LTO Cambodia: Just one kiss!

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Just one kiss!

I was in a little village in Prey Veng last week checking out a local event, the only barang there at the time. As I stood at the edge of the crowd somebody started pawing lightly at my back, gurgling "barang…barang…" I turned and was confronted with one of the witches from Macbeth - a gnarled old lunatic of a farmer woman right in my face, ripe of palm wine, shit-faced drunk and lust in her eyes. "Barang, kiss…kiss barang" she said coming at me arms outstretched. I stepped back, but not fast enough. She latched on and scissored my leg like a horny bulldog. "Kiss!" she burped in wine-scented Khmer, holding on tight. The crowd slowly turned toward us, staring. A bystander tried to help, gently urging her off my leg, but she swung a stick at him. My driver stood a couple of meters back and tried to lure her away with money, but she wouldn't take the bait. She just kept insisting "one kiss, maybe two." Clearly trapped, I decided to take a different tack. Leaning in, I spoke to her softly, "I'm married and my wife would be very angry," I said. She puckered her lips, "one kiss, perhaps two." I smiled uncomfortably and pled, "my wife is a very jealous woman, everyone will see us," motioning to the crowd (and in fact everyone was looking at us.) I continued, "My wife will be very angry if I kiss a different woman. She will make a big problem for me." That seemed to connect. She gave me a broad, toothless smile, let go of my leg and stumbled off.

On the way back to Phnom Penh, my driver told the story about 14 times.

2 comments:

Simon OliverSeptember 8, 2011 at 7:53 PM
Ha, ha - great little story
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Replies
JaredOctober 27, 2011 at 2:33 AM
Sounds like a nice chick. Shoulda given her a chance...
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Cambodia

Cambodia is Srok Khmer, the 'Land of the Khmer,' the primary ethnic group in the area since at least the Neolithic and an Indian influenced civilization with origins near 2000 years old. Centered on the lower Mekong and tributaries the Khmer people have dominated the region for millennia. From 2nd century AD Khmer kingdoms rose and fell, culminating in unification and the 500 year reign of the Angkorian Empire, the builders of the temples of Angkor near Siem Reap. The Empire stretched from Burma to the ocean. But by the 1400s Cambodia fell to centuries of change and decline squeezed between the expanding Siam and Vietnam. Colonized and by the French in the 1860s, independence 90 years later in 1954, a brief post-colonial 'golden period' under Sihanouk, coup in 70, civil war, fall to the communist Khmer Rouge in 75, 3 years 8 months 20 days of madness, Vietnamese rescue in 1979, occupation, low level war and international sanctions in the 80s, the UN, ostensive democracy and an adventure party destination in the 90s and now mainstreaming, tourism, rapid development, rapacious capitalism and NGOs, missionaries and other international busybodies aplenty.

Southeast Asia

As the term implies, Southeast Asia encompasses the southeastern corner of the Asian continent, loosely speaking, the area between India, China and Australia. It is made up of two distinct regions: the mainland zone, a bulbous peninsula jutting into the Pacific Ocean, bounded by China to the north and India to the west; and the insular (island) zone in the Pacific Ocean. The name 'Southeast Asia' is a comparatively recent invention, first coming into use into the 20th century and still a bit indefinite in definition. Mainland Southeast Asia is generally considered to include Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma (Myanmar) and peninsular Malaysia. The mainland is sometimes referred to as Indo-China though Indochina (Indochine) also designates the 19th/20th century French colonial conglomerate of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Sitting south of the Tropic of Cancer, most of mainland Southeast Asia lies in the hot, humid tropics and sub-tropics with a climate dominated by a monsoon cycle which divides the year into two distinct seasons: a dry season and an extremely wet monsoon season. Much of the mainland is mountainous and thickly jungled, with large river systems and wide, low-lying, flood-prone plains, much of which is, in modern times, deforested and blanketed with geometrical rice paddies. Several major river valleys including the Mekong River, the Red, Ma and Ka rivers and the group of rivers draining to the Chao Praya Delta played host to the rise of early civilization in the area. The Mekong River is one of the world's greatest rivers, the seventh largest on the planet, and since pre-history has been closely associated with the land of the Khmer.