for everything.

“It’s the same with all Gods,” he says, the closest to bitterness his gentle voice will allow, “you are supposed to thank them. But the God did not give. I work for it. I work hard. Not God. Me. What did God do? God gives nothing.”

I think of my own faith. Of the ease with which I accept the concept that good things are God given, and with which I give thanks for them. Is it easier to believe in a gracious God when you grow up in a society in which you genuinely are handed good things out of nowhere, and without necessarily earning them? Is this a luxury not everyone can afford? Certainly I have noticed that in poorer countries the approach to saying thank you is tinged with more than a little hint of pacification. Life is hard and the God you believe in can destroy a harvest. You’d better keep him or her happy.

Of course faith here is also devout. And plenty of people in rather luckier societies don’t believe in God. They think they don’t need it. It goes both ways and involves a lot more than the criteria I have just discussed. Faith is visceral in some cases, almost an instinct. In others it is very carefully thought out and reasoned. Many people who have nothing are nevertheless grateful for the little they do have, and avoid bitterness entirely. That is their gift and it is a marvel. In the West we grow bitter for far less.

Even so, Y’s words ring in my ears, “God gave nothing.” But God gave me a lot. Why? I’m no better than Y, no more saintly. What are the rules of the Godhead? Can we ever hope to understand them?

Y’s price, for our day tour with him tomorrow, will be $25. It’s both fair and practical. By our calculations it’s good value for us and probably enough for him to pay for fuel and have some left over. Some drivers try to undercut prices, he says, and offer trips and tours for very little. It’s not fair, because it drives prices down to an unmanageable level.

“But I don’t blame them,” says Y, “wouldn’t you?”

The market stalls in Cambodia are full of sellers jostling for you to buy. As soon as you walk past their stall, or even, enter the market itself, they call out to you. They pick clothes off racks and block your way with them, keeping up a constant patter, “You buy? Good price for you. You buy for your husband. You buy for your wife.” It is a point of tragic irony for me that these same sellers are selling T’shirts with the slogan ‘No thanks, just looking’.

I’m just not sure it’s all that funny.  There are rows upon rows of market stalls. Alll of the sell the same garments, bags and handicrafts. Each seller’s only possible chance of an ‘edge’ is to be the first person you choose to buy a garment from. If they are too late – and you buy your Elephant Trousers elsewhere – well then you have elephant trousers already. You’re not going to buy them again.

And yes, maybe there are better tactics, better business sense which could potentially be employed here. M and I have discussed on several occasions the possibilities – choosing different stock, for example, something no one else is selling, giving your stall a name so that people can distinguish it from the others, even taking a leaf from Y’s book and understanding western attitudes and putting up a sign of some sort promising that tourists can ‘browse with no hassle’. But it would be aped in seconds if it worked, and you would instantly lose your edge.

The market sellers are not necessarily stupid. They understand that the full on sales pitch is off putting. They literally have the T’shirt. But somehow they have to draw your attention. They have to catch you first.

So they pull your sleeve, push in front of the other sellers, try desperately to persuade you against your immediate wishes.

Wouldn’t you?