Last Town To Nowhere

As published on SubStack, 3/14/23:

[Stung Treng, 3/11/23]

My trip to Stung Treng was much more stressful than expected. In fact, an overworked yet much cursed part of my body deserves the highest medal. Just don’t pin it on him. Arriving, I couldn’t get off my mini bus a second too soon. Seeing an elegant yet cheap looking hotel across the street, I immediately checked in.

“Do you want to see the room first?” a man in mid 40’s asked.

“No, it’s fine. I’m exhausted,” I bravely grinned. Just give me the damn key if you know what’s good for you, me and your weird yet reasonably clean lobby.

During my six-month stay in Albania, I loved each place visited, with the exception of overly touristy Sarande. The smaller and more remote towns I particularly adored. Kukes, Gramsh and Librazhd come to mind. Though I stood out even more pronouncedly, I met the loveliest and warmest people. Arriving in goofy Stung Treng, I immediately thought of those Albanian gems.

I’m not sure Stung Treng qualifies as pulverized amethyst even, but it sure has lots of character, starting with Samheap Guest House. For just $14 a night, I get a room with air conditioning, fan and a television, with no more than three or four channels, probably, all with maximum static and pixelation, plus overlays of plaintive voices from long deceased galaxies. Doesn’t matter. I don’t watch TV.

In hot countries, the first to get air conditioning were lardy assed hotel guests from cooler climes, with one exception. In North Vietnam, the first to enjoy climate control was Uncle Ho, but only after death, in his mausoleum.

I also get my own bathroom. I won’t perturb you with too stark a description, but here’s a brief sketch. There’s no hot water or toilet tank cover, so to flush, I must manually depress the trip lever. Since this serves to wash two finger tips, thus saving water, it’s a green solution. I’m sure the UN, WHO and WEF would agree. Ideally, we should only flush the toilet after every tenth use, to save what’s left of this trashed planet, if not our nose or health.

What else? The sink trap leaks, as does a hose from my air conditioner. I have no idea what it’s called. AC colon? Along with some mosquitoes and a loud gecko, I see Gregor Samsa often. Since I don’t even have a peanut inside, he must be some cockroach sadhu. Mind over matter. After all, I did manage to accomplish just that on my trip.

Why stay in Samheap if it sucks so badly? Because it’s an education on Stung Treng, that’s why, and even Cambodia. With its arches, verandas, rattan furniture and Tuscan columns topped with ionic capitals, it can be mistaken as a colonial relic, but only to goofballs. There are incongruous touches everywhere. With its low ceilings, Jacques or Francois would have baked. Plus, few Europeans paddled up this way. There was no need for a hotel, much less one of this size.

Henry Kamm, who was in and out of Cambodia over three decades, observes:

There are not many regions in Asia that have been so out of touch with the outside world as this vast province of broad rivers, deep forests, and scarce population—sixty-three thousand people. Even in French colonial days, Stung Treng had little to attract foreigners, except the occasional party of big-game hunters, and enough malaria to discourage visitors. But the B-52s “interdicting” the western fringes of the Ho Chi Minh Trail blasted Stung Treng’s tigers and elephants into extinction.

Northeast Cambodia was and is hinterland. With its jungles and hills, it’s home to many Khmer Loeu, or Cambodian Highlanders. This sounds much better than phnong, meaning savages. In Vietnam, a similar cosmetic occurred, from mọi to người thượng. In the US, niggers became negro, colored, blacks, Afro-Americans then African Americans, for now. Colored, meanwhile, has become kosher again, but more inclusive, to mean everyone but whites. Though meant to isolate whites as evil, it cattle chutes everyone else into a bullshitty pen.

American intellectuals aren’t just idiotic but deeply racist, because they think, most crudely, in broad categories. It’s the essence of Jewish thinking, where entire groups are guilty or innocent. That, too, is true of Communism, a culmination of Jewish thinking.

Are you a kulak? Of course, if not a boogie. Even if you consider yourself a bonafide Commie, you’ll be unkosher soon enough. Though insanely unforgiving and rigid, it can suddenly change its dogmas. To feed its righteous hatred, Jewish thinking demands new targets constantly, so don’t think you’re safe, posturing nose-ringed queer with a Derrida for Dummies on your shelf!

Up this way, even non tribal Cambodians were so backward, because all roads were horrible, then the Vietnam War spilled over. Between NVA troops and American bombs, it was best to get the hell out, but only the most enterprising could do so.

Among American preppers, the standard advice is to avoid cities, with its black crime problem a key factor, though often left unsaid, lest you be accused of being Honey Boo Boo’s secret lover. During any societal breakdown, however, the exodus is usually in the opposite direction. Not only is there more security in cities, but it’s much easier to get rice, bread, cheese or baby formula there. Supply lines ditch rural areas first.

As the Vietnam War heated up in Cambodia, Stung Treng hicks became hickier. Pissed off, many of them joined the Khmer Rouge, to teach those decadent, Westernized assholes down in Phnom Penh what it means to be genuine Khmers. There had to be appropriate penalties for convulsing to rock and roll or painting your lips crimson. What’s with your lurid mouth, woman?

In 1970, the Khmer Rouge conquered Stung Treng, then on April of 1975, they marched into Phnom Penh. In his Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare, Philip Short describes this collision:

They were indeed from a different world—the world which Michael Vickery had glimpsed a dozen years earlier in the dirt-poor villages of Banteay Chhmar, where illiterate, near-destitute peasants lived as their ancestors had, without running water or electricity, without schools, without mechanical devices of any kind, without even a proper road, wholly untouched by the surface modernity that the Sihanouk years had brought to the towns and villages along the main highways. These were boys from the Cardamoms, from Koh Kong and Pursat, from the hills north of Siem Reap, Preah Vihear and Stung Treng, where, in the words of a rich peasant, ‘they had never seen money, they didn’t know what a car was.’ In those benighted regions of the Cambodian hinterland the Khmers Rouges had built their strongholds and recruited their first followers […]

The urban elite discovered with horror how primitive the conquering forces were. Soldiers drank water from toilet bowls, thinking they were what city people used instead of wells. ‘They were scared of anything in a bottle or a tin,’ a young factory worker remembered. ‘Something in a tin had made one of them sick, so they mistook a can of sardines, with a picture of a fish on it, for fish poison.’ Some of them tried to drink cans of motor oil; others ate toothpaste. The archaeologist François Bizot, returning to his house after a Khmer Rouge unit had carried out a search, found broken chairs, smashed glass and, in the bathroom, a bidet overflowing with excrement. Decades afterwards, Thiounn Mumm, who had been a Khmer Rouge minister, still shook his head over the way the children of high-ranking peasant cadres wiped their bottoms with tree-branches after relieving themselves and left the soiled sticks lying around the house.

After Pol Pot came occupation by Vietnam, then 20,600 United Nations peacekeepers swooped in. Over a hundred countries sent soldiers, cops and civilian workers, with the last, 6,000 strong, receiving a $130 per diem, on top of their salary. It was a hardship post, after all. The average Cambodian made that in a year.

The sudden appearance of so many rich foreigners more than tripled the roster of prostitutes, so HIV cases spiked. Corruption also rose among Cambodian officials. Short, “They felt justified in their indecent grabs of whatever they could steal of national property. The ordinary Cambodian civil servant earned the equivalent of about twenty dollars a month, and his pay was usually months late.”

My cockroachy hotel was built then, I thought, but locals I’ve talked to said no. Most UN workers stayed in villas.

In 2023, Stung Treng is a bustling town, with women in colorful pyjamas, if not jeans, T-shirts and hoodies. There are two Vietnamese restaurants owned by a Chinese family, and Ponika’s Palace is the place for burgers, pasta, tacos, pizzas, Indian dishes, steak au poivre, chicken nuggets, mashed potato, french fries, Chinese fried rice and English breakfast.

Ponika learnt to make these in Phnom Penh, where her father had a restaurant. The pasta dishes she learnt from a Japanese tourist. Trying just one, I found it way too wet, but still enjoyable. Her mash and brekkies are fine. Her steak can be tender or tough, but at $5 for a plate that includes potato and an excellent salad, let’s not bitch.

Stung Treng’s favorite son is Sinn Sisamouth. Though he died half a century ago, Sisamouth is still Cambodia’s most beloved singer. At Ben’s Cafe in Siem Reap, he shares a mural with Sos Mat, Ros Serey Sothea and Pen Ran. On a barbershop sign in Phnom Penh, he’s by himself in his familiar bowtie and black jacket.

For singing of love, Sisamouth was accused of being decadent and even an imperialist, so the Khmer Rouge jailed, tortured then murdered him. Since even the location of his death is not known, rumors circulate. One claims he asked for a cigarette and a chance to sing one more song. This so enraged those ushers of progress, they cut his tongue out.

In 2006, Khmer Aspara published detailed accounts by a fellow prisoner that feel more convincing. Here’s a passage, as translated by KI Media:

All the prisoners are called in for questioning every day. During the questioning session, all prisoners are manacled on both feet and shackled to the chair, they were beaten and some even had their nails pulled out. As for Bang Samouth, he also bore torture marks on his back. When I saw him in this condition, I tried to collect cob webs along the wall of the jail, even while both of my feet were shackled, to make a pad to put on his wounds. I did so with great sadness and pity for him. When I first arrived in jail, his initial physical appearance did not change much, but I can clearly see that he bore torture marks. A few months later, an incident occurred while he was relieving himself. Normally, when prisoners need to pee, they had to relieve themselves in a bamboo container hung on the walls. While he was peeing, a young security guard about 15 to 16-year old opened the door to take the prisoners out for questioning, when he saw him relieving himself, he took the bamboo container and hit him very hard on the head. Nobody dared utter a word about it. The guard then lectured him and told him that he belonged to a group of people without revolutionary conscience, to a group of imperialists without revolutionary conscience. I saw tears rolling down his cheeks but he did not cry out loud as others would because to do so, he would be hit even harder, and he had no choice but to shed his tears in silence.

Sisamouth’s last day:

When his name was called, I was very distressed. I saw that his face was very sad and was ashened. Before he was escorted out, he hugged me but he did not leave any message for his family, he simply said: “I am leaving before you Pha-aun (younger brother), may you remain behind in peace.” I did not want to say much, I only replied to him: “Yes, Bang.” His face was the face of a romantic person, he did not express anger nor unhappiness. While in jail, he only stared at the jail ceiling and looked at other prisoners, and shaking his head although no one knew why he did so. When he left the jail, he did not sing nor hum any tune as some would later claim.

Righteously sadistic, the Khmer Rouge fed their prisoners rice husk powder mixed with chopped up banana trunks. Their top leaders studied in Paris. In pain or starving, the body itself turns into a torture chamber.

In all countries that have endured Communism, there are countless stories of the worst abuses, yet its appeal endures, especially among half-educated Westerners. Smug, indignant, righteous and arrested, they won’t stop baying for Marx until they themselves are tortured and murdered, these soy boys and girls with the coolest tatts.

In Stung Treng just over four days, I haven’t had a chance to visit Sisamouth’s old home, so I should do that tomorrow. At dawn, though, I’ll run down to the Sekong to watch fishmongers buy the freshest fish from fishermen, then I’ll go to the always teeming market. Unlike elsewhere, there’s plenty of rice, bread, fish, chicken, pork and the widest range of vegetables, for this is the tropics, after all.

Preschool kids are often seen with female vendors. Food peddlers weave through the crowd. In Muslim dress, there are Chams, their kingdom long gone. Vietnamese sit behind fish.

Gone, too, are koupreys. Once a symbol of Cambodia, there’s not one left, not even in captivity. As for irrawaddy dolphins, there are fewer than a hundred in Cambodia and Laos. Supplanting nature, man gobbles and trashes.

From the second floor veranda of Samheap, I can see the long bridge built with an interest-free loan from China. Most of the smooth road up here was financed by the same. Boats to Phnom Penh, then, have become obsolete. During the dry season, it was all too easy to hit something beneath the water.

With air-conditioned banks, Five Star fried chicken, the International School of English Training and even FUCK FUCK graffitied on a wall, Stung Treng is catching up with the world, though one destined for unprecedented confusion and doom.

[Stung Treng, 3/11/23]

[Stung Treng, 3/11/23]

[Stung Treng, 3/14/23]

[Stung Treng, 3/14/23]

[Stung Treng, 3/12/23]