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!

Down And Out

Well, it´s been a while, hasn´t it? And there really isn´t much to tell you. We went on a 4 day luxury trip to an exclusive resort at Sihanoukville, the only beach-town of Cambodia. The Sokha Resort is a place for high rollers and big spenders, with 2 miles of private palm beach, two pools with bars, several beach bars, a spa, a casino and 3 restaurants. We had to wait at the reception because a group of madmen on bicycles had just arrived and needed to be taken care of. I mean, really, riding a bike in this kind of climate? Half of the group had collapsed on the floor of the lobby, and the other half was babbling incoherently. Since this was obviously taking some time I used the free Internet access to check my mails. I was just reading a mail from the TripAdvisor site, when the manager happened to look over my shoulder. The words "TripAdvisor" and "reviewers badge" were very dominant on the screen and they must have jolted the poor man somewhat. He immediately asked me about my name, and since the reservation was in Annette´s name I said "Dr. Wilcke". That was the last straw for him. A Doctor and a reviewer! His reputation was in serious danger. He upgraded our ground floor room to a top floor suite, and had our luggage brought upstairs immediately, all the while apologizing profusely. Annette wasn´t sure what was going on but played along. The suite came with a seaside balcony, a gigantic flat-screen TV and a mini bar with exclusive scotch, three kinds of gin and champagne, all on the house! Well, I told the manager that I was quite happy for the moment and that I would let him know if we needed anything else.
Annette for once was not upset with my shenanigans, and really, I hadn´t done anything wrong and I am, after all, a respected reviewer on TripAdvisor.

We spent our days at the beach and at the pool bar, where I was soon known as "The Doctor". Whenever I had finished a drink, the next one was served to me right away and the manager stopped by with little baskets of fruit or restaurant vouchers several times a day, always making sure that his reviewer was comfortable. Annette received a free deluxe treatment at the spa and we had our dinners at the Lemongras Deck Restaurant with our own personal waiter on standby all evening. At the breakfast buffet we never had to get up to fill our plates. Much to the dismay of other guests our plates were brought to us by a flock of bustling waiters and maids, cups magically refilled and all of our wishes taken care of on the spot. At night we would order free movies to our room, drink champagne and do our best to forget the poverty and schmutz of Phnom Penh.

When we left after 4 days the staff lined up in the lobby to say goodbye, and we were taken into town by the resort´s limo. It was hard to return to the cruel reality of Phnom Penh, and we both caught a bad infection on the bus on the way back. We both have to take antibiotics and stay inside right now, but in a couple of days we should be back in business, whatever that means.
There´s not much work left to do for us at THE COMPANY and we are planning to leave Cambodia at the beginning of  December for a little vacation before we return to Europe. Right now we´re thinking about a resort in Thailand on an island.
I hope they will show the proper respect for my reviewers badge...

Pussycat in Mondolkiri

Hot damn, I'm just fresh off the crapper after a 9 hour bus ride with no break and, man, it felt like squeezing a 30 ft anaconda out of my rear end! The relief! Phew!
Anyways, this blog is not called Anal Fantasies In Cambodia, so let's get down to business. Annette made the brutal decision to get back at me by announcing to everyone at THE COMPANY that my leave of absence was due to heat rash, also known as prickly heat. Well, prickly heat is considered to be a lady's affliction in Cambodia, so naturally PingPong was more than delighted to hear this news. The little bastard even got me a Hello-Kitty purse filled with tampons! So when we began our trip to Mondolkiri with the rest of THE COMPANY to visit the waterfalls and to negotiate a new Guns for Gadgets program with the local ex-rebels I was the laughingstock of the whole crew. Even worse, when I tried to order a beer on the first morning after we got there my boss cancelled my order saying it was too early for beer. Too early for beer? I didn't even know that sentence existed! And that creepy little bastard PingPong smiled at me hideously across the table. Even Annette raised an eyebrow in a humiliating I-told-you-so way which just broke my heart. I finally excused myself from the table, saying that I didn't feel to well and that I was going to join everyone later at the pick-up point for the jungle bus.
PingPong got up and yelled after me: "Oh, poor Mr.Stephan, you need powder you lady-part! So sorry for you! You very itchy, yes? You no scratch, no?"
The boss scolded him for this, but the damage was done, every one of these scurvy fucking bastards was giggling and when the boss added that prickly heat was indeed a serious affliction and not to be trifled with it really just made things worse. I was pissed off and went straight to the mini market, purchased a carton with 24 cans of Anchor-Beer, drank 4 of them right outside the shop and stuffed the rest into my backpack. I then went over to the bus which was supposed to take us to the waterfalls in the jungle. I opened up another can of anchor and stashed my backpack in the baggage compartment and waited for the rest of the crew to arrive. Annette tried to approach me but I was in no mood and went straight to the back of the bus and sat down by myself. She just shrugged her shoulders and sat down with the boss and started to ask him questions about THE COMPANY'S general outlook for 2012. So what, see if I care, I thought and went back to my fantasies of feeding PingPong to the crocodiles.
When we arrived at the jungle it was still a 30 minute walk to the waterfalls, which were in a rather remote location and unknown to most visitors. Our boss still remembered the location from his time with the rebels during the civil war, so it was really a sort of jungle expedition. I deliberately stayed behind to be able to drink my beer undisturbed and also because I didn't want to endure those glances of pity and of ridicule from the rest of the bunch. I had just crouched down behind a bush to get out a fresh can of beer when I heard some sort of commotion up ahead. Then, all of a sudden everybody came running and screaming out of the thicket and ran right past me without even taking notice of me. I turned to ask what in the hell was wrong with them, when something else came crashing along the path. Something stripey. With cute little ears. And not so cute looking fangs. Yes, I was face to face with one of the last remaining Asian tigers, and boy, did he look pissed!
It was clearly too late to make a run for the bus so I just started to throw my beer cans at him while raving and jabbering like a lunatic, mostly about how god should better think this through twice and did he really want to have me on his ass for the rest of eternity. The tiger stopped dead in his tracks, looking slightly confused and even backed up a little. Unfortunately I was down to my last can right then and didn't know what to do next. So I just stood my ground, ready to throw that last can once the beast would attack me. The tiger seemed equally unsure of what to make of the situation. Finally he swung one of his paws in my direction and growled threateningly.  And what did I do? I didn't run. I didn't scream. I didn't even throw the can in a last ditch effort to scare the big cat off. No, in a deeply subconscious reflex I popped the top of the can, said "Cheers, Pussycat" and drank what I was sure would be my last beer on earth. But before that damn jungle cat could make heads or tails of this a jeep of the Tourist-Police appeared behind me and send the tiger off into the jungle with a volley of warning shots.I was still so deeply in shock that I first tried to collect my beer cans before the policemen managed to get me into the jeep to drive all of us back to safety. When we got back to the bus the captain of the police congratulated me for taking such a brave stand when everybody else was running, and said the tiger would have surely gotten one of us if I hadn´t stopped him with my can throwing. I barely registered his voice, I was shaking so badly. Annette came running straight up to me and hugged me fiercely. I hugged her back, not just because I was glad to see her but also to keep my knees from buckling. Everybody was laughing and crying hysterically at the same time from the shock and the adrenaline. I do not recall the way back to the hotel very clearly, I just remember being back in our room with Annette fixing me a stiff gin tonic without the tonic. The next day we went to visit another, safe waterfall with a bunch of other tourists. It was decided to postpone the talks with the ex-rebels indefinitely and to return to Phnom Penh straight away. As I said at the beginning we didn't even make a toilet break. The boss came up to me once and said in a very sincere voice that from now on he would make sure that I would always have all the beer I wanted when I wanted it.
I guess that counts for something.
Sela.

Intermission

Man, the tropical climate is taking it's toll on me! The medical bills are starting to pile up. One of my teeth finally gave up after once more biting on a piece of bone in a chicken-curry. How is this climate related? I'll tell you how! This climate makes people lazy, so they don't bother to take the bones out of the chickens but instead just chop the hole bird, bones and all, up into small pieces and then cook it. So whenever you eat chicken, which is like a national dish, you are constantly chewing on hundreds of bone fragments. And this finally killed one of my teeth, leaving me with a 430$ dental bill. Fortunately I found the only German Dentist in Phnom Penh (Wolfgang Schmittberg, ex-Bundeswehr, look it up if you don't believe it). Another 80 $ went to the Phnom Penh Medical Center for diagnosing me with heat rash.
Where do I have that rash? Well, guess where. M-hm! And what did this bastard of a cheap excuse for a Doctor tell me? "Try not to sweat too much." I mean, really? I didn't dare ask about my persistent cough from the bad air in Phnom Penh, he would have probably charged me another 80 bucks and told me not to breathe so much.
Damn, this climate is really getting me. I wonder what's next...
Sela.

Baby I´m back!

I had to keep a low profile until Saul had worked out the deal with the judge and also had cleared the air at THE COMPANY. Basically he threatened them with a lawsuit for criminal negligence for leaving me unsupervised in the company of dangerous drug-addled criminals and then abandoning me in a state of shock in the back of a truck parked in a bad part of town. It was then agreed to simply pretend the whole thing had never happened, provided that I would take care of any fines by myself and never mention a word to our big boss in Macao. The trial was over before it had even begun. I was fined 100,000 Riel for public drunkeness and was free to leave after I had coughed up the dough.

Saul insisted of taking these pictures to give the story credibility, so there. Any questions?
Mrs. Annette and I have made amends and I´ve officially moved back in with her. So, all´s well that ends well, right?
Wrong. Poor little Pingpong got chewed out by the boss for leaving me in the back of the truck in the middle of the night and for wrongfully accusing me of drug consumption. After all, he never actually saw me consume any of the alleged substances, and it´s not my fault that my weak stomach needs the assistance of a little gin to be able to digest the local cuisine. So there!
I haven´t seen him yet, since I took a few days off to get back on my feet and will not be back to the office before monday, but I´m sure we´ll get along just fine. I´m known for my forgiveness and generosity, so there really shouldn´t be a problem. Ah, my alarm is going off, it´s time for my scheduled drink. The doctor who gave me the physical told me that I should try to control my drinking, so I set up a schedule, and I can tell you, this is really working out quite good.
Well, I gotta run, that drink is not gonna fix itself. And after all, this is just what the doctor ordered...
Stay tuned for more!

Never go without your lawyer

When I went to open my door this morning I was facing an elderly gentleman perhaps in his 60´s accompanied by two burly Cambodians, and I mean gorilla-burly. He introduced himself as Saul Goodmann, attorney at law and told me that a friend of my wife working for the IMF had heard about my troubles and had offered to help. Thank goodness for the cavalry! He then asked me to accompany him to a safe house in the diplomat district of Phnom Penh immediately, and told me not to worry about a thing. Since I didn´t have any luggage I only had to pay my room and drop off the key. Outside the hotel a Mercedes Benz awaited us. On the way to the safe house he casually interviewed me about the facts, asked me about my clothing size, picked up the mobile phone and ordered his secretary to deliver 3 shirts and two pairs of pants as well as some underwear and sox to the house. Hot Damn, I knew right then that I was back in the game. He then explained his strategy to me. The drugcharges would be dropped, since the substances and all possible traces of them had disappeared from my body by now.  My international liability insurance would take care of the damage to the rice field and the buffalo, and a medical report would state that I was temporarily non compos mentis due to a heat stroke. He also told me not to worry about the legal fees, it was all being taken care of by my friend at the IMF. I just couldn´t believe my luck. For legal reasons I cannot mention the name of our friend at the IMF, but it once more proves that it´s good to have friends in high places. I´m currently at the safe house in a luxurious apartment, I´ve already had a shower, I´m dressed in new Khakis and shirt and waiting for the doctor to give me the medical exam, which really is just a formality. I won´t even have to appear before the court, since I officially still need to recover from the impact of the heat stroke. Saul will also help me to smooth things over at the ORGANIZATION. Talk about being born on a sunday, huh? Saul has only asked me to cut back on the drink until we´re in the clear, which is the only drawback. But cutting back doesn´t mean abstinence, so I´m having a nice Gin&Tonic breakfast while waiting for the doctor. I mean, why would they have a house-bar in this place if I´m not meant to use it? And after all, I´m a responsible person and a professional. Life´s too good!

Ah, the doctor has arrived, so I have to drink up and leave for now. But I´ll get back to you with the latest  news as soon as possible.

Cheerio, and thank you for your support!

Mr. Mouse on the lam

Before trying to go home I decided to give Mrs. Annette a phone call. This turned out to be of vital importance, as the authorities are currently looking for me with an actual warrant, the charges being abuse of illegal substances, damaging agricultural property and animal cruelty.  Apparently that poor buffalo is suffering from an infected ear and posttraumatic stress disorder. Well, there you are, this is what happens when people do not have even the least bit of humor. Whole thing probably went right over their head. I mean, sure, I´ll be the first to admit that at times I can be prone to a certain degree of exaggeration, even overly indulgent behavior.  I might be a bit of an outlaw, but I´m most certainly not a felon.  Well, the way things are now I´m holed up at the Molina’s Hotel. Fortunately I always carry an emergency reserve of traveler checks with me, which I cashed in right after talking to Mrs. Annette. I also still have my credit card, but I´m afraid the authorities might be able to trace that. And I certainly can´t use it at the hotel, since I´m known around here as the mildly eccentric Mr. Mouse. To make things worse I watched a documentary on National Geographic TV about people getting jailed abroad, and this week´s feature was about Cambodia. Jeez, that guy barely made it out of that place alive! He was stabbed on his first day in there, and even though a good friend managed to bribe the guards after just 3 days and then smuggle him across the border he is still recovering from the trauma. So, just turning myself in does not seem to be a sensible option at this time. I was thinking of making a break for the temple of refuge at Wat Phnom, where anybody can seek refuge and reportedly is safe from any kind of prosecution, always provided he vows to live the life of a Buddhist monk. And this is where it all comes down again. I´ll prefer life in prison over life in a monastery any time. Yes, the outlook is rather dire at the moment. Mrs. Annette is incommunicado since my last call. Apparently she´s had it with my shenanigans. It seems to me that someone in Germany put her up to this, so, thanks a lot for your kind support. And in case you didn´t notice, I´m being cynical here. On the plus side I have to say that I´ve always lived life to the max, and this kind of ending does not really come as much of a surprise to me. There might even be a certain kind of poetic justice here, but that´s for the afterworld to decide. Meanwhile, I´m spending my days watching TV, taking hot baths and drinking Angkor beer. Last night when I couldn´t sleep I went downstairs and shared some cheap Mekong red-eye with the night-clerk, who obviously is a souse.

Yes. It´s serious this time. And I honestly have no idea how to get myself out of this jam. 

Hot enough for ya?