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Sot

MY CAMERA had almost completely run out of memory card after having done a lot of photography in Tuol Sleng, the genocide museum, the national museum and now the royal palace. After all that my camera said there was only enough room for three more shots. Although feeling rather tired now, I wasn’t going to stop now, so I needed to return to the hotel now to get the photos downloaded to my computer and change my clothes.

I suddenly saw a familiar face cycling towards me in a dilapidated cyclo. It was Sot who I had met early this morning. He had already recognised me so there was no hiding from him now. He was wearing a pale blue collared shirt unbuttoned over a tee shirt. His face partially hidden under an oversized soft brimmed creamy brown hat beamed with a huge smile only found on a Cambodian face. He was wearing a pair of rolled up cream coloured pants and white thongs. The cyclo had a big no smoking sticker stuck to the middle of the seat back. At least the two of us were like-minded in that department.

I was about to cross the road into the alley to the hotel. I explained to him that I needed to return to my hotel room to download my photos to my computer. He nodded and to my surprise seemed to understand me. With a cyclo like that I had imagined he had been too poor to have even seen a computer ever in his life.

Fortunately my room-mate Andrew had left the key at reception. He sometimes forgets to leave the key at reception which essentially locks me out. If he had taken the key with him I would have no idea where he would be, and would have to go through the camera and delete any photos that seemed to be of poor quality – that is almost impossible doing it through the tiny screen on the back of the camera.

With key in hand, I raced up to the hotel room and spent about ten minutes transferring my photos to the computer. I also replaced the battery in my camera with another one I had charged overnight, so now I was now good to go.

As expected, Sot was waiting for me at the end of the alley. We negotiated a price of four dollars for what I thought was going to be a suicide mission riding in amongst the insane traffic of Pajeros, tuk tuks, and motorbikes. Apparently Phnom Penh is the Pajero capital of the world thanks (I think) to all the public servants getting them as part of their packages. To me riding this cyclo would be like riding a toddler’s plastic tricycle in the middle of a major freeway in Australia. I clung on for dear life as we negotiated our way in the streets amongst all the cacophony of traffic. There were very few other cyclos and this was definitely the most dilapidated looking vehicle on the road.

The cyclo was very comfortable though. It felt especially comfortable as I had already walked for over six hours in the intense Cambodian tropical heat today. I was feeling very tired and worn out as a result. With Sot at the pedals though, there was no effort on my part. I just had to sit back and enjoy the ride and hope to live through it.

Slowly we passed the palace, seeing more government buildings on the other side of the main road. Once we passed them, we passed some amazing spiralling water fountains, again opulence seen only in Cambodia.

We continued along another block until reaching an intersection where we had to wait for about fifteen minutes whilst the crossing street was cleared for the president of South Korea to pass on his way to the palace from the airport. No wonder they had closed the main palace building earlier. The long wait ensured there would be many people along the side of the road when he would pass. Perhaps this was a propaganda thing to make it appear many people have come out to see him.

Finally a convoy of police motorbikes and cars passed, along with a heavily armoured stretched limousine that the president would have been travelling in. The windows were heavily tinted though, and the traffic was very congested, so there really was nothing to see – we all just had to believe the president of South Korea was in the limo.

Finally the traffic started to clear, and Sot continued to pedal through the bedlam turning into the street where the limousine had travelled. There were huge posters with golden borders and three panels. The middle panel had the Cambodian king wearing a white jacket and numerous medals. To his left was a huge photo of the president of South Korea and to his right was the photo of the first lady of South Korea. As we travelled along the street, there were sky blue banners across the road with the text in navy blue upper case lettering in English; “Long live the bonds of friendship, solidarity and cooperation between the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Republic of Korea!”

We passed a red LED sign saying the temperature was thirty eight degrees. That seemed about right – it was a very hot day. Sot seemed pretty confident that we would not be hit by any of the other vehicles in this chaos. He didn’t have any horn on his cyclo, so he would call out a very loud and well enunciated “Parp… Parp… Parp… Parp…!” at the rate of about fifty per minute to imitate a car horn. I’m not sure if any of the other drivers would have heard him. Any voice would be quickly muted in this frenetic cacophony.

In between his horn vocalisations and the occasional belly laugh, Sot told me about all the sights in his most cheerful voice, sounding like this was the most amazing place on Earth. Actually he didn’t mention that specifically, but it certainly would have been close to the truth. Cities had never really impressed me, but this was different – so charming and eerily exotic with the perfect juxtaposition between the traditional Khmer architecture and the French colonialism.

We passed more large fountains and statues until reaching the intersection with another main road. We turned around the precarious roundabout and followed the other road to a huge statue, with a brownish purple dome with the dome shape I recognised as being similar to the domed towers of Angkor Wat – which I had yet to see.

Sot explained that this was the Independence Monument. It was built in 1958 as a symbol of Cambodia’s independence from France in 1953. It was the shape of a lotus bud, symbolising new life. I was familiar with the concept of an unfurling plant being used to symbolise new life. Back in New Zealand, the unfurling fern frond, the koru, was the symbol for new life there. The dome was sitting on four pillars surrounded by small water fountains. This was very significant for Sot even though he was not born until well after independence.

Sot was my age – thirty eight. He looked far older though with the deep set wrinkles of someone in their sixties who had seen too much sunshine in their youth. The aging could be explained from his tough childhood, having seen the atrocities of the Pol Pot regime when he was aged between four and nine. He may have just started primary school, and perhaps seeing his own parents taken away for execution. I on the other hand went to school in peace in New Zealand – the most peaceful nation on Earth. Sot’s teenage years were no doubt marred with remnants of the war, and his young adulthood would have been very unstable while Cambodia attempted to get back onto its feet. No wonder he looked so old even though he was my age.

Sot had married, but his wife was now dead. No doubt she died of something that was completely curable in any Western health care system. Here the standards were a lot lower back when she died. Under local care (if any) she did not survive. Sot had four surviving children, who he raised alone working from dawn to dusk riding his dilapidated green cyclo taking tourists for rides around the city if he were lucky. I imagined there were days on end where he would never get a fare. Today was perhaps one of his lucky days where he was earning four dollars – that is nearly a week’s wage. No wonder he was so happy right now. At least he will return to his seriously run down single room apartment and his children with some money to buy basic food for a few more days.

I gave my camera to Sot so he could photograph me on the cyclo. I imagined the camera was worth more than all the money he has made in his entire life to date. It must have been amazing for him to hold onto something worth over a decade’s income to him, especially as I had bought it with hardly a thought spending disposable income. That would be the equivalent to an Australian holding something worth seven hundred thousand dollars when you take our average income into account. Sot probably couldn’t even imagine what life was like where I lived.

Having finished our stop at the independence monument, we set off again. As we continued around the roundabout, he pointed out the prime minister’s house, just a small two storey house with a high fence around it. It was very elaborate, but no more so than most of the public servants’ houses I had seen in recent days. The prime minister would be able to clearly see the independence monument from outside his windows – a stark reminder of the independent nation he governed.

We continued along the busy road as Sot continued to point out the sites in between the loud vocalised parp parp parps. His horn imitations were hilarious, but somehow it was working as we hadn’t come to grief yet.

In front of us was the distinctive forested hill of Phnom Wat, where I mentioned I had already explored. We stopped anyway and we took photos of each other in front of a large clock in the ground with a circular hedge surrounding it. He then asked if I had seen any monkeys earlier today. Gosh I hadn’t even thought to look for monkeys up here. We returned to the main steps to the entrance to the Buddhist temple, and I saw a lot of small monkeys tearing around. We stopped by the side of the road and I hurried up to the steps where I saw the legless man still sitting there, seeming to ignore the monkeys jumping frantically over the steps all around him. I returned to the cyclo as Sot was a bit stressed that a police officer would come and book him. He wasn’t supposed to park there.

Once back on board we continued following the road around the rest of the roundabout. I looked up into the trees overhanging the road and saw thousands of fruit bats hanging upside down from the branches. We turned off the roundabout and continued for about two hundred metres before reaching the beach front. Here Sot let me off to go on a sunset cruise. He pointed to where the boat was and said he would be waiting here for when I return.

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