8/29/2008JAUNTED
This week, our Cambodia embed, Tim Patterson, is giving us the inside scoop on the country, live from a guesthouse in Sihanoukville.
A window to depravity opened last Saturday afternoon in Koh Kong, a boom town on the Thai border. My buddy Jon had to catch a flight home from Bangkok at seven the next morning. How to cap off his Cambodian adventure?
"Theoretically, we could hire half a dozen prostitutes, load up on cocaine, watch orangutans beat each other up in the boxing ring at Safari World and cap it all off with an all-night drunken flight to Bangkok," I mused.
"That would be memorable," said Jon.
In the end Jon and I settled on a farewell beer instead. I've never slept with a prostitute, snorted cocaine or condoned blood sports involving endangered species, and I sincerely hope I never will.
Still, the possibility of debauchery is very much alive in Cambodia, whether that involves drugs, sex, endangered wildlife or any combination of the three. Plenty of assholes travel to Cambodia expressly to take advantage of the country's booming black market. Please don't be one of them.
Prostitution in Cambodia:
A man is like a jewel. If you drop a jewel in the mud you can wipe it clean. A woman is like a silk scarf. Drop a scarf in the mud once and it's ruined forever.
The saying sums up the Cambodian attitude to sex: The virgin or whore paradigm is very strong in this socially conservative nation. Men are expected to sleep with prostitutes, and women are required to remain virgins until marriage.
But the availability of cheap sex here attracts men from around the world. The government has begun to crack down on pedophilia, but plain old prostitution remains common. It's a sad scene, as young professionals in Phnom Penh can't go on casual dates. "We fuck the prostitutes," a Cambodian friend told me with a resigned shrug.
Drugs in Cambodia:
Not long ago marijuana was sold by the kilo in Phnom Penh markets, but the government has started making arrests for possession. It's still easy to score pot at the backpacker ghetto on the lake in Phnom Penh, but these days you're taking a serious risk. I've got no moral qualms about smoking pot, but the possibility of Cambodian prison isn't worth a couple joints.
Other drugs are also widely available, including heroin, opium, cocaine and cheap methamphetamines called yaba. Don't go there: You don't know what you're getting, for one, and there's a very real possibility that hard drugs will land you in prison.
The Wildlife Trade:
Orangutan boxing in Koh Kong is promoted on billboards across the country, but the sick "sport" is only one example of animal mistreatment in Cambodia. The Cambodian forests are a refuge for many endangered species, but their numbers are dwindling due to loss of habitat and surging demand from the trade in exotic pets and traditional medicine. Needless to say, supporting the fights doesn't help.
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