tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72685145352958501332024-03-05T11:49:55.234-08:00CAMBODIA AS IT ISObservations, Ruminations, and Commentary from Outside and Inside CambodiaKJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.comBlogger276125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-14729409122960245092018-11-09T00:03:00.002-08:002018-11-09T22:34:39.117-08:00Independence by Peace?<br />
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There was an article just today where a university history
professor stated that Cambodians can be proud of their independence since it
was achieved by peace and not by bloodshed. </div>
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This is the way an experienced expat views
the history as it really happened.</div>
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Taken by itself that statement is true as back in 1953
Sihanouk indeed obtained independence from France by negotiations. One should
remember though that France normally did not grant independence without a prior
bloody war, e.g. Vietnam, Algeria. In 1953 though France had become tired of
waging wars with their colonies and the sentiment in the French populace was
turning. After all France had survived a brutal World War against Germany and
her allied powers not too long ago.</div>
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But what this dear professor seemed to have forgotten were
the intervening years between 1970 and 1997 which was practically a period of
interminable skirmishes, coups, and internal wars. Or did he forget that
Sihanouk had given the U. S. a pretext for the illegal and unjustified bombing
of Cambodia by granting the Vietnamese army access to Cambodia territory to
wage their war against the puppet regime in Saigon? Or did he forget that
Sihanouk was toppled by Lon Nol because he was not able to contain the emerging
Pol Pot forces? Or did he forget that Lon Nol fought a bloody war against the
Pol Pot forces? Or did he forget the Vietnamese invasion (for the benefit of
Cambodia though) that led into a prolonged jungle warfare by a coalition of
unlikely allies against the Vietnamese invaders? Or did he forget the jungle
warfare by Pol Pot forces against the Vietnamese installed Cambodian regime
until 1993?<br />
<br />
A fragile peace came only after the U. N. finally brought itself to vote for an
unparalleled rescue mission that brought the first free elections to Cambodia,
which was promptly disputed by the losing governing CPP which then threatened
to secede with the Eastern provinces. Only after Sihanouk brokered a deal came
a less violent period that was still occasionally threatened by the remaining
Pol Pot loyalists who had fled into the jungle. Again, did the good professor
forget the bloody coup by the minority partner in the government in 1997?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only after that coup began the time when real
progress in terms of peace was achieved. The current regime in short order secured
a lasting period of quiet and a sort of tranquility by all sorts of sometimes questionable
agreements – although at what cost? Yes, today there is peace and growing
prosperity in Cambodia but still at the expense of certain human values.</div>
<br />KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-57161505724509680642018-11-07T02:53:00.002-08:002018-11-07T02:53:56.340-08:00Phnom Penh Noir – An Anthology<br />
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Since there is not much to report about life in Cambodia, or
at least nothing that hasn’t been in the papers or online social networks I am
going to review another book that is set in Phnom Penh. It’s not that I don’t
read anything else; since my last posting I read two other books but they
didn’t deal with Cambodia.</div>
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The Hearts and Minds – Roland Joffé</div>
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This is about an English guy working for an agricultural NGO
who has been in Cambodia for seven months feels somewhat detached from it all.
So he does what most NGO workers do they hang out in bars catering to those
well-paid foreign NGO staff. They are a prime target for bar girls who like
nothing better than to relieve those sex-craved barangs of their undeserved
dollars. He just broke off his relationship with his girl friend back home and
pines for a foreigner beauty he regularly sees in that watering hole. His
female overweight fellow NGO worker had fallen in love with him but this love
was unrequited. He finally gets a chance to meet up with the purported
Brazilian beauty who persuades him to engage in some nefarious business.
Meanwhile his lady boss runs over the pining and at that time drurk, overweight
chief account with her SUV who then needs to be evacuated to Bangkok for
treatment, but not before whispering into her boss’s ear something about double
dipping. So much for the contents – I won’t divulge the ending for obvious
reasons.<br />
<br />
This story is very well-written and very much believable. It could have
happened in reality. Great novela.</div>
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The Fires of Forever – James Grady</div>
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James Grady is a fine writer but in my opinion this story
does not do him justice. This is too much of an American-style hard-boiled
crime novel the locale of which just happens to be Phnom Penh. The writing
style is not my cup of tea; it’s too much in telegram-style. Again, here too
this reminds one of James Elroy who obviously influenced many - not only - American
writers.<br />
<br />
The story itself is a little far-fetched with an IT-guy managing to hack into
his employer’s computer stealing the source code for financial transactions that
can make hackers rich or get them into prison. Far-fetched inasmuch as you
wouldn’t expect this kind of hacking to happen in Phnom Penh of all places, at
a garment factory at that. He wants to sell this code but doesn’t know how to
go about it. Therefore, he asks the main character to help him with that for a
cut of the proceeds. A meeting is set-up with a buyer who wants to re-sell it
for bigger bucks. The ending is typically noir as one doesn’t expect it. Our
minds are too much tuned to more favorable endings.</div>
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Love and Death at Angkor – John Burdett</div>
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Now this is the weirdest story in the context of noir
fiction I have read in a long time. Here is a guy who acts as a guide to a
friend who is on a SE Asian sojourn. In Siem Reap on a visit to Angkor they
meet a group of 3 ethereal European beauties accompanied by an Oxford-educated
Indian lady in a sarong and her elderly assistant. I won’t go into detail but
there is a lot esoteric mumbo-jumbo with regards to reincarnation achieved by
the ultimate sexual pleasure. This insinuates that those pleasures can only be
achieved through immersion into Asian philosophical thinking and at a
particular spot near Angkor Wat. There are scenes of explicit sexual
description that border on the pornographic. Sexual scenes can convey deep
romantic feelings but there was no feeling whatsoever in that description,
especially if you call a vagina a cunt in this context. This is not a literary
work like ‘Lady Chatterly’s Lover”. His friend who fell under their spell was
tragically killed by a guard for entering Angkor Wat in the dark. The main
character wants to find our more about that insidious group which he somehow
connects to his friend’s death. He gets further info from an MI6 operative in Bangkok
while sleeping with her. He knows her from way back when. He goes back to
London and visits this sect’s, I guess you could call it that, address which he
connects to a particular street by absolute miraculously deductive thinking.
That sect or group was formed in late 1800s. He promptly falls under the same
spell and travels back to Angkor Wat to participate in the same ritual to find
the ultimate sexual fulfillment which will later lead to a propitious
reincarnation.<br />
I am averse to things religious and spiritual, especially when they are so
far-fetched and contrived to be utterly ridiculous as this story. I don’t know
what this writer thought he would achieve when writing this weird story. It may
have been inspired by the author’s readings of D. H. Lawrence but is nowhere
near that. This story does not belong in this anthology.</div>
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Reunion – Christopher G. Moore<br />
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This is more of journalist’s account of a boy named Rith Samnang, or Sam for
short, who survived the Khmer Rouge, a refugee camp and hard years in the U. S.
Like many young Khmer without education he ran afoul of the law in California and
was convicted of armed robbery and attempted murder in a gang-related case. He
served 7 years, which he also survived more or less intact. The U. S. deported
him back to Cambodia after his release as he had not obtained U. S. citizenship
(like many before him). Here he reinvented himself and became a translator for
the U. N. Tribunal for War Criminals. Nothing spectacular about this story as
expats forums and newspapers cover those stories extensively. One rumor or
possibly fact, if you will, got some exposure early on in the story. The Khmer
kid claims to have been forced to eat human liver by his superior cadre. After
his return he locates this cadre who is now a restaurant owner. The journalist
is invited and they eat the restaurant’s signature soup. Sam says to the
journalist, “Eat this it will make you a man”. This is the same sentence the
cadre told Sam at the Khmer Rouge camp so many years ago. The journalist is
disgusted and leaves the restaurant, not knowing whether cannibalism was really
practiced or was it just a make believe story to frighten people.</div>
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Broken Chains – Kosal Khiev</div>
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This is more or less in the same vein as the previous story.
However, it was written by a Cambodian young poet who had suffered the same
fate and once back in Cambodia became a writer/poet.<br />
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Darkness is Faster than the Speed of Light – Prabda Yoon</div>
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I couldn’t make head or tails of this story written by a
Thai author who sets it in the Olympic stadium in Phnom Penh. A young Thai lady
is taken there by a tuk-tuk driver who thinks this is a must-see sight for
tourists. The young lady observes some weird scene at the stadium that makes
her leave it in fear. There is also some insinuation of some foul play in her
hotel room she left that morning. However, this is not really explored and
fleshed out with more details. An altogether unsatisfying read.</div>
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Dark Truths – Bopha Phorn</div>
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The author is Cambodian and worked for the now defunct
Cambodia Daily. Obviously she is the editor in the story. If she actually wrote
it herself we really have to commend her as the English is perfect. The story
itself is about pedophiles for whom Cambodia exerts a magnetic pull for reason
we all know. Finally, the 72-year-old accused is indeed sentenced to 8 years in
prison. He had a very long record but always managed to be acquitted, whether
by bribing the judge, the police, or whoever, remains unclear. The journalist,
Mark, covering the court case is ambivalent about all this. It is a well-known
fact that child protection NGOs sometimes do trap innocent men making headlines
and thereby securing their continued funding at the same time. Mark has a
history in the U. K. where he was accused of pedophilia as an accessory himself
because his room mate was a pedo. He was acquitted but something always sticks.
He becomes so uncomfortable to cover a new case that he decides to excuse
himself for a 3-day sabbatical and then actually leaves the paper for good
without giving notice. Subsequent internet searches reveal his history to his
colleagues who are left flabbergasted or revolted by such a deception.</div>
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Surely, there are dark truths in many people’s lives; this
could well be a true story. <br />
<br />
Play with Fire- Giancarlo Narciso</div>
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The initial chapters reminded me of The Postman Always Rings
Twice, only set in Cambodia with the characters switched around and a somewhat
changed plot. It follows the same pattern with the one difference that the main
character gets lucky in the end. Not too bad.</div>
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Orders – Christopher West</div>
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The author is not an expat but demonstrates intimate inside
knowledge of the way Khmer society works. He uses the police to depict both the
righteous and the indifferent, both complacent in their way of life but still with
a keen sense of what will serve their ultimate purpose. One is the police
captain and the other one is a police inspector. Both understand what their
place is in this post-Khmer Rouge society without rubbing anybody the wrong
way. They each play their role the way it is expected of them by their
superiors. This way people in Cambodia survive and some even prosper. Nobody
has the will or the desire to rock the boat. Well-being comes before
convictions. It may and probably will change but in the meantime this is the
way life is in Cambodia.</div>
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Sabbatical Term – Richard Rubenstein</div>
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Art Pepper is on a research trip to the Khmer Rouge governed
Cambodia. An avowed communist he wants to see how the transformation to an
agricultural society without money, without personal property, without any
freedom progresses. He is coming from China where he had seen the results of
the failed Cultural Revolution. Art Pepper meets with the Minister for Social
Welfare, a woman who is also married to the Minister for Interior Affairs. At
this occasion is also introduced to a small man who turns out to be Pol Pot.<br />
He is then taken on a tour of a new irrigation system in the province and meets
a cadre there who does<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>not hesitate to
speak openly about the inner workings and failings of the system. His minder, a
beautiful Khmer lady with Indian ancestry, appears also a little disillusioned with
the system by now. He goes back to his lectures in the U. S. with a different
view of the Khmer Rouge experiment. <br />
It is a well-written inside account as it is known these days - nothing new to
people who are familiar with Cambodia and its history. These people might want
to skip this story in the book. Others, less familiar, may well like it.</div>
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Hell in the City – Suong Mak</div>
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This story is recounted by a young Cambodian writer. This is
not a polished narration of events but a realistic account of tragic events
that happen almost daily in Cambodia. It might be fiction but at the same time
it could be true. A look in Cambodia’s papers will confirm this. A worthy read.<br />
<br />
Khmer Riche<br />
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The defining statement of this story is: “Cambodia had swapped the Khmer Rouge
for the Khmer Riche.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Elite had
turned the entire country into a huge tribute system. So much money was
concentrated in so few hands.”</div>
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A fixer is hired by a rich Khmer son, who inherited his
fortune from his father. A foreigner partner in the business has disappeared.
He is though to have stolen something valuable and the fixer is charged with
finding him and with it the lost item. What the item is first remains secret.
He is accompanied by one of the Khmer’s bodyguard who happens to be one of the Cambodian
returnees the U. S. sent back after they ran afoul of the law in the U. S.
Eventually they trace the disappeared foreigner via the death of a
fortune-teller and the story runs its course with a typical noir ending. Great
read.<br />
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A Coven of Snakes – Bob Bergen</div>
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An analyst of all things is asked to look into the death of
7 foreign tourists in the Siem Reap area with fresh eyes. Cambodia is known for
its attraction to pedophiles and the 7 (with the exception of the one woman who was into kinky sex) were
reportedly after underage kids. So far so good, but then this story takes a
turn that really makes the whole plot ludicrous. There is a place near Angkor
Wat where certain rituals are performed by Khmer Apsara dancers with a sexual
twist. They enthrall the foreigners with their nubile bodies shedding their
veils so they stand naked in front of the men. Once the men try to touch the
bodies they meet with their sudden death by means of a severed spine executed
from behind. Remember, these are pedophiles being seduced by naked female
dancers? Give me a break!!!<br />
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Rebirth – Neil Wilford</div>
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Another implausible story dealing with a barbaric General,
also ex-Khmer Rouge of course, who impregnates a girl and wants to keep the
baby. Certainly, the country is full of superstition but this story just takes
it a little too far. The girl does not want to have the baby and seeks refuge by
a down-and-out foreigner looking for an abortion. Eventually, the general’s goons
dig up the hiding foreigner who had fled after discovering the girl butchered
to death, her fetus ripped from her womb and otherwise mutilated. The general
keeps these fetuses in his belief of a multiple after-life (what?) He then
frames the foreigner placing him in his room with a bag of white powder and the
girls bloody panties. The ending is noir but the story is just plain asinine.
Sometimes I wonder whether the writers get off on these stories themselves.</div>
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KROM – Christopher Minko<br />
<br />
I am not much for poems. Some of them are good, some less so – in my humble
opinion. Read for yourself.</div>
<br />KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-52628910186353108802018-10-25T01:20:00.000-07:002018-10-25T01:20:20.530-07:00The Cambodia Book of the Dead – About a Sinister and Cynical Book<br />
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I was intrigued by the first book in a Cambodia setting so I
went on to read another one that had a few good reviews on goodreads.com. This
one is by a German author named Tom Vater who wrote his novels in English. He
studied English literature in England where he got his English language skills.
His German language background shines through with the occasional literal
translation of German sayings and similes. Native speakers might sometimes be
wondering at that but in general it does not diminish the book’s overall readability.
His style of the first few pages is reminiscent of some classic American noir
writers like James Elroy. He doesn’t come even close to the dry style of an Elmore
Leonhard or the sarcasm of a Carl Hiassen.<br />
<br />
The story is set in 2003 in the seaside town of Kep. Maier, a former war
correspondent turned private detective, was hired to bring back the wayward son
and heir of a rich German family who bought into a dive shop in Kep to get away
from the constraints of a staid Hamburg upper class family. Vater narrates a
lot of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge history and the fact that many old Khmer Rouge
fighters and generals are still very much involved in the daily running of affairs
in Cambodia at that time. In Kep it is a general Tep who seems to be styled
after a notorious Khmer Rouge general named Tak who in the 90ies after the
UNTAC-sponsored elections attacked a train and took three Western young
tourists hostage and later killed them. In fact, former Khmer Rouge are still
very much present in today’s Cambodia too but the number is slowly decreasing on account of natural attrition. For the most part they have turned into self-styled,
often very successful, rich capitalists. Stone-age communism had never been part
of their lives, now, had it?<br />
<br />
He depicts the desolate and depressing life that some Western expatriates led at
that time not only in Kep but almost all over Cambodia. Cambodia, because of it
lawlessness at the time, was a haven that attracted social outcasts from
Western society and lured many a Western backpacker into the life of drugs and
cheap sex – which even to this day is motive enough for quite a few young
Western people to settle in this country. The writer of this blog lived in
Cambodia from 1990 until 1994 and part of 1995 and had traveled to Cambodia
many times after 2002, has been living here since 2010, and is very familiar
with the events that took place during those years. <br />
<br />
The author’s historical excursions are mostly correct. However, his description
of the old Bokor casino is pure fiction. Apart from a few hardy young tourists
hardly anyone ventured up that potholed broken path of what was left of a
previously fine paved road. The casino was inaccessible for fear of collapse.
The walls were pock-marked with bullet holes dating back to the time this
mountain served as a hideout for the Khmer Rouge. Guards prevented tourists
from entering.<br />
<br />
The scene of some occult celebration in the casino and Maier’s being clubbed unconscious
there seems a little far-fetched. His German quarry and he rode up to Bokor on
their mopeds all alone with not a soul in sight but then, all of a sudden, you
had quite a few people populating the scene, the guards, a Russian expatriate,
the policeman he had met in Kep had shown up at the casino out of nowhere, not
to mention the mysterious Khmer beauty and the general’s son who partook in
that occult scene.<br />
<br />
There was a lot of talk of investing in a golf course in the national park
there, which in 2003 may have just been a rumor but there were no active plans
under way at that time. Nobody really thought of investing in Cambodia at that
time to begin with. After the 1997 coup d’état by Hun Sen and the grenade
attack on the opposition leader and the 2003 riots against Thai property the
country was considered unsafe for any serious investment. Only some fool-hardy adventurers
tired of their Western dreary life used what little money they had to open a (oftentimes
girlie) bar or a small restaurant there.<br />
<br />
Of course, now in 2018 we know that the rumors were not without foundation as
the road is now paved and there is indeed a new casino, hotel, a golf course,
etc. There was no involvement in the development of Bokor Mountain by former
Khmer Rouge members. It has once again become a popular destination not only
for tourists but for Khmer people on holidays and weekends. <br />
<br />
Tourism in Cambodia did not develop on a larger scale until 2008. There were no
hotels on Rabbit Island. Backpackers slept in fishing families’ homes, not in cheap
guesthouses like nowadays. There was one major hotel in Kep at that time – the
Beach House, which was run by an Australian lady with her Khmer husband. Of
course, you had the odd bar in a wooden shack run by some run-down Westerner. A
lot of them knew how to tell a tall tale, like the bar owner of that expat bar,
a Vietnam vet who told of Vietnamese soldiers who had syringes filled with
heroin strapped to their arms and when they were killed the heroin was used by
the GIs to shoot up. Come on - give me a break!</div>
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The first part of the book deals mostly with the description
of Kep and its strange assortment of people, both local and foreign. The second
part of the book takes you on a wild ride. The private eye meets up with the
sinister and powerful former Khmer Rouge general. Following a dinner invitation
to Rabbit Island Vater is received by black-clad Khmer Rouge girls with AK47s,
and sitting down with Tep he is unexpectedly and incongruously interrogated by
a character called White Spider, who turns out to be a former German
SS-officer. This German suspects he is some sort of spy working for whichever
secret service, out to destroy the little nest he has built for himself there.
Vater is subsequently drugged and inexplicably ends up some 550 km north in
Siam Reap. As the story develops it movers farther and farther away from the
original quest he was charged with, getting that son home. Instead he gets
drugged repeatedly, has some life-threatening encounters with the SS-man’s
thugs, uncovers a secret project by the SS-villain to train young gullible
orphaned Khmer girls into assassins. There is also a Khmer lady with a German
passport who obviously hired a contract killer. Who she want to have killed is never revealed.
On her trip to Cambodia she herself gets killed by people unknown, which is also never
clearly revealed. There are a few of these holes in Vater’s story.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not worth going
into further details as the story is so wildly unbelievable that it verges on
some fantasy horror novel. Of course, the author is German so it might appear
only logical to him to paint the two mean characters as survivors of two
genocidal regimes of the 20<sup>th</sup> century. <br />
<br />
It seems that after the first part the author ran out of ideas how to create a mystery
plot out of the search and attempt to return that wayward son, after he found
him, saw that the son was in trouble already, and was deeply in love with a
prostitute. So what could follow from that? Maybe a kidnapping with a demand
for ransom might have been more logical but would have been too much
run-of-the-mill stuff? The Khmer Rouge and SS-angle seemed to be too tempting
for the author. Of course, all of these evil characters end up dead as the
title suggests.<br />
<br />
I am sure there are readers who will like this book. I am not one of them. <br />
<br />
<br />
A few pics from scenes described in the book.<br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV_UVhakRYmU56gbWess_625owhiFWxyUSdz4ByMn0dhcNdXTAJvkNisaixIb2dtjMM6TWHCOZ63JwNprMpyZ0zo4XU1cZkgJ61B291Xz-qZPqSc5LGTqzfgyQRDXVNKUwG_T5z0F6uQ/s1600/sambo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="159" data-original-width="191" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV_UVhakRYmU56gbWess_625owhiFWxyUSdz4ByMn0dhcNdXTAJvkNisaixIb2dtjMM6TWHCOZ63JwNprMpyZ0zo4XU1cZkgJ61B291Xz-qZPqSc5LGTqzfgyQRDXVNKUwG_T5z0F6uQ/s320/sambo.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><div style="font-size: medium; text-align: start;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Sambo -the only elephant alive in Phnom Penh at the time that tourists could ride.</span></div>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxXBG6v9r57-W9Gy9CPbwpatU0ehXIZimNjmAn77gmc0f6Yvb11gn8vfGQCqew9WhFYuK2JCUh7I3PpFSVDSL_nZr8fTzFo5j4nnoiYN9OP8w5fe1PyeI6MOeuQ6LLe6vCEqIliBiMaw/s1600/Retreat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="159" data-original-width="196" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxXBG6v9r57-W9Gy9CPbwpatU0ehXIZimNjmAn77gmc0f6Yvb11gn8vfGQCqew9WhFYuK2JCUh7I3PpFSVDSL_nZr8fTzFo5j4nnoiYN9OP8w5fe1PyeI6MOeuQ6LLe6vCEqIliBiMaw/s320/Retreat.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">2012 – Sihanouk’s Retreat on Bokor mountain<br /></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrx8NR3qLP6omf9sSOBkkQr913AeIVNvML5jt8V7FbxqpX-ac3vm78cV6OFtjg0aFgzaV37ouI5HxktrNi2jGhTGvIlXtYdxUID0bSS07iEV1z4ZnEOmk81DRUsKyQX0jBOdlPWuZlcg/s1600/2003+bokor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="159" data-original-width="190" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrx8NR3qLP6omf9sSOBkkQr913AeIVNvML5jt8V7FbxqpX-ac3vm78cV6OFtjg0aFgzaV37ouI5HxktrNi2jGhTGvIlXtYdxUID0bSS07iEV1z4ZnEOmk81DRUsKyQX0jBOdlPWuZlcg/s320/2003+bokor.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2003 – The casino ruins</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi__-21qUEWhL6H-8PYTEbBdZ8-VBauSAUEFs_KgGx_7j4uVky42WmqqetFTAi4gVh7xmWkAMhmDRH_SqKvqD4BTAN50zEL3-UDal2EIDOfss0Yz2wuPTDTiQdbxw8APVG30jwtIeIYoQ/s1600/2012+bokor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="159" data-original-width="196" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi__-21qUEWhL6H-8PYTEbBdZ8-VBauSAUEFs_KgGx_7j4uVky42WmqqetFTAi4gVh7xmWkAMhmDRH_SqKvqD4BTAN50zEL3-UDal2EIDOfss0Yz2wuPTDTiQdbxw8APVG30jwtIeIYoQ/s320/2012+bokor.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2012 – The casino being renovated</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieKzhGrPQ5wZrxWNGznhaAtXDdyrGsBifFxUl8pYyAX2-w5Csivzxf3YIi3yECAFuNbYSV82IgDdh9r6NTt6A9rA5JKDsiWGnJ91msRDD6N7vyG7W8FkFL_cLODGvdXBoos3kAQGzSAw/s1600/2018+Bokor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="159" data-original-width="200" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieKzhGrPQ5wZrxWNGznhaAtXDdyrGsBifFxUl8pYyAX2-w5Csivzxf3YIi3yECAFuNbYSV82IgDdh9r6NTt6A9rA5JKDsiWGnJ91msRDD6N7vyG7W8FkFL_cLODGvdXBoos3kAQGzSAw/s320/2018+Bokor.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2018 - Bokor Palace<br /></td></tr>
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KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-67980908146567997732018-10-16T03:13:00.003-07:002018-10-16T03:13:56.586-07:00Hunters in the Dark – About a Novel set in Cambodia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
I am an avid reader and except for the occasional context of
the Vietnam War I really haven’t read a book that is set in Cambodia. Of
course, I read a couple or so written by Cambodian authors but they always
dealt with the Pol Pot era and its aftermath. Although one would have to
understand that the aftermath of that era is still continuing. As an expat
having lived here for 4 year in the early 90ies and now for 8 years I can
attest to that. One encounters the intrinsic consequences of that era daily.<br />
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I once tried one book that was written by a British expat
but that was so lame and badly written that I stopped it after about 20 or 30
pages. <br />
<br />
Recently, however, an expat forum pointed out a few websites that would have
mystery books set in Cambodia. So I downloaded a few of them, one of which had
the a. m. title.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The author is Lawrence
Osborne, a British expat living in Bangkok. This author is of some acclaim and
his books are well-worth reading. I just finished reading this book.</div>
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There is this 28-year-old English teacher who comes to
Cambodia on his summer break. He comes by land from Bangkok via Pailin. He is
hard-up and promptly wins $2,000 on his first night in one of the many casinos
dotting the border towns in Cambodia. He then hires a driver who takes him to
see the local sights where he meets an American fellow nicely decked out in a
white suit and a pair of expensive shoes.<br />
<br />
The American invites him to his house to stay there so he wouldn’t have to
sleep in one of the dingy hotels in town. I don’t want to spoil it by giving
out too many details but our nice young Englishman meets with a few surprises there
that he could have done without.<br />
<br />
He also copes with those surprises in a most unlikely fashion borne out of a
premature world-weariness. Arriving in Phnom Penh he is looking for a job so he
can support himself and luckily he finds it right away, practically on the same
day. A doctor is looking for a tutor for his 25-year-old daughter. She is a
medical doctor who studied in France and happens to speak English quite
fluently. The need for a tutor is quite superfluous but the doctor wants her to
improve her English anyway. The doctor is so nice that he even gives him $500
on that first meeting. The young people go out together and promptly fall in
love ending up having sex the first night. The father is quite wealthy with a
mental clinic for depressed people. Of course, in Cambodia only the very rich
can afford such a treatment and the book is a little short on detail about that
but it appears as if the rich tend to send their spoilt offspring there,
getting them treated for the ills boredom causes. Otherwise, mental illness is
a somewhat unexplored field in Cambodia to begin with. You can hardly find
psychologists or psychiatrists. One can read almost daily about some horrendous
crime, murder, rape of small children, etc., that one wonders whether they even
recognize that there may be some form of mental disorder involved there. They
just stick them in a prison cell, and you never read about them again.</div>
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The father is a former Khmer Rouge doctor who doesn’t fail
to state that he was forced into this unless he wanted to die. Even the Khmer
Rouge needed doctors. The daughter, obviously a pretty thing, is heavily
influenced by her time and studies in Paris where she also had a French lover,
in other words, a fully enlightened young Khmer girl.<br />
<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are some more twists in the whole
story which I won’t divulge here as it would really spoil it for any future
reader. <br />
<br />
This book is well written and got a rave review in the New York Times, in fact,
it is so well written that one wants to keep reading it in one sitting.
However, as an expat in Cambodia who has traveled the breadth and width of the
country, who has lived in a Cambodian, not expat, environment all this time,
having a Khmer wife of impeccable background, speaks, though cannot write, the
language, I would like to point out a few, let’s call them, implausibilities. One
could say it is about the transformation of a respectable young English teacher
into a drifter.<br />
<br />
Would a young man get plastered and do drugs with a fellow Westerner whom he
just met, never mind the nice clothes and his educational background? The
American is a Yale man, you know, but a conman nonetheless.<br />
<br />
The doctor is really generous and it appears he is also of Chinese descent. It
is hardly likely that he would advance the young man $500 just because he liked
the young man’s looks and demeanor. Equally unlikely is that he would hire a
tutor for a daughter who speaks the language fluently already. The foremost
thought in Khmer parents’ minds is to get an equally well-situated husband of
superior standing for their daughter. A fly-by-night English teacher hardly
fits that bill. He gets invited to family dinners, which is not unusual as the
Khmer people are very hospitable, but such an invitation is nothing but a
courtesy. Sometimes Khmer educated people would like to discuss life in the
West with an educated foreigner, but that’s the extent of it.<br />
<br />
Although the girl has some Western experience she was raised as an upper-class
Khmer daughter and would be very conscious of her reputation. By ostentatiously
cavorting with a foreigner she would certainly harm that reputation among
upper-crust Khmer society of which she undeniably is a firm member. Of course,
it happens that some rich Khmer girls do have flings with foreigners but this
is usually carried on in secret or in another city. After all, Khmer husbands
still value their future wives’ virginity very highly, so as to make a union
almost impossible if he were to find out that she has been sleeping around. Sleeping
around is only for the lower classes and the poor girls who can only gain from
a relationship with a foreigner, or so they believe. Sometimes, there is a rude
awakening, though. Young beautiful Khmer girls get a rich Khmer husband – they
have the choice of many suitors. Poor, less beautiful girls seek out the naive,
often older Western man who can’t find a young woman in the West for exactly
what they lack to get a nice beautiful Khmer girl – money.</div>
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The writer published the book in 2015, so probably
researched it two or three years before that date. He clearly was in Cambodia
before the 2013 election. There were quite a few demonstrations at that time
and he mentioned some violence in Freedom park near the place the young man was
staying. A lot has changed in the meantime. The last 5 years have seen a
tremendous development in Cambodia and life has become a lot more
consumer-oriented. Political life has come to a virtual standstill. A few of
the locales were not described quite correctly but that does not affect the
overall book. After all, most of the readers would not know anyway.<br />
<br />
The American fellow travels up to a mountain lodge and encounters youths with
guns guarding a bridge as if they wanted to extort some money from him for
being able to cross. Despite his fear he just pushes through. In Cambodia those
youths could have been in their early twenties as Khmer people look very young
with teen-like face until their thirties. It is quite common that private
companies hire them as guards and they do sometimes carry AK-47s but in general
are quite harmless. The writer made it appear very dangerous to travel on
country roads in Cambodia. It is not. It was different in the 90ies but if it
is one thing authoritarian regimes know how to do is bring security to the
roads, if not safety, judging by the many traffic fatalities in Cambodia. So it
is very unlikely that people would get held up on the roads as opposed to Phnom
Penh where bag snatching is still very much present.<br />
<br />
There is one distasteful character in the book that is very aptly described. He
is a policeman on the make. This type of people is still around and one best
not get involved in any shape or form with them, be it as perpetrator or a
victim of a (even petty) crime or even in the context of a traffic accident
with injured or even dead victims.<br />
<br />
He also depicts the down-and-out foreigners in Cambodia quite well. Many a
native English speaker with a TOEFL certificate comes to SE Asia, or all of the
underdeveloped world for that matter, to teach English as a second language as
they usually wouldn’t qualify for anything else. They often just scrape by on
their $7.50 to $10 an hour in one of the many private schools, of which the
majority would not make the cut anywhere else. Getting a gig as a private tutor
for a few well-heeled clients would get them in the range of better pay but it
is too unreliable to be based on as a long-term solution. It is true that Khmer
people usually regarded Westerners with some sort of amazement about their
behavior and with some curiosity, sometimes even admiration. The Westerners,
despite their sometimes grungy looks, surely <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>must have some money. How else could they afford
to come to Cambodia? Later on the influx of the dirty, drug-consuming,
sex-starved detritus of the Western world changed their perception
dramatically. Now they look down on them with mild amusement or detest them
outright. If you are a businessman, dress accordingly, their approach differs
hugely and is usually quite deferential – nobody should be fooled by their nice
smiles, though.</div>
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Reading the papers I am really surprised by the many young
foreigner deaths from overdosing. So his description of one of them floating
down the Battambang river every month or so doesn’t seem exaggerated at all.</div>
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There is a lot of introspective ruminating, sometimes to the
point of being depressing, but it distinguishes this book from a mere crime
novel making it a very thoughtful read. One thing is absolutely true – the
belief in ghosts and the afterlife is omnipresent in Khmer society.<br />
<br />
I was not quite happy with the ending, especially concerning the Khmer girls in
the story. I don’t believe either one would act or react that way, especially
the daughter after a very distressing experience towards the end.<br />
<br />
Despite all this, it is eminently readable.</div>
<br />KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-50138764921902470602018-10-11T23:13:00.000-07:002018-10-11T23:13:56.496-07:00Disposal of an Unwelcome Patient<br /><iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HXinXppfdjw" width="640"></iframe>
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This happened a while ago in Phnom Penh. In short:<span style="background: white; color: #1d2129; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"> A drunk
soldier riding on his motorbike in Tuol Kork in Phnom Penh hit the median
divider and crashed. An ambulance took him to Calmette where they determined
the patient had died.</span><span style="color: #1d2129; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><br />
<span style="background: white;">The ambulance then took him back to the exact site of
the accident and placed the dead body at the spot on the road where it happened
and where the family was still gathered.</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">My personal guess is that the hospital told the
ambulance to take the body to the family so they could prepare for the burial.
Those dumb drivers then just dropped him back on the road.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-21442122104679538292018-10-05T00:09:00.000-07:002018-10-05T00:09:17.811-07:00Trip Advisor<br />
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Concluding my posts about my experience with the ownership
of a boutique hotel in Sihanoukville I would like to touch on the world’s
largest review website.<br />
<br />
I had not paid much attention to this site before. When I traveled (mostly for
business in the U. S.), I used Expedia to choose my hotels and car rentals.
Since the majority of the hotels were chain-owned it was not hard to pick one
as you usually know exactly what you are getting determined by the standards
the chains impose on the individual properties.<br />
<br />
But when my friend and partner opened a boutique hotel in Phnom Penh we
assiduously followed this website to see the latest ranking. As it happened
that hotel was one of the first boutique hotels in Phnom Penh (the Blue Lime)
it almost exclusively got rave reviews and a very high ranking. Over the years
with the increase in small boutique hotels there that changed but it is still
in the top ten most of the time. So when we opened our hotel we also checked TA
what guests would have to say about us – mostly positive too though. <br />
<br />
In order to increase our position and visibility on TA we signed up for the
business account at a cost of $80/month. We thought this was good advertising
money. As result we indeed got a better exposure as a sponsored hotel. However,
when we got a few outright untruthful and personally disparaging reviews that TA
wouldn’t remove we canceled that account. Lo and behold, since we had been in
business for over 2 years at that time already it didn’t have any effect
whatsoever on our ranking. Even the hotel has been closed for 3 months we are
still ranked #15 on their site.<br />
<br />
The negative side of TA is that you don’t need to stay at the hotel to write a
review. Although you need to confirm that you are not affiliated with the property
but who can check that. This leaves the door wide open for reviews written by
friends or for money, which according to news reports happens quite frequently.
<br />
<br />
Once I complained about an insulting review by someone who hadn’t stayed but
the guest complained about the reception. TA responded that the guest’s
experience with the hotel is sufficient for the review. The insult was not deemed
as such. So what could I do? Reviews don’t get weighted by the guests’ length
of stay or the category of the hotel. I believe someone who stayed a minimum of
3 days can certainly make more precise observations than someone staying only
one night, e.g. from 10 pm to 7am. They may evaluate the rooms, beds, etc. but
most certainly not all the features of a hotel. Likewise the category of the
hotels – people expect an inordinately high standard for very low prices. As
business people we know this is just not possible. A high standard does have
its price, in Cambodia this would start at $70 to $80 a night. Good staff is more
expensive, so is fresh food, a well-stocked bar, a clean pool, etc. What a lot
of people don’t understand is that they can’t get a full-service hotel for $25
a night. People need to go to a guesthouse without service and untrained staff for
that. So hotel reviews really need to be taken with a grain of salt. </div>
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There is a British website (Mr. & Mrs. Smith) that
reviews only luxury hotels (unfortunately). The owners of that site and their
staff visit each hotel they list on their website. They are experts and their
reviews can be trusted. I wish those huge companies like TA or the Priceline
group would do the same with each hotel they list. They got sales staff in each
country so why not use trained staff to check hotels before they are listed. <br />
<br />
The hotel sector is the core of TA’s business but in comparison with the
Priceline group it pales in terms of sales. The 450 million users currently
don’t mean much for the sales volume. </div>
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<br />
People attribute to much importance to so-called peer reviews these days to
begin with. But one must really differentiate between the ones on the hotel
booking portals like booking.com and TA. More lopsided examples can be found in
TA’s other categories, e. g. restaurants, localities, airlines, etc. <br />
<br />
I do write reviews myself for the sole purpose of offsetting other clearly
ridiculous reviews, especially about restaurants. I found the best example in
Phnom Penh. A French restaurant was ranked #1 – the food is mediocre but the
place is always packed, mostly by tourists and expats who can afford the higher
than average price for Phnom Penh. #2, one wouldn’t believe it, is a hamburger
place. Now hamburgers can taste great but nobody would ever think that they are
gourmet food. There is no such thing as a gourmet hamburger. The best
restaurants in town appear ranked in the 30ies. What does that tell you about <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>reviews. They are pretty much worthless. I
tried out most of the top-ranked restaurants there and found only one
satisfying. Most of them are rather pretentious and not really operated by
trained chefs, excepting the top restaurants in Phnom Penh, Topaz and Malis. Which
trained chef besides the ones working in luxury hotels would choose Cambodia
for a career? It appears that people come to Cambodia not knowing how to make a
living in this rather different culture. There are but a couple of options for
them. They open a bar/restaurant or a hotel although they might have no
experience in that sector. It is quite obvious that in general people are not
gourmets; that doesn’t speak against them but they shouldn’t write about food.
We recently traveled to Paris and Munich. Michelin-starred restaurants didn’t
show up in both TA listings among the top 50. So again, don’t go by TA choosing
a restaurant. Check the Michelin guide online (no Cambodian listing) which has
listings for low-priced but good restaurants too, or Fodors. Forget TA. It’s
not worth the trouble.<br />
<br />
Now check out the airlines section on TA. They rank airlines with five balloons
that normal people haven’t even heard of, ie. Air North, Air Chathams, Tajik
Airlines. So where is Singapore Airlines, Thai, Lufthansa, British Airways? At
least Emirates and Singapore Airlines can be found among the top 20. Again, not
a tool to go by.<br />
<br />
Now if you do write reviews TA appreciates that very much. They encourage you
to continue and send you frequent emails what a good job you did, how many
people read your reviews, and you become a senior member after a mere 2 or 3
reviews. My goodness, the whole thing is a sham, come to think of it. They make
their money from advertising, the business accounts, from commissions for
bookings made on their site, and from Google hits. This may be a good business
model but it’s not a consumer site. For that you better visit consumer reports
or similar sites. <br />
<br />
Like most top internet travel companies TA is American and was part of the
Expedia group, which is the largest online travel booking site in the world
followed by the Priceline group and Sabre. TA became a publicly traded company
in 2011 after being spun off from Expedia. Their revenues were $1.56 billion in
2017 – still a formidable size, no doubt, but the online booking market is
estimated at $560 billion, which is roughly 50% of the entire travel market of
over $1 trillion.</div>
<br />KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-31183715704082757452018-09-30T02:46:00.000-07:002018-09-30T02:46:01.013-07:00Double life of a 2-star General Comes to Abrupt End<br />
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Here is a typical Cambodian story. Or is it? Everybody knows
Cambodia has a huge number of generals compared to the size of the armed
forces. There are reputedly something like 5,000 generals for armed forces of
roughly 125,000. Now it is not quite clear whether this would include the
police generals who would be called commissioners in other countries and
ministerial ranks.<br />
<br />
Anyway, one such 2-star general, there are up to 5-star generals, had been carrying
on an affair with another woman for some time. The wife of 10 years with whom he had 3
children became suspicious after he went out at odd hours for military meetings
and decided to followed him to his trysts. One day she caught him literally
with his pants down, and shrieking, promptly went to the police to report him for adultery,
which is a crime in Cambodia although seldom enforced. The police would have
their hands full as Cambodian husbands are most likely some of the most
unfaithful men in the world. The police promptly arrested him and he is now
awaiting his trial in jail.</div>
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<br />
The background of this story is equally interesting as this general used to
work as a moped taxi driver (motodup). His wife, as she reported it on
Facebook, owned a little land at that time, which she parlayed into quite a
fortune with the exploding real estate prices in Cambodia back in 2010 or so.
She used the time-honored principle of buying and flipping land. According to her she was worth well over one million
dollars. She even once gave him $800,000 for another investment in
real estate. As it turns out this money was used to build a nice villa for his
lover in an upscale area of Phnom Penh. <br />
<br />
Now as is often the case with people who came into some money they want some
stature and higher station in life to go with their wealth. Of course, a simple
moped taxi driver, no matter how much his wife was worth, isn’t really something you
like to brag about. So the wife used her money and some connections to buy her
husband the military rank. Now he was somebody. Well, since he now was somebody
he also needed the usual Cambodian accoutrements for such a high-ranking
person. His money also made him quite attractive in the eyes of women who want
to better their living standards. Unless the wife forgives him and takes him
back he will have ample time to ponder his missteps. </div>
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<img alt="Image" height="320" src="https://i.imgur.com/rLNUBFC.jpg" width="218" /> <img alt="Image" height="240" src="https://i.imgur.com/QLqeKal.jpg" width="320" /></div>
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Any inaccuracies are unintentional - this based on Facebook posts and newspaper reports. The pictures were published in major Cambodian newspapers so are in the public domain.</div>
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<br />KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-69816546854381878382018-09-14T02:20:00.002-07:002018-09-14T02:20:52.922-07:00My Life as a Hotelier in Cambodia III<br />
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In this installment my pet peeve with my life as a hotelier –
guests’ reviews and behavior - will get an airing. When we opened up we had
generally good reviews, which was reflected by our average score of 9.1 out of
10. This slipped to 8.7 and 8.6 after a while which was in part due to the
scoring system the online agents used. I had touched on that in part I. <br />
<br />
I was used to guests’ reviews in my previous experience as I was active in
tourism during a nowadays unimaginable period without internet. I dealt with
guests’ complaints by letter. So before we could reply we often had to contact
the service provider, airline, hotel, bus operator, etc. We then assessed the
claim; most complaints involved a certain amount of refund or compensation, and
we replied according to the results of our investigation. We remained
relatively detached from any emotional letters, but some were obviously written
by lunatics, e.g. the one who complained that there was too much sand at the
beach, or the one who thought he could eat in all the hotels we had under
contract because he had booked full board.<br />
<br />
Now it was quite different, as a hotel owner is more or less in direct
face-to-face contact with guests on a daily basis.<br />
<br />
My first somewhat critical but not altogether negative review left me a bit
perplexed. This was a nice, friendly, middle-aged couple, obviously well-to-do,
on their first trip to Cambodia, or SE Asia as they did a typical
three-country-sojourn. They wrote in a review that the owner’s frugal attitude
could be felt everywhere at the hotel and the breakfast was a joke. <br />
<br />
Breakfast was included in the room price and initially was a continental
breakfast with their choice of 2 eggs, toast, butter, and jam, coffee, orange
juice, and fruit. Now how can this be joke? They paid $35 per night for the
room. These guests still gave us a good rating though and would recommend staying
there.<br />
<br />
Breakfast was a major reason for dissatisfaction. With 16 rooms it certainly is
not economical to put on a breakfast buffet. Nowadays, many hotels offer this to
save on staff expenses. Our breakfast though was always fresh whereas buffets
tend to be rather tasteless once the food had been sitting there for half an
hour, buffet dishes for keeping food warm notwithstanding. <br />
<br />
We later added to the line-up offering 8 different dishes to choose from and
switched to a semi-buffet. Guests would pour their own coffee, orange juice,
toast their bread, and help themselves to fruit and additional toast or bread.
But you can do what you want some guests found issue with that too. It was
remarkable that especially overweight people complained they the food was not
enough to be full. <br />
<br />
The contrast in opinions about our breakfast couldn’t be starker. Some found it
delicious, more than enough, while others thought it poor and definitely
lacking in all respects. Now the funny thing is that especially French and
Italian guests found fault with it. Considering that French and Italian
breakfasts are rather basic in their home countries and nothing to speak of, one
could only wonder why they found ours lacking. <br />
<br />
At this point a brief rating of nationalities in terms of satisfaction versus
complaints. <br />
<br />
Most difficult and absolutely the worst:<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>French<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>Overseas
Cambodian<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>2 out of 10 – 10 being the
best</div>
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A close second:<span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>Italian<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>3 <br />
Third:<span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>Spanish,
Finnish<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>4
</div>
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Fourth:<span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>Austrian,
Vietnamese<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>5<br />
Fifth:<span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>Dutch, Belgian<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> 6</span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">S</span>ixth: Russian,
Japanese 7</div>
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Seventh:<span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span>Scandinavian,
Chinese<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>8<br />
Eigth:<span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>American,
British, Irish, </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>Cambodian,
Thai<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> 8-9</span><br />
Ninth:<span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>German,
Swiss, </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>Australian,
New Zealand <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> 9 </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
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Needless to say this is a very subjective rating list. I am
personally particularly sorry about the French as I like their food, their
country, and generally the people but as hotel guests they are simply a pest and just horrible
(with exceptions, of course). I wouldn’t rate any nationality a 10. Although
Asians generally do not complain and are not in the habit of writing reviews,
at least not in my experience, but they are a sloppy lot. They leave everything
lying around, tissues on the floor, towels are used to shine shoes; when they
check out their rooms generally look like a bomb had exploded in there.</div>
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<br />
We had two different kinds of accommodation. The front building was 10 years
old when we took it over. It had been rented to the Australian consulate
general while there was one in Sihanoukville. The furniture was a little dated
and of the traditional Cambodian style. The advantage though was they were all
triple or even quadruple rooms. As price points were rather attractive they
were well booked. But the downside was it dragged our rating down. The majority
of guests just didn’t like rooms. They didn’t have a veranda, or a balcony, it
was strictly a place to sleep. 3 were suites with a separate room for watching
TV. The quadruple room for families of 4 or even 5 was booked heavily but still
got its good share of negative reviews. <br />
<br />
Guests who had 2 or 3 kids and complained that the toilet would clog up. Sure
it would if you use an entire roll of toilet paper or put sanitary napkins in
there. Even the dumbest guest must know by now that this simply is not done.
Some didn’t know how to operate the shower handle and complained that either
the water was too hot or too cold, depending on which way they turned the
handle.<br />
<br />
We had instructions in each room how to operate the safety box. You wouldn’t
believe how many couldn’t even follow these instructions. <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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One family arrived later in the evening. They entered the
family room, didn’t even properly look and although they had checked in yet
left. They wrote it was dirty. It was over the New Year holidays too. Good luck
finding another hotel. We did charge them though as per our policy, which didn’t
sit well with them at all.<br />
<br />
Another family that had booked the same room left the next morning claiming
they had a death in the family and needed to head back. In their review though
they wrote they didn’t like the hotel, it was dirty, the pool was not clean
(they hadn’t even seen it). They asked for a full refund, which we refused.
Telling lies and then asking for money back is kind of brazen. <br />
<br />
Illness or death is an oft-used reason to leave early. So we had this family of
3 that had checked in and came to the reception an hour late they needed to
leave again as the wife’s mother in Phnom Penh had died. Again, as per policy
we told we needed to charge the full price but would refund it if they sent us
a death certificate. The refused and argued back and forth but finally left anyway.
When we tried to charge their credit card it was expired. In my book this is
fraud.<br />
<br />
We had this one inside room with a window that faced the hallway and therefore
was never opened. We called it our budget room, and later added the ‘no window’
to the description online. It was priced accordingly – from $25 to $35 incl.
breakfast and depending on the season. Well, cheapskates booked that room but
complained afterwards saying it was too expensive. The cost for the a/c and the
breakfasts was $10 already. What were people thinking? One such person booked
it, said he didn’t like it so we offered him a room at the pool for an extra
$10. Well, this guest called us cheaters or imposters saying it was a trick of
ours to make people book this room so we could then charge the extra $10 for a
better room. We had only one room like this. How would this make us rich?
Idiot. The best of all were two parties that booked this room knowing it was
without window. They then complained that the room had no window. WTF?<br />
<br />
One evening a lady came in looking for a better room as she was not happy with
the one she had booked at another hotel. We had just one room left. She wanted
to take it and left to get her bags from the other hotel. By the time she came
back an online agent had booked it which we were obligated to honor. You can
imagine what kind of scene she made. If she had paid a deposit to hold the room
which we had advised she wouldn’t have had the trouble. Quite a few guests say
they will take the room and never come back. She called us dishonorable online.<br />
<br />
A couple of people wrote reviews calling us frauds without even staying at the
hotel. One had inquired about the rates and had gotten the rack rate. He had
also met a guest and asked her how much she paid. She was a long-stay guest so
had a very favorable for the budget room. Well we were the fraudsters charging
two different rates for different conditions.</div>
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One of our rooms in the front building faced south. During
high season it got really hot in there. We drew the curtains, aired it out in
the mornings while it was still a little cooler, but this had only a minor
effect. The a/c usually took about half an hour to cool the room down to
tolerable temps. We had this one family who left a/c running when they left the
room so it would be cool when they returned after 8 hours or so. At the time we
didn’t have the automatic shutoff yet when people left the room. So our
housekeeping staff was under instruction to turn all a/c’s off when they were
cleaning the room When the family returned to their room it didn’t take them a
minute to come rushing down the stairs yelling at the receptionist how we dared
turn off the a/c. Again, we have an explanation in our room info that in order
to conserve energy and for environmental reasons we turned all a/c’s off when
the guests were not in their room, not to mention the cost of electricity which
is not cheap in Cambodia. That didn’t impress them one bit. They kept hollering
and even insulted the receptionist throwing our mobile phone on the desk
breaking it. We charged them $50 for that. They refused to pay for that so we
went ahead and charged their credit card. I had a long email exchange with the
lady and indicated I would not accept her unruly behavior and might even press
charges. That shut her up.<br />
<br />
Air conditioning was another main beef with our guests. Some found it too cool,
although they could regulate it. Others found it too hot but still used
blankets!!! Some expect room temps to be in the teens, which is virtually
impossible to achieve unless one uses a 5 hp unit for a room of 25 m2. We used
only 1 hp which is normally really sufficient to bring the temps down to 24°,
which is considered a comfortable room temp. But some guests wouldn’t be happy
with that. I often wondered why they traveled to a tropical country, a
third-world country at that. They must know that the standard is not comparable
to highly developed tourist destinations, e. g. Spain, Turkey, or Thailand. We try
to do our best but there is only so much we can do here. We installed a second
unit in our family room and the room facing south to alleviate that situation.<br />
<br />
A/C units break down, which they quite frequently did. If we couldn’t get a
hold of a repairman right away, there is really not much how we can change the
situation other than serving free drinks. <br />
<br />
Our hotel was a non-smoking establishment as we wrote in our room info and on
the internet. We also had no-smoking signs in the rooms. That didn’t keep some
guests from smoking in there anyway. When we pointed out our policy they
generally obliged but some became really militant. We had this Russian couple
who had booked a full month. When the husband found out our policy he couldn’t
smoke in the room, never mind that it was published on our agent’s website, he
made one of the greatest ruckus I had encountered in those 4 ½ years. He
insisted on smoking in the room as he used to watch TV in bed smoking. We told
him absolutely not possible. Fearing that they would not pay their bill we
charged them after 2 or 3 days for the full amount of their stay. They were
Russian and the ruble was at an all-time low so most Russian guests paid cash,
which they had converted on the black market. Of course, credit card charges
were billed at official rates. So this made them even more furious. The
relationship with them got so bad I offered them a partial refund if they left
the hotel. They wanted to do that and started looking for another hotel. We
were pretty much the only one in our category near the beach so he came back
and said they couldn’t find a suitable one and were going to stay. They clearly
wanted to get back at us by trying to influence other Russian guests at the
hotel. We then asked a friendly guest to tell the obnoxious one that we would
report him to the police and have him removed from the hotel if he didn’t stop
this. And they ate as much as they could for breakfast as it was free,
especially the wife who was overweight at that. Other than that they didn’t have
one drink or any other food at our restaurant. As a response to their review we
wrote we were glad they were gone and that they are a disgrace to the Russian
people. I recently read a Greek hotel had responded in a similar way to an
obnoxious guest’s review.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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Here is another good one. A guest emailed us well before
arrival he wanted a double bed, not two singles moved together (half our rooms
are like that) and that we remove everything, especially all alcoholic drinks,
from the mini-bar. We replied that we have a policy that we won’t allow guests
to bring food or drinks into the hotel from outside as we have full-service
restaurant and bar which we have established precisely for the benefit of our
guests. So when he arrived – a single elderly man – had barely checked into his
room when he came storming to the reception that he had requested that the
mini-bar be emptied before his arrival. Well, we had thought our notice would
have been enough. Not so, so we emptied the mini-bar. In fact, he didn’t put anything
in it but later complained in his review that we hadn’t honored his request. We
just replied that it was so vitally important that he not even see the contents
of the mini-bar, e. g. because he a recovering alcoholic, we would obliged
promptly and treated it with utmost confidentiality.</div>
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People travel to a SE Asian country and can expect the reception
staff to speak at least English. That’s understandable as English has become
the lingua franca of the world these days. But they can’t really expect the
cleaning staff to speak English, French, or even their own language. They ought
to at least understand that even the service staff at the restaurant has only a
limited knowledge of foreign languages. We had quite a few complaints in
reviews from guest whom we knew to speak no English who then complained about
the staff not speaking a foreign language. It is amazing that there really many
guests who travel overseas without speaking any other language. Foremost among
them are Chinese and Russians. </div>
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Some guests take to three online websites to publish their
misgivings. We take the liberty of pointing it out in our responses. Repeating
an impression doesn’t make it necessarily more truthful. I got the feeling, as
with many other internet phenomena that the majority posting reviews and their
take of things suffer from a severe neurosis. People simply will have to make
allowances for deficiencies in service and infrastructure.<br />
<br />
The biggest draw of destinations like this is price point. If people only want
to spend $30 for a double room with breakfast they can’t expect a luxury hotel
with luxury amenities. We rated ourselves a 3-star hotel since we had a pool, a
full-service restaurant and bar, room service, 24-hour attendance (although
that was hardly ever necessary), a tour booking option, etc. We did start out
in the low $30 range shortly after opening but gradually increased our rates to
the $40-$50 range, commensurate with our standard and service offerings. But
generally, guests expect Cambodia to be cheap no matter what they book or buy, starting
with the cost of a drink to hotel rooms. <br />
<br />
Concluding I should say that the vast majority, about 95% of our guests were
satisfied with what they got. But there will always nags and curmudgeons with
pet peeves. Some come in with the clear intent to get discounts. They complain
about the prices of tuk-tuks, even if the fare is correct. Then some blame us
for that. The same goes for tours, the a taxi driver drives, etc.</div>
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These are a few samples of what you get in terms of reviews.
Now in the age of the internet people take to writing about things they find
fault with, although a lot of times they don’t have anything to say at all. But
the internet makes people want to be somebody – the selfie craze is symptomatic
for that. On the hand, the internet is or was our main marketing instrument,
how else would we have gotten any guests so quickly and continuously? After all
we sold roughly 4000 to 5000 room nights per year so what are we complaining
about? But guests who are a nuisance can really ruin your will to continue. <br />
<br />
The way things are in Sihanoukville now I don’t expect anybody to open a hotel
or guesthouse here anymore. Chinese investments have made it a huge
construction site, harming the environment, polluting the sea, among others.
Only a fool would come and do business here.</div>
<br />KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-11010415798106838012018-08-21T02:22:00.000-07:002018-08-21T02:22:39.282-07:00My Life as a Hotelier in Cambodia II<br />
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If you don’t own land in Cambodia you need to lease it in
order to build the hotel you wish to operate. I posted an article a few years back
how difficult it is to find an appropriate location in Sihanoukville. Finally,
after searching for about 18 months we decided on a lot that had a building for
lease on it and a larger lot in the back that we could utilize to build another
10 rooms, a restaurant, a small bar, a kitchen, and most importantly, a
swimming pool. Although the beach was only a 100m from the place guests
nowadays want a pool to relax at.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The entire size of both lots was 1900 m2, large enough to
build 2 small restaurants, one in front one in back. I designed the general
layout of both buildings and the rooms’ interiors. We chose a builder that had
already built our villa as we were satisfied with his work. We had a few
misunderstandings about a couple of details but we could work them out
amicably. One was for the size of the restaurant he wanted to build 4 by 10
meters, I only wanted 4 by 8 meters. The second one was roof overhang and the
width of the small terrace in front of the rooms. He didn’t build the overhang
which we had him add, and increased the veranda width by 10 cm, which we
couldn’t reverse as the verandas were finished already. Naturally this affected
the price and he wanted to add a hefty $50,000. We argued back and forth and in
the end he agreed and let it go. The going rate per m2 was $200 at that time.<br />
<br />
We made a couple mistakes by forgetting to have rain gutters added and using a
tin roof for the bar. In the rainy season this created an almost unbearable
noise there. We deflected this somewhat by putting up a layer of reed on top of
it. Of course, we had them installed later on.<br />
<br />
Sihanoukville has no drainage and sewer system, so all buildings needed a
septic tank. With 17 rooms we had 4 septic tanks built. To our dismay we found
out later that the builder had one built right under a guest room under one of
the nightstands. When we needed to pump out that one we had to lay long pipes
from outside the lot at the rear to the room through a window. Needless to say,
we had to wait until all the guests were outside the hotel so they wouldn’t see
what was going on and right a scathing review about that. The rainy season
created additional problems as the rain water flowed in the tanks in the rear
together with the use water from the guests’ bathrooms. Sometimes we had to
have the tanks in the back pumped out every other week at $65 a pop.</div>
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Further adding to our frustration was the unreliability of
the power supply. For the first 2 years we did not have a back-up generator as
the power company had promised that there were enough power plants on the grid
to supply all the power. When all the hotels were full during holidays in high
season this caused immediate black-outs, which could be accepted during the day
but when it happened in the dark we had a great problem on our hands. The
majority of the guests took it with a shrug as they knew they had traveled to a
developing country where such things happen frequently. But lo and behold,
especially Cambodian guests complained the most as if they weren’t used to it
in Phnom Penh. That situation got better after 2 years and we had also bought a
back-up genset to alleviate the situation. It happened to be a little to weak
at 45 kWa so we switched to a 65 kWa just in our final year. And badly needed
it was. With all the new construction going on because of the Chinese
investments and the need for a lot more electricity the power grid broke down
incessantly.<br />
<br />
The basic problem areas in a hotel in Sihanoukville are the power supply, the
water supply, the quality of the equipment, the scarcity of repairmen and contractors,
and the ignorance and unreliability of staff; in other words besides guests who
can make hotel life in this town really hard, there is nothing that would
contribute to a smooth operation where you could just focus on guest relations
and improvement of services.</div>
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As with the power supply the water supply was also affected
by that construction craze. Needless to say, they needed a lot of water for
mixing their concrete, etc. It also happened quite frequently that some earth
moving equipment punched a hole in the water main – result: no water. Our water
tank was depleted pretty quickly with people in 10 rooms taking a shower
simultaneously. <br />
<br />
The quality of the equipment is so poor that we needed repairs continuously,
whether it’s a float switch in the tank, a broken a/c unit, internet service
disruptions due to somebody else cutting the cables (twice willfully, several
times by nearby construction), cable TV problems, etc., etc. On account of all
these problems that affected basically all hotels in the area repairmen were
hard to come by. Sometimes it took hours, even days for them to come and take a
look at the problem. For a while we a couple of good ones, other times we
needed to beg them to come and take care of things. On top of it the rates they
charged were higher than in the U. S. Another reason for the poor quality in my
opinion was that things were pretty cheap which led me to believe that Cambodia
got second rate quality from wherever they imported they equipment from, mainly
China. A/Cs were particularly prone to failure which in part was due to power
fluctuations which will wreak havoc on electrical equipment, not the least the
power surge when the power comes back.<br />
<br />
Not once was there a week that went by without any problem at all – and we are
talking close to 5 years. If it wasn’t the equipment or the repairmen it was
the staff. People always write about how one needs to help these poor people so
they can support themselves. This is all good and true but doesn’t take into
account the basic mentality of Khmer people with little or no education
whatsoever. I got the feeling that their Buddhist belief gets in the way.
Everything in life is preordained by whatever higher being there is. Khmer
people are rather stoic. The want to work, of course, but only because they
really do need the money to feed themselves, not to get ahead in life (those
are few and far in between). They have no ambition whatsoever. A hotel
traditionally employs more women than men so consequently we had 7 or 8 female
and 3 male staff. Housekeeping staff was the most unreliable. The slightest
problem healthwise (and they always had a fever or bad stomach) or at home made
them call in sick. If it wasn’t themselves it was their kids. One would never
know whether you had your staff coming in today or not. One time we had all
housekeeping staff except one quit without notice on the same day. Another time
we had just paid their salary when we got a call from one saying she needs to
quit for family reasons – like she didn’t know this 2 weeks before. So we
changed our schedule and paid salaries on the 7<sup>th</sup> the following
month. If somebody quit without giving appropriate notice we would just
withhold the pay for the entire past month. A smart one though even knew how to
work around that. She wanted to quit right away but knowing our system she just
asked for and advance in the amount we owed her for the seven days. She needed
it for her kid who was sick she said. We also had just paid her salary.
Promptly, she didn’t show up for work the next day. Another irksome thing is
their huffiness. You just criticize them very carefully but they are prone to
up and leave right on the spot, not matter the loss of pay. Of course, you can
never do this in front of others. She may be a lowly maid but losing face is a
real tragedy. Sometimes they just take a day off without asking us. We also had
to deal with theft a few times. We could never prove anything but we eventually
found a way to get rid of that staff. Sometimes they have two jobs, one in the
morning, one in the afternoon/evening. There was this one receptionist who used
to disappear for his break for an hour leaving the reception unmanned at 7 pm
when guests were going out for dinner or returning, or checking in. When we
found out about that we gave him a warning but he even stayed away for more
than 2 hours once afterwards upon which we let him go. He had 2 kids to look
after in the evening until his wife came home who also had a job at a different
hotel. And so on, and on, and on.<br />
<br />
What made this entire situation with all that frustration really unbearable was
the financial aspect, and I haven’t even begun to write about some crazy guests.
We had invested a sizable amount of money and with all the repairs we couldn’t
even break even when we paid ourselves a normal salary. The hotel did support
us but nowhere near the level we were used to before. We didn’t expect to make
$10,000 a month but at least expected compensation in line with Cambodian pay
scales, which would have been $3,000 a month for 2. Whenever there was a profit
that would have enabled us to that kind of pay we needed to spend the money on
repairs, purchase of new equipment etc. It did get better the last 18 months
when we finally managed to pay ourselves a bit more. </div>
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Operating a business requires working capital in addition to
the actual investment, of course. A hotel our size had overheads in the amount
of $11,000/month on average excluding our own pay. This is exactly the amount
we thought we needed. In order to be on the safe side we put in $15,000, one
year even $30,000 to tide us over those financial bottlenecks. Again, this situation
eased up the last 18 months when we didn’t need any additional working capital
as the liquidity was sufficient to fund the operation.</div>
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If the business had continued as in those 18 months we would
have a moderately successful business worth our while. But then that
construction craze encroached on our vicinity which made the location of the
hotel so unattractive with two towering buildings next to our lot and
accompanying noise that we feared that no Western guest would want to stay
there come high season – hence our decision to get out of it; even if it meant
without profit. Looking at the location right now we are just so glad we made
that decision. With all the frustration we had suffered the last 4 ½ years, the
financial worries, and now the prospect of no guests who would want to go on
there. We made a clean cut, got our money back, including backpay, and that was
it. Good riddance.<br />
<br />
People reading this will certainly be discouraged to go into this kind of
business here but what with all that is going on in this town we don’t think
anybody is even remotely contemplating going into business, any business, here
at all. It may be somewhat different in Phnom Penh which doesn’t have these
pronounced seasons as a resort town but the sheer number of new hotels that have opened
there pose a very serious problem for anybody who wants to invest there. So
beware!</div>
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As mentioned in a previous article we returned the property
to the owner who turned around and leased it to Chinese people at more than
twice the rent we had paid. What these people want to do with this property
baffles us to this day.</div>
<br />KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-52107476593910215252018-08-06T02:47:00.000-07:002018-08-06T02:47:12.741-07:00My Life as a Hotelier in Cambodia I<br />
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As I wrote in a past post I wanted to counter the declining
prices of natural rubber on my rubber plantation by diversifying and investing
in another business – a business that I was familiar with from my past
professional experience as a tourism expert in Europe, the U. S., and Asia.
Being a beach person and an avid boater I chose Sihanoukville – at that time
the only resort town with acceptable beaches.<br />
<br />
Before I describe the pitfalls that one encounters when opening and running a
hotel in Cambodia I am going to start by writing about the booking portals that
make life for small, independent hotels easy in terms of marketing but can
become really frustrating to work with over time.<br />
<br />
We opened the hotel in early January and were fully booked within a week or two
for January and February, the best months in high season in Cambodia. Although
we did have a relatively high share of walk-ins the majority of bookings came
from booking.com, followed by agoda.com.<br />
<br />
Booking.com is the largest hotel booking portal in the world, claiming to represent
over 770,000 hotels world-wide. The major slogan is unbiased reviews citing
numbers in the millions. That number can hardly be disputed but the word
unbiased is a misnomer in my view. A hotel guest writing a review cannot be
unbiased, he/she is subjective and judgmental. Their personal experience is not
based on neutral criteria. Some guests think the rooms are rotten, others feel
they are superb. Unbiased connotes fairness which we have found not to be true
with a majority of guests. Some guests like the staff, e. g. single men if one
of your female staff is pretty, others don’t. Some eat breakfast like gluttons,
others are happy with a muesli. <br />
<br />
Nevertheless, booking.com which was founded in the Netherlands and later sold
to priceline.com had made enormous strides over time making it the one booking
site that a small and independent hotel cannot ignore. In our case they
contacted us immediately on learning that a new hotel was about to be opened.
We never signed an agreement with them; they just went ahead and created a page
on their website. We just furnished them with all the information and they did
the work for us. Agoda.com worked the same way. We gave them our pricing
(mid-market level for Sihanoukville from $30 to $50 initially, later up to $75
in high season) on which booking.com charged 15%, agoda.com charged 20%. Later
this was raised to 18% for booking.com and lowered to 17% for agoda.com. The
more commission you pay the better the exposure you get on their website, i.e. ‘recommended
for you’ or placing your hotel on their first page. If you choose certain
program features this will also elevate your position on their pages. We paid
18% and showed up as their recommendation on top of all choices about 50% of
the time.</div>
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These rates may appear very high as commission rates for
agents are normally 10%, and in exceptional cases 12%. But one has to consider
that they have this enormous presence on all search engines for which they pay
probably equally enormous amounts to appear on the first page when looking for
a hotel, e. g. in Sihanoukville without giving a specific hotel name.</div>
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<br />
So you could argue that this is our marketing expense. We take care of the hotel
and the guests and these two booking portals do the rest. It definitely is a
beneficial relationship in this respect. As in any business relationship there
are drawbacks. Booking.com does not collect the money upfront but only collects
the payment details, i.e. credit card number without checking their veracity,
etc. and lets the hotel charge the guests when they check in. This leaves the
hotel with the risk of false credit card information, insufficient funds, etc.
This is very irksome in case of no-shows, collection of cancellation fees, etc.
We made spot-checks for certain guest groups which we knew from experience to
be somewhat unreliable, Russians, Vietnamese, Cambodians, sometimes
down-and-out Westerners. Upon notification by booking.com they were supposed to
furnish us with correct details otherwise we had the option to cancel the
booking. We tried out the ‘booking without credit card needed’ but that
resulted in an increase of no-shows of more than 100% so we quickly abandoned
that policy. Payment of commissions due booking.com are made by credit card
online. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Agoda.com on the other hand collects the payment from the
guests and we charged agoda on a virtual credit card that was authorized for
the value of the booking. About 2 years in we added Expedia.com with its many
subsidiaries but this did not result in a significant increase in bookings. We
found that Expedia covers North America, Japan, Finland well for us as far as
we could ascertain from the bookings. Since the majority of our guests
originated in Europe, mostly Germany, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands,
Scandinavia as well as Australia and New Zealand, the bookings coming from
Expedia were negligible in terms of earnings despite the low 15% commission
they charged. They also collected payments upfront, which was a plus.</div>
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So all in all everything would add up to a beneficial
cooperation were it not for those so-called ‘unbiased’ reviews which can make
or break a hotel. Since those booking portals are our marketing instrument per
se and these days the majority of hotel (and flight bookings) bookings are made
via the Internet people use and abuse their power on the Internet to a very
large extent. <br />
<br />
All booking portals have criteria in place by which a negative review can be
removed. But these criteria are so broadly conceived and furthermore up to interpretation
by the portal’s review team that hardly any review ever gets removed. The
Internet is full of complaints about this from hotel owners all over the world.
Guests can insult a hotel owner, misrepresent the facts, outright lie, the
review will not be removed as this is the traveler’s experience. Insults are understood
in different ways by different people. A Western rep might see this differently
from, say, an Asian rep. This has happened to us many times. All portals state
in their terms and conditions that a review is the guest’s personal opinion and
experience and the portal cannot and does not accept any responsibility for the
truthfulness. In addition guests can post anonymously. How does that help a
hotel? If a guest uses profanity, sexual innuendo, etc. those reviews will be
removed; after all those 3 portals are U. S. companies. Booking.com, agoda.com
which is also owned by Priceline, and Expedia comprise about 90% of all online
bookings worldwide. Booking.com alone has a share of over 70% of world-wide
online hotel bookings. So what can a small hotel do against such behemoths?
Their review policies are clearly unlawful as they commit unfair and deceptive
trade practices as guests can post dishonest and untrue reviews harming the
hotel’s business. There are EU and U. S. laws in place but an individual
lawsuit is practically impossible as there must be clear and substantive
evidence that the business suffered harm from those reviews. So a hotel would
need to show the loss it suffered from harmful untrue reviews. Only a class
action would bring relief as the totality of complaints would make presenting a
case in court much more feasible. Those booking portals regularly state that
only 2 rooms are still available, or this place is in high demand, so hurry and
book quickly. Most of this is untrue and regulators in Europe stepped in and
made this illegal. Now they say only two rooms on our site. This might now be
legal and is advantageous for the hotel but it just goes to show that portals
aren’t fair in serving their customers. The just want you to book there
quickly; they don’t care which hotel, the main thing is the guests book.<br />
<br />
All portals have a rating system from 1 to 10. You never see a 1 as I have
never seen a 10 or even a 9.9 either. They start publishing ratings at 5.0. Booking.com
used to let the guest choose from 4 choices, ‘ fair, good, very good, excellent’.
Additionally a guest got to choose to rate five more criteria – cleanliness,
staff, location, pricing, and service. They converted this into an average for
all ratings a hotel got using a scale from 1 to 10, in other words, if you got
a straight very good which would be a 7.5 it would show up as a 7.5 on their
website but with a verbal rating of ‘good’ only. Requests to have this changed
(not only by our hotel) resulted in a slightly modified system but it took
years. Instead of ‘fair, good, very good, excellent’ they now introduced ‘poor,
fair, good, excellent’. So if you got a straight ‘good’ you would now get a 7.5
and a ‘good’ rating on their site. If you averaged more than 8.0 you got a very
good, and over 8.5 it was excellent, and 9.0 or more got an outstanding. So it
was a slight improvement for those that before only got a good instead of the
deserved very good. </div>
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When we started out we received excellent ratings on all
portals. As time wore on this slipped down a 7.9 on all three sites in the end due
to complaints about certain older rooms we had in a front building. The rooms
around the pool would almost always get at least a very good rating. We
couldn’t help this other than remodeling these rooms at very high expense which
we had shunned as our aim was to recover our investment first.<br />
<br />
In my view as a result from my experience these companies are by far too
powerful and need to be split up. If you have a world-wide market share of over
70% it is a monopoly. Regulators are only now recognizing the immense influence
of those huge internet companies like Google, Facebook, etc. Booking portals
seems to have slipped by their attention so far, it seems.<br />
<br />
Not for nothing are the big chains trying to move away from those third party
booking portals. Large airlines now offer access to hotels through their
websites, another indication of a widespread dissatisfaction. We also strived
to lessen their impact on our business and for reasons unknown as we did not do
any other marketing outside those portals we achieved a share of direct
bookings, extensions, walk-ins, etc. of 35% which really significantly
contributed to our financial success in the end. When I worked in this business
way back there was no internet. Travel agents booked hotels directly by fax, or
room allotments; granted, a much harder way of doing business. Complaints were
handled by mail so never see the light of publicity. So the internet is both a
boon and bane for hotels. A hotel owner really has to be on their toes to reap
the benefits of the internet.</div>
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<br />KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-12718359506406425322018-07-29T02:16:00.002-07:002018-07-29T02:16:30.454-07:00Another phase in our life comes to an endI am going to continue this blog for a while since I now
have more time. My wife and I had been hotel owners for close to 5 years. We
closed the hotel in May 2018 due to very unfavorable circumstances regarding
the hitherto very good location. I will have to back up a couple of years in
order to explain this.
<br />
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<br /></div>
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Many people will know that Sihanoukville has been chosen by
Chinese investors as a prime location for casinos. The reasons are very clear
and even understandable. Cambodia offers very easy access to business visas
which can be renewed indefinitely for one year each at a cost of around $300.
Both the national and the local governments are somewhat inept in directing
investments in the right direction. They more or less let the outside world
decide what’s good for Cambodia, and they really don’t care where the money is
coming from. The national government relies heavily on foreign aid and loans, primarily
from China to finance their infrastructure. Almost everything nowadays is being
built by or with Chinese money. Basically there is nothing wrong with it, in my
opinion, but when all of a sudden one Chinese company after another starts
applying for casino licenses there must be a very good reason for them. One
need not look far. When all this started gambling both online and onsite was
still prohibited in China. Macao, the former Portuguese colony, enjoys a
special status and is one of the premier gambling cities in the world. <br />
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There has been one Hong Kong based casino in place in Phnom
Penh for a long time, additionally there were two casinos in Sihanoukville,
operated by an Israeli company, and a Chinese company respectively. There were
also a number casinos along the border to Thailand and Vietnam catering the
cross-border gamblers mostly. These businesses ran successfully for a while but
later on news reports indicated that many of them were practically losing their
shirts.</div>
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Somehow, though, word got out that casino licenses are
really easy to obtain so there was a first influx of Chinese casino operators
into Sihanoukville back in 2014/15. They rented guesthouses at outrageous
amounts and installed online gambling in them. After the Chinese government got
wind of those in practice illegal places they asked the Cambodian government to
intervene. Online licenses are only granted if there is also a brick and mortar
casino on site. The government responded quickly and rounded up 80 Chinese
nationals who were found to be involved in one way or another in online
gambling. These 80 Chinese were deported in a matter of days. This caused great
fear in the Chinese entrepreneurs that they would also be summarily deported
without good cause whilst in China there awaited them arrest and imprisonment
for operating illegal gambling directed at China. Reportedly there were about
4000 Chinese who left town in a matter of 2 weeks leaving behind quite some
money they had paid in deposits and for equipment.<br />
<br />
But then back in 2016/17 a different kind of Chinese investor appeared on the
scene. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They seemingly had a business plan
and deep pockets. They built new casinos from the ground up; <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>large operations catering to Chinese nationals
mostly. Sihanoukville enjoys a reputation as a nice and comfortable seaside
resort in the tropics where prices are still low appealing to middle-class
Chinese at home. In no time at all, 25 additional casinos had sprung up with
another 25 to come until now. The majority of them are huge operations by
Cambodian standards that invested millions of dollars, but there reportedly is
also a dubious sector taking advantage of the lax legal environment. Money
laundering is rumored to be one key aspect for investment in casinos in
Cambodia. Recently the Chinese government allowed gambling on Hainan island.
The impact, if any, on the situation in Sihanoukville remains to be seen.<br />
<br />
It definitely is not a boon for the local population except for land owners.
These rent their land and houses at ridiculously high rates to the Chinese
driving out the regular Cambodian tenants who can’t afford these prices.
Following the investors riding on their coattails were all kinds of small time
business people opening up restaurants and mini-marts, and a lot of them for
Chinese customers/guests only. Menus and signs are in Chinese only, the staff
is Chinese too. The same applies to the construction workers. The tall
high-rises are built by Chinese companies that bring in their own workforce
from engineers to supervisors. Only the basic menial jobs are given to
Cambodians. Also unfortunately, many of these Chinese workers show no regard
for Cambodian law, driving unregistered vehicles without valid drivers licenses,
driving under the influence and causing accidents, some of them fatal, almost
on a daily basis. The locals surely don’t appreciate this and have come to thoroughly
dislike these newcomers.<br />
<br />
As a consequence of this influx Sihanoukville has become a huge construction
site. High-rises and 500-room hotels are being built practically everywhere, but,
of course, primarily near the beaches. So what used to be somewhat nice beaches
became more polluted with debris and waste from construction sites. The
drainage system was insufficient to begin with but with all that construction
many of the streets become flooded in the rainy season. This year we are seeing
an especially wet rainy season with heavy and frequent rain storms. How this
town is going to cope with the increase in tourists from China and the
environmental problems this will entail is anybody’s guess. <br />
<br />
Now this brings me to our decision to close the hotel. During the past 18 months
or so we had seen a downturn in lengths of stay. We used to have 3 days during
the rainy season and about 11 days in high season. This dropped to 1.2 days
during the rainy season and 5 days in high season. Even the past 6 months we
had an inordinate number of one-night stays as most Western tourists went to
the islands and used us a for the layover only. We nevertheless had a very high
occupancy rate but seeing as the construction was going on unabated we couldn’t
see a lot of Western tourists choosing Sihanoukville town for their vacation. Until all the projects are finished it will be another year or two. As a resort hotel we were dependent on the high seasons for our financial
survival which was iffy most of the time anyway. If we had kept it we would have gone under for sure.<br />
<br />
So when the two high rises were built on one lot over and the land adjacent to
our hotel on the other side was being cleared of trees and shrubs we knew that
our reputation as an oasis in this town was over. We had put our feelers out
for some time already and had a number of buyers who wanted to take it over –
and you guessed it, it was Chinese buyers. One of them came to the first
meeting ready to shell out the purchase price in cash which he had brought in one
of those news satchels that you wear cross-wise over your chest. We talked to the
landlord and suggested that he take over the hotel instead of us selling it to
Chinese people for which he had shown a dislike anyway. After some thought, he
agreed, and he would also reimburse us for the remaining term of the lease. As
we found out the first day of his taking over he had rented it in a jiffy to
Chinese people at two and a half times the rent he would have gotten from us or
a potential buyer that we would have brought in. Well, smart thinking you must give
him that. We had built the hotel with our money and he had a ready-to-run
property for rent. We don’t mind as we just wanted to get out of this business
there. In my view you can’t win with a hotel in Sihanoukville with all the
problems you face starting with the staff, to the contractors, to
malfunctioning equipment, constant repairs, etc., etc. I will get to that in a
later post.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXUjF0444yPChLSO6fdfwR0ZBSPdOXG6xpOavH3j1TC1NikARJYUVNtfkzFAGl9lelzngQfp5BIcSn85MsfcqSWWfVe47N5-rSLtA3ZU05CqWwrUEZltO93FkE_b-nb3FsG1mfpFAa0w/s1600/20180529_End+of+The+Tamarind+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXUjF0444yPChLSO6fdfwR0ZBSPdOXG6xpOavH3j1TC1NikARJYUVNtfkzFAGl9lelzngQfp5BIcSn85MsfcqSWWfVe47N5-rSLtA3ZU05CqWwrUEZltO93FkE_b-nb3FsG1mfpFAa0w/s320/20180529_End+of+The+Tamarind+%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">West side of the hotel - no more trees</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIvleNEVogxanQRHUXBFXB_E_o7YCCDdDIE4CMcMUVJr4noTDyQztscFwxmYs06dz2gek_AHXKKZgDhAwZ6bdnEhQ96AQyBlpLuQimlJ-COOxoQejIFu68V45fO1cCUObh44qSwzglfA/s1600/20180529_End+of+The+Tamarind+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIvleNEVogxanQRHUXBFXB_E_o7YCCDdDIE4CMcMUVJr4noTDyQztscFwxmYs06dz2gek_AHXKKZgDhAwZ6bdnEhQ96AQyBlpLuQimlJ-COOxoQejIFu68V45fO1cCUObh44qSwzglfA/s320/20180529_End+of+The+Tamarind+%25282%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tree are gone - no shade</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmKRRvea9SxrYeGg96zddlUJsoGRighEYhA3NnmBwIJFcyuGHxQs01PoRMS8ANLO5ZzxGMpgNxNQaxXHfRkBmwdBu-Bot6AJWm-AzoqgdVEleIVJG2Je0RC5nR2gz8ECoe-k2BiwFYCw/s1600/20180529_End+of+The+Tamarind+%25283%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmKRRvea9SxrYeGg96zddlUJsoGRighEYhA3NnmBwIJFcyuGHxQs01PoRMS8ANLO5ZzxGMpgNxNQaxXHfRkBmwdBu-Bot6AJWm-AzoqgdVEleIVJG2Je0RC5nR2gz8ECoe-k2BiwFYCw/s320/20180529_End+of+The+Tamarind+%25283%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another tall building on the east side - now it is 12 stories high.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpfdcWLZ1o3GLnNSroj1HsqDR-Xfm93bre2QybCTYpFvRU-7CTfAlMDeiFwCFztSiKKYyuoR-iQo1tMGssrLG8W1tA6AKkzchGkQlckPk6HxoUQ8T0IAUK7RMzuMR1F327AMlh15GXKw/s1600/Front+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpfdcWLZ1o3GLnNSroj1HsqDR-Xfm93bre2QybCTYpFvRU-7CTfAlMDeiFwCFztSiKKYyuoR-iQo1tMGssrLG8W1tA6AKkzchGkQlckPk6HxoUQ8T0IAUK7RMzuMR1F327AMlh15GXKw/s320/Front+%25282%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Before the trees were chopped own</td></tr>
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KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-38148995123982408572017-06-18T03:27:00.001-07:002017-06-18T03:27:28.927-07:00Legal Concepts - Sort ofHere is the short video clip of an accident that recently happened on a Phnom Penh street. It was picked apart and interpreted on an expat site with the majority saying the Khmer motorbike rider was at fault. I am putting this up here just for the individual viewer to draw their own conclusions although I will make a comment on a few facts.<br />
<br />
Here is a still picture:<br />
<img alt="Image" src="http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20170614/ac18aab649aa906be08f9c0696ee98be.jpg" height="225" width="400" /><br />
<br />
You will notice that the second is very close to the preceding SUV and there is a moto rider obviously trying to use the gap to get onto the other side of the street. There is no heavy traffic as in rush hour as the small SUV driver later claimed.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7268514535295850133#editor/target=post;postID=3814899512398240857"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aZ-oUlEe3iE" width="640"></iframe></a><br />
<br />
This video clearly shows that the small SUV is tailgaiting the larger SUV and speeding up unnecessarily. Rear-ending a preceding vehicle is always considered being at fault, by the way.<br />
<br />
One has to bear in mind that Cambodian drivers and especially moto riders act very erratically in traffic. They might just turn this way or that way without using their turn signals, hand signals, or similar to indicate their intentions. When participating in Cambodian traffic this means that one has to be aware of this and act accordingly, e. g. with all caution, whether you are a pedestrian, bicycle or moto rider, or driving a car. In other words you have to take into account what the other participants might do at any moment and be ready to react instantly.<br />
<br />
So what do you think given the circumstances and the country with its different culture? It should be quite clear, or is it?<br />
<br />
Here is another examples how the law is interpreted and enforced in Cambodia.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7268514535295850133#editor/target=post;postID=3814899512398240857"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/s_Is2UiTjUs" width="640"></iframe></a><br />
<br />
The video is not too clear but the passing vehicle clips the car with the camera slightly and just keeps on driving. A classic hit-and-run accident. So the damaged vehicle is in pursuit to catch up with the offender. All of a sudden the window on the driver side of the fleeing Camry opens and a gun appears. A shot is fired and the pursuer gives up the chase and follows slowly. No one was hurt.<br /><br />Amazingly, the police arrested the culprit in no time at all and, lo and behold, let him go. He happened to be the deputy police chief of a district with the rank of a lt. colonel and also the son of a high ranking official in the Interior Ministry, in charge of the police nation-wide. The district police chief even publicly said he was let go because of his father, a state secretary no less, who intervened. This state secretary even maintained his son had acted in self-defense as he was followed by a car (?????).<br />
<br />After a public outcry officialdom thought it expedient to do something so the offender was demoted to be a traffic policeman and fined a rather puny amount. Let's assume he will be back on his job with his old rank, maybe in another district, in not too distant a time. It never changes - it's been like this for decades.KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-32546363047866237712017-06-15T03:34:00.001-07:002017-06-15T03:34:23.963-07:00To Use or Not To Use the U. S. DollarVisitors to Cambodia know that about 80% of all trade and money transactions are conducted in U. S. dollars. Recently the governor of the National Bank, responsible for monetary policies in Cambodia, stated that the continuing use of the U.S. dollar is detrimental to the Cambodian economy. She mentioned as underlying cause the strengthening of the dollar against the Khmer Riel (KHR). <br /><br />Now this is indeed the case. Officially the KHR is valued at KHR 4080, unofficially it is KHR 4000. Currency markets on the other hand haven't seen a strengthening in the past few months. The two world currencies, the dollar and the Euro, hover pretty much at the same level.<br /><br />Now how the dollarization of the Cambodian economy is harmful is not really understandable. The major industries are garments/shoes, tourism, construction, and agriculture. The main markets for Cambodian-made garments are the U. S. and Europe. These markets pay in their own currencies, in other words, those capital inflows are not in KHR and will be credited to the manufacturers foreign exchange accounts. The majority of the products used in garments and shoes are imported, meaning they are paid in foreign exchange. Only the labor cost is in KHR; the minimum wage is set in U. S. dollars, so even if the dollar strengthens the manufacturers benefit from this as they exchange their foreign currency at the official rate. They get more Riels for their dollars or Euros. Prices are calculated and billed to foreign customers in dollars. No harm here for the manufacturers.<br />
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Tourism brings in foreign exchange, mostly dollars, as tourists usually exchange their home currency in dollars at home or they get it from an ATM here at the official rate. So in effect, any fluctuations tend to hurt the tourists but not the tourism trade in Cambodia. The hotels and restaurants pay in either dollars or riel, so it really doesn't matter to them either.<br />
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The situation is pretty much similar in the construction industry as most materials have to be imported, although the last few years have seen an increase in domestic production of cement and bricks. Iron in whatever shape or form is imported, as is gasoline, oil, etc.; only sand is dredged locally. Trucks and any other machinery used is also imported too. All these goods are paid in foreign currency, mostly dollars again. Builders calculate their prices in dollars as well and offer them to the market in dollars or riels, which is irrelevant to the consumer as they will use whatever is convenient for them.<br /><br />The greatest benefit of the dollarization is for agricultural products that are exported, e. g. rice and rubber. We have the same effect here as in the garment industry. The big difference is that no foreign materials go into the production of their products excepting fertilizer and other chemicals used.<br /><br />As long as Cambodia has no manufacturing base which would make its products truly made in Cambodia as opposed to being processed it doesn't really matter which currency is used. Almost all items for daily use are imported. Consequently, the trade balance is negative. <br /><br />Let's not forget: the main reason investors open factories here is for the low labor cost, relative ease of conducting business with the government, and lax enforcement of international regulations.<br /><br />And finally, the National Bank pegs the KHR to the dollar anyway. On what this is based I haven't fathomed yet - how many dollars are in circulation? It seems that this discussion is rather moot at this point in time. So except for national pride this issue is not really important. It remains a mystery what the opposition would gain from abolishing the dollar as an official tender as they recently promised if they were to win the next election.KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-3605876411734846152017-06-08T03:15:00.000-07:002017-06-08T22:11:22.460-07:00The Commune Elections 2017After a hiatus of one year I now have a little more time as my business does not require my presence as much as before thanks to the invaluable help from my step-children. I will again post comments on the situation in Cambodia and Sihanoukville in particular so readers abroad who still come across this blog in a good number can find out a few things as observed by a foreigner. As I say in the description in right side panel this blog is unbiased.<br />
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Now to the subject above. This past weekend local or commune (Sangkat) elections were held. Each province is subdivided into communes for a total of 1645 for all of Cambodia, of which the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) won 1163 and the Cambodian Rescue Party (CNRP) garnered 482. The voter turnout was remarkable with nearly 90% or almost 7 million. The popular vote was 48% for the CPP and 46% for the CNRP. All results are still unofficial so please don't hold me to 100% accuracy.<br />
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There seems to be a discrepancy in the shares won vis-a-vis the popular vote but one has to understand that the communes are ruled by the commune chiefs who are elected directly. Depending on the size population of the commune a certain number of councilors is elected but the real power lies with the chief. The commune chief's direct mandate explains the discrepancy between the popular vote and the number of communes won by a party. People vote for persons and personalities in the commune elections, not for parties.<br />
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The communes do not collect any taxes directly but are allocated funds by the Finance Ministry. By what method is not quite clear. It is understood that the commune chiefs put in requests for infrastructure projects which are then approved (or not). Since transparency is not very pronounced in Cambodian politics, hard figures are hard to come by. However, the chief's position is important and vital to the community.<br />
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In order to understand this one must also look at the structure of the administration. There are 24 provinces (khaet), divided into districts (srok), then into communes (khum), and finally into villages (phum). The communes are called differently in Phnom Penh (khan), and the communes Sangkat. But as far as I know people in the provinces call their communes Sangkat too, only in official documents are the a. m. designations used.<br />
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One also needs to understand that governors and district chiefs are appointed by the Interior Ministry, or the governor respectively, which are, of course, firmly in the hands of the CPP. This system ensures the control of the finances stays with the governing party and anybody requesting funds better be a member of the same party.<br />
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What is noteworthy in this election is first the high voter turnout, that the opposition party increased their number of commune chiefs from 40 in 2012 to 482 this year; and secondly, according to neutral election monitors the close results in the popular vote. The CPP claims 51% whereas independent sources put it at 48% vs. the 46% for the opposition.<br />
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The Prime Minister had warned repeatedly during the campaign that a victory for the opposition would lead directly to civil war. Clearly those scare tactics did not work. It might impress the older generation that still has memories of the time before 1989 but the younger generation does not even know a whole lot about that part of Cambodia's history. After all more than 60% of the population is under 30.<br />
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Another surprising facet is the fact that the former leader of the opposition who has been banished into exile did not have any obvious impact, e. g. that the opposition would be weakened by a virtual leaderless party. From the results one might deduce that his role is now perceived as unimportant, possibly redundant as a driving force. It seems that the new president of the party Kem Sokha finally came out into his own. As it happens Sam Rainsy did not have much to offer other than blaming everything on the Vietnamese neighbor anyway.<br />
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If this trend continues chances are that the opposition will win in 2018 or at least come very close to it. Since the scare tactics obviously don't work the ruling CPP better come up with a few arguments in that campaign. A firm commitment to stamping out corruption, the introduction of a free health care system for the poor, an affordable health insurance for everyone, a viable retirement plan will resonate much more with the electorate than incessantly harping on having brought peace (which they didn't, the U. N. did), relative prosperity, and stability. Most of the accomplishments came about with foreign aid and loans and know-how rather than through their own initiative anyway. Let's see whether this was a wake-up call for the CPP.KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-13905582740913665532016-02-23T04:49:00.000-08:002016-02-23T04:49:02.314-08:00Lost Sense of Reality<div class="MsoNormal">
Today there was an article about Sam Rainsy in The Khmer
Times. He warned that the government must finally introduce policies that would
ensure the democratic process otherwise the donor nations would curtail or even
cut all aid to Cambodia. That is a very dire and unnerving prediction. The way he wrote this on his Facebook page
read like he had concrete knowledge of such plans. Of course, his statement was
formulated in such a way that only more educated people would understand the
context. It</div>
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would certainly not raise a lot of interest in the majority
of the population. Aid to Cambodia is an unknown, if not abstract, concept to
them, I venture to say. He certainly has no concrete information from any
government at all. The PM was in the U. S. for the U. S. – ASEAN meeting and
even had a photo op with President Obama.
No announcement regarding aid was made there or in the aftermath. The
call for civil liberties, democratic processes, etc. is common at the end of
such meetings. </div>
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At the same time, and this was published even on the same
day as his FB post was reported, the EU issued a statement that it would
increase aid to Cambodia by roughly 50%. The EU, that is 27 countries, mind
you. So what was the good gentleman thinking when he posted this on his
facebook page? Was he just trying to remind people that he is still around and
alive? Seeing the situation of Cambodia in terms of realpolitik there must this
creeping feeling of futility and that he is being overtaken by events elsewhere
and that Cambodia is on the farthest backburner of governments that would be
able to exert but a token of influence. He is trying to overcome this, so it
seems, by believing his FB posts can
sort of counter this. </div>
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Meanwhile the party’s vice president negotiates an
entitlement program with the chief negotiator for the CPP, Sar Kheng. So one is
trying to open up that much-cited culture of dialogue with a few bread crumbs
strewn in for his own benefit while the other one is raising his finger in
admonition warning of dire consequences for the people of Cambodia. Are those two still on the same page, or is
one pursuing his own agenda in the meantime? After all, he has to shoulder the
brunt of the work. By all rights, he should be the president of the party, now
shouldn’t he? In the past one had occasionally gotten the feeling the Sam Rainsy is a little bit out of touch
with what’s going on around him. Thomas
Fuller, the New York Times Correspondent for SE Asia for 10 years, is taking a
new assignment and wrote a summary of what’s going on SE Asia. I was waiting to
read something about Cambodia there too. Not one word – the main topic was
Thailand and the military junta, Laos, Malaysia, and Myanmar were mentioned but
not Cambodia . This seems to be symptomatic of Cambodia’s role on the world
stage, it just doesn’t count for much. Perhaps, Sam Rainsy might realize this
too eventually and instead of looking for support outside Cambodia he should
mobilize forces within. And this can only be done if he is here on the ground.
But then, prison is a pretty unsavory prospect.</div>
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Here is the link to the NYT article by Thomas Fuller <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/22/world/asia/reporting-on-life-death-and-corruption-in-southeast-asia.html?ref=asia">http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/22/world/asia/reporting-on-life-death-and-corruption-in-southeast-asia.html?ref=asia</a></div>
KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-24156704798736770682016-02-10T02:31:00.000-08:002016-02-10T02:31:00.568-08:00Tourism Bust in Cambodia?<div class="MsoNormal">
This is my personal assessment and prediction of sorts based
on my 30 years in the international tourism business and on numbers published
by the Ministry of Tourism and some other sources, e. g. The Travel Weekly ,
and most importantly based on numbers obtained from the booking portals.</div>
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There was a brief analysis posted on Facebook recently that
in my opinion did not quite make the cut in verified facts.</div>
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Cambodian statistics are notoriously unreliable. Sometimes I
get the impression it is like reading tea leaves. If you see how they collect
numbers for the Sihanoukville market, in which I am an active participant, I
suspect it is not much different for the other larger markets, Phnom Penh and
Siem Reap.</div>
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In total there were about 4.5 million visitors; that
includes both business travelers and tourists. The sector showed a healthy
increase of 7% over 2014. This is an outstanding result anywhere in the world.
Of course, Cambodia cannot expect to have increases as in the beginning of substantial
tourist arrivals starting in 2004 or so, with increases of 17%. The old adage
applies: low numbers large increases. Now these numbers all have to be taken
with a grain of salt. A hefty 75% come from other Asian countries, most notably
Vietnam and China. What is of interest to European/American-owned tourist
businesses is the number of European and North American arrivals, namely
approximately 750,000, with the U. S. leading with 192,000. </div>
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Looking at Sihanoukville, the MOT published 1.5 million
visitors, of which 400,000 were foreigners, in other words, 1.1 million were
Cambodians visiting the coastal city. A rough estimate published was 150,000
Western tourists for 2015. This figure was mentioned in an interview with the
local tourism official. Again, how do they count the numbers? Hotels are
required to file statistics with the tourism department but very few, if any at
all, do. As mentioned elsewhere there is
an oversupply of accommodations available. Booking.com features 179 properties.
There is new construction of hotels going on everywhere in town. These can
never be run economically in the foreseeable future with an average length of
stay of 3.8 days. This figure is, of course, also somewhat misleading as local
visitors usually stay only one night, and Asian tourists between two and four.
Among the Western tourists the large segment of backpackers stays from 0 to 1
night in town in order to head off to the islands where they stay longer; there
is no statistic on that. They are all counted as Sihanoukville tourists. Older
tourists tend to just sample the islands for a couple of nights as they do not
want to forgo the comforts of hotel rooms in town. And these people tend to
stay longer, from 4 to 7 days. The number of people staying beyond that may be
small but some spend the entire cold winter months here, albeit in rented
condos if they stay at least 3 months which are usually rented only for that
minimum period of time. </div>
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Cambodia and Sihanoukville in particular used to be an
extension to a SE Asian trip, but that has changed over time. It has now become
a destination in its own right, e. g. 3 days Phnom Penh, 4 days Siem Reap, and
4 days Sihanoukville, not counting those that visit the Cardamon mountains,
Rattanakiri, etc. </div>
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Booking.com, the largest booking portal in the world with
about 750,000 hotels in their database and with a sophisticated software to
steer potential guests to the hotel that meets their criteria, also have the most
reliable statistics as far as bookings for Sihanoukville are concerned. They
report an increase of 140% from November 2015 to the beginning of February 2016.
Agoda.com the second largest for the SE Asian market shows a 17% increase in
2015 over 2014, and a 33% increase for the period November ’15 to Feb. ’16. That
booking.com outweighs Agoda is probably proportionate to their market share. These
facts contradict the common perception that there is a tourism bust in
Sihanoukville or in Cambodia in general, because by extension what goes for Sihanoukville as a minor market would apply to the larger markets as well. The complaints about a slow high season are possibly coming from entrepreneurs that contributed to the oversupply of accommodations and gastronomical enterprises.</div>
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It is also evident that the age of visitors that stay in
Sihanoukville has increased as have families with children during vacation
times. The young back- and flashpackers go to the islands as prices in
Sihanoukville have increased along with the standard of hotels there, making
Sihanoukville more unattractive for this group. However, the islands may
undergo at least a stagnation for a while as the adequate beach front land available
for the sort of guesthouses now dotting the islands has become scarce, not to mention the evident environmental problems facing the islands already. The
uncertain legal situation with soft titles makes development there only attractive for the more adventurous
risk-takers.</div>
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Sihanoukville has taken a lot of flak online for being a
dump with trash all over the place whether it is on Ochheuteal beach or along the
streets. Things may be looking up as groups of garbage pickers have been spotted
on occasion, and trash containers have been put up. Maybe the Tourist
Department is now taking its role more seriously because it is a fact that
during the past 8 years or so nothing much has really been done about the
deplorable state of the beach in one of the most beautiful bays in Asia. One
also has to wonder about the role of the hotel association within this
framework. Surely, a lot of their work is done behind closed in sessions with
the Tourist Department, but then again, nothing much could seen in terms of
results. I worked with the Chamber of Commerce here with about the same
results.</div>
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The internet is a bane and a boon for the tourist business at
the same time. Reports of a crime wave are blown out of proportion mostly by the
social media. Handbag snatching is encountered in every poor country in the world. The same goes for corrupt cops shaking down hapless
tourists. And it is true that it used to be popular destination, and to some
degree still is, for sex tourists. Their presence, however, is mostly confined
to certain parts of town. And yes, countries with such liberal visa
requirements also attract the more dubious characters from the Western world.
Naturally, retirees come here as their dollar stretches a little more here than
in their home country, notwithstanding the current rise in its value against
the Euro, the Australian dollar, and the Pound.</div>
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And for the outlook; what does it hold in store for the
future of the tourist business in Cambodia, and Sihanoukville in particular, in
view of terrorism, economic uncertainty, and tighter budgets due to currency
factors? </div>
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One look at Thailand will show that terrorism scares people
off for about 3 months after which time they start coming back simply for lack
of alternate destinations. I have seen the same phenomenon in my past experience. Travelers coming to SE Asia is a clientele that usually does not go the Caribbean or Africa. Thailand reports healthy increases in
tourist arrivals. Another aspect is that this terrorism and the underlying conflict is central more to the
Middle East, Europe and the North Atlantic. Of course, a terrorist bomb on an
airliner could hit anywhere. Apart from Malaysian Airlines, and the reasons for
the disappearance are still unknown, no Arab or Asian airlines have been
targeted. European security measures have become very strict and air travel is
actually up despite those potential threats. It appears as though this is not a
significant deterrent for people to travel to Asia.</div>
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European economies are wavering on the brink of stagnation, except
for the German economic powerhouse. This uncertain future of the economy
affects, regrettable as always, the lower segment of society, in other words, middle
and upper middle class people have less to fear in this respect and will
continue to travel. One should not forget that Europeans on the whole enjoy
unparalleled vacation time – often 4 and more weeks of paid vacation time per
year. Once November rolls around there people get so tired of the dreary and
bleak weather they pack their bags and off they go to warmer climates. Of course,
the Euro has lost significant value from a height of $1.35 to $1.08 right now,
but facts contradict the overall effect of this devaluation. The price of oil has dropped to almost historic levels and this makes itself felt on people's pocketbooks, offsetting the lower parity. People travel just
as much. Americans make up the majority of Western tourists. Their economy is
humming along and they are not affected by a declining parity. The only problem
with Americans is that they have very short paid vacations. This is why they really
start to travel seriously once they are retired. One group severely affected are Russian tourists. The ruble is has lost more than 100% against the dollar. This was immediately felt last year and the beginning of this high season did not show any improvement. However, it seems that now that wide-ranging travel restrictions are in place there - Turkey, their most popular destination, is out, the Ukraine is out, government employees are not allowed to travel outside the country - Russians can only go to Asia. There is a slightly brighter outlook for Russian arrivals right now, but only time will tell.</div>
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So what would affect Cambodia? Some say it is a one-time
destination because if you have seen Angkor Wat once, what else is there. Well,
seasoned travelers will tell those people there is plenty more to see,
especially in the northern provinces. I have no statistics on hand to show how
many repeat visitors come to Cambodia but from personal experience it is around
5% - and that’s only Western tourists. Seeing as there was still substantial
growth last year – even if the 7% might actually be only 6% (?) – I personally
don’t see that the curve flatlines to 0% or even go below that. The Asian
market is by no means exhausted yet and despite China’s problems there are still
enough affluent Chinese people with enough disposable income to travel.</div>
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And, last but not least, the country continues to enjoy
overall growth in all sectors, and is a very safe and politically stable country.
Travel advisories put out by embassies
are mostly there to cover their own backsides. A coup like in Thailand will not
happen here in the foreseeable future. Cambodia has arrived on the political world
scene, notwithstanding Sam Rainsy’s efforts, as evidenced by the recent World
Economic Summit in Davos, the upcoming ASEAN-U.S. meeting, and other meeting
with world leaders. This enhances the current government’s stature and this always
has ramifications beyond politics, e. g. the common perception of Cambodia among
other countries’ consumers.</div>
KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-1175931143400296492016-01-21T20:32:00.000-08:002016-01-21T20:32:41.470-08:00And here is another good one….<div class="MsoNormal">
I mentioned those flat-out unbelievable excuses Cambodians
tend to make. Now the Prime Minister chimed in with one of his own.</div>
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A Cambodian-American doctor who had returned to Cambodia
recently criticized the Cambodian medical profession. He maintained they are
mostly ill-qualified to treat even minor illnesses. As anybody who ever visited
one of the many clinics dotting the Cambodian landscape can tell nothing could
be more true. Sometimes these doctors prescribe anti-depressants for headaches.
A doctor who examined my step-daughter a few years back diagnosed air and water
in the abdomen. My daughter had complained about severe abdominal pain, nausea,
and vomiting. As is normal in Cambodia, he prescribed 2 hours of IV, 2 days of
observation at his clinic and after that she was sent home with a cocktail of
meds we didn’t know what they were for.</div>
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When she got to the U. S. we saw a gastroenterologist who
immediately diagnosed a certain syndrome and started treatment which eventually
ended in surgery. If she had not gotten that care she would have died. </div>
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Recently, a woman had an accident with severe head trauma.
The husband took her to a large Cambodian hospital. The doctors said she need a
CT scan of the head but they needed to pay first. The husband, a poor farmer,
didn’t have the money and begged for help. The hospital staff, e. g. the
doctors were adamant. Long story short, the woman died.</div>
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There are countless examples like these occurring in
Cambodia. The medical profession through their associated had the nerve to demand an apology
from the doctor who, needless to say, refused.</div>
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Now comes the good part. A couple of days ago, the media
reported that the Prime Minister went to Singapore for a check-up. What? He is
now a real big fan of Facebook and people took to this page asking why he went
to Singapore? Well, he said he went there because Cambodia doesn’t have the
necessary equipment yet. Ah, isn’t that interesting? He went on to defend the
Cambodian medical profession and said, indeed, he had more check-ups on a
quarterly and semi-annual basis all conducted by Cambodian doctors. Mr. Prime
Minister, couldn’t you have come up with a better excuse? That is just so damn
lame that not even middle-school students will believe that.</div>
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And why please do all the people with some money go to
Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, and even the U. S. or Europe for medical
treatment. Because 80% (my estimate) of Cambodian doctors are quacks. Some
clinics are only operated by nurses; the patients don’t even know that this is
only a nurse not a doctor with a medical degree. Such was and is the state of
Cambodian health care to this day.</div>
KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-36344236578634170342016-01-20T02:12:00.000-08:002016-01-20T02:12:29.945-08:00Lawlessness<div class="MsoNormal">
This is practically a sequence to the previous post.
Cambodians have a penchant for cockfights. As in most countries, they are
illegal but they nevertheless have an avid following especially in the
countryside.</div>
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Police often look the other way but sometimes they do raid a
fight. The other day in a district in Prey Veng province the police surrounded
a fight to stop it and possibly seize the cocks. </div>
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In the process the district police chief drew his service
weapon and fired a shot hitting an innocent bystander who was holding his child
in his arms. News reports say the bullet hit the man in the temple and exited on
the other side. The bystander was felled as if hit by lighning dropping his
baby to the ground.</div>
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The police chief stated he only fired a warning shot in the
air and the bullet must have ricocheted from a tree. This explanation is a
typical Cambodian excuse. They come up with the most implausible excuses you
can think of, often insulting the intelligence of people who can think
logically. How can a bullet ricochet even if it is not directly shot in the
air? If the gun is pointed even slightly upwards it is absolutely impossible
for the bullet to ricochet back downwards hitting a bystander in such way that
the projectile would enter the temple and exit the temple on the other side. It
was a shot clearly fired at shoulder height, possibly with outstretched arm. It doesn’t take a criminologist to
come to this conclusion.</div>
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Why would a policeman draw his weapon to break up a
cockfight? This sounds just as if it had happened in the U. S. where
trigger-happy cops are wont to shoot and kill unarmed African-Americans for
minor infractions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The local court invited the chief for an interrogation but
the chief did not show up saying he was sick. This policeman needs to be
arrested for at least involuntary manslaughter. If no further news will be read
or heard within the next couple of weeks it is safe to assume that the affair
will be swept under the carpet. Stay tuned.</div>
KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-4780738827625681242016-01-13T00:58:00.000-08:002016-01-13T00:58:29.604-08:00Cambodians and the Law<div class="MsoNormal">
Cambodians have a deep-seated disrespect of all laws and
regulations unless it involves their hallowed traditional rules of preserving
their daughters’ virginity and arranged marriages as well as the ceremonies on
all Buddhist holidays, which they celebrate with great aplomb, somber expressions
and humble demeanor, alas without great conviction (the elderly Khmer whom I
very much respect will hopefully excuse my cynicism).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Much has been written on forums and blogs, not to mention
the local newspapers both English-language and Khmer, and the social media,
foremost among them that huge advancement of Western civilization and now
world-wide culture, Facebook, about the new traffic law, as it is commonly
called in online parlance. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I do not want to repeat all those gripes written and
otherwise expressed both orally and electronically, but this law is symptomatic
of the state of the Cambodian mind in terms of how to live together within
certain boundaries and in a civilized manner. Man laid down rules of how to live
together in a group, tribe, or later in states since the beginning of time.
Without these rules or laws anarchy would rein.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now to look at Cambodian roads one might get the impression
that this sector of Cambodian life is indeed somewhat anarchic, or perhaps only
chaotic. But not only there, in fact in most other cases they flout what
officialdom had prescribed. They build houses wherever and in any fashion they
want, they settle on land without asking who the owner is, they believe they
are due a share of something whether they earned it or not. Polygamy is
outlawed in Cambodia. Nevertheless, wealthy, mostly elderly, man have a young
and beautiful mistress, semi-officially called the second wife or small wife
(propuen chong).This attitude and self-righteousness is the cause of and fuels
many conflicts. And then, of course, if a law prohibits certain actions there
is always money that can pave the way around a law so officials may look the
other way or in direct violation of the law even sanction such illegal actions.
A good example is the former practice of granting concessions for large pieces
of land for rubber plantations. The designated concession may have been a
protected natural habitat or national park. But time and again one could find
that these old and environmentally valuable trees were cut down in exactly
those spots with official approval. The export of precious hardwoods is another
example. This has been going for decades
and the government is unable to stop it. The more egregious cases of clear
violations of the law at the highest level involve people who killed somebody,
whether in an accident or otherwise, just come to a settlement with the
survivors who then don’t press charges. The same system is ingrained for rapes.
The perpetrator simply pays some retribution to the victim and her family and
then the prosecutor does not see the need for any official action although a
myriad number of laws have been flagrantly ignored and broken. In fact, this constitutes
another criminal offense. There is a duty to prosecute, whether or not the civil
claim had been settled or not. A crime was committed and this requires a
punishment.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But let’s take the recent new traffic law as an example par
excellence how things work. The law was passed a year or so ago. One would
think plenty of time to educate the population about the new regulations. The
majority of traffic is motorcycles. The aim was to curb the many traffic
fatalities that afflict the county. The law to wear a helmet had been in place
already. Now both driver and pinion rider need to wear one. From now on there
are only two adults and one child under 6 (?) allowed on a bike. The government
convened a committee to hammer out a strategy on how to implement the new law.
They came up with the brilliant idea to use about 1750 policemen nationwide,
yes, nationwide, to man traffic posts. In Phnom Penh there are over 1 million
registered motorcycles but only approx. 90,000 people with a driver license. Countrywide
that number is probably unknown. So all unlicensed drivers would need to get a
license. Many of the motorcycles, especially in Sihanoukville, had not been
registered as the owner had not paid the import tax and duty for it, a
prerequisite for getting it registered. In order to get a license they would
all need to take a test and pass it. Those tests are a joke insofar as you
practically could not fail. The people supervising the test are there to help
you check the right answers if you pass them a little something. But, of course, there is also a fee for the
license itself involved. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now come January 01 police began pulling over cars and
motorcycles for infractions of the new law. This being Cambodia it goes without
saying that the people who hadn’t had a license did not get one all these
months the previous year, notwithstanding the fact that TV had reported on the
subject many times. As for the registration, that probably was pretty much
unaffordable for most people. So they simply did nothing about it. The rural
people simply claimed not to know that a new law even existed – I am sure in
some cases that’s even true. According to newspaper reports the police pulled
over 80,000 vehicles the first 3 or 4 days and collected an almost similar
amount of money. The enforcement provoked a veritable shitstorm on Facebook. As the PM maintains a very active Facebook
page he was swamped with comments.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Prime Minister, lately somewhat suffering from
statesman-like credibility because of the Sam Rainsy issue, took it to heart
and swiftly rendered some of the sections suspended, e. g. the driver licenses
– for motorcycles less than 125 cc none is needed, over 125 cc you need to get
one but won’t have to take a test and getting the license is free. So why not
have everybody get one? The registration requirement got a moratorium of I
believe 6 months. So here you have the parliament who passed a law – this why
it is called the legislature, one of the three pillars of democracy – and then
you the Prime Minister, part of the executive branch who without even as much
as a stroke of the pen but with an announcement on Facebook nixed part of a
law. Wouldn’t that have been a job for the parliament? Of course, he did issue
an executive order the next day and promised the assembly would later follow up
with a change in the law. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So one can now easily understand why the Cambodian
population, from the poor ignorant peasant to the well-heeled city dweller,
simply doesn’t respect laws. They see how it is simply ignored and has been for
decades at all levels of society so why should they comply with regulations that
are against their personal, possibly only momentary, interests. During the
Democratic Republic of Kampuchea there were strict laws that applied only to
the general population. The party hierarchy had always been exempt unless
somebody had rubbed somebody higher up the wrong way. After the 1993 elections,
the ruling party simply contested the outcome, threatened secession, and
managed to stay in power. Impunity is a widely practiced concept. When it
served their purpose the law could be interpreted to fit their needs. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How can compliance with the law be taught to the general
education – only in schools, right? This will, of course, only work if there is
an educational system in place that would know how to do that. But with absenteeism
and corruption as much part of a teacher’s life as everywhere else, this could
never reach the broader future generation. This has been going on to this day
and this is why even, perhaps especially, the younger ones just say, ‘Who
cares?’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
So it is no wonder that you can hardly see anybody after January
01 on Cambodia’s rural roads wear helmets, let alone the person on the back
wearing one too. 3, 4 or even 5 people on one of those small rickety motorbikes
are no rarity either. I haven’t been to Phnom Penh lately; reportedly it is
slightly different there but in Sihanoukville one cannot see any noticeable
change on the streets. Now they are forming a committee to study how to change
the new traffic law to encompass the needs of all people. Who drew up the law
in the first place and did the members of the assembly deliberate on it at all?
Where was the opposition’s wisdom? Didn’t any of that go into the process at
all?</div>
KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-72906633191480628302016-01-02T23:40:00.003-08:002016-01-02T23:40:39.050-08:00Snakes<div class="MsoNormal">
I am going to write about real snakes, not about the human
kind. Snakes are widespread in SE Asia so it won’t come as a surprise when
visitors or locals come across one. Most people will freeze up and scream
(females) for fear or run away forgetting that most of the snakes, like
everywhere, are harmless and will slither away from us. Of course, better safe
than sorry, so it definitely is wise not to get too close to them. There are quite
a few of the poisonous sort. Please refer to this website for further
information and advice.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.cambodia-sihanoukville.com/cem-pages/cem-cambodia-wildlife-snakes.html">http://www.cambodia-sihanoukville.com/cem-pages/cem-cambodia-wildlife-snakes.html</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hardly a week goes by where we don’t have a snake incident
at our house. I have two dogs that routinely hunt smaller snakes. They grab it at
the middle and shake it so it doesn’t have the opportunity to bite because
their head is flopping around like crazy. Just the other day, though, they
encountered a larger one which raised its head in typical snake fashion and my
good dogs with their instincts shied away from a direct attack. My help killed
it with a shovel. It was the Indo-Chinese spitting cobra. They did kill the
smaller one though. The cobra made good fare for people in the nearby village.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHxqTJvkYSgSdpancYpoudnjksYe5GeDHaRWJ1wsRrbuaepjci0rUKF7gBDN8u8Ie_8nFpuK8BqgxiC1AbWVGpE6eL9mHab7MUEHSsfPdeSm7owRKfnjvaqtc-JIYODVElNup_8LP7Vg/s1600/20151225_Snake+hunt+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHxqTJvkYSgSdpancYpoudnjksYe5GeDHaRWJ1wsRrbuaepjci0rUKF7gBDN8u8Ie_8nFpuK8BqgxiC1AbWVGpE6eL9mHab7MUEHSsfPdeSm7owRKfnjvaqtc-JIYODVElNup_8LP7Vg/s640/20151225_Snake+hunt+%25282%2529.jpg" width="360" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the prowl</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAM0QZzQ9TNF54XNAUXEtIwu6gilbcJ9KWJRXLmFQAa3d5ep20qfZ1pk8SF2O8NAu8u_CvC2NtqvOMGM6SYhbVpoAih5pmxFtjxiMm9SV8hK2Cl8Nj6oYeweg-cUOgMglT4ozEcTim0Q/s1600/20151225_Snake+hunt+%25283%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAM0QZzQ9TNF54XNAUXEtIwu6gilbcJ9KWJRXLmFQAa3d5ep20qfZ1pk8SF2O8NAu8u_CvC2NtqvOMGM6SYhbVpoAih5pmxFtjxiMm9SV8hK2Cl8Nj6oYeweg-cUOgMglT4ozEcTim0Q/s640/20151225_Snake+hunt+%25283%2529.jpg" width="360" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Got it</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivEHLMgRXg9_5k26ArROO44fKNS5_OBJVpcgEHDw2w7rTc04VFq1P07_iQpWJeudZbbsCxSvWE-jahmjTsoHYO7Lsb6jdMkW5YiFItOdD6pAQB9iQZGizq-LakmtB-gLcDEubhgvs2Pg/s1600/20151225_Snake+hunt+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivEHLMgRXg9_5k26ArROO44fKNS5_OBJVpcgEHDw2w7rTc04VFq1P07_iQpWJeudZbbsCxSvWE-jahmjTsoHYO7Lsb6jdMkW5YiFItOdD6pAQB9iQZGizq-LakmtB-gLcDEubhgvs2Pg/s640/20151225_Snake+hunt+%25281%2529.jpg" width="360" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Real small - but can be poisonous too</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaF0q0sqJeWf2M5tzXC8OwGIodGAbfVamKlOCg4Ai004nv8Ad7LbC-JbteT0HCBz6w85tfpYRSYjugSglaq_4-z03foALLyyaNN2gw75Jn28PBysdzFc4QSoGJQ5QLZQnmEMjG0Z6gDw/s1600/20151231_New+Years+Eve+%252819%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaF0q0sqJeWf2M5tzXC8OwGIodGAbfVamKlOCg4Ai004nv8Ad7LbC-JbteT0HCBz6w85tfpYRSYjugSglaq_4-z03foALLyyaNN2gw75Jn28PBysdzFc4QSoGJQ5QLZQnmEMjG0Z6gDw/s640/20151231_New+Years+Eve+%252819%2529.jpg" width="360" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spitting Cobra (poisonous) and harmless snake - but both dead</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One time they had caught and thought they had killed a
smaller snake already. So one dog got closer again to sniff at it and promptly
got bitten in the nose. It was a poisonous snake and we had to rush him to a
vet to get him a shot of anti-dotes. Poison takes longer in a dog to circulate
through the system. According to the vet where it might take 1 hour in humans
it takes 6 hours in dogs. His nose was a bit swollen for a while but he
recovered fully and was soon back in the game.</div>
KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-27822719772414244382016-01-02T23:29:00.001-08:002016-01-02T23:50:12.588-08:00New Year's Eve in SihanoukvilleBig Party like Every Year - Maybe Even Bigger This Year<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPmhvK2bZIfqcpNiHUXmoRGWkdmA_SyOwsxFWP3kqH6SDfSzCn_tK_ZeheyGi1NExOjvsyT9R8opZ_SBrULtgjPHQvsI1KqWRdaSL3emTZzmu9nKYaYHBBVKZE5GYU48PTu-jSYDCmpA/s1600/20151231_New+Years+Eve+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPmhvK2bZIfqcpNiHUXmoRGWkdmA_SyOwsxFWP3kqH6SDfSzCn_tK_ZeheyGi1NExOjvsyT9R8opZ_SBrULtgjPHQvsI1KqWRdaSL3emTZzmu9nKYaYHBBVKZE5GYU48PTu-jSYDCmpA/s640/20151231_New+Years+Eve+%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Entrance</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcpHg_w_B_hmVo2mEw00FVk90xk4pQ_pZuV2KERLWkH7KNX0Ecb25jcGfqBb7Lnk2W2-SPzhq8nw2oqxEEnHuYfX1xRDF3XIlFAmFSuDE0L3UhgoYYXfJNMxAjxiiGOBrHz4vgm-gE7Q/s1600/20151231_New+Years+Eve+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcpHg_w_B_hmVo2mEw00FVk90xk4pQ_pZuV2KERLWkH7KNX0Ecb25jcGfqBb7Lnk2W2-SPzhq8nw2oqxEEnHuYfX1xRDF3XIlFAmFSuDE0L3UhgoYYXfJNMxAjxiiGOBrHz4vgm-gE7Q/s640/20151231_New+Years+Eve+%25282%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The New Behemoth Hotel</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQZaStpRRvCl-__35-0kiJVLqZQL322-K7zeI2VxUQeXVu7I-Joo37oi_Pedh-eIS2GJLsDPvjEn9wwf1gaa1PFOTgiscKRaJbmNUl7VedGOCjqEBCUMhomKPGGVbmN9x493ge9xx1xA/s1600/20151231_New+Years+Eve+%25283%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQZaStpRRvCl-__35-0kiJVLqZQL322-K7zeI2VxUQeXVu7I-Joo37oi_Pedh-eIS2GJLsDPvjEn9wwf1gaa1PFOTgiscKRaJbmNUl7VedGOCjqEBCUMhomKPGGVbmN9x493ge9xx1xA/s640/20151231_New+Years+Eve+%25283%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Entrance </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEkU5SOGcNbS8zVpXAna5jYdBt6F1qUhPiFh3Y4tgIwQUe2XggvuM9-R0tYaihdi8YhU38WxX-Rm3qIfRXbe95ZnzKwDgI-I5XTIAkg9QLUdJBSKGPHf1qWkAV3_h_DcvgTCPrWB0HFA/s1600/20151231_New+Years+Eve+%25284%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEkU5SOGcNbS8zVpXAna5jYdBt6F1qUhPiFh3Y4tgIwQUe2XggvuM9-R0tYaihdi8YhU38WxX-Rm3qIfRXbe95ZnzKwDgI-I5XTIAkg9QLUdJBSKGPHf1qWkAV3_h_DcvgTCPrWB0HFA/s640/20151231_New+Years+Eve+%25284%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Cambodia Beer Concert</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDo2PbBr9DFVKKVFyl1TeGfbY__SjmCzkb_3S7OgQ3wPdJNHXcE0BWLRRYU76Nh8GEh1KlHeJrnoG2WLkCfA3moIVcl5R1w7gtDX0gjWC7Dy7KsOA3BjLlu7es-ZLI7w-K5oQPhQKVTw/s1600/20151231_New+Years+Eve+%25285%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDo2PbBr9DFVKKVFyl1TeGfbY__SjmCzkb_3S7OgQ3wPdJNHXcE0BWLRRYU76Nh8GEh1KlHeJrnoG2WLkCfA3moIVcl5R1w7gtDX0gjWC7Dy7KsOA3BjLlu7es-ZLI7w-K5oQPhQKVTw/s640/20151231_New+Years+Eve+%25285%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Beach </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEDJNVh0j9Kj7ILV_MCekZZd3JAj0ZfUPi22Upf6SZirKSfZbBXmYJDpmpAMdBycrIgrqT4syHKH8X288hOABYbse8g8jRyahWBAzknmlhLLPLJVHFot831z8MeLDCyFE31vi548SFgA/s1600/20151231_New+Years+Eve+%25286%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEDJNVh0j9Kj7ILV_MCekZZd3JAj0ZfUPi22Upf6SZirKSfZbBXmYJDpmpAMdBycrIgrqT4syHKH8X288hOABYbse8g8jRyahWBAzknmlhLLPLJVHFot831z8MeLDCyFE31vi548SFgA/s640/20151231_New+Years+Eve+%25286%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Never miss a chance to sell something</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1hBSkIkCNBbJcG-oP79298bD3wC-_wLmGUB7LcX1i1HFb1jyCm2BpK4n3yjH4dl7ow7QZrduF3AQFEWBZVy5Hq2QyZ6cBdvgrDk5nK2AmWEPnOD06iymn_4JLAE7iftEHNfQoBH2iBw/s1600/20151231_New+Years+Eve+%25287%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1hBSkIkCNBbJcG-oP79298bD3wC-_wLmGUB7LcX1i1HFb1jyCm2BpK4n3yjH4dl7ow7QZrduF3AQFEWBZVy5Hq2QyZ6cBdvgrDk5nK2AmWEPnOD06iymn_4JLAE7iftEHNfQoBH2iBw/s640/20151231_New+Years+Eve+%25287%2529.jpg" width="360" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Anchor Concert</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLPxhA8AeSyLLwBcxKf_uI6r5lwyYKr3chQixt5XnjW5K_zVkm0hEfxE8PInex9BO0iWn0VtI-HGW0wTYMEfbSEWThikXouGoZXu8-vkr5pxBpQ7SvHrrQYxibm7dF3Ex9-9-GlfwMyQ/s1600/20151231_New+Years+Eve+%25289%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLPxhA8AeSyLLwBcxKf_uI6r5lwyYKr3chQixt5XnjW5K_zVkm0hEfxE8PInex9BO0iWn0VtI-HGW0wTYMEfbSEWThikXouGoZXu8-vkr5pxBpQ7SvHrrQYxibm7dF3Ex9-9-GlfwMyQ/s640/20151231_New+Years+Eve+%25289%2529.jpg" width="360" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Angkor Concert</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">TheVIP Concert</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijf7oqEG8Mw01sivM185GWZXS9Sc3UmifyhVS3zI6J4ZVQMpesDJmYJzn8pvkbCDfjJqUQi_Mnbm453S25vQ7sdLffyLOhvNkRtKFLyBPlBPcD0N9fyB2o72Kfc5j55038GryYHa6DJQ/s1600/20151231_New+Years+Eve+%252815%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijf7oqEG8Mw01sivM185GWZXS9Sc3UmifyhVS3zI6J4ZVQMpesDJmYJzn8pvkbCDfjJqUQi_Mnbm453S25vQ7sdLffyLOhvNkRtKFLyBPlBPcD0N9fyB2o72Kfc5j55038GryYHa6DJQ/s640/20151231_New+Years+Eve+%252815%2529.jpg" width="360" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Parking Lot Cambodian Style</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A local beauty - trying out a new job as a bartender<br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">I am no VIP but I was invited to the VIP concert but couldn't stand it after an hour or so - the noise was deafening.</span>KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-90760987647303909502015-12-17T02:12:00.001-08:002015-12-17T02:12:41.338-08:00Death Deferred or Dying in the Countryside<div class="MsoNormal">
Recently my wife got a call from a cousin of hers in Kratie province
alerting her of the impending death of one of her aunts – she is 91 years old. The
aunt had asked to see my wife in her final days or even hours. My wife is very
close to this aunt as she was one of the major figures in my wife’s early life.
My wife is a victim of the Pol Pot era and its aftermath. Her mother left her
father for another man – a Khmer Rouge fighter. In those days many people did
believe that the Khmer Rouge regime would be better for Cambodia and her mother
fell for it. This was shortly before they overthrew the Lon Nol regime; plus
this was in the countryside where people by and large are more gullible anyway.
My wife’s father got killed by an American bomb that was mistakenly dropped on a
Lon Nol army convoy believing it was Khmer Rouge, Viet Cong or even North
Vietnamese; her father served as a medic in the army at that time. This aunt
along with the grandmother, gone a long time now, then raised my wife until the
age of 12 or so. Memories are a little blurry about the exact time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So naturally she wanted to go and say good-bye to her. We
made our way all the way up to Kratie province which is, after all, about 600
km - on Cambodia’s roads at that, although most of them are quite passable now.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When we got there we could observe closely how Cambodians deal with their elderly, which is a stark contrast to how many Western people
treat their old parents or grandparents. The aunt lay motionless on a mat; she
hadn’t eaten in days and had barely drunk the minimum to keep her alive. She
was really frail and emaciated. Her closest relatives kept a constant watch
over her. A lay priest came by in the evenings and spoke to her about general
Buddhist teachings and old stories from their lives in the village, all the
time being ready to call a monk from the nearby pagoda to give her what
Catholics would call the last rites. They massaged her with Eucalyptus oil and
tried to make as comfortable as possible.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Initially she hardly moved when her daughter told her that
we had arrived. But she slowly turned and looked at us with what seemed like
unseeing eyes. She appeared really dazed. Her relatives propped her up into a
sitting position and we talked to her. When I entered that family almost 20
years ago and visited her from the U. S. at that time, she had taken a real
liking to me, kept saying hallo, and good-bye, and started saying ok, and so on
- real nice for an old lady. She especially liked hugging which I did from the first time I met her. Cambodians are not in the habit of doing this. So I hugged and held her close and finally, she recognized me and touched my arm
feeling whether I was healthy, not just skin and bones like her. We had brought fruit and shredded dried pork, a real
favorite of hers. After a while my wife started feeding her and she began to
eat to everybody’s surprise. We took pictures of us with our phone and
showed it to her which elicited a real smile from her. She appeared to have
gotten back a will to live. We reminded her that when we had told her way back of
our decision to make our home in Cambodia in a year’s time she said, ‘But I
will be dead by then.’ That was 7 or 8 years ago. So we told her the same thing
will happen now. She will live to be 100, don’t worry. Just think of the last
time you said something like this. She smiled again. We spend a good 3 hours
with her that evening and came back the next morning to say good-bye. She was
very coherent and it seems she had shaken off that resignation to impending
death. In fact, she was quite cheerful when she said bye, bye to us and waved
just like she had all the years before when we visited her.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the meantime a month has passed and she is still alive
today. If we don’t see her again, at least we had given her a few happy
moments.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpmWP-eybrxiH5E3xMucdb1VpzjBX4sCf7-y43NtSChXHRM998_x39iGedbypOD5GJ5E-nj2l50o5VtFjhJiCXkNjlwZslClrV8EoZrCKdvgzKZxS-100LLoH-Xgs6IidvPUwN3BB3wA/s1600/20151202_Kratie+%252814%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpmWP-eybrxiH5E3xMucdb1VpzjBX4sCf7-y43NtSChXHRM998_x39iGedbypOD5GJ5E-nj2l50o5VtFjhJiCXkNjlwZslClrV8EoZrCKdvgzKZxS-100LLoH-Xgs6IidvPUwN3BB3wA/s400/20151202_Kratie+%252814%2529.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ohm Im and myself</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicXaEiw5vEr_ko69Q8P4fsLH76o3F9NyAdRUYbThaOwbRc35IUXSnZYeTJpQoyKFXB8gKk_ckyMjamaf956akDPDFWUkj4Euhu9VIP6fPVhN1XzA9FxHlI4qI-l2etC_OxnBY2PtTYXw/s1600/20151202_Kratie+%252816%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicXaEiw5vEr_ko69Q8P4fsLH76o3F9NyAdRUYbThaOwbRc35IUXSnZYeTJpQoyKFXB8gKk_ckyMjamaf956akDPDFWUkj4Euhu9VIP6fPVhN1XzA9FxHlI4qI-l2etC_OxnBY2PtTYXw/s400/20151202_Kratie+%252816%2529.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ohm Im and her daughter Sehm</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPx9pFdwBIhs8aaHj6zDpA43H2bx1td6610HANyHgyXdjVSnt95UygJaGnFUHjlVJ6RDn593UD-XCVTCPtO5qh0rZcxfXvz11QCKthVtBF3jWqU4iv8t3HG0CxUY1bepqJcx6IX7pVCw/s1600/20151202_Kratie+%252817%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPx9pFdwBIhs8aaHj6zDpA43H2bx1td6610HANyHgyXdjVSnt95UygJaGnFUHjlVJ6RDn593UD-XCVTCPtO5qh0rZcxfXvz11QCKthVtBF3jWqU4iv8t3HG0CxUY1bepqJcx6IX7pVCw/s400/20151202_Kratie+%252817%2529.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">She is eating.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN_65ceXN-3RezRRCRxOtqSl_z_bPjDb30AhWrDMst2LlawD-6P-JAg2j7Zxc50pNtIEze4R4ZERbE5l1vIYf7wfY4yt8l2avTsbiAVJcWf2quS7c1m7E4RgpNZH1-rM18XLyDFxLBLw/s1600/20151202_Kratie+%25284%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN_65ceXN-3RezRRCRxOtqSl_z_bPjDb30AhWrDMst2LlawD-6P-JAg2j7Zxc50pNtIEze4R4ZERbE5l1vIYf7wfY4yt8l2avTsbiAVJcWf2quS7c1m7E4RgpNZH1-rM18XLyDFxLBLw/s400/20151202_Kratie+%25284%2529.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Wat in Sombok</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-51034010870581370632015-11-29T03:15:00.000-08:002015-11-29T03:15:10.048-08:00The European Parliament’s Resolution on Cambodia<div class="MsoNormal">
It certainly was an overwhelming show of support for Sam
Rainsy and his international endeavors to put pressure on the Cambodian
government to allow him back into the country without threat of imprisonment
for a dubious court sentence.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The explanations for the arrest warrant given by various
government spokesmen are, of course rather ridiculous. This is a conflict between
the opposition leader and the PM, not the Foreign Minister. Who are they trying
to kid here? The excuses put forth are so transparent as to be laughable.
Additionally and this is what the government officials seem to forget is that
Cambodia is a signatory to a U. N. convention that prohibits double jeopardy.
For those who don’t know what this is: if somebody has been tried in a court of
law in a signatory’s country that person cannot be tried again in another
signatory’s country for the same matter. Since Sam Rainsy prevailed in France the sentence in
Cambodia which was passed later contravenes that convention and is illegal by
international standards. Cambodia does not much care about international
standards always citing its sovereignty. Cambodia, however, is not alone with
this stance. Many other signatory countries to that convention disregard this
and other U.N. conventions at will, most notably the United States –
Guantanamo, torture, illegal wars (Iraq), come to mind. So it actually is no
great surprise that Cambodia does the same thing, although one would wish that
they used more erudite reasoning for their actions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Colloquially speaking, one could say Sam Rainsy, on the
other hand, has always been pushing the envelope. The Vietnam border issue is
as trumped up as many of the government’s legal maneuvers against him. His
outspoken racism is also clearly an incitement for possible riots. Common people
may not fully understand the implications of how serious such matters are. It is
surprising that his rhetoric hasn’t led to more serious clashes with the ethnic
Vietnamese in the country. A look to Europe would show them what such rhetoric
can lead to. Refugees are attacked because leaders of right wing groups
encourage them with their hateful speeches. For a while he toned it down somewhat
but the beatings of two fellow opposition MPs at the hands of thugs was enough
for him to call the PM a dictator and fascist. Never mind that he later
apologized for this. The opposition party clearly encouraged overseas
Cambodians both in New York and in Paris to demonstrate against the PM on his
visits there. Demonstrations in other countries are an expression of free
speech and sanctioned by those countries’ constitutions but whether overseas
Cambodians in greater numbers would really have cared about the PM's visit there
is highly doubtful. New York has a minuscule Cambodian population. One could
assume that they were bused in from Massachusetts. Although Paris surely has a
larger Cambodian community they tend to live outside Paris where it is more
affordable. Rents are sky-high in Paris. It stands to reason that many of them were
encouraged to travel to the city. The government may have played the same game,
but what’s right for the goose is right for the gander.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This all provoked the PM’s ire. He, never one to mince words,
called Sam Rainsy the son of a traitor. Earlier he had called him the leader of thieves. The
consequence of that ire was the sudden invocation of a past dormant court
sentence and swift issuance of an arrest warrant. Sam Rainsy being Sam Rainsy
chose not to return from a visit to Korea. He instead has been seeking
international support in the Philippines and more significantly in Europe. Why
he didn’t lobby the U. S. government or the Congress may have been due to the
fact that the Asian-Pacific meeting was being held in Kuala Lumpur at that time
and the U. S. president was in attendance. Barack Obama even shook hands with
the PM and invited him, but along with all the other Asian heads of state too,
to the U. S. next year. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In seeking international support he could obviously only
turn to European countries. Those governments and the parliaments there had
their hands full with the refugee crisis and how to cope with it. They
obviously had no time for Sam Rainsy and his problems with the Cambodian PM.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The European Parliament, on the other hand, has always had
an open ear for Sam Rainsy. He must have some influential proponents of his
cause. That resolution had been prepared and was ready for a vote when he
arrived in Strasbourg. But what effect
will that resolution have? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It did contain a paragraph that the parliament would ask the
European Commission, which is the executive branch, to suspend some $400
million in aid for the years until 2020. Most of that aid is for humanitarian
and human rights efforts. EU member countries pledged around $1.8 billion from
2014 to 2019. The European Union is the largest partner in terms of aid for
Cambodia. That aid, though, comes from individual European countries and is
given by the national parliaments and governments, not by the European
Commission.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As with all European Parliament resolutions concerning
foreign policy they don’t carry much weight in the great scheme of things. This
resolution on Cambodia is a very nice symbolic victory for Sam Rainsy but in
the end it won’t achieve any of the goals set forth in it. Cambodia went
through the motions and immediately protested vehemently again citing its sovereignty
but will most surely just continue to ignore it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sam Rainsy also did not consider one significant factor in
his international efforts. Europe is too busy with its own problems. The U. K. might
even leave the E. U. which would weaken it considerably. The common European
currency is in danger, as many economists see it, and the refugee crisis could
actually be the beginning of the disintegration of the European Union, as some
prominent European politicians, including Prime Ministers, see it. The
Cambodian issue, if it were an issue there at all, is a non-issue. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The European Parliament does not even have the power to rein
in wayward, for lack of a better word, nations like Hungary and Poland, both
members of the EU. Hungary recently stripped its Supreme Court of its powers,
giving the prime minister almost absolute authority, and Poland just elected a
new government that is about to repeat this. This is against the EU statutes
but the European Parliament is powerless or unwilling to do anything about it.
In the face of the current problems this might only hasten the split-up of the
EU, which currently is in a precarious state.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a consequence, Sam Rainsy achieved a victory but will
still remain the Don Quixote in Cambodian politics fighting his war with the
powers-that-be from his exile. And what’s new about that?</div>
KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-11473479669359611632015-11-29T03:07:00.001-08:002015-11-29T03:20:11.920-08:00PostsToday I finally found the time to post again. I am posting two articles on the same day at. The previous one had been written a while ago and only today did I get to post it.<br />
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The next one is on some recent developments and this has been on my mind these past few days, of course, apart from other more mundane things, like running a business.KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268514535295850133.post-45490390695770417922015-11-29T01:37:00.000-08:002015-11-29T01:37:12.109-08:00Military Generals in Cambodia<div class="MsoNormal">
There are well over 1200 generals in the Cambodian military,
not counting the ones on the police forces. There is no accurate number how
large the military and police forces are; estimates say about 150,000 for the military and
possibly 100,000 for the police, of which about 7,000 to 10,000 are military
police. The police comprises gendarmerie, municipal, military, traffic, and immigration
police, and basically all branches must be considered para-military. </div>
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In comparison the U. S. military is about 1.4 million on
active duty and there are about 500 generals and around 216 admirals. The
police in the U. S. is a local matter,except the FBI, and cannot be used in comparison, inasmuch as the U.S.
population currently stands at 320 million whereas Cambodia has a ‘paltry’ 15
million. </div>
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The contrast between these numbers is striking. Why would a
nation as small as Cambodia need so many generals, some might even ask why it
needs such a relatively large military to begin with. Cambodia does not have
any real enemies from whom it would have to defend itself. Both Thailand and
Vietnam are much stronger militarily and could defeat Cambodia in a heartbeat
if ever came to a serious conflict. That, however, is highly unlikely as no
country would have anything to gain by waging war on one another besides dead soldiers
and an immense cost that especially Cambodia could ill afford. Additionally,
Vietnam is a close ally, and Thailand, depending on the government in power, is
either a friend, or an adversary in historical questions, such as Preah Vihear.
There is some antagonism among the populations of all three countries but that
certainly would and will not lead to an armed conflict in this day and age. The
skirmishes with Thailand a few years ago about Preah Vihear was more for show
and muscle flexing on the part of some firebrands than for anything else.
Unfortunately and sadly, this unreasonable and fanatical thinking cost lives on both
sides.</div>
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The benefit of such a large military/police force is the
jobs this provides for people in a poor country. It is a well-known axiom that
young, poor men without any great prospects in poor countries join the
military. The get free housing, food, and a lot of free time. The military
could also be deployed in other areas, most notably in natural disasters. Many
soldiers moonlight as guards in factories, plantations, etc., using their free time to supplement their incomes.</div>
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By all appearances, and the PM underscored this in a recent
speech, the military serves a more domestic purpose. It is the backbone that
supports the ruling party. Many of those generals aren’t really soldiers; they didn’t
get their rank because of merit but out of gratitude for their support of the
ruling party and by extension the PM. They use their position in the business
community to influence deals that would greatly benefit their wives’
businesses. It has been a running joke that all high officials have wives that
are very successful in business. This is why they have become so wealthy they
otherwise could not have become on their meager salaries. The PM said the high
ranking generals would not stand for it if the opposition party would retire
them. In other words, this would provoke a Thai solution, meaning a military
coup. These people have too much to lose to be shunted aside by a new
reform-minded government. There are also too many loyal officers and soldiers
feeding from the same trough. That
statement made it abundantly clear what the real role of the military in
Cambodia is.</div>
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Another possible explanation for the high number of generals
is that most officials in ministries, e. g. state secretaries also hold a
military rank. In other countries you would have all kinds of under
secretaries, assistant secretaries, and
assistant under secretaries or directors, etc., in the civil service. Those positions are usually held by generals
in many ministries, particularly the Defense, and the Interior Ministries. Even
the PM and the President of the Assembly hold the rank of general. They created
a five-star rank especially for them. The late Chea Sim, the President of the
Cambodia People’s Party, also held that rank.</div>
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Another baffling thing is that there are seemingly hardly
any common soldiers or NCOs (sergeants)
visible in public. You only see officers denoted by at least one stripe on
their shoulder sleeves. This also applies to the various police branches with
the exception of the traffic police. </div>
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Still, statistically there is one general for every 110
soldiers. That function is usually performed by a captain in most of the
Western militaries. So it does appear as though favoritism and power
considerations play a large role.</div>
KJEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869408230216868495noreply@blogger.com0