Tim’s Nomad Diaries

After almost three months of traveling through Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and now in Thailand, I reflect upon my sentiments about each country and some overarching contrasts and similarities.

Before I go into the generalizations that I took away from each place, it is important to note my particularly biased nature. Mainly, before arriving in my first SE Asian destination, Vietnam, I traveled for over three months just staying with friends from whom I either knew before-hand or hosts that I met through traveling organizations. I lived with locals, people that treated me as one of their family members, let me into their group of friends, and showed me around to the places that aren’t found in the Lonely Planet; I learned a tremendous amount about the respective cultures while making some great friendships, and as I am more inclined to the cultural aspects of traveling, I found this way of seeing a country very satisfying.

When I entered SE Asia, I found an absence of Hospitality Club or Servas members to stay with (with the one exception of Saigon), and as such was put in a position which up until the time was unbeknownst to me: that of a traveler on his own, without any plans or much direction, and without the safety net that staying with friends whom were knowledgeable about the surroundings provided for me.

Vietnam was good for easing me into the independent traveling thing because it has such an easy and established route catered towards the tourist. One can purchase an open bus ticket from one end of the country to the other, Saigon or Hanoi, stopping off at all the major tourist destinations along the way, for a very affordable price. This is what I did, along with the hordes of other tourists. I say other tourists because I feel that I was largely a tourist, and less so of a traveler for most of my time in Vietnam, even though I still did make an effort to meet the locals. Thing is, I found it very difficult to do so, and I constantly felt like people where treating me as just another falang, thinking of me as a big soul-less gullible dollar sign who was ripe for the picking.

Quite possibly due to the difficulty of connecting with many of the locals, from my experience of traveling a month down the tourist laden coastal path, I found the Vietnamese people quite unsavory in general, with an over-riding mentality of greed embedded deeply within their culture; a different type of the greed that I found prevalent in China–a greed for status and success–but rather one of greed for money, for money’s sake. This is understandable given from where Vietnam has come from, with America’s presiding influence and years of not being able to buy all those wonderful consumer things that we all so desperately need under the communist rule. I’m not saying that I didn’t have a great time while in Vietnam, because I did; from a historical vantage point the country is very fascinating, I met some really cool other travelers, and much of the landscape is truly awe-inspiring. But from a cultural standpoint–my primary interest as a traveler–and with the exception of my Hospitality Club encounter in Saigon, Vietnam left a bad taste in my mouth.

Again though, I emphasis how biased I am, and that even though many of travelers shared the same view about the Vietnamese people, friend and travel companion Andy had an excellent cultural experience in Vietnam. He did, however, really get off that so called beaten path, spending two weeks in remote areas in Northern Vietnam hanging out with Hill tribes people whom many have never encountered a white person before.

Cambodia was next on my itinerary, and to be honest, I was not too eager to visit the country initially before Vietnam–more kind of a ’sure, why not destination’. But after talking to many other backpackers about their experiences from Cambodia, I started to become real excited about my upcoming trip. “Cambodia was complete shite” says a tanned British bloke with a bit of a beer gut, some gaudy Guchi sunglasses, and wearing a cut-off shirt. “Fuckin’ homeless bums everywhere, beaches are nothin’ special and culture’s shite also”.

In a less crude form, many of the opinions that I heard expressed about Cambodia mirrored that of the British backpacker: “Yeah, Ankor’s amazing, but in general it’s a very depressing place filled with sad poor people”. Most of the sources, however, also came from people making extended trips, much like myself, but could be described as ‘hedonistic’ backpackers–those not very eager to leave their comfort zone and rarely making an attempt to connect with local culture.

A particular pet peeve of mine is how many of these backpackers describe their itineraries as if they were sexual conquests. “Yeah, so after doing Malaysia and Thailand, I did Cambodia (by that he means he visited Ankor Wat and the bars in Siem Reep and nothing more), and next I will do Vietnam and then China”. It’s as if after a seeing the beaches and a few pagodas, that person has consummated the relationship with that particular country.

Anyway, given the huge beach and party inclined biases of many of these sources, and already feeling a deep yearning to get off the tourist track a little bit, I felt very eager about the possibility of a greater and more untouched cultural experience. This is exactly what I found in Cambodia.

My most memorable experience in Cambodia, and one of the most culturally insight-inspiring things that I have done throughout my journey, consisted of my daily massage trips in Phnom Penh to the local Khmer massage parlor. All the signs were in Khmer, none of the girl working at the parlor spoke an utterance of English, and a full body Khmer massage was 5,000 Reial (about $1.20) for a public room, and 10,000 Reial for a private room and all which that entails.

Even though I always opted for the public room, and the girls generally gave great massages, that didn’t stop the girls from persistently trying to egg me on to get the private room. For instance, while massaging my hands or chests, the girls would gaze deep into my eyes and reciprocate my big smile–as smiling was the main form of communication given the language barrier–and bring their face towards mine to kiss me. I would always tilt my head to the side at the last moment or give them an Eskimo kiss, or something of that nature. The girls also were absolutely fascinated with the hair on my arms and legs, and lightly teasing it proved to be what seemed like endless entertainment for them. This fact, as well as the intense look of curiosity contained within the glitter in their eyes, lead me to believe I might have been one of the only Westerners these girls have ever come within such close contact.

Another reason why the massage parlor visits were so culturally illuminating was because it allowed me to see first-hand the depravity, in the form of the rampant prostitution that a hyper-conservative place like Cambodia fosters. The vast majority of Khmer men lose their virginity to prostitutes; not because of any societal looseness in morals or even a different view of morality altogether, but rather because the only women that will really ‘put out’ are either ones married to their husbands, or prostitutes. This view is in stark contrast to the generally held notion that sex tourists are the foundation to the huge industry in Asia–rather, from my experience, sex-tourists are just the the minute tip on an enormous iceberg, in which a repressive sexually inhibited society has spawned this necessity.

The prostitution issue in Cambodia is huge, but oddly enough, I found its appearance much more infrequent in Laos, a country with similar underlying characteristics. Both countries are among the poorest in the non-African world, and both countries hold extremely repressive views on sexuality among its women. Fascinatingly, however, as the Khmer men turn towards sleeping with prostitutes to fulfill their sexual desires, Lao men often turn to…other men.

Homosexuality in Laos, even though it being such a conservative country, seems to openly accept the fact that many of its men sleep with other men, until they end up getting married to their wives. Time after time, Andy and I were getting hit on by guy after guy.

Andy describes to me about the time when he was by himself negotiating a tuk-tuk ride back to his guest house after an outing at the local disco, and after a few minutes of haggling, Andy says that one dollar is the fair price and that’s how much he’ll pay. The driver agrees that he will take him home for one dollar, but only if he includes a ‘boom-boom’. Andy went on to say that during his time traveling through Laos, he could empathize with how blond women traveling through the Middle East feel.

Another interesting difference among the two countries is the prevalence of another uniquity: that of the Lady-Boy, which one will find in abundance in Laos. Even though I’m not the slightest bit homophobic, I gotta say, all the Lady-Boys really started to get to me, mostly because so many of them really do look like Ladies. Besides for all the mistaken gender identifications that I made, it was particularly disconcerting when at a Lao disco in Luang Prabang.

The story-line for the night went like this, time and time again: an attractive women would start a conversation with me, then, after exchanging names and shaking her hand, I would try my hardest to not jerk my hand back upon the uncomfortable realization that this person that I thought to be a women in fact was the owner of hands more masculine than my own (to my credit, it’s hard to tell in poorly lit club!). It’s really an uncomfortable feeling having one’s view of reality flipped upside-down in an instant like that.

After a bit of reflection on this entry, I realize I took on way too much in attempting any sort of ‘cultural analysis’ of these three countries; there is still so much else that I initially intended on writing about, but given this entries length already, it’s best to save it for some other time.

Now I’m here in Chiang Mai during Christmas Eve with old Carolina room mate Kevin; next we’re off to possibly the biggest party in the world–the Full Moon party in Southern Thailand for New Year’s Eve–before parting ways and heading down to Malaysia. Note that it will probably be a few weeks till’ the next entry as I will be taking a little time off from writing for the holidays.

Wishing all my wonderful readers a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hannakuka, a Killer’ Kwanza, a Festive Festivus, or a joyous time celebrating whatever you see fit to celebrate. Pour an extra glass of that ‘happy’ eggnog for me!