LTO Cambodia: Where do your keep your pangolin?

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Where do your keep your pangolin?

Saw this (serious) story (The Curious Case of the Monkey in the Underpants) about some guy traveling with a monkey in his underwear and it reminded me of a post I made on the Lonely Planet Cambodia travel forum several years ago. I got several serious replies and a few admonishments. Only a couple got the joke. Someday somebody needs to invent a functioning [sarcasm][/sarcasm] mark-up.

Where do your keep your pangolin?

Like many travelers, I always travel with a pangolin. Last week at a $3 guesthouse in Siem Reap Cambodia, I had to go out just briefly and left my stuff there on the bed in the room, including my pangolin. When I returned, the pangolin and my $3500 camera were gone. The room was locked when I left and when I came back. There are no windows so only the guesthouse staff could have had access to the room through the locked door. When I confronted the manager, he insisted that it was "impossible" that any of his staff would steal my pangolin, and suggested that my pangolin had in fact stolen my camera, even implying that pangolins are prone to this sort of behavior. Well, there's no way. That pangolin has always traveled with me and has had plenty of earlier opportunities to steal my camera and lots more. Besides, how could it open the door to get out? With that prehensile tongue? I don't think so. The manager pled with me not to call the police and offered to give me the whole week in his guesthouse, plus dinners, for free, if I just wouldn't report it. Rattled by the loss of my pangolin, I accepted the offer. Here's my question: I know that Cambodians smile a lot. The country is known for its smiles. But every time they serve me my hamburger in the guesthouse restaurant, they don't just smile, but actually snicker, sometimes even laugh. Sometimes I even get the feeling that they are laughing at me. Am I just being paranoid?

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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.