Better late than never - 2011

Newly completed Phnom Penh Tower, the city's second highrise.

Running a couple of weeks late on this post. Stray thoughts of Cambodia last year.

2010 At the end of last year, the on-going conflict with Thailand over Preah Vihear was probably the most talked about issue of that moment and perhaps the year. A decades old dispute, the flare up of the last few years was largely the result of Thai political instability stemming from the 2006 coup that ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. After months of deadly border skirmishes in 2010, political and military tensions had begun to ease in December, only to spike again with the arrest of a Thai politician and yellow-shirt activists on the Cambodian side of the border. And so began 2011.
Preah Vihear: the Thai-Cambodia temple dispute 
New developments in the Thai-Cambodia conflict (Dec 30, 2010)

Cambodia Daily

Voluntourism The international press turned a long overdue critical light on Pity Industry tourism, including orphanage tourism and commercialized voluntourism. Prompted by a study of orphanage tourism in Africa, papers such as the Guardian and the Telegraph published critical pieces toward the end of 2010, sparking several other unfavorable articles, blog entries and internet debates throughout the year. In October 2011 the high-respected NGO Friends-International in Cambodia launched an important new campaign aimed at bringing an end to orphanage tourism.
Guardian: Before you pay to volunteer abroad, think of the harm you might do
Telegraph: Volunteer holidays 'do more harm than good'
Inside the thriving industry of AIDS orphan tourism
Taking Aim at Voluntourism
The Independent: Cambodia's orphanages target the wallets of well-meaning tourists
When Children Become Tourist Attractions

Internet censorship Cambodia stumbled clumsily into the world of Internet censorship in February. After a ham-handed start in which all of BlogSpot was suddenly blocked and ISPs initially affirmed then denied knowledge of the blockage, the outage narrowed, leaving only the highly provocative KI Media and Khmerization permanently unavailable through some ISPs in Cambodia. Both the government and the ISP’s denied responsibility. The media squawked about it for a month or so, but the story has since been relegated to NGO reports. The blocked sites are still unavailable through many, perhaps most ISPs in Cambodia. That said, Cambodia still has some of the most unrestricted internet access in Southeast Asia, significantly better than its immediate neighbors.
The Curious Case of the Banning that Wasn't
LICADHO Condemns Censorship of Web Sites Critical of Government

Sam Rainsy Mid-March, Sam Rainsy was stripped of his seat in Parliament. It seemed much less of a story than it would have been in years past.
Cambodia opposition leader loses parliamentary seat

US Maintains Ban on Cambodian Adoptions  There has been a US imposed ban on the adoption of Cambodian children by Americans since 2001. After reconsidering the ban in March, the US ultimately declined to rescind it.
Cambodia Law Blog: Can expats adopt Cambodian children? Dispelling the myths

Unhappy Hippi In May Sihanoukville’s fabled Happy Hippi lost its smile.
K440: Happy Hippy smacked

The Cows of Spring On Royal Plowing Day in May the Royal Oxen ate beans and corn, eschewing the rice and other offerings.

Phsar Thmey and wart

Central Market After more than two years of work, during which many vendors were displaced to temporary buildings next to the market, the renovation and refurbishment of Phsar Thmey was completed mid-2011, including a brand new bright yellow paint job. (And it grew a wart in the form of a new, completely out-of-place 7-story building on the market square.) What a fantastic building, even with wart.

Preah Vihear In July elections were held in Thailand. The Pheu Thai party won. Thaksin’s sister became PM, Thailand’s political turmoil eased a bit, the yellows quieted, and the Preah Vihear situation has been getting better ever since. Come the end of 2011, Thai activist Veera remains in Cambodian jail.
Cambodia congratulates Pheu Thai Party on election win
Yingluck's visit to improve relations: Cambodian deputy PM
Cambodian PM stresses good relations with Thailand

DVDs at Russian Market

Legend In July The Legend Theatre opened in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s first ‘international-standard’ cinema. Full size screen, proper theater seats, quality projection and sound and the first screen in Cambodia to (legally) show Hollywood first run movies, including 3D movies. As a result there has been a threatened crackdown on bootlegged DVDs of certain first run movies.
Cambodia Law Blog: New moves on pirated movies

Tonle Sap Prime Minister Hun Sen continued to make the health of the Tonle Sap a priority, apparently with significant success. Illegal reservoirs and fishing lots were ordered shut down and the orders were enforced. Initial reports indicate the annual total fish catch is way up.
Fishing licenses around Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake revoked
Hun Sen extends Tonle Sap fishing lot closure
AKP: Large Scale Crack-down of Illegal Fishing in Tonle Sap to Come

Former brothels on 63

Brothels closed on 63 Sometime in July, the long-running string of brothels on Street 63 was raided and closed. I posted about the bust of one in this group back in 2010. The place was back in operation a couple of weeks later, business as usual. Clearly well protected. But all of the brothels are gone now. To my knowledge those places on 63 were the last openly brothel-like businesses in central Phnom Penh. They have been there as long as I can remember and survived years after every other city center brothel had been shuttered. There must have been dozens of girls there. Closing them was probably one of the biggest brothel raid/ closures in the country this year. But to my knowledge the raid went unreported in the English press in Cambodia.

A Brief Tour of the Cambodian Sex Industry Best article on prostitution in Cambodia by an international journalist in recent memory. I don’t agree with everything he wrote, but unlike many of the weepy, sensationalistic, pre-scripted reports in the international media of late, he drew his conclusions from the evidence rather than looking for evidence to support his conclusions.

Faintings There was a spate of mass faintings at several different garment factories and even a couple of schools in Cambodia. Many observers were understandably quick to cast a suspicious eye on factory conditions, but the cause is still a matter of investigation. The mass faintings began suddenly and have occurred over a relatively short span, the only obvious commonalities being most happened in the factories and were exclusively amongst the laborers. It would be an extraordinary coincidence for such a cluster to occur, yet not have some common cause or link between the incidents – e.g. some new chemical, pesticide or product in use, a new ventilation system, a illness of some sort being passed around, longer working hours or increased production requirements, some new practice common to all of the affected factories.

Different causes have been suggested by investigators and labor advocates. In fact, there have been almost as many possible causes cited as there have been fainting incidents – chemicals, smells, ventilation, long hours, hunger, food poisoning, dehydration, etc., but nothing definitive and nothing new and common to all of the affected facilities. Working conditions in the factories appear to be pretty much the same as they have been for years.

In lieu of evidence of a common cause I am inclined to agree with Time Magazine. The mass fainting are, for lack of a better term, ‘mass-hysteria,’ but by that I don't mean to diminish their significance. These factory workers are largely poor young women, often rural girls accustomed to rice farming and country living, now working in gray, stuffy, unpleasant conditions, feeling homesick, pressured by family (for money) and harsh supervisors, and doing mind-numbingly repetitive work for very little compensation (averaging $55-$61/month,) often for long hours. Though the factories are not 'sweat shops,' this is still the kind of work that is undesirable enough to drive some young women to choose prostitution in preference. In my opinion, for whatever reason that first mass fainting happened, it sparked a chain reaction of all the faintings that followed - it was the spark for a sort of involuntary protest by these young women against the unhappy and oppressive circumstances in which they find themselves.
Hundreds sick in mass fainting at Cambodian factory
Mass Fainting In Garment Factory
Mass faintings at H&M factory in Cambodia
What's Causing 'Mass Faintings' at Cambodian Factories?

Siem Reap, September 2011

Floods The wet season was too wet this year. Cambodia (and Thailand) saw some of the worst flooding in more than a decade. In Cambodia huge swathes of countryside along the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers were submerged, hundreds of deaths, enormous crop loss and property damage. Government response was slow and inadequate. In an unprecedented but widely supported move, the government cancelled the Water Festival boat races in Phnom Penh. Just as the press was beginning to take note of the flooding in Cambodia, especially with the repeated flooding of Siem Reap town, Bangkok came under flood threat and story in the international press changed focus to Thailand and never really returned to Cambodia. Interestingly, even with the flood related crop loss, Cambodia managed to produce more rice in 2011 than the previous year.
Flood reports, photos and links
Cambodia's rice yield stable in 2011 despite flood devastation: PM

Most self-absorbed article of the year Amidst stories of captive Cambodian women jumping from upper floor windows to escape Malaysian recruitment agencies and of repeated allegations of abuse, torture and rape of Cambodian maids in Malaysia, the Cambodian government has banned its citizens from working as maids in Malaysia. Reporting on the ban in ‘this article’ the Malaysian press complained of a “dire maid shortage”in Malaysia and of how the ban will hurt their recruitment agencies. "Dire." Never mind the abuses suffered by these maids in Malaysia or captive women jumping from windows to escape these so called 'recruitment agencies' in Phnom Penh, it sounds like tough times in Malaysia. It's dire. They're having to make their own beds and there's nobody to do the dishes. 
“They Deceived Us at Every Step”
Recruiters Round Up Cambodians to Work in Malaysia

Rice wine deaths There were several mass poisonings attributable to bad batches of homemade rice wine. A regular motodup on my street died a couple of months ago after being poisoned. In one tragic case the better part of a village was wiped out. One poisoning incident:
12 Cambodians died of wine poisoning

Top Ten Tycoons The essential Who’s Who

Land Next to the floods, the rampant land-grabbing and mistreatment of evictees was the story of the year. So much has been written on the subject I am not sure what more is to be said. The problem continues and is growing. It is involving ever more people and confrontations between evictees and authorities are becoming more violent. In terms of politics, it is a gift from the ruling party government to the opposition. While I accept it is unrealistic to expect there will not be evictions as the city and country develops, I don’t understand from either a human or political POV why it is being handled so badly and the evictees treated with such callous inhumanity. It is sowing the seeds of dissent and future conflict in ever growing numbers. As one Kampong Speu evictee put it, "If there was still a Khmer Rouge hiding in the jungle, I'd join." In the long and even medium term, these pitiless evictions don't make moral or even Machiavellian sense.

NGO Law The government wants to regulate NGOs and has proffered a law. The NGOs are suspicious of the government’s intent but split between those who say the proposed law needs modification and those who say there should be no law at all. Much ink has been spilled on the subject with the highlight being an exchange between Elizabeth Becker and an anonymous commentator at AKP, the government media mouthpiece. The proposed law is currently in its fourth draft and the debate continues. The Prime Minister recently calmed the debate by saying that there was no rush, that they would work as long as necessary to craft a law acceptable to both sides. But, of course, this also takes the ‘no law’ option off the table.
Catalogue of artcles related to the NGO Law
Hun Sen Calls for More Talks on NGO Law
Elizabeth Becker/AKP exchange
Silencing Cambodia's Honest Brokers By ELIZABETH BECKER
AKP: Commentary: Elizabeth Becker and the Campaign to Put NGOs above the Law
Response To Anonymous Critique by Elizabeth Becker

The King, King Father and Queen Mother on the occasion of the 90/20 celebration.

90/20 King Father Sihanouk celebrated his 90th birthday and 20-year anniversary of returning to Cambodia. A truly historic occasion.
Birthday of King Father Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia

Mu Sochea proves to be a continuing force, making her mark (and political hay) taking a hands-on approach and focusing on issues that directly affect the poor and disadvantaged such as land grabbing and maid trafficking. Like I said last year, keep an eye on this lady, especially in the coming election year. She’s going places.

Kristof Tweets In November Nicholas Kristof parachuted in to Anlong Veng to tweet a brothel raid and promote his favorite anti-trafficking NGO in Cambodia. His dramatic tweeting of the raid probably did more to raise public awareness of his questionable ethics in the reporting of sex trafficking than anything he has done since purchasing two underage girls in Cambodia in 2005.
Nick Kristof to the rescue!
Nick Kristof Live Tweets a Raid on an Underage Brothel – And Not Everyone is Thrilled
Fighting back, one brothel raid at a time
A human trafficker defends Cambodian sweatshops
Be Aware: Nick Kristof’s Anti-Politics

Laos threatens to construct the first hydropower dam on the Lower Mekong.
Laos' Mekong Xayaburi dam plan delayed again

@Faineg Tweets KR trial The KR trials continue under a darkening cloud of criticism from disparate quarters. Growing feelings that the trials may be fundamentally flawed, talk of UN incompetence, accusations of government interference, a judge resigned, acrimony between the government and UN, and that's just the now of it. Case 002 is underway. Nuon Chea (Brother #2) has been on the stand and has put on quite a show, well-worth a hundred million, see-sawing between denying knowledge and blaming Vietnam. In an innovative and powerful use of Twitter, Faine Greenwood, aka @faineg, (and others more sporadically,) has been live tweeting the proceedings from the courtroom. This is journalism. ( Recently @KRT_Monitor has taken up the blow by blow.)

Plane to Sihanoukville Cambodia Angkor Air began regular flights between Siem Reap and Sihanoukville in December. If memory serves, this is the first regular air service to Sihanoukville since Royal Air Cambodge stopped flying to Sihanoukville in late 1997…except for PMT’s short-lived ill-fated venture on the same route a few years back. 

Tourism grows and grows At year’s end the government announced that tourist arrivals were up 14% over last year, Vietnamese leading the way. Tuk-tuk drivers in Siem Reap complain that the increasing numbers of Asian tourists, often on packages, is driving down local transport prices. Still, Siem Reap is booming and some of it is spilling off to Sihanoukville and Phnom Penh.
Cambodia's foreign tourist arrivals up 14% in 2011

Gold Tower 42, The Phnom Penh Tower and The OCIC Tower

Phnom Penh towers At the site of the old Ministry of Tourism, Phnom Penh's second highrise after the OCIC Tower (Canadia Tower,) the new Phnom Penh Tower on Monivong Blvd, was completed and opened for business. Stalled project Gold Tower 42 (aka Grey Tower 31, aka Bassac Thmey) has been idle now for 15 months.

The Riel The Cambodian Riel held its own against the US dollar throughout the year, varying only about +/-50 Riel over the course of the year, beginning 2011 at about 4055KHR = US$1 and finishing around 4075KHR = US$1.

New bridge to Koh Pos, Sihanoukville, 2/11. Construction is now complete.

Outrage In the final week of the year Cambodia publicly soiled itself and walked around stinking of shit in its pants all week after pardoning and releasing convicted Russian pedophile Alexander Trofimov. Alexi first arrived in Cambodia heading up a high-profile US$300,000,000 Koh Pos investment project before being caught diddling dozens of prepubescent girls in Sihanoukville in 2007. His subsequent handling by the Cambodian judiciary was riddled with irregularities and he had served only a fraction of his original sentence before being freed by royal pardon. Juice speaks. He has since disappeared into Cambodia somewhere, doing what...we can only imagine. After he was released all of the authorities that should have been in-the-know did a Sgt. Schultz style, "I know nothing...nothing!" all denying knowledge of how he got on the pardon list. His former company even denied knowing who he is. Yeah, right.  
Cambodia pardons Russian in paedophile case
Phnom Penh Post: Petition to deport pedophile Alexander Trofimov

Ten Cambodia Tweeps to Follow
khmerbird
peter_k440
faineg
nate_thayer
dickonverey
HunSensEye
ChrisInCambo
SimOliver
MuSochua
mybigfatface
JaredsCambodia

Cambodia News and Info on Twitter
phnompenhpost
voakhmer
tweetcambodia
cambopedia
cambodianews
Canby_Cambodia
USEmbPhnomPenh
EyeOnCambodia
KRT_Monitor

New Cambodia Blogs of Note
Faine Opinines
Nate Thayer

Cambodian Beggars in Bangkok

3 or 4 year old Cambodian boy, begging cup in hand, working the tourists on Sukhumvit, about 1:00AM

I was in Bangkok last week. Stayed in the heart of the Sukhumvit tourist area, Soi 4. In my 3-day stay I was a bit surprised by the number of Cambodian beggars I saw there – all women and young children. Seemed to be a lot more than usual. I don't know much about the foreign beggar situation in Bangkok. I’m in the city every couple of months for a few days or a week at a time – shopping, doctor, perhaps a bit of R&R. I know the place mostly from the perspective of a tourist.

There have always been both Thai and foreign beggars in that area. Of the foreigner beggars I’ve noticed, it’s been mostly Cambodians and some Vietnamese in the past, often children. One or two at a time here and there. What seemed unique this time was the sheer number of Cambodian beggars, and that they seemed to be working in family groups. There were at least a dozen and a half that I saw, comprising 3 or 4 family (or family-like) groups working a relatively compact tourist area around Sukhumvit Soi 4, including 3 or 4, 22-32 year old women with infants, several very young (3-6 year old) children begging and selling gum, and also several, mostly female flower sellers, around 9-12 years old. They all seemed to know one another and from what I could overhear they all spoke Khmer i.e. Cambodian Khmer, not Khmer as it is spoken in Thailand. These people were from Cambodia, not ethnic-Khmer from Northern Thailand.

They were likely trafficked here from Cambodia.

One evening I sat in front of the hotel for more than 3 hours, drinking beer and lazily watching the street scene including watching the beggars work. That area is solid tourists and those feeding off of them – punters and prostitutes, shoppers, street sellers, travelers and, of course, beggars. There was an easy dozen Cambodian beggars working that block alone. No men. All women and children. The youngest beggar children carried plastic cups to collect money, as did the infant toting Moms. The older children sold flowers and chewing gum.

A three year old boy was working the sidewalk right in front of where we sat, pacing back and forth hitting up passing tourists for change and doing a pretty good job of it. Seemed about 1 in 3 or 4 would give something, highlighting why he's been put on the street to beg. Because it works.

My wife called him over and asked him in Khmer where he was from. He said, in Khmer, that he was from Siem Reap and that he had been working in Thailand a ‘long time,’ (whatever a 'long time' may mean to a 3 year old.) One of the flower girls saw him talking to us and yelled to him in Khmer, ‘Don’t speak.’ He went back to begging, working long stretches unsupervised. He sure was a puffy-eyed, tired looking little guy still working at 1AM. He’d lay his head on the railing in front of us to rest, but would go on auto-pilot when he heard a tourist coming, automatically waving his plastic cup in their path. He knew how to do it in his sleep, so to speak.

A few times the whole lot of them went dashing up the street in a panic as if they were running from something, but we never saw anybody give chase. I asked a Thai street seller what it was all about and she explained that they probably spotted the police nearby and were fleeing for fear of arrest. Apparently the local constabulary is not on the trafficker's payroll.

I noticed in the Pattaya Daily News a couple of weeks ago that there are reports of Cambodian beggars of similar description working the tourists (and now arrested) in Pattaya – all Cambodian women with infants and children. While noting that there are Cambodian beggars in Bangkok would not be news, in my limited observation this time there seems to have been a recent influx and numbers are up. And I wonder why. Is the increase because of the beginning of the tourist season? Or did some new trafficking route just open? Or did I just fail to notice all of them before?

Cambodian girls selling flowers on Soi 4

Cambodian mother with infant (well, presumably she's the mother) working as a beggar on Sukhumvit Soi 4, Bangkok

More:

The Nature and Scope of the Foreign Beggar Issue (especially as related to Cambodian child beggars) in Bangkok

News from Cambodia

Over the last few of days I’ve spoken with friends who live and work in Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and China. A few happen to be in town visiting this week and others through Facebook and such. Amongst beers and pool games and casual banter, we’ve also touched on the Cambodian NGO Law debate and criticisms, and the land-grabbing issue, especially in light of the recent violent confrontation between police and Lake residents caught on video.

Interestingly, at some point in the various conversations, mostly just in passing, each one registered some degree of surprise or awe at the open debate and availability of information in Cambodia. In the case of the NGO law, that there has been extensive public criticism and debate and that the government actually seems to be taking some of it on board. In the case of the Lake confrontation, that local and foreign reporters were present, that it was openly photographed and videoed and that it’s all available on internet in Cambodia. To varying degrees, all of these activities would have been much more restricted, if allowed at all in my friend's various countries of residence. Reflecting this observation, the Reporters without Borders Press Freedom Index ranks Cambodia a moderately weak 128, but still better, in some cases significantly better than all of the surrounding countries - which says something about both Cambodia and her neighbors.

As we spoke, qualifiers such as the introduction of more restrictive laws over the last couple of years, the illusion of freedom amongst self-censorship and the apparent blocking of some websites did not go unnoted. But still, most were struck in one way or another by the fairly sharp contrast between the state of press and internet freedom in Cambodia as compared to their various East Asian homes. In this regard at least, Cambodia is the brightest spot in the dim landscape of Southeast Asian press freedom.

Criminal Logic

Purportedly an Angkorian era lintel from Baphuon temple that the author of the article ("Taking Home a Piece of Angkor Wat") was considering buying from an antiquities dealer in Bangkok, Thailand. Photo lifted from the article "Taking Home a Piece of Angkor Wat"

Your television has been stolen from your living room. The thief sells it to a fence, who puts the word on the street that he's got a nice big-screen plasma for sale. Prospective buyers, Joe Suburbia and his wife, hear about the TV and would really like to buy it, but they also know it is of dubious origin and, considering themselves to be a 'good people,' feel conflicted, if only a bit. The fence offers some soul soothing logic…

"Well, who really 'owns' stuff, so to speak? I mean, his Dad gave him that TV, so it's not really his anyways. Besides, why should he be the only one to get to enjoy it? Why shouldn't we be able to move that TV to your house where you and your friends can enjoy it? And on top of that, he didn't even take very good care of it, so doesn't that mean it's not really his?" 

Persuaded, the prospective buyers wipe their brows in relief and say, "So, how much do you want for it…" 

------------

Do you accept the fence's logic? Does it matter that your Dad gave you the TV or that you don't take good care of it? Are Joe and his wife right to buy your stolen TV?

I would answer no, no and no. The fence's logic is a weak and obvious rationalization for theft. Who gave you the TV or how well you took care of it have no bearing on your ownership of it. And Joe and his wife are not only receiving stolen goods but doing so knowingly, as evidenced in part by the fact that they would entertain such specious and self-serving logic. 

In fact, the logic seems so weak as to be unrealistic. Would anybody really offer such a transparent rationalization for buying stolen goods? Well, in an attempt to justify buying Angkorian-era Khmer antiquities in Bangkok, the following blog entry comes very close.

In an entry shamelessly entitled, "Taking Home a Piece of Angkor Wat," the writer explores the "gray area" of buying stolen antiquities:

"Who owns cultural relics from generations or millennia ago?  Just because people were born within the modern borders that a historical sight sits, why do they have the ownership right?  Why should cultural relics stay in a place rather than cross borders and share their beauty with people that can’t make it to their original location?  At what point of destruction or lack of care does a culture relinquish it’s (sic) ownership right?"

Somewhat general questions. We might at first imagine that he is exploring the issue in abstract or perhaps some borderline or potentially debatable case such as some antiquity of unknown origin or something that is comparatively common like Roman coins or cuneiform tablets. But no. In the following paragraph he almost immediately identifies the piece he is considering buying - a lintel from the Baphuon temple in the heart of Angkor Thom (see photo above) - a specific, unique, irreplaceable piece from one of the most important temples in the center of the old Angkorian capital in Cambodia. It would be difficult to imagine how such a piece (if authentic) was not looted.

From there his concerns turn to the pragmatic - the authenticity of the piece, how to skirt US import law and finally, the price, which turns out to be the determining factor in his decision of whether to purchase it or not.

He does pause in the next paragraph to touch on the ethical questions he posited, if only abstractly and in brief. But it seems to me this surfacy address is little more than a half-hearted exercise in self-absolution. The beginning and end of the article reveal the author's real feeling on the subject. The opening paragraph is a giddy account of what can be had in Bangkok for a price, everything from "endangered animals" to "ill-gotten antiques." And in his final words of the essay he decides against buying the artifact, not because of the ethical considerations but because it is too expensive:

"Upon arriving, excited and scared, to purchase our piece of the Angkor Kingdom we received bad news.  The price we had been quoted was incorrect by one zero.  Previously it was very expensive, but attainable, but now it was just too expensive.  The lessons we learned in the process though, were worth it, without finding a piece we loved, doing the research, debating among ourselves, and deciding, we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to think through the right, wrong and grey area of being a tomb raider."

The last sentence sums it up nicely - a straightforward admission of what he is trying to justify - "…being a tomb raider," i.e. a thief. 

--------

For more see:

It Surfaced Down Under!: Reprehensible

Safe Corner: The ethics of "tomb raiding?"

Allison in Cambodia: Taking home a piece of Angkor is NOT OK

Red List of Cambodian Antiquities at Risk

Wikipedia: Baphuon

BBC: Cambodia completes Angkor temple renovation 'puzzle'

Heritage Watch

Street Meat

Street meat for deep fry, Sukhumvit Soi 4, Bangkok, Thailand

Juxtaposition

From the front page of yesterday's The Nation (one of Thailand's main English language newspapers.)

Interesting choice and placement of photos. To the left, armed and uniformed Cambodian soldiers aiming their rifles to the right as if ready to shoot. Immediately to the right, a separate photo of unarmed Thai civilians ducking for cover. From the juxtaposition of photos it almost seems that Cambodian soldiers are ready to fire on Thai civilians. Though both the comparative sizes of the subjects and the caption beneath the photos make it clear this is not what is actually happening, this particular juxtaposition would seem...well...suggestive. I guess it comes as no surprise that a Thai newspaper would have a Thai lean. But I found this particular manipulation heavy-handed enough to roll my eyes a bit.

A passing encounter

Bangkok. Out of the hospital with a clean bill and no required follow-ups. Not quite what I was but a helluva lot better than I could have been. I'm done with them and almost home.

Feeling tired and weak and a bit beaten up by the doctors, but nevertheless past it, I decided to make a night out, recoup some strength, if in attitude only. I began at a Soi 4 bar, perchance talking to an old (35ish) Thai taxi girl with whom I had one of the most disturbing conversations I've had.

I think she was trying to talk me up, hoping that I'd become a customer, but she spewed so much hatred, such unrelenting bile for everybody and every kind of person, that she literally made me feel physically ill. Any other time I would have been able to take it in stride, perhaps knock her down a few pegs, but my weakened state left me vulnerable.

One of the reasons I went to the bar was to try to relax and buck up a bit, put on a light, listen to some music, watch some people, get into a better frame. I just wasn't ready for her. Not that she directed any of her venom at me - after all, I was a potential customer. But no-one else was spared.

She began when I entered, harshly forcing some other (younger, prettier) taxi girls to relinquish their choice streetside seats to me, referring to them as "buffaloes." Granted, as a paying customer I was entitled to the seat, but I wouldn't have asked them to move, taxi girls or not.

I sat down.

She plopped down next to me and immediately began about the 'half-brained idiot farang bar owner' who lets these "useless buffaloes" do what they want. She went on…and on.

Trying to change the subject to something completely different, I asked about a katoey fortune teller that used to sit on the sidewak in front of the Dynasty Inn a few doors down. A deck of cards, a candle and a kerchief on the pavement - he was there for many years and I noticed in my last couple of visits that he had disappeared. I thought maybe he had moved. To be honest, I have no particular sympathy for katoeys and probably even something of a prejudice against them, but would never dream of wishing harm on somebody who had done me no harm. And this particular guy (girl) had always been kind to me. He spoke decent English and turned the cards and told my fortune a couple-few times over the years, doing a pretty good job of it. Anyway, when I asked about him she told me bluntly and with something of a smirk that he was dead - "dead of AIDS," she enunciated.

I felt an immediate rush of sadness. I knew this guy, or at least who he was. She went on to revel in it a bit, telling me how he deserved it because he was a katoey, how all katoeys deserve it, "butt-fuckers" that they are. I pressed for more info, received little, and in hindsight, I'm not sure she was telling the truth anyway. It may have all have been an exercise in wishful thinking.

She then went on to attack, in turn, the stupid Khmer beggars, the job-stealing Burmese, the thieving Vietnamese children who sell flowers on the street and, of course, the "smelly Muslims" that inhabit Soi 3. With a big smile she used my almost empty beer bottle to demonstrate how she would crack the skull of an 8-year-old Vietnamese 'match-girl' who was working the street nearby. And even though I went from a polite smile, to defending these people, to a blank stare, to a disgusted stare and finally quite obviously just looking away trying to ignore her, I don't think she ever got the idea that I was anything but enjoying her vile banter. I guess I should have just laid into her, but really wasn't up for a fight. That's not why I was there.

In the end, after only two beers, I called for my bill, paid the exact amount, and left. As I was leaving she followed, proffering the standard lilting "where are you going?" and a sweet voiced "come again," probably hoping for a tip or an offer to have her join me, but I wouldn't/couldn't even look at her.

I went on to better places and better people and made a pretty good night of it.

I have no moral to this story or conclusion to offer, just a vaguely sick feeling from the encounter, slowly fading as the hangover wanes and my strength returns.

Nana

Sukhumvit

Nana Station, Sukhumvit Soi 7, Bangkok, Thailand

Southeast Asia Backpacker's Credo and Motto

The Credo
1. I shall eschew the ways of the tourist and have an authentic Asian experience rather than a shallow, contrived, package holiday. I am Traveler.

2. I shall wear the largest possible backpack to bear proud witness of my creed.
3. I will spend my travels on the quest for Our Holy Grail - for the ‘Unspoiled Place’ - a place undiscovered by tourists, where happy, welcoming, generous natives tend vast fields of ganja along a deserted, previously unknown tropical beach, and that has Internet access.
4. I shall begin my quest on Khao San Road.
5. I shall not leave Khao San Road without a Lonely Planet guide.
6. I shall never admit to using a Lonely Planet guide.
7. I shall follow ‘Wheeler’s Way’, a mystical school of thought, which both eschews and embraces Khao San Road – a way of finding the Unspoiled Place without ever leaving the path.

(Editors note: ‘Wheeler’s Way’ is a school of thought posited as a possible answer to the decades old conundrum known as the ‘Sang Thip Paradox’: If it is in Lonely Planet then I can find it, but it won’t be the Unspoiled Place. If it is not in Lonely Planet, it might be the Unspoiled Place, but I won’t be able to find it.)

8. I shall wear the traditional international backpacker’s uniform and don at least one piece of local clothing (conical hat, krama, yam, etc.) to show my oneness with the Asian people.
9. I shall not clean the local soils and aromas from my uniform for I wish to always carry a piece of where I have been.
10. I shall never wear a souvenir tee shirt in the tee-shirt’s country of origin.
11. I shall eat banana pancakes on a regular basis, for it is the quintessential Asian food.
12. I shall eat in the cheapest restaurants. Hygiene is for package tourists.
13. I shall travel by the least comfortable means, for comfort is also for package tourists.
14. I shall drink the local beer, for I shall always endeavor to be in tune with the local culture. And because it is the cheapest.
15. I shall stay in the cheapest guesthouse. More money for beer.
16. I shall not allocate more that 75% of my daily budget to alcohol and drugs. Moderation in all things.
17. I shall make a pilgrimage to a Full Moon Party at Had Rin Beach Koh Phangan at least once in my life. For it is Mecca.
18. I shall revel in food and mosquito-borne diseases, for these are the badges of the true Asian Traveler.
19. I shall not leave Thailand without having my hair colored, dreaded, corn-rolled or shaved off.
20. I shall model my travels on “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac
21. I shall read “The Beach” before entering Thailand so that I understand the goal of quest.
22. I shall read “Off the Rails in Phnom Penh” before entering Cambodia so that I understand the dangers of the quest.
23. I shall read “The Quite American” while travelling through Vietnam because everybody else is.
24. And this above all: I shall bargain without mercy and hone my skills to a sharp edge, so that I can proudly proclaim our sacred motto:

“I get it for less than the locals”

The Mantra
In times of trial and doubt – as I lose all feeling in my legs in the 14th hour of a local bus ride…when I can’t sleep for the noise of a thousand rats scurrying through my $2 room…as vomit and diarrhea spew simultaneously from my salmonella saturated body – I will repeat this mantra unto myself…

I am not a tourist
I am not a tourist
I am not a tourist
I am not a tourist
I am not a tourist
I am not a tourist

…until the doubt passes and I am ready for more authentic Asian experiences.


(I originally published this several years back. A couple of the references are a bit dated, but otherwise it seems to be holding up pretty well. Yes, I know, backpackers are an easy mark and perhaps picked on a bit too much, but having visited Khao Sarn Road today, I  just can't help myself. And it is, after all, the season to be jolly.) 

Medical Care in Cambodia

Recently I have had the unfortunate opportunity to survey some of the local medical facilities. Personal health issues have sent me to the hospital more than once in the past couple of months, most recently in need of emergency surgery. While this has impacted my ability to blog regularly, it has also given me opportunity to reflect on the medical facilities in Southeast Asia, in Cambodia and Thailand in particular.

I am not a medical professional, have no significant medical training and am in no way qualified to make a professional evaluation of the local medical facilities, doctors, nurses, medical staff or equipment. Nor have I made a comprehensive survey. The following is strictly the opinions of a layman and born of nothing more than my personal experiences with the medical facilities here in Cambodia and Southeast Asia. Please do not take it for any more than that.

First, a note on Cambodian doctors. As a general rule, I do not go to Cambodian doctors in Cambodia. I do not avoid them because they are Cambodian, but because most of them were schooled in Cambodia.

While the medical schools in Cambodia may be perfectly fine educational institutions, the endemic corruption in this country leads me to question how those who have graduated earned their degrees. For those people honorable enough to have studied and passed their exams based on medical knowledge, their resulting medical degree may represent that of a competent and well-trained physician. But because of the corruption in Cambodia including various educational institutions, I simply do not have confidence that the sheepskin on their clinic wall represents the successful effort of a medical student rather than his societal station and/or wealth. If I must go to a Cambodian doctor, I look for a medical degree earned outside the country - e.g. in France, the US, or for older doctors in the old USSR.

For my lack of faith in locally trained doctors, given the opportunity I will almost always choose to go to a western doctor or international clinic/hospital. Amongst the western doctors and clinics available here, I have come to trust Dr. Reid Sheftall at American Medical Center, Dr. Gavin Scott at Tropical & Travellers Medical Clinic and International SOS Medical & Dental Clinic. None charge local prices, especially the latter, which is amongst the most expensive in town. But I have found all to be properly qualified (to the best of my knowledge) and, in my personal experience, medically competent at the very least. I have found Dr. Sheftall to be particularly helpful in matters of trauma and injury, Dr. Scott to be excellent with medical problems common to Southeast Asia and SOS to be well-equipped and quite helpful in the medical care of my children.

There is a certain Australian nurse in Phnom Penh who, in the past, has offered (and perhaps still offers) medical services and is popular amongst some foreigners in town. I have nothing against seeing a nurse instead of a doctor for minor ailments. But, personally, I would avoid this nurse like the plague. While she may be qualified and competent as a nurse, in the past she has misrepresented and wildly overstated her medical qualifications. I say this not from hear-say but from personal and direct experience. She told me that she was a doctor, even stating the sort of medical degree she had and the institution where she earned it. None of it was true. She is a nurse of some sort. Misrepresenting one's medical qualifications is, in my book, a cardinal sin amongst medical professionals and taints everything that may follow. For this reason, I do not trust her and will not use her services.

One Cambodian clinic with which I have had more than one positive experience is Polyclinique Aurora. They are equipped with X-ray and ultrasound equipment, are open 24 hours, are much more reasonably priced than foreign run places and in my experience have attended competently to both major and minor injury cases. If money is an issue, I would be relatively comfortable going to Polyclinique Aurora.

Of the various hospitals in Cambodia, I have had the most experience with Royal Rattanak Hospital here in Phnom Penh and Royal Angkor International Hospital in Siem Reap. Both are connected with the very reputable Bangkok Hospital in Thailand and neither is particularly cheap. Both are new and modern, fairly well equipped and staffed largely with Thai doctors, some Thai nurses and local Cambodian staff. I have found both to be something of a surfacey imitation of their counterpart in Thailand, but not too detrimentally so. I spent time as an in-patient at Royal Rattanak in Phnom Penh and received attentive, appropriate if not somewhat spendy care. The private room was comfortable and not unlike a three-star hotel. I had one significant complaint while I was there about a failure of their procedures and it was dealt with promptly and appropriately. My only other negative observation is that they seem a bit too anxious to order up expensive MRIs, but who am I to second guess a doctor's orders?

Royal Angkor International Hospital in Siem Reap has received a number of negative reviews from expats, not due to a failure of medical care, but centered primarily around claims of inflated prices and a two-tier pricing system seemingly aimed at bilking foreigners. That said, my single personal experience at Royal Angkor was positive. My son, being the boy he is, took a nasty spill and split his lip open, requiring stitches to put him back together. We took him to emergency at Royal Angkor where they attended to him promptly, properly and with appropriate sensitivity to a scared little boy. He was there for a couple of hours, received three stitches, and we got out of the place for less than US$100. I was satisfied with the experience.

All this said about Cambodian medical facilities, if you have the time, money and opportunity, it is still better to seek medical care outside of Cambodia in one of her neighboring countries - i.e. Thailand or Vietnam. Cambodia's rich and powerful all travel outside the country for medical care and there is a reason for that. Medical care is simply better in Vietnam and Thailand than in Cambodia - better facilities, better treatment, better doctors.

Vietnam's medical facilities are surprisingly good and getting better all the time. And Vietnam is easier to reach than Thailand, at least overland. It is only an inexpensive 6 hour bus or taxi ride from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City. If you are medically able to make the journey, Ho Chi Minh is probably the least expensive, closest  and easiest option outside of Cambodia.

Thailand's hospitals are undoubtedly the best in the region if not some of the best in the world. If I was in the US or Europe, had a medical problem and the opportunity to choose my hospital, I would fly to Bangkok for medical treatment - Bumrungrad Hospital in particular, the Cadillac of hospitals. Bumrungrad offers a full range of world-class medical professionals, facilities and services. The patient is king at Bumrungrad and the room facilities and service are like that of a five-star hotel. The level of attentiveness and kind assistance is unrivaled by any medical facility I have been in my life. Bumrungrad is perhaps the most expensive hospital in Thailand but is still only a fraction of the cost of medical care in the west. Other hospitals in Bangkok include Bangkok Hospital and Samitivej Hospital, both of which are very well-reputed and somewhat less expensive than Bumrungrad.

Lastly, a word about medical insurance and evacuation. Cambodia's medical facilities are limited in scope and capability. If you have a simple broken leg or burst appendix in Cambodia, they'll probably take care of you just fine. If you have a severe spinal or head injury, you're as good as dead in Cambodia. As has often been said in the guidebooks, major medical problems will require air evacuation to another country for proper treatment, probably to Thailand or Singapore. And evacuation is not cheap. A medical evac flight from Phnom Penh to Bangkok runs US$10,000-US$15,000. And they are going to want payment up front. While medical care is comparatively inexpensive in Southeast Asia, especially in Cambodia, evacuation is exorbitant and serious medical problems can cost you thousands of dollars at a good facility like Bumrungrad. Get expat medical insurance (for example, Aetna Worldwide offers a range of plans,) and unless your insurance guarantees payment in advance, have a stash of emergency cash or a credit card at the ready. When you're in desperate need of evac, laying there on a gurney at clinic with your brains spilling out of your skull after a motorcycle accident some Saturday night, it will be no time to start pleading for charity, bargaining over price or promising that your parents will send the cash when the bank opens on Monday. You won't make it and they won't care. Be prepared.

American Medical Center
Hotel Cambodiana, Ground Floor, Suite #3, Phnom Penh
Tel: 023-991863, 012-891613

Bangkok Hospital
#2 Soi Soonvijai 7, New Petchaburi Rd., Bangkok, Thailand 10310
Tel: +66 (0) 2310 3000

Bumrungrad Hospital
33 Sukhumvit 3 (Soi Nana Nua), Wattana, Bangkok, Thailand 10110
Tel: +66 (0) 2667 1000
www.bumrungrad.com

International SOS Medical & Dental Clinic
#161, Street 51, Phnom Penh
Tel: 023- 216911

Polyclinique Aurore
#58-60, Street 113, Phnom Penh
Tel 023-360152, 012-779824, 012-667561

Royal Rattanak Hospital
#11, Street 592, Khan Toul Kork, Phnom Penh
Tel: 023-365555, 099-631427, 099-674303

Royal Angkor International Hospital
National Route 6 (Airport Road), Siem Reap, Cambodia
Tel: 063-761888, 012-235888, 063-399111

Tropical & Travellers Medical Clinic
#88, Street 108, Phnom Penh
Tel: 023-366802, 012-898981

US Embassy, Phnom Penh - List of medical facilities

Canby Publications - List of medical facilities in Phnom Penh

The Last Smile

For years Thailand has been touted as ‘The Land of Smiles.’ On arrival at the old Don Muang Airport in Bangkok tourists were greeted by a large sign emblazoned with the slogan “Welcome to the Land of Smile” in bright gold letters. That slogan, seemingly minus the plural ‘s’ at the end of ‘Smile,’ can still be found on souvenir t-shirts and other souvenirs for sale on the streets of Bangkok. There is a common misconception that the apparently absent 's' at the Don Muang Airport was an embarrassingly public grammatical error. But this is a misnomer. That sign was in fact a monument to the last smile in Thailand.

The real tale of the sign begins in the early years of Thai tourism when Thailand was, as the promotional slogan used to go, “The Land of Smiles,” with the emphasis on the plural. In those days the Realm was awash in smiles, quite unlike the stodgy West where smiles were in short supply and huge demand.

The promise of cheap, plentiful smiles drew hoards of foreign smile collectors to Thailand. Many of these collectors, when confronted with the overwhelming abundance of smiles and almost complete lack of legal regulation, acted like pigs in slop, wallowing, sometimes drowning in a sea of cheap smiles at the likes of Koh Phangan, Phuket, Pattaya and Patpong. Other collectors, perhaps the majority, were better behaved. But behaved or not, all of them had one thing in common. They all bought smiles as fast as the Thais would sell them.

In a matter of just a few short years virtually every smile in Thailand had been bought, packaged and shipped overseas. Such was the state of things when, at the end of a fated high season, a nameless European tourist on his way home from a Thai holiday was waiting in line at airport immigration at Don Muang. As the queue inched forward, he noted the bored, almost surly mechanical actions of the immigration officers - much like the hotel receptionist had acted when he had paid his bill earlier. In fact, he had not seen a single smile since he had gotten out of bed that morning. Not from the waiter at breakfast, not from the taxi driver, not from anybody on the street, not even from the bar girl he woke up with. This was not the Thailand he had known and loved.

Lost in this thought, he didn’t notice the open counter in front of him. The immigration officer harrumphed impatiently, waving him forward. He stepped up, handed over his passport and fell back into thought about the recently purchased smiles he had in his bag - a bunch of cheap 5-for-250 baht smiles from Khao Sarn Road and a couple of big expensive ones from Soi Cowboy. The officer pushed his passport back across the desk and harrumphed again for him to move on.

On an impulse, the tourist reached into his bag and pulled out one of his best new 'Made in Issan' smiles. “For you”, he said, handing it to the officer with two hands and a polite little bow of the head. Slowly, a broad, happy, inscrutably bemused smile spread across the immigration cop’s face. The tourist smiled back, picked up his passport and disappeared into the crowd. Over the next few weeks, as the officer wore his smile around the airport, it became apparent that he was alone.

As it turns out, that tourist was carrying the last few free-roaming smiles in Thailand. By chance alone, he left behind the last living member of a now extinct species. Shortly after the incident, the officer was transferred from departures to arrival immigration where his unique expression became a fixture, and later a legend. That smile, ‘the last smile in Thailand’, was commemorated by the sign, “Welcome to the Land of Smile” in the airport arrival area. He has since transferred to immigration arrival at the new Sovamabhumi Airport in Bangkok, where he works to this day. It is still possible to see him if you happen into the right immigration line. He is easy to spot. He is the only one smiling.

Kampot Dusk

Kampot City, Cambodia

Was the Thaksin gambit worth it?

Back in late 2009, tension between Thailand’s Red Shirt faction and the Thai government was building dramatically, as were tensions between Cambodia and Thailand over the disputed border area around Preah Vihear. The Thai Red Shirt/Yellow Shirt conflict was born of the 2006 military coup in Thailand in which Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was forced from office and the later legal dissolution of the subsequent pro-Thaksin government, leaving Thaksin’s supporters, i.e. the Red Shirts, disaffected and Thaksin a wanted fugitive. It also gave rise to the Yellow Shirts, i.e. the Royalist/anti-Thaksin faction, thus creating the political instability and conflict that continues in Thailand to this day. The current tension between Cambodia and Thailand at Preah Vihear is connected to this political instability in Thailand - a decades old territorial dispute between the two countries which is being exacerbated anew by Thai nationalists attempting to exploit it for internal political purposes. It was in the midst of these rising tensions in November 2009 that Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen chose to very publicly and ceremoniously appoint former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra as an ‘Economic Advisor’ to the highest level of the Cambodian government.

When Thaksin was appointed an economic advisor, Prime Minister Hun Sen declared him an “eternal friend” and the Cambodian government claimed that it was a purely practical and internal matter designed to take advantage of Thaksin’s unique knowledge and experience to assist Cambodia navigate difficult economic times. After all, Thaksin is a multi-billionaire telecommunications mogul and former head of state of a Southeast Asian nation. A starry and relevant CV to be sure. But most observers saw more than mere practicality in this new embrace. His appointment seemed an obvious jab at the Thai government where he was a wanted fugitive and the central figure behind the anti-government Red Shirts. The Thai government was predictably infuriated, so much so that it severed diplomatic relations with Cambodia, greatly increasing tensions between the two countries. Many observers suggested that a slap at Thailand was the entire point of the Thaksin exercise – to thumb noses at Thailand, to show that even though Cambodia might not be able to match Thailand militarily at Preah Vihear, it still, at the very least, had the ability to get their goat. You could almost hear the snickering coming from Takhmau.

Since then much water has passed under the bridge, especially in Thailand. Back in late 2009 Economic Advisor Thaksin gave a couple of speeches in Cambodia, attended one or two rubber chicken luncheons and then buggered off to other parts of the world to attend to his own troubled situation. Meanwhile in Thailand the Red Shirt confrontation with the government was building to a nasty head. Protests formed in Bangkok and then dragged on for months. The city was all but paralyzed. It was rumored (though untrue) that Thaksin was in Cambodia waiting to return to Thailand in triumph when the Red Shirts broke the government. The protests in Bangkok then exploded into a violent and ugly climax – riots, bombings, arsons, dozens of deaths, a city in flames, with Thaksin’s Red Shirts far less than the innocents in it all. They ultimately caught the losing end and scattered back to the countryside from whence most of them came, not broken but certainly far worse for the wear. With Bangkok trashed and smoldering, the Red Shirts and by proxy Thaksin lost a lot of favor in the eyes of the region, the world and even many otherwise sympathetic Thais for the damage done.

Through it all Cambodia had surprisingly little to say about her formerly vaunted “eternal friend” and Economic Advisor. Tensions and rhetoric between the countries continued to rise over the border dispute at Preah Vihear but Thaksin became an unspoken sore point, all but unmentioned by Phnom Penh for months, until day before yesterday, when it was announced that Thaksin had resigned his position as Economic Advisor. The resignation was readily accepted (if not requested) by Cambodia and almost immediately thereafter (literally within hours) Cambodia and Thailand announced the resumption of normal diplomatic relations. The Thaksin episode had come to an unceremonious end.

Trying to make sense of the affair, yesterday’s Cambodia Daily (August 25, 2010) asked the question “Was the Thaksin Experiment Worth the Trouble?” This, in my opinion, is the wrong question, or at least a mischaracterization. The relationship with Thaksin was not an “experiment.” It was a gambit.

Most observers can agree that the appointment of Thaksin as an advisor to the government was not to be taken at face value. The Cambodian government did not appoint Thaksin and raise tensions with Thailand to the point of severing diplomatic relations simply because it wanted his wise words on attracting tourists and marketing rice. Many observers have suggested that the appointment was for the purpose of tweaking the Thais and scoring a few cheap political points in Cambodia. Political researcher Pavin Chachavalpongpun commented that from the start the appointment was “superficial, political and temporary” and that,

”…the decision of Hun Sen to appoint (Thaksin) served the purpose of irritating and attacking the Thai leadership…Hun Sen was not only successful in using Thaksin to tarnish his opponents in Thailand but also gained some political points amongst his Cambodian supporters…” (Cambodia Daily, August 25, 2010)

But this gives far too little credit to the strategic prowess of Prime Minister Hun Sen. While the Prime Minister is not above a bit of self-serving schoolyard antics, the predictable and very high price paid for the appointment of Thaksin belies a deeper purpose and a potentially greater payoff.

At the time of Thaksin’s appointment in Cambodia, Thailand was in a precarious and unstable political state. Thaksin’s Red Shirts represent a significant portion of the Thai population (perhaps even a majority,) which bears a valid political grievance. Their elected leader (Thaksin) had been removed from power by the most undemocratic means and they were arguably being deprived the proper democratic process to which they were entitled. Further, their complaints and cries for democracy were enjoying a certain degree of international support even outside the region. Back in late 2009/early 2010 the Red Shirts were trying to force new and unrestricted national elections in Thailand and at the time the outcome of that pressure was as yet unknown. If they had achieved this goal there was the very real possibility that a Thaksin sympathetic party or perhaps even Thaksin himself could have regained power.

On a different front, though it is beyond impolite to speak of such matters, and with all due respect, the King of Thailand is old and frail and likely not long for this world. When he passes, whether his son the heir apparent becomes king or there is political upheaval and some other faction achieves power, there is the significant possibility that those who gain control will be from a camp sympathetic to Thaksin.

It was these possible futures on which Hun Sen was betting when he appointed Thaksin an advisor and declared him an “eternal friend.” Thaksin regaining power may not have been the most likely possible future, but with Reds pushing hard for elections and the King in flagging health, it was still well within the realm of possibility and the potential payoff was significant. Far from forming some “superficial and temporary” relationship with Thaksin for short term political gain, Hun Sen was gambling on a possible future in which Thaksin would regain power and, by standing with Thaksin when he was down, Hun Sen was laying the groundwork for a deep and lasting relationship with a potential future key player if not leader of Thailand.

In retrospect, was the Thaksin gambit worth the trouble to Cambodia? Was the price paid in broken diplomatic relations and increased tensions worth the potential payoff of warm relations with a potential future key figure in the Thai leadership?

First it must be acknowledged that the gambit has probably been lost. The disastrous Bangkok riots have so soured the position of the Red Shirts and Thaksin that regardless of how the Red/Yellow conflict eventually plays out, it is unlikely that Thaksin will be able to return to Thailand in a position of power anytime in the foreseeable future. But a lost gambit is not necessarily one that should not have been made. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Though diplomatic relations with Thailand were temporarily broken, they have now been restored with smiles all around. And though the tensions at Preah Vihear have intensified, they may have anyway as this incarnation of the dispute is as much a toy of Thai internal politics as a product of Cambodian-Thai relations. Regardless, the intensification has not amounted to any actual significant military confrontation or loss of territory. In sum, for all of the ill words and poor relations of the last nine months, little or nothing material has been lost by Cambodia. On the other hand, even though not won, the potential payoff if Thaksin had regained power could have been monumental. And even though formal relations between Thaksin and Cambodia have ended, they appear to have done so on good terms. The positive feelings generated between Cambodia and the Thaksin camp still exist – a card in the hole should that camp achieve power at some later date.

All things considered, actual losses weighed against potential and real gains, the answer to the title question is ‘yes,’ whether there is ultimately a big payoff or not, the Thaksin gambit was worth it to Cambodia.

(I realize that my rendition of the Thai political situation is superficial. My purpose here was to analyze Cambodia’s relation to Thailand in regard to this specific episode, not to offer any great insights into Thai politics. My characterization of the Thai political situation, while comic book, is IMO sufficient to my point about Cambodia’s Thaksin gambit.)

Twitter Bangkok

From its inception until about a month ago I considered twitter an all but useless frivolity, good only for bored housewives and self-obsessed kids. Bangkok has changed my mind.

During the unfortunate events of the last week in Bangkok, twitter proved itself an absolutely amazing, invaluable tool for everybody involved - the people on the ground, the government, the protesters, the journalists and even for casual observers such as myself.

During our little war here in Cambodia of July 97 we were, for the most part, pinned down in our houses with little information about what was going on. I was lucky at the time. I had a cell, a shortwave, an Icom (military) and a television. And still, information was very sparse, narrow and always way late. Military chatter, two day old (incorrect) news on CNN, the occasional phone call from one of the few other people in town with a cell, usually looking for, rather than offering information. And it took four different bulky tools to get that limited information.

But during the Bangkok event, through Twitter, I had access to dozens of sources of information, right there on the ground, on all sides of the event, being reported in real time, in an easily monitored format - more than 3 dozen people in the heart of the action twittering what was happening before their eyes from several perspectives at that very second, and so did lots of people there in Bangkok, from their handphone alone. Except for analysis and summaries, it made traditional news sources all but superfluous - whether web, cable or broadcast.

From an information gathering point of view, it was even more powerful than actually being there on the ground, because you could be in 40 places at the same time, experiencing it from 40 different perspectives - the mad red shirt, the terrified tourist, the resolute governor, the crazy expats giving the blow-by-blow from the streets, the journalists making cynical observations or trapped in a pagoda under fire, people reporting troop and protester movements and confrontations, calling for help for the wounded, reporting fires and bombs, even Thaksin's lawyer trying to spin the whole thing from Europe. It was a mass of information, all as it was happening.

This was another landmark event for twitter, and a transformational event for me & twitter. I am sold.