Five American dollars in Cambodia.
(PHOTO: Near Angkor Wat, Cambodia)
Like most young knee-jerk leftists (not even bleeding heart ‘liberals’), I equate Buddhism with a certain amount of harmony, nature, tolerance and societal equalibrium. On my 21st birthday, I woke up in Siem Reap, Cambodia, with ten less likely evaluations of their quaint and charming Buddhist kingdom:
1. There are no taxis - just moto bikes whereas you hop on / off + pay the man a quarter. It can be screechingly noisy with that oft-broken or missing muffler. On arrival he’ll almost certainly try to sell you a pungeant $5 sliver of opium. You shouldn’t buy it.
2. There are takeaway pizza places dotted all around Siem Reap with names like ‘Super-Duper Magical Mystical Pizza’ or ‘Extra-Super Magic Groovy Pizza’ whereas you pay $5 and get a extra large pie covered in fresh marijuana, apparently grown in the jungle nearby.
3. There are whorehouses literally on every corner. These aren’t normal Red-Light-District-in-Holland kind of brothels. They’re like a hybrid of a neon-lit cowboy saloon (with swinging wooden doors et al) and a low-rent Asian beauty pageant. In Cambodia at the time, the starting rate was $5.
4. Men ride happily down Main Street on horseback, under the shady brim of Texan 10-gallon cowboy hats. They literally park their horses or mules in front of the saloon or whorehouse they’re visiting and tie the reins securely to a wooden post or rail. A stone’s throw away, in the largely-illegal antique market (export of Cambodian antiques, especially images of Buddha, is disallowed) tourists can purchase hand-carved Buddha statues from the 17th century for the going rate of $5.
5. After the Vietnam War ended, American troops abandoned millions of high-powered weapons including tanks, assault rifles, and live grenades - right there in the Cambodian jungle. Adaptively skillful opportunists, a small group of Cambodians began collecting the equipment and pitching luxury tours in the jungle where otherwise pink-faced bastards can shoot recklessly into the dangerous unknown. The price to fire an AK-47 from the delicate vantage of Pol Pot’s Killing Fields: $5.
Ho-hum.
