Siem Reap Markets a Hard Bargain

Siem Reap has two tourist-friendly markets, the Old Market and the Night Market. Both have relatively similar prices and involve a lot of standing, sweating, bargaining, and saying no, thank you.

Before this trip, I didn’t have much experience with these third-world markets – the kind of places where the word “market” originated, where there are no retail prices, only suggestions, and where every urge imaginable, material or physical, can be satisfied.

In the Old Market, raw, plucked chickens sit dead, ready for sale. Fish without heads bleed in rows on plywood tables. Bowls of salted and peppered crickets and ants sit out to entice passersby. Hundreds of shops in both markets all sell the same things – t-shirts and other clothing, jewelry, paintings, and small souvenirs.

The selection from shop to shop is so strictly defined and limited, that I find myself wondering why one person hasn’t branched out and begun to sell something else. There has to be a market for other goods, but I guess the locals have figured out exactly what tourists will buy. As each tourist peruses the shops, vendors accost him or her to no end.

“Buy something sir?” they say. “I make good price.” They don’t care what I buy, as long as I buy from them.

“No, thank you,” I say, “I’m just looking.” But they don’t believe me. The fact that I’m in the market at all means I could make a purchase at any moment. Because everybody sells identical goods, vendors must work hard to win over each customer. They tend to immediately offer a discount.

“How much is this?” I asked one woman, pointing to a carved opium pipe made from a boar tusk.

“Fifteen dollar. But for you, I make good price! I not have customer today so I sell to you for cheap. Ten dollar!”

But how cheap is cheap? What is truly a good price? Tourists are shopping in a new country where money is valued differently, materials are priced differently, and vendors often take advantage of people who aren’t familiar with what they purchase. This presents an odd dilemma. While considering a t-shirt at a dirt-cheap price – by American standards – of two dollars, tourists don’t know whether to take it and run or ask for an even better price of one dollar.

After their first offer, vendors sometimes take offense to low counter-offers, but the bottom line is, they want to make a sale. Last week, for example, I saw a teenage boy selling Polo shirts by Ralph Lauren. Gold mine, I thought. I can definitely work myself a deal here.

“How much are those Polos?” I asked.

“Eight dollar. But for you I give discount. Night time price!”

“Hmmm, eight dollars. That’s really good actually. Can I try one on?”

Polos in America can run anywhere from fifty to one hundred dollars or more, retail price. I knew I would be making a purchase, but I wasn’t done yet. After making sure the shirts fit me, I pressed on.

“Okay, I want to get two. For ten dollars.”

“Uhhh!” the guy said in astonishment. I clearly offended him, but my logic was sound. I figured I could have talked him down from eight to five dollars for one, so why not ten for two? I had no idea how much the shirt cost to make or how much the vendor had paid to the manufacturer to begin with. I began to question what exactly I was doing.

As a western tourist in a third-world country, the money game is an interesting moral issue. Souvenir and clothing prices are dirt cheap by western standards, but normal to the locals. So who am I to bargain? I’m the one traveling the world on funds from a university scholarship, my own parents, and my personal savings account. At my age, most Cambodian men are working full-time jobs and are lucky to have ever left the country at all. If anything, tourists should be paying the vendors more than they ask. After all, they certainly need the money more than we do.

But at that moment, I was on the verge of an incredible deal. I forgot about morals. “Okay, how about twelve,” I said.

“No, fourteen. I still make small profit. Please!” he said. He could see I was still reluctant. “Okay fine,” he said. “Thirteen for you, because you cute.”

Khmer BBQ demonstrates biological differences

Downtown Siem Reap doesn’t really feel Cambodian. Its bars and restaurants represent cuisine from every cranny of the world, ranging from pizza and spaghetti, to nachos and margaritas, to Irish beer and burgers, to Indian nan with butter paneer. In fact, due to a history of foreign involvement -- Cambodia only gained independence from France in 1953, followed closely by Khmer Rouge genocide and the Vietnam War -- the entire country lacks a distinct culinary identity. So on one of the first few nights of our trip, about ten of us set out to find true local food.

One of our guides, Yut, had recommended a traditional Khmer-style barbeque restaurant. Yut is an ex-monk who speaks great English, knows more group games than a camp counselor, and tells more bad jokes than the average dad. He wears aviator-style sunglasses under a wide-brim straw hat. We valued his opinion and decided to give the restaurant a try. It was a bad decision.

Our Tuk Tuk drivers dropped us off in the black night. We told them to come back in an hour and a half. The only lights discernable along the dirt road were Christmas lights around the restaurant’s perimeter. Except for an absence of any music or surrounding life, the place could have passed as a typical Mexican restaurant from the road. As we slowly crossed into the open-air patio, we felt the stare of every diner, waiter, and cook, as well as his or her relatives, neighbors and extended family. These people had never seen tourists in their restaurant. We were alien life forms.

We managed to choose a table and sit down. A waiter placed three metal contraptions in front of us, lit flames under each one, and disappeared. We looked at each other for direction, but none of us had answers. The other diners continued to stare. We watched as a few locals walked up to a buffet area, grabbed a tray, and slopped raw meat and vegetables onto their plate. They transferred the contents of their plates to their own metal grills. No way, we thought. They can’t expect us to cook our own food? That’s not safe!

The walk from our table to the meat line was a slow one. I contemplated the safety of our situation. Every warning I had ever heard about foreign countries, especially the undeveloped kind, discouraged consumption of raw food. How would we know the meat was done? Did we even know how to work the dome-shaped grills on our table? Was it too late to just go to KFC? The Tuk Tuks had left. We were stuck.

Then came our savior in the form of a small, shy Cambodian waiter. He walked up to me as I stared blankly at trays of raw mystery meats, labeled in Khmer and sitting unrefrigerated in the heat of the night. I swatted a couple flies as we spoke.

“You American?” he asked.

“Yes! Do you speak English?”

He laughed and pinched his fingers together to show me how little he spoke. “You speak Khmer?”

I laughed and said, “No, I wish. Can you tell me the kinds of meat?” In speaking to people who don’t know much English, it always seems better to take out small words and emphasize others. I put special emphasis on “kinds” and “meat.” I don’t know why. But he understood. He was able to point me to the beef, chicken, and shrimp. We began to load up our plates with the meats we could identify, adding small portions of greens and rice noodles.

One of the girls looked up from her plate at one point and met the eyes of an old, grinning Cambodian woman, blatantly staring at her through the plastic behind the meat line. As long as we laughed awkwardly and avoided eye contact, the woman never stopped grinning, and never stopped watching. Then she was gone as quick as she came. We were so obviously clueless, and the locals loved it.

Back at our table, we dumped the meat onto the grills and prayed.

“God, I hope I don’t get sick,” somebody said.

“I don’t think this is safe.”

“I don’t feel good about this.”

“Guys, I’m scared.”

We all were, but took comfort in the fact that the waiter basically did everything for us. If anybody ever gave tips in Cambodia, he would have earned an enormous one. He flipped our meat on the grill, moved things around, told us when it was done, and even brought us some warm Angkor Beer.

After cooking our meat until it looked edible, we began to eat. Slowly, we gained confidence and most people actually went back for seconds. We found a tray of already-cooked mystery meat-on-a-stick. It had an odd, rubbery-but-juicy consistency. In mid-bite, a cat with only half a tail ran under our table. I wondered if my meat-on-a-stick was the other half.

Once our plates were somewhat clean, we decided it was time to bid the place adieu. Most of us had felt uncomfortable the entire meal, and just wanted the whole experience to come to a close. We tipped the waiter about four dollars, which made his eyes light up like a toddler on Christmas morning. He wasn’t used to tips, but he earned that one. After all, his help was probably the reason none of us got sick.

Just kidding, a couple of us did get sick, which is no surprise whatsoever. We cooked and ate unrefrigerated meat in a foreign country. We consumed bacteria that simply don’t exist in our sheltered home environment. We exposed ourselves to germs and parasites, against which our bodies had no chance. That experience taught us to be more careful and less adventuresome, but it also offered an interesting perspective on biological differences.

While developed countries like the United States have the technology, medicine, and infrastructure to keep citizens healthy, their people simultaneously become weak. Growing up, our bodies are not exposed to many of the world’s bacteria and sicknesses, and therefore react violently when we finally meet.

In undeveloped countries like Cambodia, due to limited medical care, people tend to build natural resistance to illnesses and bacteria over the course of their lives. For that reason, their immune systems seem to be far stronger than those in developed nations.

The locals at the barbeque restaurant ate that food every night. They never got sick. They never thought twice. They didn’t have to. We did.

Monkeys

“You want to see monkeys?”

I knew the answer was yes. But even as Mr. Hak pulled the Tuk Tuk off the road, stories of monkeys mauling and disfiguring their owners flashed through my memory. I wondered what my Dad would think about me messing around with a group of wild, long-tailed macaques on the other side of the world. Somehow, being inside the walls of a nearly 1,000 year old city justified it in my head.

The walled city of Angkor Thom, in Siem Reap province, Cambodia, was built in the late 12th century by King Jayavarman VII. Today, much of the city’s carved stone structures have cracked and crumbled, but its central temple remains as majestic and awe-inspiring as ever. The city belongs to the once-great Angkor Empire, also home to more notable tourist attractions like Angkor Wat, the world’s largest religious building, and Ta Prohm, the temple from Tomb Raider. But while the ruins have slowly deteriorated, they have done the opposite for Cambodia’s economy. Each year, millions of sweaty, wide-brim hat-wearing tourists flock to the area to snap pictures and crush the hearts of poor local toddlers who sell “cold drink” and “postcard.”

“Cold drink sir? One dolla!” they say.

“No, thank you.”

“No thank you not put food on my plate, sir!”

A study abroad classmate, Satyam, and I were racing toward the city’s south gate in a motorbike-pulled carriage, or Tuk Tuk. Our tour guide, Brem Sopheap – a giggly, comical Cambodian man and proud owner of the world’s roundest face – accompanied us, along with our driver, Mr. Hak. We had seen the monkeys on the way in, but had been dismayed when Mr. Hak didn’t stop. So as we left, Brem knew the answer to his question before he even asked.

Our cart wheels, which looked like bicycle wheels in a previous life, clambered onto the hard dirt next to the road. A throng of older women selling bananas immediately surrounded us.

“You feed monkey, sir?”

“No, Akun.”

I fought my way through, simultaneously whipping out my camera like John Wayne in El Dorado. I’ve gotten pretty good -- after nearly a week of sightseeing in Siem Reap, I could probably take a picture of a lightning bolt from about eight different angles before it disappears.

Around 15 monkeys had scattered themselves in the grass and trees alongside the road. Old, saggy monkeys sat on their butts. Mothers milked their wet, patchy babies, and adventurous monkeys accepted popsicles and bananas from onlookers. Without thinking twice, Satyam and I dove into the middle of the pack and began to capture pictures and video. I gawked at the monkeys’ slightest movements because I had never before seen them in the wild. They could have been eating their own poop and I would have been equally mesmerized. To me, encountering these animals spoke to the great distance I had traveled.

I took continuous footage until I felt an alien-sized red ant crawling through the strap of my sandal. As I brushed it off, I realized that the locals had stopped watching the monkeys, and had begun to watch us instead. To them, our American amazement was far more interesting than the animals themselves.

I turned back to see Satyam taking a head-on picture of a large, seated monkey with his iPhone. He leaned down, arm outstretched, until he was about two feet from the monkey’s face. The monkey stared back, motionless, but just as the electronic shutter sounded, he lunged. He sprang forward, reaching out with his thin grey arm, white teeth bared. Satyam and I both yelled and jumped back, and the monkey’s teeth snapped on air, inches from Satyam’s pant leg.

Our next thought was that other monkeys would come to the aid of the first. We frantically looked up into the trees as if monkeys would suddenly rain down on us. I shielded myself from further attack, running back toward the Tuk Tuk and giving each monkey a wide berth. The locals began to laugh hysterically. None of them had flinched during the attack. They all stood rooted, staring at me, grinning from ear to ear. Brem was bent over with giggles. Mr. Hak chuckled from the Tuk Tuk.

Apparently my reaction had been a bit over the top, but rightfully so. Back in a developed country like the U.S., the most dangerous part of life was to stand on a subway platform without falling in. All possible safety hazards had been accounted for and minimized, all potentially harmful wild animals caged and tamed. The monkeys signified my freedom from first-world order, but also my inexperience with third-world norms.

Each year, millions of tourists visit the ruins of Angkor. We bring cameras, umbrellas, and money. We stare at the stones, pay for the guides, and buy from the needy children. We carry ourselves as mighty, knowledgeable world travelers, but we must not forget who owns the land on which we walk.

As we find amusement in the most mundane aspects of Cambodian life, the Cambodians are equally amused by us.

Korean Air

The first time you fall into your airplane seat never seems quite right. There always happens to be a seat belt buckle sticking into your backside, or a small white pillow crammed between the cushions. The seat itself usually feels a bit harder than you expected, and you’re not seated for thirty seconds before the large man assigned to the seat next to you requests that you stand up to let him pass through. On my flight from New York to Seoul, that request came in a series of grunts, accompanied by a sight hand gesture. He didn’t speak English. I didn’t speak Korean. But I got the idea. We were about to spend 14 hours next to each other, and neither one of us wanted to start things off on the wrong foot.

It was about midnight on the east coast. The plane wheels made an audible thud as they retreated into the belly of the beast, a monstrous Boeing 747, complete with two aisles, a second floor, and a first class cabin that us common folk didn’t get to see. As I boarded the plane minutes earlier, two Korean Air flight attendants had looked at my boarding pass and directed me down the nearest aisle. They blocked my view of first class, which I glanced at from the rear, realizing that a few thousand extra dollars would not only ensure me mood lighting and a king’s throne for my journey, but also my own separate jetway. The flight attendants wore traditional Korean-looking outfits, complete with tight blue collars and chopsticks through their hair buns. “Welcome, welcome. This way. Have good flight!” they said. Strangely, I felt like they actually meant it.

As the city lights outside the windows became complete darkness, I tried to get a sense of my surroundings. I had been given one pillow, one blanket, one set of headphones, and one plastic bag with a few mystery items sealed inside. I looked around a saw that the Koreans nearby all had white cloth slippers on their feet. My first thought was something like “Those are so weird looking. How could anybody wear those?” And my next thought was “I really need some of those too.” Luckily, they turned out to be in the plastic bag. I put them on immediately and fell asleep.

I woke up some time later, but I have no clue how long I slept. The combination of changing time zones, no cell phone service, and darkness all around makes for a kind of time vortex. I figured the guy next to me had the right idea in not waking up at all. I tried to change position in my seat, but painfully realized that my neck and back were frozen in the awkward position I had slept in. I felt cold, verified by the map on my TV monitor, which claimed that we would soon be flying over the North Pole. But the blanket I had placed behind my seat at the beginning of the flight had vanished. Somebody had stolen it while I was asleep. For the first time in my life, I pressed the flight attendant call button to ask for another one.

She and I both cringed when she arrived. We both knew this was going to be a difficult conversation, but luckily she knew the word “blanket.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “We have no more. Only one per passenger.”

I tried to explain that it wasn’t my fault, that I had been trying to save it behind my seat and someone else must have taken it, but she just smiled. And somehow, I was perfectly happy with that. I guess I’m used to American flight attendants who always seem stressed and snappy. But these Korean Air flight attendants ranked up there with my first grade teacher as some of the kindest people I’d ever met. They never broke their smile. Although I could only communicate through hand gestures, and by repeating the same words over and over, they never laughed nor appeared annoyed. I felt like they actually did care about my experience.

I spent the rest of the flight sleeping, turning in my seat, persistently checking the world map, only to see that the plane hadn’t moved since the last time I checked, and watching in-flight movies, none of which interested me past the first ten minutes. Miraculously, the man next to me only needed to use the bathroom once. As I exited the plane around 4:00 AM, Seoul time, I marveled at modern technology’s ability to transport me across the world in half a day’s time. Despite a slight lack of comfort, I felt like Korean Air had earned my thousand-dollar fare.

The company advertises “Excellence in Flight.” I think they come as close as possible.

Taking My Talents to Cambodia

To my 2-3 loyal followers... you'll be pleased to know that I'm resurrecting this blog. When I opened it up I actually had forgotten how good it looked. I had to leave Georgia right fast on a study abroad trip to Siem Reap, Cambodia. I'll be here for three weeks doing some writing and then I'll be traveling through Thailand and possibly Laos for three weeks after that with a few people from my tour group. The exact details still haven't been fleshed out. But look out for some regular blog posts, and we'll see if this thing can continue when I get back to America. Can't make no promises doe.