Story & photos by Gordon Sharpless
S
iem Reap. We got temples, a lot of them. And if
you visit Siem Reap you’re going to see quite a
few and maybe ev en get a little bit bored with them all. Well,
to alleviate temple ennui, you can go to Pub Street, you could
count the number o f times in one hour you have to tell a motodop to piss off, or you could spend a day or two checking
out that other really big thing we hav e - the Tonle Sap Lak e.
I’ll leave a Pub Street travelogue fo r another staff writer
more quali fied to discuss the fin er points o f the establishments in that area (th at might still be me, but I’ll just change
my name or something, nobody believes my name is real
anyway), and I’ve railed a plenty already on the Siem Reap
motodops, so this month I’m going do a plug for that ecological wonder o f a lake and tell you a bit about the big puddle and its villages.
The easiest way to see the Tonle Sap is to take the speedboat
from Phnom Penh and if you’re lucky it’ll breakdown in the
middle of the lake and you’ll be stuck for a few hours with
nothing to do but stare at the water – so get out your camera
or something. Still, this probably isn’t what you had in mind.
Seriously, due to financial and time constraints most tourists
book a few hours on a boat tour around the floating village of
Chong Khneas – this is the town that’s more-or-less at the
base o f Phnom Krom. I say more-or-l ess as the village floats
and the hill doesn’t so one of the two has to move with the
rise and fall o f the Tonle Sap Lake. If you’re still not sure
what I’m talking about, it’s the village you land in when the
speedboat from Phnom Penh drops you off. Look quickly
becaus e you won’t see anything after the boat docks, for
eight hundred motodops are going to surround you waving business cards for various guesthouses, chanting “ You need guesthouse? See sunset? Angkor Wat? Moto, moto, MOTO!? Go
Martini’s get lady boom-boom? Want wife?” Imagine fighting
off all of this when you’re someone who lives in Siem Reap and
you only want a simple ride back to your house. No wonder I
fly.
So, Chong Khneas is that floating village you caught a glimpse
of and prob ably fired o ff a few shots with your camera as the
boat wound its way between the homes. “ Oh,” you said, “ look
at all the people in the cute conical hats.” Insider’s tip: a preponderan ce o f coni cal hat-cl ad villagers is a sure sign that the in-
habitants are either Vietnames e or Tomb Raider extras.
Befo re I tell you how to really see the Tonle Sap and its flooded
fo rests, hidden fishing villages, bird sanctuaries, and even an island, allow me to offer a little background on the great lake. The
Tonle Sap Lake, the largest freshwat er lake in Southeast Asia, and
its feeder, the Tonle Sap River, exist as an ecological anomaly. In
early June, as the annual rainy season commen ces, the water level
of the Mekong River rises substantially enough to divert part of its
flow o ff its course to the South China Sea and redirect it into the
Tonle Sap River. This forces the current of this 100-kilometer
long river to reverse direction, beginning a process that by the end
of October will see the area of the Tonle Sap Lake grow from
2,500 square kilometers to as much as 12,000 square
kilometers, its boundaries extend anywhere from 20
kilometers to as much as 50 kilometers inland and its
depths increase from a mere two meters to as deep as
ten.
The Tonle Sap is one of the most fish abundant lakes
in the world and the silt deposits left behind by the
annual floods have creat ed fertile ground fo r agriculture. It’s no surprise that one of Asia’s greatest ancient civilizations developed near this lake and today
much of Cambodia still depends on its output.
In some of the lakeside villages, successful effo rts by
the Food and Agriculture Organization o f the United
Nations have eliminated tree cutting in the fragile
flood ed forests. Rich in biodiversity, these forests
protect the villages of the lake by acting as a natural
barrier to the rough waters that sometimes charact erize this vast inland sea.
I arrang ed a trip to the fishing village of Kompong
Phluk and its nearby flooded fo rest, which lie about
25 kilometers east of Chong Khneas.
At this time, Cambodia was at the end o f a particularly bad rainy season that put significant parts of the
country under water. Granted, that occurs every year,
but this year a lot of villages became floating villages
that were never intended to be so.
Kompong Phluk is a small village of perhaps one hundred houses completely within the confines of the
lake. But unlike Chong Khneas, this is a permanent
village. Stilts some six meters in height hold the
houses above the water. While it would certainly be
an amazing sight in the dry season to see these houses
soaring overh ead, on that day our bo at was n early
level with the living quarters.
The village is friendly, smiles from everybody and
waves and shouts of ‘bye bye’ from the children followed our boat as we made our way down the town’s
"main street". The calls of ‘bye bye’ opposed to ‘hello’
is often cause fo r pondering. Are they trying to tell me
something?
There is heavy traffic along this waterway as long canoes serving as public buses, small family pirogues,
and even the occasional larg e metal bowl providing
transportation for some o f th e younger residents all
make their way around the village.
Aside from the hundred or so homes the village has a
pagoda, a small school, and a police station. At that
time of year, only a small area surrounding the pagod a
and school offered dry land. Ethnically, the village is
Khmer, and the economics are rel atively good, with
shrimp harvesting the main source of income. This fact
is readily observable to the visitor as piled on mats
adjoining many of the homes are huge mounds of
shrimp laying out to dry.
After a bri ef tour o f the village, we switched to a small
canoe, rowed by two young local girls, and headed for the
nearby flooded fo rest. With the lake so high, we were close to
the tops of the trees, but the two girls expertly weaved a trail
between the trunks and under the dense canopy where just a
few feet overh ead monkeys jumped from one treetop to another. We encountered an elderly man rowing through the
fo rest with two young children. Then deeper in the trees,
balled up in a branch just overhead was a three-meter python.
Exciting to my guide and myself, our two young boat captains were visibly scared and qui ckly rowed us out o f th eir
personal dang er. Back in Kompong Phluk the girls would
excitedly tell the village of the great snake and their bravery
in confronting this dangerous foe conveniently omitting the
fact that it was soundly asleep in the tree.
If there is one negative to Kompong Phluk, it is the sanitary
conditions. In front of their homes the residents use the lake
fo r brushing their teeth, washing their dishes, and bathing.
Behind their homes, a few meters away, they use it for a toilet. For our own baths, we took the boat several kilometers
out on to the open lake, taking a dip befo re observing a spectacular sunset.
After dark, the reality o f Cambodian village li fe sets in as the
area comes alive for several hours with the sounds of televisions, a noisy karaoke club, and all the generators necessary
to power all this traditional Khmer electronic junk.
We spent the night in a local home. Our hosts were friendly
and two of the younger women in the house occupied themselves by eyeing the foreigner in their midst, giggling and
hiding each time I caught their stare. But soon all was quiet
and a peaceful night sleeping above the waters o f the Tonle
Sap ensued.
Just before sunrise, we headed out beyond the houses where
many villagers, mostly teenagers, were already hard at work
catching small fish. Making their way around the foliag e,
these young fishermen and women rapidly work their nets
with nimble fingers plucking small fish from the lining.
Calling it a day, we returned to Siem Reap and dry land. This
necessitated a trip through Chong Khneas. Regrettably,
Chong Khneas is the extent of the Tonle Sap for most tourists. I’d still recommend a visit there as opposed to nothing at
all, but if you can, grab a few friends and head for Kompong
Phluk or beyond.
AROUND THE TONLE SAP
Further afi eld, the most popular attraction is the bird sanctuary o f Preak Toal. Located about one hour west o f Siem
Reap, it is home to numerous species of birds in dense numbers. It is best visited from January to March.
Beyond Kompong Phluk lie several more villages that are
virtually inaccessible to the casual tourist. About forty kilometers fu rther east from Kompong Phluk is Kompong Khleang.
Kompong Khleang is a combination of stilted and floating
houses built along an old Angkorean chann el that provides access to dry land. Here, they make bask ets, nets, bamboo gates,
handicrafts, and also harvest shrimp and fish.
Still further east is the flo ating village of Moat Khla. This is a
mostly Vietnamese village with no access to dry land.
A huge flooded fo rest can be found at Kbal Taol, some three
I
n late 1979, resident in Thailand, I was asked by a friend of mine,
the Bangkok stringer for the A merican TV network ABC, to
white-hunter an ABC New York-based reporter named Lewis.
Lewis had never been to S.E. Asia. Oddly enough he had been
delegated by the network to follow up on the news coup of the year: an
invitation to ABC from the Khmer Rouge to interview P ol P ot. To interview Pol P ot inside Cambodia; to be escorted at midnight from
Bangkok to some unnamed place on the border and then led into Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge. Mr. Lewis was apprehensive.
Why did P ol P ot offer the interview? Why to ABC? Why ask P ossum
along?
The first reports of horror under the Khmer Rouge had been so unthinkable they were hard to believe. Then in 1979 Vietnam, provoked by
border incursions, invaded Cambodia and drove
the Khmer Rouge cross-country and up against
the Thai border. The tens of thousands of emaciated refugees who managed to make it into Thailand corroborated the horror of life under the
Khmer Rouge and established an even more
desolating reality: it had been a nation wide systematic slaughter, not isolated incidents under a
few a mok warlords.
And still, amazingly: the UN as a whole, and the
US and P RC individually, played roles in support
of the KR, and continued to do so for years. Invasion, even by a socialist brother, even under serious provocation, and even if it stops a terrible
slaughtering, is not to be encouraged: the international community still recognized the Khmer
Rouge as the legitimate government of Cambodia. My guess is that this anomaly was the genesis of the invitation to interview Pol P ot.
The US and P RC were not comfortable in their
diplomatic support of P ol P ot, who had become
recognized by most of the world as the beast
behind the killing. Did one or the other, or both,
with the complaisance of Thailand, convince the
KR leadership that it would be a good idea for
hours west of Chong Khneas. This is an area with no dry land
that not only boasts a flooded fo rest but by necessity, boasts a
flood ed cemetery as well. Apparently, with nowhere to cremate
bodies, the residents have no choice but to tie the deceased to
the trees underwater. Just what you needed to hear, huh?
About one hour from Kbal Taol is the island of Koh Sepouy. It
offers its own flooded forest with abundant wildlife o f monkeys,
snakes, small rodents, birds, etc.
P ol P ot, a smooth man as it turns out, to try to effect a change of image? To start this by giving a few interviews—something he had never
done? Supposedly he was living in Cambodia and leading the KR resistance. The inside skinny was that P ol Pot and the other top KR were
living under protection of the Thai Army in a compound just inside
Thailand. Every major news organization in the world had been trying
to arrange an interview with him; most never even got to meet a legitimate KR facilitator. Successfully posing as one was a lucrative line of
work for Cambodians in Bangkok and P aris.
Then in late ’79, three invitations went out: one each to Scandinavian
and Japanese organizations, both heartily “ progressive”, and one to
ABC. ABC’ s, at least, was for a separate interview. Why ABC? A
long-time freelance camera man had managed to cultivate ties with
some true KR at the border. He had done frequent and good work for ABC, and had been
treated well by the network. He was the conduit
for the ABC invitation, possibly having been
asked by the KR for his suggestion in re: an
unbiased running dog capitalist imperialist news
organization.
Why did ABC send Mr. Lewis? The network
was planning a one-hour special on Cambodia
and had already secured the happy cooperation
of the Vietnamese, not unfairly portraying
themselves as liberators of the country. ABC
sent a pro-forma request to the KR at the UN,
but probably with little hope, for the other side
of the story from P ol Pot himself. Maybe the
camera man’ s approval of ABC entered some
enigmatic process and out came the invite—but
not via the UN. Mr. Lewis was one of the producers of the ABC special. Maybe he was sent
out also because ABC didn’ t want one of its SE
Asia regulars targeted later as a KR sympathizer
by the legion of P ol Pot haters in and around
Thailand.
Why did ABC ask me to white-hunter Lewis?
I’d recently been in several wrong places at
wrong times, a combination not hard to find in Indochina even today,
and got out. This was supposed to instill confidence in Mr. Lewis; and I
needed the money and didn’t want to pass up meeting P ol Pot. I was
also pretty sure that the last thing the KR wanted to do was lose a pair of
gringos to border bandits or marauding Vietnamese soldiers or Sihanoukist rebels, so the infiltration would be either a walk in the sun or a
chance to see dozens of Khmer Rouge die in my defense—a fanatical
defense no doubt, if it came to that, so in all likelihood a successful one.
We had instructions to stay at the Erewan Hotel in Bangkok (owned by
the Thai Army, I believe), and wait. About midnight phones rang. We
came down and were loaded into the back of a small soft-top truck by a
young Thai who might as well have been wearing a uniform. The top
was closed tight so we wouldn’ t see where we were going. We were told
we’ d reach the border about dawn. There were Lewis, two experienced
camera men (a Swede, and the Japanese who had secured the invitation)
and myself.
Because I had map, watch, compass and flashlight it wasn’ t hard to
track our route. That was a showy but unnecessary exercise: about six
hours later we slowed for a right turn and I looked out through a seam
loosened by the wind and saw a sign saying “ P rasat”, the name of a
border town not so far from P reah Vihar. I reme mber thinking that, in
Thai, P rasat sounds a lot like the word for “ crazy,” but why disturb Mr.
Lewis with a perhaps coincidental observation.
In a short while the truck stopped. It was dawn, we were in a lightly
wooded place at the end of a sand road. Morning mist shrouded the
trees. The Thai motioned us onto a path that led to a kind of gazebo. A
smiling man flanked by two KR soldiers was waiting. He introduced
himself in English as an official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
and said, “ Welcome to the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea. I will
give you your visas. Maybe you would not want
them stamped in your passports so I will just give
them to you on pieces of paper.”
When that was finished some more soldiers appeared, and he led us out the other side of the
gazebo. “ So, now we go see His Excellency.”
We had soldiers on point and in trail, and started
off on an easy rolling meander to meet P ol Pot.
After about twenty minutes we reached a clearing dotted with half-walled thatch huts, trees left
standing here and there for shade. A few weaponless solicitous soldiers were waiting, gave us
orange soda and distributed us among hammocks
slung in the huts. The Ministry Man said they’ d
wake us up when Pol Pot arrived. I made an earnest circuit of the clearing to reassure Mr. Lewis
that his security was being provided for and to
determine for myself that, as I suspected, there
was absolutely nothing I could do that would
make any difference i f these people went murderous on us. The two cameramen asked where the
interview would be held and then unconcernedly
went about setting up their equipment, oblivious
to life and death and somewhat dulling the drama,
I thought.
“ Please come to meet His Excellency Pol Pot.” Well, the drama was
back. We walked over to the shaded interview table. A portly smiling
man in a gray safari suit came strolling out of the trees, behind him were
another man and a woman: Pol P ot, Iang Sary and his wife Iang Thirit,
who was P ol P ot’ s sister.
Everyone smiled and shook hands. There was no getting around it: we
smiled and shook those hands. The ca mera men went back to their cameras at one end of the rectangular bamboo table, Pol P ot sat down at the
other, Ieng Thirit sat next to him as interpreter, Ieng Sary sat at the corner next to her, Mr. Lewis and his tape recorder a few feet down the
long side of the table toward the camera men, myself next to Mr. Lewis.
He had asked me to alert him to anything that caught my attention as
needing follow-up or explanation., so I was talking sotto voce to him
every now and then during the session.
Because this was ABC’ s show, I took no recordings or notes, not wanting to be tempted later into unethical use of material that was bound to
be valuable. I reme mber only the more striking points of the nearly fourhour interview and subsequent lunch. Ieng Sary did not say one word.
Ieng Thirit at one point went beyond interpreting and into a somewhat
wrought denunciation of US actions on behalf of the pre-1975 Lon Nol
administration. She was shushed by P ol P ot. Pol Pot himself was a
smooth, smooth man. I reme mber he never got upset, and evaded the
thrust of uncomfortable questions with the ease of somebody who actually had to run for office. He was much too sleek physically to have
been in the bush, leading the resistance against the Vietnamese, as KR
propaganda would have it.
It was only near the end of the interview that Mr. Lewis posed the inevitable question about the millions of dead. P ol Pot’s answer, paraphrased: “ There may have been a certain number of people who died
unnecessarily, but I’ m sure the total was nothing like you believe. If
people did die, it would have been because of lack of communication.
You see, Cambodia didn’ t have good means of communication even
before the war broke out, and American bombing destroyed what little
infrastructure there was. As a result, there may have been some of our
cadre in remote areas who acted with too much revolutionary zeal.
Since we couldn’ t know about this at the time, and in fact I don’t know
of any cases myself, we couldn’ t have stopped this behavior. We never
ordered these things.”
It is the contrast between Pol P ot’ s statement and the recent statements
of KR leaders, documentarily linked to “ killing fields” responsibility,
that prompted me to write this memoir. Some o f these men denied in
interviews that directed killing took place, then went on to blame Pol
P ot or high leadership in general for what they had just denied had happened. Others acknowledged the policy of killing but found other words
for it, then made the same accusations. This all implied adequate communications were in place. The very volume of “ traffic” located and
archived over the years substantiates that communication was not a
problem for high level leadership.
A few minutes later the interview was over. We were invited to eat
lunch with P ol P ot and the Ieng's and several others whom I don’ t reme mber. For me, the first interesting thing was that I was seated at Pol
P ot’ s right. In Communist regimes, it seems to be a common practice
that traveling delegations aren’t actually headed by the designated
leader but by an innocuous man somewhere in the second rank, the
P arty guy who watches them all and calls the shots. The KR had apparently decided ABC was under the thumb of the US Government, and
that the guy sitting next to Lewis who stopped the proceedings every
now and then to instruct Lewis on something must be the actual guy in
charge; let’ s put him in the seat of honor so they’ll know we’ re not
fooled.
The second interesting thing was that Pol Pot could speak English,
though he’d given no indication of it during the interview or so far during lunch. Midway through the meal, talk shifted to the Vietnamese
invasion of Ca mbodia and what might have caused it. By way of backgrounding Mr. Lewis, I said across the table that regardless of who had
won the war in South Vietnam, within a few years the winners would
probably have found or fabricated some pretext to invade Cambodia,
and continue an historical process of land grabbing that stretched
back over centuries. P ol P ot, with no translation of what I’ d said,
broke into a big grin and said, “ You’ re right, you’ re right!” and
thumped me on the back. He never said another word in English.
After lunch the three Khmer leaders took their leave. More smiles
and handshakes. They turned away and disappeared into the confusing shadows of a forest at noon: the brightness of the leaves hides
everything else. Ministry Man led the four of us into another part of
the forest, to the edge of another clearing for a demonstration of a
platoon-sized KR fire and maneuver assault. The soldiers burst roaring toward us out of the trees on the other side. It was frankly fearsome, even without shots fired. When they got much closer we were
looking at the real face of the Khmer Rouge. You know it when you
finally see it. These weren’ t the protocol soldiers who’ d led us to
the interview site and gave us orange soda. They were big, fit,
probably picked men from a special unit, and their contempt when
they stopped a few feet short of trampling us was palpable. Contempt for us, and for this inexplicable situation that had them performing for us.
Another clearing. A P otemkin Khmer Rouge village where we’d
been told we could talk to the people. Some dead-eyed quiet children, some young women at looms who were definitely not village
girls any more; they’d been put there but couldn’t be made to act
their parts. Most wouldn’t look at us. The ones who did, communicated pure hatred. There was no sound except the bumping of the
looms. Ministry Man started to suggest something to Lewis about
asking them questions but was apparently as taken aback by the
atmosphere as we were. Nobody said anything. We followed him to
a third clearing.
Some soldiers brought out two men, hands tied behind them, filthy,
emaciated, utterly cowed. They were Vietnamese prisoners of war.
We could ask them questions. I told Lewis I could speak Vietnamese, so could get direct answers. Ministry Man looked a little worried but said OK. He was right: one man was too terrified to say
anything; the other never took his eyes off his captors while he was
Ox ygen 101
With a recent spate o f m ass
faintings one excuse seems to
get more common.
Not enough oxygen!
This is understandabl e in
poorly ventilated factories but
it was used in the case of a
bunch of school kids mad to
stand outside for an hour!
Sunstroke anyone?
The primo example came at a
factory fainting incident when
one offi cial was quoted as saying, “There is a very large tree
outside which is sucking up all
the oxygen so we may have to
cut it down.”
Anything for a bit of lumber
eh!
Doesn’t the dumbass know that
trees create oxygen through
talking. Yes, he had invaded Cambodia and was sorry. Lewis wanted me to
ask him how they were being treated. With misgivings, I did. But luckily
the poor guy had been well-drilled and said everything was fine, they were
being well treated by the Cambodian people despite their criminal guilt in
invading Cambodia. P retending I had missed part of his answer, I asked
him to repeat it. He did—word for word. Lewis had had enough. He asked
Ministry Man if there was anything more on the agenda. There wasn’t. We
went back to the interview site, drank some more orange soda, and were
escorted back to the border.
Our I’ m-not-a-soldier Thai guy was waiting in the gazebo, and we were
very glad to see him. We said goodbye to Ministry Man, who thanked us
for coming. We pitied him, or at least I did: he had to go back in there. Now
that I think of it, I don’ t reme mber his stamping our paper visas out of Democratic Kampuchea. Fitting, because I doubt that any of us who were
there that day have ever, in the deepest sense there is, wholly left that place.
Within a few weeks of the interview, it was announced that Khieu Samphan
had been named P rime Minister [actual title? At any rate, Numero Uno] of
Democratic Kampuchea, and that P ol Pot had been moved to Minister of
Defense, devoting himself full time to the military ouster of the Vietnamese
from Ca mbodia. Did the US and P RC effect this, on pain of diminished
support for the KR, deciding that, as international dudgeon increased over
the slaughter, there was after all no way to polish P ol P ot’ s image enough?
Nearly twenty years later, Nate Thayer was invited by a faction of the remaining Khmer Rouge to interview P ol P ot. They had outmaneuvered Pol
P ot, arrested him, and were trying him, in effect, for the capital crimes of
murder and treason. The obvious reason was simply to get him before he
got them: this was when whole KR units and their leaders, in return for
amnesty, were rallying to the Government. The remaining hard core central
leaders began planning pre-emptive strikes against one another, to prevent
incrimination by some amnestied colleague who knew too much about responsibility for the killing fields.
I don’t believe P ol Pot had met any Westerners at all since that other day in
1980. He died a few days later under suspicious circumstances. One of his
last uses of authority had been to have another leader’s entire fa mily run
over by a tank. Possum
photosynthesis.
Probably not!
Little Tex as
With several shooting incidents
last month the Khmer press
have nicknamed Sangk at Phsar
Thmei 3 “ Little Texas.”
With the prevalence of late
night bar and clubs in the area
its not surprising.
If you put a monkey in a luxury
SUV what do you have?
An averag e driver.
If you then give the monkey a
gun what do you have?
Trouble on wheels!
Too wet!
“Water Festival Cancelled,”
rang the headlines.
Well almost true. From what
we can glean only the boat racing has been cut. Fireworks,
stalls, concerts etc will continue.
Numbers should be down 60%
in town making the non-event
quite pleasant. Its still unclear if
the riverfront roads will be
closed to traffi c but probably
just Sisowath Quay.
I thought the water Festival was
to celebrat e the end o f the wet
season. In which case they have
more to celeb rate than most toilet seat.
years!
Karl hug it on the door of the
Oh! Anyone seen any croco - toilet in the bar where it became
diles around Siem Reap?
a tourist attraction.
The floods let quite a few es - He sold the bar in 2008 and
cape from cro c farms. Its ok went back into construction.
though the largest 700kg He will be sadly missed, a great
specimen was recaptu red in a family man and always up for a
paddy field. No word on how laugh.
big the second largest is
though!
A sad loss
Karl with Pol Pot’s seat of power!
The sudden and unexpected passing of Karl
Balch at 47 last month
came as a shock to
many longtime expats
here.
Deep est condolences to
his wife and children.
Karl arrived here in
1993 running construction jobs.
He opened the first foreign run guesthouse/bar
‘The Ivy Bar” in Siem
Reap 1998.
With the death of Pol
Pot and the collapse of
the KR Karl took a trip
to Anlong Veng where
in the remnants of Pol
Pots house he found the
Revealed
The capitalist network that
runs the world
AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this
week, science may have con firmed the protesters' worst fears.
An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational
corporations has identified a small group of companies, mainly
banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.
The study's assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts say it is a unique effort to untangle control
in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, could help
to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable.
The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global
economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall
Street movement and protesters elsewhere (s ee photo). But the
study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond
ideology to empirically identify such a network o f po wer. It
combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems
with comprehensive co rporat e data to map ownership among the
world's transnational corporations (TNCs).
"Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma,
whether it's conspiracy theories or free-mark et," says James
Glattfelder. "Our analysis is reality-based."
Previous studies have found that a few TNCs own large chunks
of the world's economy, but they included only a limited number
of companies and omitted indirect ownerships, so could not say
how this affected the global economy - whether it made it more
or less stable, for instance.
The Zurich team can. From Orbis 2007, a database listing 37
million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all
43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. Then they
constructed a model of which companies controlled others
through shareholding networks, coupled with each company's
operating revenu es, to map the structure of economic power.
The work, to be published in PloS One, revealed a core of 1318
companies with interlocking ownerships. Each of the 1318 had
ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were
connect ed to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per
cent o f global operating revenu es, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large
blue chip and manufacturing firms - the "real" economy - representing a further 60 per cent of global revenu es.
When the team fu rther untangl ed the web o f own ership, it found
much of it tracked back to a "super-entity" of 147 even more
tightly knit companies - all of th eir ownership was held by other
members of the super-entity - that controlled 40 per cent of the
total wealth in the network. "In effect, less than 1 per cent o f the
companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network," says Glattfelder. Most were fin ancial institutions. The top
20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The
Goldman Sachs Group.
John Driffill o f the University of London, a macro economics
expert, says the value of the analysis is not just to see if a small
number of peopl e controls the global economy, but rather its
insights into economic stability.
Concentration o f power is not good or bad in itself, says the Zurich team, but the core's tight interconnections could be. As the
world learned in 2008, such networks are unstable. "If one
[company] su ffers distress," says Glattfelder, "this propagates."
"It's disconcerting to see how conn ected things really are,"
agrees George Sugihara o f the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, a complex systems expert who has
advised Deutsche Bank.
Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of the New England Complex Systems
Institute (NECSI), warns that the analysis assumes ownership
equates to control, which is not always true. Most company
shares are held by fund managers who may or may not control
what the companies they part-own actu ally do. The impact of this
on the system's behaviour, he says, requires more analysis.
Crucially, by identifying the architecture of global economic
power, the analysis could help make it more stable. By finding
the vulnerable aspects o f the system, economists can suggest
measures to prev ent future collapses spreading through the entire
economy. Glattfelder says we may need global anti-trust rules,
which now exist only at national level, to limit over-connection
among TNCs. Bar-Yam says the analysis suggests one possible
solution: firms should be taxed for excess interconnectivity to
discourage this risk. One thing won't chime with some of the
protesters' claims: the super-entity is unlikely to be the intentional result of a conspiracy to rule the world. "Such structures
are common in nature," says Sugihara.
Newcom ers to any network connect preferentially to highly connected members. TNCs buy shares in each other for business
reasons, not for world domination. If connectedness clusters, so
does wealth, says Dan Braha o f NECSI: in similar models,
money flows towards the most highly connected members. The
Zurich study, says Sugihara, "is strong evidence that simple rules
governing TNCs give rise spontaneously to highly connected
groups". Or as Braha puts it: "The Occupy Wall Street claim that
1 per cent o f p eople hav e most of th e wealth reflects a logical
phase o f the self-organising economy."
So, the super-entity may not result from conspiracy. The real
question, says the Zurich team, is whether it can exert concerted
political power. Dri ffill feels 147 is too many to sustain collusion. Braha suspects they will compete in the market but act together on common interests. Resisting changes to the network
structure may be one such common interest.
The top 50 of the 147 superconnected companies
1. Barclays plc 2. Capital Group Companies Inc 3. FMR Corporation 4. AXA 5. State Street Corporation 6. JP Morgan Chase &
Co 7. Legal & General Group plc 8. Vanguard Group Inc
9. UBS AG 10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc 11. Wellington Management Co LLP 12. Deutsche Bank AG 13. Franklin Resources Inc
14. Credit Suisse Group 15. Walton Enterprises LLC 16. Bank of
New York Mellon Corp 17. Natixis 18. Goldman Sachs Group
Inc 19. T Rowe Price Group Inc 20. Legg Mason Inc 21. Morgan
Stanley 22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc 23. Northern
Trust Corporation 24. Société Générale 25. Bank o f Ameri ca
Corporation 26. Lloyds TSB Group plc 27. Invesco plc 28. Allianz SE 29. TIAA 30. Old Mutual Public Limited Company
31. Aviva plc 32. Schroders plc 33. Dodge & Cox 34. Lehman
Brothers Holdings Inc* 35. Sun Life Financial Inc 36. Standard
Life plc 37. CNCE 38. Nomura Holdings Inc 39. The Depository
Trust Company 40. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance
41. ING Groep NV 42. Brandes Investment Partners LP
43. Unicredito Italiano SPA 44. Deposit Insurance Corporation
of J apan 45. Vereniging Aegon 46. BNP Paribas 47. Affiliated
Managers Group In c 48. Resona Holdings Inc 49. Capital Group
International Inc 50. China Petrochemical Group Company
* Lehman still existed in the 2007 dataset used
Movie Reviews
Paranormal Activity 3
Much like its progenitor, the "Blair Witch Project", the first
"Paranormal Activity" thrived on novelty value and a degree o f
creativity that thrived within its bare-bones
indie production that helped turn horror
away from the torture porn asp ect that
dominated it for the past decade. The inevitable sequel and string of knock-offs have
since bled it dry. "Paranormal Activity 3"
continues to milk the formula o f its predecessors, but also manages to breathe some
new life into the fran chise and maintain its
trademark intensity.
The first two films charted th e haunting and
ultimate possession of two sisters, Kristi and
Katie, by a malevolent entity, each detailed
in a "found-foot age" mockumentary style.
"Paranormal Activity" was an exercise in
minimalist filmmaking that proved the
maxim of "less is more"; "Paranormal Activity 2" played like a
remake consisting of rejected ideas from the original padded with
filler and too intent on dovetailing with the original to stand on
its own.
This latest entry is a prequel set in 1988,
depicting the girls' (here play ed by Jessica
Tyler Brown and Csengery) initial childhood encounters with the entity that stalks
them throughout the series. The two share a
two-level home with their mother Julie
(Lauren Bittner) and her boy fri end Dennis
(Chris Smith). Kristi's imaginary friend,
Toby, quickly turns out to be not-soimaginary, and not very fri endly either.
After accident ally capturing footag e o f
something unusual, Dennis, a wedding photographer/videog raph er, decides to set up a
couple of video cameras in the house.
Naturally, what follows is a lot of foot age
of things going bump in the night, lights playing tricks on everyone, and furniture finding its own feng shui before the goings
fin ally amp up and become truly malevolent. It's the same sort of
thing we saw in the first two, but PA3 tops its predecessors, especially last year's risible sequel, by being more inventive without
coming across as a slick, soulless retread. Minimalism has always been one of the series' strengths, and an apparent budget
boost allows for judicious use of digital effects to allow this entry
more of an edg e without going overboard.
The fact that PA3 feels more creatively inspired and less derivative than PA2 is due to the new blood involved, namely directors
Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (the duo behind last year's semidocumentary "Cat fish", which was creepy in its own right) and
screenwriter Christopher B. Landon. They correct the mistakes of
the first two by crafting some fleshed-out ch aracters and throwing in a little humor early on to off-s et and contrast the tension.
There's also a little more plot to be found in the story (as much as
there can be without killing the illusion) and we're given a tantalizing ending in a lengthy, intense single-take that expands a little
on what came befo re. Nevertheless, the found -footage conceit
that ties the series together is getting more than a little strained
(with the exception o f the Kard ashians, no family documents
itself this obsessively via camcorder). There's a feeling of "been
there, done that" creeping in that's likely to frustrate viewers familiar with the fran chise.
The Ides of March
The Ides of March ” attempts to be more than just a procedural
political drama, and while moments of greatness exist within the
film, a procedu ral political drama is essentially what it is. The
film contains Shakespearean elem ents of ambition, loyalty, betrayal, sex and revenge — all which can often go hand-in-hand
with the drama of politics. Although the film recycles
many familiar plot devices found in other politically
driven films, “The Ides of March” utilizes them well,
thanks mainly to the strong cast.
The setting for the film is during a heavily contested
Ohio presidential primary, a crucial election that will
likely determine who will run for president under the
banner o f the Demo cratic Party. Ryan Gosling stars as
Stephen Myers, a 30-year-old campaign press secretary and an idealist who fervently believes in his candidate.
As the election draws closer, Myers finds himself
navigating backroom politics, the manipulation of
veteran political strat egists and potential scandal.
These factors not only threaten his own personal belief system, but jeopardize his candidate’s chances o f a presiden tial election. Myers is the lead character in the film and story
fo cuses on his journey. The choices he makes and the actions he
execut es dictate the course o f events that occur in the film.
Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Paul Zara, an experienced and cynical camp aign manager who values loyalty above all else (p articularly the loyalty of those on
his staff). Paul Giamatti is Tom Duffy, the rival campaign manager who hopes to lure My ers (Gosling)
over to his team. Molly Stearns, a young intern played
well by Evan Rachel Wood is also aggressively pursuing Myers, but her pursuit is more seductive in nature.
In more of a supporting role, George Clooney plays
Governor Mike Morris, a candidate running in the
presidential primary race fo r the Democratic Party.
Morris appears to be the kind o f candidate only found
in fiction; a free-thinking man of the peopl e who’s not
tied to any particular establishment or belief system.
Morris is the kind of candidate who will turn down
potentially critical endorsem ents if h e doesn’t believe in them.
As the film begins, the polls are starting to turn in Governor
Morris’ favor.
The film is admirable in that it doesn’t make an attempt to send
out an underlying political bias to the audience. The campaign in
question exists solely within the Democratic Party, so a rival
The political genre tool kit is dipped into frequently throughout
the film, accessing such elements as the seemingly perfect candidate with the store front campaign headqu arters, manipulative
power plays, shady dealings, sex with an intern, backstabbing
and cover-ups. While those tools are used effectively, it would
have been refreshing to see some different elem ents aid the story
and help depict how a modern presidential campaign is run.
While the film doesn’t break any new ground in the political
genre, “The Ides of March ” poses some worthy questions, not all
of which are answered within the confines of the film. Can a
good person operate within a corrupt system? Is it possible to
play fai r in a game that often relies on underhanded tactics?
The most obvious question however is the one that asks whether
or not loyalty and personal ideology have any place in running a
success ful campaign. That question is more or less answered and
allows the film to become more of a charact er study. The characters are where the film’s true appeal lies as the talented cast of
actors all turn in universally excellent perfo rmances in otherwise
standard political fare
T
he government recently announced it was signing a contract
with a French engineering firm to design a bus system for the
capital. The city is the only one of its size I’m aware o f that
doesn’t have a public transit system. This is especially
problematical as Phnom Penh is becoming denser with high-rise
buildings sprouting everywhere. The current non-system, relying
totally on private carriers - motorbikes, tuk-tuks and taxis - is a lot
more doable in a low-rise, medium density city than in a city with
modern skyscraper-type ambitions.
Public transit will not be a cure-all for the capital’s traffi c
problems but it would certainly help. Motorbikes are small but
they still take up more street space than the equivalent number o f
people trav eling on a bus. Even if each motodop is carrying an
average of two people, that’s 30 motorbikes to equal the capacity
of a 60 passenger bus.
Buses have other advantag es besides traffi c relief. They’re
immeasurably safer than riding on motorbikes and more
com fortable; think about riding a moto in the rain or in the hot sun
compared to a relatively com fortabl e seat on an air-con bus.
Phnom Penh did in fact have a bus system for a short six months
back in 2001. It was an experimental system financed by Japan.
Until just a few years ago you could still see the leftover bus stop
signs and bus shelters along Monivong and Norodom. That
system was before my time and I’ve heard conflicting reports o f
the its acceptance by the population, but in general people were
getting used to them and ridership was slowly increasing. It was
ended because the government didn’t want to continue the
necess ary subsidies. Big bus systems always seem to require
infusions o f public money. The government, knowing how
inefficient and corrupt it’s capable of being, let the system die
rather than get itself involved in such a big and expensive project.
Fare collections in American bus systems usually account fo r only
about 1/3 of operating costs. Municipalities charge the remaining
costs to the taxpayer b ecause the alternative would be worse.
There’d not only be the additional traffic to deal with absent a bus
system but finding place to park all the extra cars would be
diffi cult. Nobody needs to be encouraged to own a vehicle, with
few exceptions it’s what everybody wants, so in Western
countries where people have the means, governments go to great
lengths to entice people away from their vehicles on to public
transportation. In addition to massive subsidies, they advertise
and even plead with their citizens to leave their cars at home and
bus it.
You can’t really sustain a dense urban area where everybody has
a vehicle, though that’s mitigated somewhat when most vehicles
are motorbikes. Still, even in Phnom Penh where they are the
primary form o f transportation, parking is an important
consideration. Where I taught English a few years back they had
just built a new six story classroom facility. Two of those floors
are devoted exclusively to motorbike parking, and that space is
crowded with them. Small as they are, there is no small cost in
accommodating them. And witness the masses of parked
motorbikes in front of every popular restaurant or shop. Within a
few years at present trends with increasing numbers o f cars on the
road, the city will be swamped.
The only thing that makes the situation somewhat tenable today is
the widespread use of sidewalks fo r vehicle parking; it’d be very
hard to accommodate them otherwise, though at the same time,
lack o f safe, com fo rtable ped estrian ways discourages walking
and thus adds to motorbike use. A few years back a friend who
was living in Saigon told me he was fo rced to take a motorbike to
go only 100 or 200 meters because blocked sidewalks made it
impossible to walk and traffic is so much denser there. I’ve
heard they’ve since cleared the sidewalks for p edestrians.
Another friend, a Khmer, who’d spent some time in Europe,
really enjoyed walking there. She was all fired up about doing
the same when she returned to Phnom Penh, but was quickly
discouraged from walking in the capital because it’s so
uncom fortable there. At any rate anything that encourages
people to use alternate means o f travel; that is, other than their
own vehicles, makes it better for everyon e.
Motodops and tuk-tuk drivers will howl in protest at a
competing bus system but there’ll still be a big place fo r them in
the transportation picture since they do hav e two distinct
advantag es over buses: they’re convenient and fast. Leave any
building in the city and unless the motodops already know you
and know you don’t require their services, you are besieged by
drivers seeking to give you a ride. Contrast that with having to
walk to the nearest bus stop and then wait till the bus comes.
And furth er, in place of snaking very quickly through traffic on a
motorbike, buses are lumbering and slow and they spend a lot of
time stopping for passengers. Moreov er, instead o f getting you
direct to your door on a moto, you have to walk to your
destination when you get o ff. Going short distances you could
probably make two round trips on a moto just in the time you
have to wait for the bus, though if they really catch on there
might be enough patronage to have buses every few minutes.
Buses also have negatives in terms o f being noisy and smoky,
though that could be mitigated somewhat in the future with
hybrid buses.
Where buses would really make a difference is in long trips for
the city’s low income people. For you or I spending 6000 riels to
go from the cent er o f town to the ai rport on a moto is no big
deal, fo r the majority of the city’s residents it’s a great burden
and severely restricts their mobility, especially in terms of jobs.
Contrast that cost with the ten cents or 400 riels cost of going
that far in Bangkok on a non-air-con bus or the 40 cents or 1600
riels on an air-con bus. Unless time were o f the ess ence many i f
not most Cambodians would opt for the bus. For instance, going
from Kampot to Phnom Penh, the cost differential between
taking a (relatively) com fortable air-con bus and an absurdly
crowded and practically demeaning minibus is only about a
dollar and yet lots of Khmers have no choice but to save the
money and ride rough.
Many locals who can afford long trips, but maybe just barely,
are strongly encouraged by the economics to get their own
wheels since the cost of fuel for the same trip would be
relatively very small, this then also adds to traffic and the need
fo r parking.
I’ve always thought the jeepney system used in the Philippines
would be ideal for Phnom Penh. It’s basically the same as the
minibus or remorque system used in rural Cambodia, but for
some reason stops at the city’s outskirts. For those unfamiliar
with jeepneys the first ones were elongated military jeeps left
over after the second world war. Now they are manufactured in
country. Fares are equivalent to 500 or 600 riels. As far as I
could tell they are all privately owned and operated. They have
bench seats on the sides which about 18 to 20 people can
squeeze into. They can also pull out stools for passengers to sit
on between the rows and, like in Cambodia, there’s always room
fo r people to hang off the back or sit on top, though sitting on
top is mostly found in the countryside, I don’t ever remember
seeing topside riders in the cities.
While you do see big buses in Manila, jeepneys are still the
major transportation mode. If I remember correctly they hav e
designated places to stop, but they will also pick up anybody who
waves them down. On a major tho rough fare there’ll be several
lines operating to different destinations and they pretty much
keep to designated rout es. For instance, if the same concept were
applied to Phnom Penh there might be three or fou r routes
operating on a street like Norodom. If you were h eading south
from Wat Phnom there’d be one route heading over the
Monivong bridge, one going to Takmao, another to Russian
Market, etc. If you were going a short distance you could take the
first one th at came along, otherwise you’d have to wait till the
right jeepney came by fo r the fu rther destination.
I doubt very much if the Fren ch engineering firm will consider
the jeepney/minibus option. It’d probably never cross their
minds, at least in part because it wouldn’t be a viable option in
their own country because of the high cost of labor. However, in
Cambodia, as in the Philippines, a minibus operator working the
city streets could easily earn a basic living - if moto and tuk-tuk
drivers can earn their keep, minibus drivers certainly could also.
In addition, minibuses are more flexible as in the above example
of jeepneys operating on a single street going to several
destinations. A big bus system, especially in the beginning, is
likely to have limited routes. For instance, the bus on Norodom
will not likely branch out to different destinations, which means
many riders will need to take more th an one bus. And since
trans fer systems can get quite complicated, they’ll probably wind
up paying multiple fares, all of which will discourage ridership.
Considering the inherent disadvantages to the individual in taking
the bus, and the concurrent great er benefit to the society as a
whole, the authorities have to do everything they can think of to
get the people to use them.
In contrast to Asian cities, American cities tend to have well
defined downtowns which allows fo r relatively more effi cient
transit systems since most bus lines converge in a central place,
meaning most riders need only one bus to their destinations.
When people do need to take more than one bus, having bus lines
converg e facilitates transfers. In Phnom Penh downtown type
activities are widely spread over th e city, still it would help to
have a cent rally located bus station where a lot of bus lines, if not
all or most, come together.
The capital’s other major transportation defici ency is the
lack o f a modern centrally located ov erland bus terminal
that would be used by all the bus lines. The present
haphazard system works but a single terminal would be a
lot more convenient for riders. Now when you take an
overland bus you have to know which company you want
to use and their schedule. The experience of taking a bus
from Kuala Lumpur’s central bus station provides a good
example. First, it’s easy to find the terminal compared to
Phnom Penh where bus stations are scattered all over
town. Then you walk in and unless you really prefer one
company over the others and know its schedules, you take
the next available bus; with all the buses converging in a
single station, for most routes you’d never have to wait
long till the next bus leaves. Then you have all the
different companies’ ticket windows lined up making for
intense competition. As I remember it, when a bus about to
leave had empty seats, the ticket sellers would call out how
soon their bus was to depart and offer discounts to use it.
Finally, with a modern terminal all overland buses, with
their attendant noise and pollution, would congreg ate o ff
the street and also not increase cong estion.
The ideal location for an overland bus terminal would be
adjacent to the train station, that way transfers between the two
would be facilitated. (There are no passenger trains now, but it
won’t be long as the tracks between Sihanoukville and the capital
are almost finished) For instance, you’ve just arrived on the train
from Kampot headed fo r Kratie; you get off th e train and walk
over to the bus terminal and catch the next bus to your
destination. In the present scattered system, you get off the train
and then take a moto or such to your choice o f s everal bus
companies and hope your timing is right. Or you get off the train
and head to the only bus company you’re familiar with even
though you know the schedule and know you’ll have to wait a
long time. With all the buses in the same terminal, there might be
another company with a bus leaving in a few minutes. To top it
off, for obvious reasons, a transit station where local buses meet
should also be located close by.
In Portland, Oregon, my home away from home in America,
trains, intercity buses and local buses all converge in a small area
at the edge o f do wntown. The long distance bus station was
previously located in the heart of downtown, but was moved to
the transit center b ecaus e the land was considered too valuabl e
fo r a bus terminal and the noise, pollution and congestion the
buses caused was a detriment to the ambiance of the area.
I wouldn’t expect Phnom Penh’s leaders to act on a suggestion
like this even if they understood its value because it’d be way too
complicated to implement and too expensive in terms of securing
the necessary land. It wasn’t that long ago that there weren’t
hardly any overland buses in the country because the roads were
too bad. Very soon, with the country constantly growing in
wealth and tourism expanding, the present non-system will
become increasingly dysfun ctional.
The municipality made a proposal/plan a few years back to
relocat e the overl and bus terminals to the edge o f town believing
that would lessen traffic whereas the exact opposite would be
true. Presently many people live close to one of the bus
terminals, by locating them in the outskirts, nearly everybody
would need local transportation to get there thus adding to traffic,
not lessening it, not to mention forcing most people to pay the
additional cost of the long moto or tuk-tuk ride to the bus
terminal.
by H. El Maure
growing this cash crop, not for export to rich count ries, but to be
raditionally in Cambodia cannabis was grown as a sup- sold in Cambodia, to give much needed stimulation to the Camplementary cash crop.All this ended in 1997 when the bodian economy - starting at a grass roots level. The plant repoliticians governing this exceptionally conservative quires no imported chemical fertilizers, which are liable to indebt
society suddenly, decided that it was no longer a good poor farm ers, but grows well near to houses wh ere a particular
tradition. [Until then it was considered as ''thnam'' medicine.]
natural fertilizer is available in abundant quantities, and it is enviWhy? Well in Phnom Penh the quite discrete main outlet was the ronmentally fri endly, requiring no insecticide.
Russian market, [Tuol Tompung] where a few simple country There is no need for undue concern about the Cambodian popufolk would hawk their value added product - ''hashish'' at ex- lation because cannabis is a substance they have used for centutremely competitive prices in the international market place. Re- ries and the people have only noticed good effects [''thnam'']
markable wh en you think they never ev en paid to attend the Regardless o f whether using drugs is right or wrong, good or bad,
Georgetown University's school of business to learn the basics safe or d angerous and despite the laws that try to prevent their
fo r succeeding in a competitive market economy. Far from being use [i.e. the USA alcohol prohibition period with its disastrous
encouraged their success was gloated on by the evil eye, what's consequen ces.] people do take drugs. They always have and there
more it didn't go unnoticed by certain well meaning Barangs that is nothing in the foreseeable future to suggest that they will ever
other Barangs were buying the ''thnam'' not for medicinal pur- stop. [Which is good news for the sales and marketing people]
poses but solely for it's pleasure giving effect! [nought as queer Humankind and drugs have nearly always been inseparable, man
as folk] Un fo rtunately the allies against good fun, structural could be described as an animal who eats, drinks, smokes, injects,
loans, and other pernicious influences, forced this traditional or inhales substances in the hope that he will feel better, or just
product o ff the open mark et where it really belongs. When will different. The results have been bittersweet, carrying him to the
Asian politicians have the backbone to stand up to sel f interested heights of ecstatic pleasu re and to the depths of unrelenting pain.
fo reign manipulators and p rotect thei r traditions. Really Cambo- Cannabis was used in China 4800 years ago, they called it ''the
dia you didn't need all those foreign business schools to teach you liberator o f sin'' and ''the delight giver'' [dam useful if you'v e had
how to do your most success ful import business - tax free Toyota the misfortune o f meeting a ''behaviorist sex therapist - they beLandcruisers. So why do you have to get an accounting or man- lieve guiltless no fault sex isn't possible - what a weird concept!],
agement diploma to have a job working in the bureaucracy mak- Sythians threw it on the hot stones in steam baths to produce an
ing tea money or working for a prestigious salary in some prose- intoxicating effect, Hindus called it the ''heavenly guide'' and
lytic NGO?
''soother of g rief'' and the Greek physician Gal en noted its narForeign business universities if you are not taking money under cotic effect, cannabis was once known as ''the camp follower''
false pretence- tell us about the success in application in Cambo- which probably explains why it can be found almost everywhere
dia of the knowledg e you teach, how many of the businesses except in tropical fo rests and Arctic regions.
around Psa Thmei learnt how to do business from you? Outside Prior to the 1900s cannabis was known for its medicinal value
the temporary ''favoured country status'' garments facto ry exports, although the Goncourt Journals did note that some deviant
what and how, have wealthy Cambodians invested in Cambodia French authors us ed it at parties fo r their own pleasure. Qu een
from their own money to develop their country?
Victoria was prescribed hashish to calm her period pains and in
Face it, why take the risk, simply cynically transport goods and folk medicin e it was considered an analgesi c, topical anaesth etic,
make commission on products made in Thailand, Malaysia and antispasmodic, antidepressant, appetite stimulant, and antiVietnam, it’s a much safer investment, as even many Barang asthmatic. Today modern medicine could go much further in
companies here are in dire straights with the present commercial separating the complex elements of this plant if it were not for the
set up.
recent stigmatisation by Western interests.
Why not use freely creative thought to develop the cutting edge Life is filled with danger and we should face it intelligently. We
in marketing fo r the intern ational tourist industry, raise much can start by understanding the basic fact that drugs and medicines
needed taxes to pay back all the recently signed loans and at the are not intrinsically ''good'' or ''bad''. It depends on how and why
same time discourage the dangerous and illicit drug trade?
they are used. Coffee, chocolate and alcohol, provide simple
Brilliant? Right! Now here's how it's done - be the first country in well-known examples. Incid entally, offi cial repo rts commisthe world to invite international companies to add a certain lim- sioned years ago by the British and USA governments were inited amount of cannabis to legally labelled and controlled brands dulgent on the subject of cann abis, considering it to be less harmof cigarettes [reefers]. Next - license certain manufacturers to do ful than alcohol. Howev er God fearing politicians chose to ignore
the same with patisserie desserts which would be sold along with the expensive expert reports paid for as usual with the taxpayer's
bang lassie [that's not a dog dish] in a limited number of ''sans money, and that did nothing to discourage drinking in public
soucis'' restaurants.
places.
Cambodia would become a thriving economy, the envy of her Synthetic drugs i.e. Yaba and glue are ravaging Cambodia's urpowerful neighbours and the tourist Mecca o f Asia. No more ban population and The Cambodian Government should decide to
need to continue its shameful begging bowl NGO economy. [The do something about it independently, along the lines of intellicountries NGOs come from don't have NGOs, their countries do gently controlling drugs in order not to be controlled by drugs.
business, but you can't compete with them because the dice have Drugs should be used in selected quantities for s elect ed purposes
been loaded by the WTO - so you should follow the advise of the or not used at all, now is the time to be happy and work tog ether
business gurus - be original - see plan above]
to get the economy going.
Local farm ers would once ag ain be allowed to mak e money
T
Pubbing it Overseas.
Nana P laza a dark and dingy shopping mall o f raunchy iniquity, heavily liquored it seemed like a great idea. Downstairs the Bar Beers were
in full swing, no make that sway, it was pretty late in the night. The
main entrance also see med to be flowing backwards, but we battled
against the tide and arrived at the bottom floor which just oozes
sleaze. The red lights by the escalators draw you up to explore more
of this mall of te mptation, and it’ s not tempting as in beautiful and
endearing, more like Walkabout at five in the morn after five too
many beers.
It is somewhat difficult to choose a place to stop in at as
most places have a solitary girl, guy or inbetweener on the door touting for custom, and some for m o f barrier to prevent you from seeing
what truly awaits within. That led us to Angel Witch, a place with a
reputation that precedes it, for a top show at least. The show was certainly more artistic than most as two girls in perfect white span
through their moves, hands gently prizing segments of e ach other’ s
garments from their bodies, slowly revealing more of the beauty beneath. The girls went down to just their panties, fir m round breasts
and sweet humps extenuated by arching backs gleaming with sweat
fro m their exertions. Too soon was the crowd clapping as the girls
gathered their discarded clothing and ran backstage. That meant we
were soon back out on the hot and sweaty balcony peering in past
curtains to see if there was any action left at this late hour. Whilst we
tried a couple of places there wasn’ t really. We ended up on the street
outside, cheap whiskey and coke fro m a drinks stall keeping the night
alive whilst we figured out our next move. After chatting to a few of
the other street side revelers we’ d found our venue, and stopping only
for Big Macs we headed straight there.
‘ There’ was the basement car park of a tower block a few
blocks away, half of which had been converted into an after hours
nightclub. There was an entry charge, but a couple of fre e drinks were
included, and where the hell else were we going to go anyway. Inside
was a mainly Thai club crowd dancing to mostly Thai pop. The place
must have been somewhat legal as they had a separate smoking room,
my friend found himself some co mpany on his first trip their. I, more
into dancing, played around on the dance floor, stopping to cool down
with severely over-priced beer far too frequently. Sometime the next
morning we stumbled out into the sun, groping in our pockets for
shades we’ d forgotten, but relieved by the site of a 7 Eleven across the
street where we could get the necessary comforts for recovery at the
hotel.
That recovery would take all day, I enjoyed that smoke I’ d
found in the afternoon, went for a couple of last beers before my mate
left for his flight, and then had a re asonably early night. The next day
I was flying out, though not till the evening. That gave me plenty of
time to head to Gulliver’s, the pub on Kao San road had been a favourite hunting ground of mine in the past and I thought I should
check out the sister bar near Sukhmvit. Sister was older and wiser,
ready for anything, even her wash rooms were equipped with a sink
for the eventuality of vomiting clientel. Less fun as well though, the
rotating car centre piece is somewhat cool suspended fro m the c eiling,
but more people are drinking tea than beer and it’ s the afternoon for
F’ s sake.
A few ga mes of pool and it was time to go exploring, this
time in the streets around Nana. This area is stocked full of bars promoting long all day happy hours. Not too hard to find a cheap pint in
these parts, some cheap women as well I guess, but not any attractive
ones. I settled in on the pool table in one such establishment with
cheap pints of Carlsberg, and actually went on quite a run, defeating
all comers. Fro m aging sexpats, to crippled Vietnam vets, to brash
English tourists I beat just about every cliché of a person you’d expect
to find in a Bangkok. I le ft unde feated and victorious ful filling my
cliché, cocky expat fro m rival city.
Making sure I left that persona in the bar I got into a cab,
headed back to the hotel, jumped on the sky train, got through the
enthralling airport security checks and queues, flew to Malaysia, spent
the night drinking in a lounge, flew to London, changed forty dollars
into pounds and headed off to get a train into central London. I made
it as far as the ticket machine which abruptly informed me that forty
dollars, now twenty two pounds, was not going to cut it. Astonished I
headed up to the buses and paid a tenner to get into London, and still
needed to use a cash machine again for the journey home.
Arriving in my hometown I thought I’ d just be able to drop
into the pub at the station and call my folks to pick me up. I was well
in the mood for a pint of bitter, what the hell had they done with the
pub though? Oh well, I’ d walk to the next pub then, closed for renovations, so i walked the rest of the way home.
My pubbing needs in England were twofold, watching the footie, and
enjoying the wide selection of ales and bitters on tap. The pints on
offer certainly didn’t disappoint with most pubs offering up a dec ent
selection of the bigger named varieties, and quite a few o ffering an
independent ale or bitter as well. One o f these brews, simply labeled
as Summer Ale, was just the ticket on a hot day by the seafront.
Fresh hops, a fruity background, and that unique twang of bitterness
in place of gas made this a refreshing, if lightly chilled, accompaniment to the crisp humidity free heat of the English coast. It was still
but April, but an early heat wave meant the summer was off to a
good start.
After the initial shock of public transport prices I was pleasantly
surprised with the cost of things. Beer in the pubs wasn’ t much more
expensive than Bangkok at around three pound a pint, and in the
supermarkets I thought I was dreaming, thirty cans for fifteen quid,
yes please. P ound World was also quite amazing as nearly everything in there was cheaper than it would be found in Ca mbodia. I
was able to pick up a variety of knickknacks that would be good to
bring back, and gorge myself on two or three for the pound scotch
eggs, pork pies, chocolate bars, and other UK treats I’ d been missing.
Still we stray from the pubs, so skipping fa mily time, I leave ho me
on a bus direct to the airport which is both quicker and cheaper than
the train. In the airport I’ m a maz ed that the Weatherspoon’s is selling pints at a regular price, but happily quaff a few waiting for the
plane, cooling down after customs re fused my bottle of Sang So m
entry to the plane. I also berate myself for not downing the thing
before going through customs, it wasn’t a full size bottle, and I’ m not
into alcohol abuse.
The plane to Amsterda m re aches cruising altitude and immediately
begins its descent. It’ s a short flight and despite some lingering concerns over a couple of unpaid debts I pass through customs without a
hitch, and head down below to get a train. No crazy London prices
here thankfully, less than five Euros and I’ m speeding to the center
of A msterda m. Centraal Station in Amsterdam has a river to its back,
and to it’s front all the center of Amsterda m spreads out fro m it in
the concentric circles of the canals. I don’ t even need to cross a canal
to reach my destination, the Warmoestraat, which is a short five minute walk from the station, even dragging all my luggage with me.
For those not fa miliar with Amsterdam the War moestraat is the street
before the red light district begins. A party street of co ffee shops and
bars filled with tourists enjoying the availability of drugs and sex,
mixed in with the party hardened expats, the locals that decided not
to grow up and stop smoking, the street hustlers, the ladies of the
night, the junkies, the drunks, the queers, the freaks and the insane.
It’s a vibrant melting pot of cultures and personalities getting high on
whatever turns them on. I’ m supposed to be meeting a friend at the
Greenhouse Effect, but it’ s packed and there ain’t no room for my
bags so I head to the Hill St Blues across the street. Feeling nostalgic
I pick up a few gra ms o f White Widow, rolled up pure it kicks like a
mule, and I kick back to enjoy the sights of the street and the laid
back coffee shop beats.
Friends start to arrive and I’ve soon got my bags stashed away and
I’ m in the Greenhouse Effect just loving the loud punchy drum &
bass and metal, and the flow o f faces fro m the past it is acco mpanying. It’s a night of catching up with friends, chatting and enjoying an
atmosphere that is raucous and lively. S moking is allowed, it’s great
to see the Dutch attitude of bending the law to suit one’ s perspective
is alive and well, not only joints, but cigarettes as well are being
smoked and in the smokey haze amongst ever more old friends it
almost feels like I never left.
Almost. More fro m Holland and the trip back next month.
BITS FROM THE BEACH
The rains have finally passed away down here in Snooky and
without too much damage compared to the rest o f the country.
The two main problems were the pier on Serendipity beach
where the extension was completely washed away and down on
Otres some of the new resorts were flooded some quite badly but
they can rebuild and learn from the lessons.
New business are still cropping up all over the pl ace up on
Victory Hill there is now another n ew Irish bar this one is called
Powers Irish bar and he is a relative of the other Irish bar
Gilligans Ireland. Turn left at the Corner Bar and keep going you
will find the Barracud a Blues this site formerly Vida Loca and
Rainy Season. Another new bar which was advertised in last
months mag is Whisky Galore we were told it was on Ekereach
Street on the way down to the port but we could not find it will
try again next month.
Carlsberg have now finally launched a draft beer and it is not a
bad drop at all you can find it at Sakal Bungalows, Stevie Cs,
Paddys ,Shipwreck, Beach Road and Ocean Walk Inn as well as
many others.
Probably one of Sihanoukvilles longest running barman has quit
his job at Sakal and jumped ship to Snookys in town. We wish
Gary good luck in his new job.
Back to new bars and the form er site o f Pims which we will call
Pims Plaza for now a host o f new units was built here and so far
we have The Green Lemon, which is linked into one of the beach
bars (Musilies)on Occheuteal, Captain Chims2, Khmer run they
also have a bar in Kampot and there will be a self service
restaurant called Suchi opening soon run in connection with
Barbarella on the Lions roundabout.
Whilst we are on new places we don't normally plug other
provinces but if you are coming en-route or departing Snooky
and going through Koh Kong there is a real fl ash new place
called the Koh Kong Bay Hotel which is right on the water and
has very well appointed balcony rooms with fantastic views o f
the river. The restaurant 'Cafe Bay' is right up there with
anything that you would rate in PP. We really shake our heads
here in Sihanoukville as to why two classy places to eat in Koh
Kong on the river at have very low prices and we lack anything
close to them here. Well we live in hope!
Max Guest House on 333 road has changed hands it has been
sold to the Dutch owner of Pacinos. Unfortunately the former
owner had to return to his native country due to illness.
On the bumpy road down to the pier sees a new Khmer
restaurant called Nice Foods cheap western and Khmer food,
fu rther down is Serenity Spa usual massage and beauty
treatments and then Greek Soul Kitchen which has some decent
Greek food and would be our pick of the new bar/restaurants.
Flights will start into Sihanoukville from Siam Reap on the 14th
December there will be 3 flights a week and Angkor Cambodia
Airways will be operating the flights. The flight will take 70
minutes and there is an opening o ffer o f $48 one way. Flights
will be on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
The US Navy have been back in town when the USNS
Safeguard visited Sihanoukville, for Cooperation Afloat
Readiness and Training (CARAT) Cambodia 2011. CARAT is a
series of bilateral exercises held annually in Southeast Asia to
strengthen relationships and enhance force readiness. Bringing in
much needed boost to the economy.
On Ochheuteal beach Bar Ru has chang ed hands new owner is
German speaking.
The deal of the month was at the Corner Bar when the Rugby
World Cup final was on they sold draft beer at 25cents and all
cans including all imported brands at 50 cents. As soon as the
game finished and the ch eap beer was no more every one
disappeared! Some punters from the Penh were seen stashing full
cans o f un drunk Heineken away, to take home!
OK that’s it for this month let us know your stories at
[email protected]
Bayon
Pearnik
®
Adam Parker, Publisher and EditorEditor-inin-Chief
A. Nonnymouse,
Nonnymouse, Wordsmiths
Sharpless,
Sharpless, Photos
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The Bayon Pe arnik is an in depende nt magazine dedicated to raising beer
money as well as encouraging debate over standards of taste, humor and
journalistic ethics. Published every month or so in Phn om Pen h. N ot to be t aken
seriously or while driving or operating heavy machinery. Always consult your
doctor first because we're not responsible f or what happens t o you.
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