Notes from Cambodia

Author's interesting take on visiting Cambodia and interaction with locals.

K.T Rajagopalan (KTR)

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Total Recall

Drivers of tuk-tuk (The Cambodian avatar of our very own Phat-Phatias in Delhi) in Phnom Penh swarmed around the weary passengers disgorged by the luxury bus from Ho Chi Minh City. The one we engaged haggled hard, but once the price was settled, he became cordial and compliant. He was keen to drive us around wherever we wanted to go; and whenever. To be picked up from the Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) after dinner? No problem. Royal Palace in the afternoon? Fine. To the airport at five in the morning? Okay, I’ll be there.
But how do I locate you when I get out of the FCC, I asked. Here’s my cell number, said he, fishing out a visiting card from the hip pocket of his bermuda shorts. I could not conceal my surprise at the name: ‘Spiderman’. In response to my query about the unlikely name, he said, ‘Much easier than Mam Bun Heng.’ His compatriots had names like Camera, Superman and Computer, he added. Quite practical, I thought. Names foreigners would find user-friendly and easy to recall’.

The famous Angkor Wat Temple • PC : Anthony Gurr

"Here’s my cell number, said he, fishing out a visiting card from the hip pocket of his bermuda shorts. I could not conceal my surprise at the name: ‘Spiderman’ "

Pun on Angkor

Anchor, I guess, must be one of the most popular brands of beer in the Far East. One just cannot miss the red-blue-and-silver cans in the shops and the huge hoardings on the highways promoting the beverage from the Heineken stable. Once in Cambodia, the competing homophonic brand – Angkor – from the Carlsberg house fights for shelf-space, visibility and market share. The logo of the Angkor brand is the iconic temple. Blasphemy, wouldn’t it be, in other cultures? I mused, somewhat irreverently: does Cambodia have a whiskey in called Angkor Vat 69, a doppelganger of the ubiquitous Vat 69 from the liquor giant Diageo?

Extending the thought, I wondered what the reaction would be if an Indian liquor company were to propose names like Benaras Brandy, Juma Masjid Gin or Velankanni Whiskey for their products. Sacrilege, wouldn’t it be?

Tintin in Cambodia

The most avid follower of Tintin comics would not have heard of the young peripatetic reporter having set foot in Cambodia. But on sale everywhere in Cambodia are T-shirts with the words ‘Tintin au Cambodge’ and a picture of the boy astride a bicycle, with Snowy predictably in tow. Another featured Tintin and Snowy in a ‘cyclo’ driven by a Cambodian in his typical straw hat. Though short on facts, at three dollars apiece, they are not pricey.

Clockwise from L to R : Artisans Village, Angkor Beer, Restaurant Hostesses & Tintin au Cambodge T shirts • PC: Rach, Jérémy, Mokastet & Iris Feng

The Young Salesperson

There were over a hundred hole-in-the-wall shops under one roof. They all sold souvenirs and trinkets. As we ambled through the aisles between rows of shops, we were accosted by vendors (all women), urging us to step in: ‘All items very cheap, sir’ and ‘Only one dollar, Sir!’ As we passed by one shop, a tiny voice repeated the call. It was a boy, barely three; I suspect he did not know enough Cambodian, but he could echo the ‘Only one dollar, sir!’ call of his mother.

Parallel Currency

The official currency in Cambodia is the Riel, but US Dollars are as popular. So are counterfeits, I was warned. I had toted up a bill of 25,000 Riels (about USD 6 -This was about seven years back) in the souvenir shop. The woman in charge of the shop took a tenner from me and returned four one-dollar notes. As I peered at the currency suspiciously for genuineness, she asked, ‘I didn’t check if yours was a genuine note, did I?’

The India Connection

The friendly tuk-tuk driver asked my son what his name was. He replied, Hari. Oh, Haree as in Haree-haraa, he and his friends said in a chorus. They had heard that Indian name in some context. The guide in Siem Reap was thrilled to meet us. Indians built our temple, he said, and gave us our culture. We had Khmer rulers from your country – named Jeyya-Vermman, Yesso-vermman, Sooriyya-vermman, In-dra-Vermman, Udeyya-Vermman and the like, he said in his heavily accented tongue. I felt that being an Indian, I was almost being worshipped. A great feeling!

A Tuk Tuk parked in front of Kamasutra Indian Restaurant • PC : Charao

A Red Herring

The young man who took me around the Angkor Artisans Village in the suburbs of Siem Reap, where breathtakingly beautiful handicraft items are made, sported a plastic name plate on his shirt. Pram Bir, it said.

Having seen several shops with Indian-sounding names like Archana, Kartika etc, I was ready to bet my shirt that Pram Bir is a corrupt form of Param Veer or Prem Veer. What does your name mean, I asked him. Five plus two. Five plus two? Yes, because I was the fifth child of my parents, and was born in the second month. Quite an innovative method of naming your kids, I thought.

Kamasutra and Sansara

More on names. The Indian restaurant in Siem Reap we had dinner in went by an equally unlikely monicker: Kamasutra. Cambodian girls wearing Kerala sarees served kadhai chicken and raita. The joint was owned by a Malayali. Along with the bill came a small brochure which exhorted the customer ‘Why not try South Indian delicacies at Sansara in the next lane?’

Footloose in the streets of Siem Reap the next evening, we spotted the same Cambodian girls in Kerala sarees under a new sign – Sansara with the sign-off line ‘for mouth-watering delicacies’. It did not need a cartographer’s skills to infer that Sansara was right behind it Kamasutra. I discovered that they even shared a kitchen and a chef. Talk of Indian ingenuity!

K.T Rajagopalan (KTR)
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2018-10-11
2168 days ago

About the Author

K.T Rajagopalan is known as KTR in his friend's and associates circle. He is a ex. senior banker by profession and travels far and wide across the world on pleasure and work. He is known for his humor sense in his articles. KTR publishes articles regularly on a wide range of subjects ranging from politics to interesting work memoirs. His better half - Bhavani is also a known writer and they are settled in Thiruvananthapuram. Readers may contact him at: ktremail@gmail.com

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