Enough is enough

As you can see, I´m not so well. It´s our last week in the country, and it´s time for me to get home. This climate and this country are getting to me. Last weekend our landlord´s daughter and nephew, both in their early thirties took us to a dance. At least that´s what we thought. Our Boss had explained to us about Cambodian dance-halls, with live music, and this weird sort of Cambodian line-dancing, a little like that stuff those cowboy-people do. Well, this wasn´t exactly what happened that Saturday night. We left the Bistro at around 10:30 p.m., and the first surprise was that we didn´t take a Tuctuc, but went on a bunch of scooters. I really didn´t believe that half of us were going to stay sober, and planned to get a Tuctuc for the ride back for Annette and me. Cambodians aren´t exactly safe drivers under normal conditions, but at night, and after a few drinks? And don´t call me a bloody racist either, there simply aren´t any rules in traffic here. Anyways, it was a rather long ride to that place, which was way out in the industrial district of Phnom Penh. It didn´t much look like a traditional Cambodian Dance-hall either. The place was called "The Electro" and before we got in we were frisked for weapons and drugs by security guys with walkie-talkies. Inside we were guided to a sort of VIP booth with black leather couches. There was a whole bunch of flashing lasers blasting the place with epilepsy inducing light-shows. The music was a sort of aggressive techno-hop/acid jazz, and the average age was around 21.
As soon as we were seated an aggressive binge drinking started. Several pitchers of beer were placed before us, and the glasses were repeatedly filled, raised and drained. There was no pause. We always had to raise our glasses with everyone else at the table, toast and drink. Then it was off to the dance floor. Our personal security guard cleared a spot on the dance floor for us, and we danced. Well, Annette and I danced. The Cambodians sort of wiggled a little to the music, and shot us shy sideways glances. It wasn´t just the fact that we were Longnoses or our age, it was that we actually danced, you know, moving our arms, shaking our heads, that sort of thing. After ten minutes or so we were told to return to the leather couches. I tried to stay to dance some more, but the security guy ushered me along with the rest of the bunch. On the couches we went straight back to the drinking madness. Now, I can certainly hold my own, but these guys were going at it like it was going out of style. When I went to the toilet, the security guy stopped me and waved to another guard, who led me to the toilet. For a moment I was afraid that he would open my fly and pull it out for me, too. But fortunately he just waited politely, handed me a towel after I had washed my hands and then led me back to the couch.
And this went on like this until 3 in the morning, 10 minutes of drinking, 10 minutes of dancing, always protected by burly security guards. When we finally stepped outside to go home our designated drivers were so drunk they could barely stand straight, and there weren´t any tuctucs anywhere. At first Annette and I tried to just take one of the scooters and take off, but they wouldn´t give us the keys. We basically just closed our eyes for the way back and prayed. Luckily there wasn´t much traffic and, more importantly, no police.
Sela.

Now, today our bankcard stopped working for reasons that we still haven´t figured out. I spent half the day trying to find a bank that was willing to take the incredible risk of cashing a few traveller cheques. I mean, christ, these things are as safe as houses, but they would just nod at me politely and tell me that unfortunately they didn´t take any traveller cheques. In the last bank I finally made a scene and threatened them by telling them a few names of local politicians that are close to our boss at the office. After a lot of bad noise and several hectic, lengthy phonecalls they finally agreed to cash in 6 cheques for 300 bucks, provided that I signed a paper saying that I would never come back again. We really have to make this money last, because when I came back home, Annette told me that her backpack had been stolen, containing her wallet, her credit card and her netbook with all of the pictures she took during our 4 months here. She had gotten off of her bike to take this picture,

and had left her backpack on the bike when two guys on a motorcycle drove by, grabbed the backpack, and took off. And please, spare us the hindsight of how you should always keep your bags on your person and bla, bla, bla. Granted, Annette doesn´t take these kind of things seriously, and always felt safe in Phnom Penh. I always kept one hand on our bags when we rode in a tuctuc, always gave people evil glances when I caught them staring at my money-belt and always carried a blade strapped to the calf of my leg. But I´m a paranoid madman who´s always expecting the worst. I much prefer Annette´s approach, because most of the time she´s right and nothing happens. And even though this one time it went awry, she´s still enjoying herself much more than the paranoid madmen like me. Anyways, shit happens, what you´re gonna do? We of course went to the police, but if you don´t catch guys like these on the spot you´re not gonna see your stuff again. And I´m glad I wasn´t there. I know I would have went after them, and there´s still a lot of firearms in circulation around here....Never mind, nobody got hurt, life goes on, bygones.
In the evening we decided to ignore the fact that we are short on cash with no obvious way of getting any more money before we go home next week and went to the Foreign Correspondents Club by the riverside, an expensive and exclusive Bar for fat-cat expats and racked up a 100 $ bill in whiskey.

Finally, some good times, if only for a little while.

 We´ll see you soon.
Mahalo, ke Aloha nô!