The Worst Motorcycle in Laos

by Chris Tharp

  After a couple of hours on the river, the boat made its way onto the Tonlé Sap Lake, which is the largest in Southeast Asia. Here, the river broadens out into a massive inland freshwater sea, which doubles its size during the rainy season. Even though it was the driest time of the year, the scene was immense, with the horizon disappearing, reminding us that we were out alone on this murky, gargantuan, smooth-watered mass.

  It took a couple of hours to cross, and when we came to the other side, we entered a narrow channel that funneled us toward the dock at Phnom Krom, the disembarking point some eleven kilometers outside of the town of Siem Reap. Much of the surrounding village was floating, with homes, restaurants, schools, and even a medical clinic built on bamboo platforms that bobbed from the wakes of the many boats that cruised by. As we approached the dock, things took a nastier turn, as we were slammed with the reek of garbage, human waste, and what must have been ten million rotting fish. Neil and I tied scarves over our faces and I suppressed my desire to gag. As I took in the settlement, I was overwhelmed by the absolute squalor. Filthy, pantsless children played in the muck at the water’s edge. Plastic bags, bottles, clothing scraps, and other trash lay strewn about, picked over by chickens and rooted through by a few of the omnipresent hairy black pigs. The habitations on land were all built on stilts to allow for flooding during the rainy season; they were constructed from bamboo, with massive tropical leaves acting as roofing, though some of them were at least partially uncovered, leaving the unfortunate residents at the mercy of the tropical elements. It’s as if Phnom Krom was the literal asshole of Siem Reap, where the half-digested by-products from the tourist heaven were all shat out for the desperate to pick through and the great lake to absorb.

  “Some lovely properties around here,” observed Neil, adopting a posh voice. “What do you Septics always say? ‘Location, location, location!’”

  “I’m told that this neighborhood is on its way up. Get in while it’s hot. A year from now the cost of land here will make Hong Kong blush.”

  “Look around, though, mate. It’s sad to see what gentrification does to a place.”

  “Yeah, I know. This village used to be authentic. Check it out it now. I’m told that they’re puttin’ in a Starbucks next week.”

  “For fook’s… but what can you do? Progress, la’. There’s no stoppin’ it.”

  I closed my eyes and guffawed. Sometimes laughing is the only way to vanquish the overwhelming tide of horror.

  *

  Siem Reap is a tourist boomtown, carved out of the jungle in the shadow of the great Angkor temples. Siem Reap literally means “Defeated Siamese,” a nod to the old Khmer empire that once vanquished their neighbors to the west, dominated the region, and built some of the most amazing structures known to man. And these structures are the very reason for the boom. Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples is one of the biggest tourist draws in all of Asia, bringing in over two million visitors each year and flooding the town with cash. The result has been a flurry of construction: guesthouses, restaurants, galleries, and shops—along with golf courses, resorts, luxury hotels, and spas—have sprouted up everywhere. It’s a massive money grab, and the Khmers are out to get as much as they can. As a result, development in Siem Reap continues at a speed freak’s pace. They got a good thing, they know it, and there’s a fevered rush to get a slice of the pie.

  Some tourist attractions are famously overblown—good for a photo op and a postcard—but in the end just a chance for the locals to squeeze you for all they can. And while the Cambodians in Siem Reap are always on the hustle and won’t hesitate to put their hand in your pocket, Angkor Wat and the temples that surround it don’t disappoint. Instead, they blow away expectations. For twenty bucks a day you are allowed to explore some of the most beautiful and awesome structures ever erected by human beings. They are imposing and alluring, massive carvings and crumbling buildings from what seems like another dimension, situated in a fantastical forest. And these aren’t sterile museum pieces, but actual stone ruins which visitors may hike around, scramble up, and climb over (to the dismay of many archeologists and preservationists). The ticket to Angkor is an all-access pass: there are few “No Entry” signs, high fences, or roped-off areas. Almost nothing is off limits, and as a result the visitor gets a hands-on, personal experience unmatched by most any other ancient attraction in the world today.

  Neil and I discovered the Angkor temples over three days and soaked in the splendor mightily. We hired a tuk-tuk driver named Vanna to chauffeur us around the complex for the duration. He was a smiling, chubby guy who picked us up at our guesthouse each morning and offered his services for our nighttime adventures as well, constantly trying to lure us to the “Chicken Farm,” where he insisted that “pretty girl is many.” Each time we politely declined, but it never stopped him from bringing it up an hour or so later. I imagine that he got a nice kickback for delivering customers to the brothel’s gates.

  One downside to visiting the temples at Angkor is that the site has become a victim of its own popularity. The place is especially a big hit with huge package tour groups from other Asian countries, who descend on the complex like locusts to a cornfield. This isn’t to say that every temple is overrun. It’s more a matter of timing. At times, you may have a whole ruin to yourself, or just share it with a few other travelers. Other times, you’ll hit a site only to have six tour buses rumble in and open the spigot, releasing hundreds of Chinese or Korean tourists who then rush forth in a mad crush, bellowing and screeching to each other as they wildly snap photos and take video of the whole experience. For the crowd-averse, this can be a deal-breaker, transforming the ancient sanctuary into a river of jostling humans who have more interest in recording the moment on their digital devices than enjoying it in real time.

  Neil was one of those people who couldn’t stand too many others of his kind. I saw this on day three when we pulled into the legendary Angkor Wat, our last stop of the day, just before sunset. We had gone there on the morning of the first day—in a headspace that guaranteed that the sight of the temple’s layered, conical towers would enchant us to the core. The symmetry of the building is too perfect; its beauty is pure and undeniable. It’s also unknowable—ethereal and otherworldly—as if each stone was put in place by aliens or supernatural beings. The mystery draws you in with magnetic strength; it’s nearly impossible to look upon Angkor Wat and not be compelled to enter.

  Vanna drove the tuk-tuk out of the forest and into the broad clearing where Angkor Wat sits. I saw Neil’s face drop when he observed the fleet of buses parked in front.

  “Those things are an abomination,” he growled.

  Vanna pulled to the side of the road and we got out for a better view. Packs of people crammed the stone causeway built over the temple’s moat-like surrounding lake. A constant stream of tiny figures poured in and out of the main structure from both sides, like aphids. The place was mobbed.

  “It’s fookin’ well overrun,” grumbled Neil, shaking his head.

  “Whaddaya do?” I shrugged and made my way toward the complex. When I looked back, Neil was still standing there.

  “You coming?” I shouted.

  “Not a chance, la’. I don’t feel like being elbowed two hundred times by a load of grannies stinkin’ of kimchi and who knows what else. Knock yourself out. I think I’ll have a bit of a kip in Vanna’s love palace, here.”

  Undeterred, I pressed ahead. Crowds or no crowds, I was determined to ascend the steps of Angkor Wat one more time. I couldn’t help myself. After all, it may have been my last chance, because we all know that one day they’re going to rope the whole place off and keep the hoi polloi at a safe distance, while only the rich and well connected will be allowed in. Until then, I’m climbing the fucker, every chance I get.

  Tour du Cambodge

  It was our last day in Siem Reap, and we were done with the temples. Vanna putted up to the guesthouse while Neil and I took down the remnants of breakfast in the op
en air restaurant.

  “Today tuk-tuk?”

  Neil looked at me, as if to say, You tell him. I stood up and approached him with the bad news.

  “Uh… not today, Vanna.”

  “When you go away Siem Reap?”

  “Tomorrow. Today’s our last day.”

  “No tuk-tuk?”

  “No. We’re gonna rent bicycles today.”

  “Bicycle? Oh… bicycle no good. Today very hot. You take tuk-tuk?”

  “Nah, mate,” Neil chimed in. “We’ve been sitting on our arses in the back of that thing for three days now. We need a bit of exercise.”

  “Oh…”

  The words stung Vanna, who lowered his head in dejection. He’d obviously been counting on one more day with us and was gutted to lose the fare.

  “Thanks though,” I said. “We’ve had a great time and will recommend you to any of our friends who come here.” I shook his hand and smiled. This seemed to cheer him up a bit.

  “Me too my friend. Me too good time.”

  “Cheers, la’,” Neil said, still sitting at the table and sipping his tea. “You’re the finest tuk-tuk driver I’ve ever had the pleasure to ride with.”

  “Thank you… thank you so much…”

  “It’s been a real pleasure, Vanna,” I said.

  “Thank you. Very thank you… so… tonight… Chicken Farm?”

  After breakfast, we rented the bikes—fixed-gear jobbers with plastic baskets on the front—and hit the road, hoping to explore the non-templed surroundings. Despite the swelling tropical heat, it felt good to pump the pedals and get my body moving. Neil was right: while we had spent a fair amount of time scrambling around ruins, much of the last three days was passed inhaling gas fumes in the back of Vanna’s tuk-tuk.

  At one point a sign caught our eyes: Siem Reap Zoo.

  We stopped our bikes.

  “A zoo in Cambodia. Now this has gotta be interesting.”

  I looked to Neil, who sighed and said, “I’m almost afraid to go in, but some things just must be seen. Besides, the horrors we’re likely to witness just may convince you to finally become a vegetarian.”

  We turned off the main road and pedaled the bikes down a narrow, dusty dirt track. We locked them together in front of a small building with cracked yellow walls. A few women sat listless on the floor under a ceiling fan, watching a Thai soap opera dubbed into Khmer on the television in front of them. The show featured a pretty young woman crying over a bandaged man lying in a hospital bed. We had to summon one of the women to come sell us tickets, which were two dollars each. She was mightily annoyed to be interrupted during such a crucial point in the drama’s storyline. The tickets turned out to be a good deal, though, since they came with a guide, in the form of a young girl—around nine years old—who accompanied us the whole time. She barely spoke English and was just as grumpy as the older women in front of the TV.

  We walked past the main building and immediately came to a cage. It was now time for the little guide to shine. She halfheartedly pointed and said, “Monkey.”

  She was right. The cage contained a pair of grey macaques and their baby, which clung to the mother and periodically suckled from her tit. The male macaque was nasty and mean, surely made aggressive and psychotic as a result of his confinement. He jumped onto the cage, screeched, growled, hissed, bared his fangs, beat against the metal, and looked into me with primal hatred. At one point, I let my camera bag get too close and the monkey grabbed and yanked at it with all he had. I pulled back—putting all my weight into it—resulting in a full-on tug-of-war that I eventually won, which must have only served to add to the beast’s bitterness and frustration.

  The girl then led us to another cage. Again she pointed and said, “Monkey.”

  This monkey had a bright red swollen ass, like some sort of flesh orchid in full bloom.

  “Yikes.”

  “Looks like a rather vicious case of the ‘roids,” Neil quipped.

  It did look painful, though I am told such colorful displays signal when a female is ready to mate.

  Our apathetic guide just nodded toward the next cage and muttered, “Bear.” And bears they were: small Asian moon bears. They were penned up in a criminally tiny enclosure and just turned their built-up hatred onto each other, compulsively pacing, snarling, and fighting while we looked on. It was a miserable thing to take in, and erased any good feeling their inherent cuteness may have elicited.

  Neil looked at me and shook his head. “I’d like to set these poor bears free and throw the owner of this travesty of a ‘zoo’ into that cage. He’s the real fookin’ animal.”

  I sighed and walked on.

  The zoo contained a small aviary housing different tropical birds, which was easily its best feature. The hornbills were most impressive, dramatic and regal. Another cage contained a couple of giant flying foxes, which hung upside down in the heat of the day. I had never seen such creatures up close and was momentarily awestruck. They were all fur and translucent skin. There is something very compelling about large winged mammals.

  We digested most of the zoo in about thirty minutes, though one exhibit caught my eye on the way out. There, in an algae-infested aquarium, swam a handful of small bloated orange fish. A hand-painted sign above spelled it all out in both English the curvy Khmer script: Goldfish.

  Just to be sure, I confirmed it with our guide.

  “Goldfish?”

  She shook her head in the affirmative, pointed, and—without a trace of emotion—repeated, “Goldfish.”

  After the glory of the zoo, Neil and I mounted our bikes and headed back toward town, turning onto the main road that goes out to the increasingly busy airport. Our goal was the Western Baray, a large reservoir constructed during Angkor times and still the largest lake in the immediate area. It was now scorching and we desperately wanted to cool off with a swim.

  The airport road was actually one of the country’s main highways. Trucks and buses barreled by—sputtering blue diesel fumes and kicking up dust—making the going hard. While central Siem Reap was made up of small guesthouses and some exclusive resorts, an astounding number of huge hotels lined the side of the road. We must have ridden by at least twenty. Several of these behemoths were currently under construction, with ground being broken at even more sites. We deduced that this was where the bus tourists were housed. This suspicion was confirmed by the myriad Chinese, Japanese, and Korean restaurants also open for business.

  After nearly an hour of pedaling, we turned off of the highway and onto a dirt track, making our way out to the Western Baray, whose waters awaited us.

  We soon approached the large manmade lake and saw that there was a small island in the middle containing the ruins of a temple. A handful of boats ferried some tourists there from a landing, but aside from that, we saw no foreigners. A little village had sprung up around the boats, with a swimming area and a muddy beach in front, on which Cambodian families lounged under tattered parasols. Some other Khmers splashed in the shallows and floated on fat black inner tubes. Neil and I stopped off at a vendor and drank a couple of cans of cold orange soda before continuing on. As the only Westerners, our presence was already attracting too many stares, and we wished to find a more secluded spot for our swim.

  We remounted and continued down the dirt road that rims the lake. After twenty minutes we rode through another village. Some children played outside the huts and a couple of dogs gave us token barks, but aside from that, we attracted little attention.

  “Let’s ride a bit further and jump in up there,” suggested Neil, pointing to a quiet spot about half a kilometer past the village. We pedaled on through the heat until we arrived at what seemed to be the spot. We pulled over, locked our bikes together with the metal chain supplied by the guesthouse, and descended the steep dirt embankment.

  Once down, Neil reached into his cigarette pack and produced a joint that he had rolled back in the safety of his room.

  “This should enhance t
he experience of an afternoon dip,” he smiled, lighting it up, puffing hard and inhaling deeply. As he relished the joint, I could see the weed immediately take its hazy effect. He grinned stupidly in the sun, taking his time to finish it off.

  I clumsily changed into my swim trunks and waded into the cool lake. The water appeared clean, though my feet sank well into the gooey mud that made up the lake’s bottom. Once I was deep enough, I plunged in head first, followed by Neil, who had removed his glasses, hardening his features. Once I popped to the surface, I switched over to my back, languidly floating, belly up. I was perfectly relaxed, with the Cambodian sun’s rays hitting my skin and radiating through my body. Neil too was blissed out, sighing, laughing, and finally shouting, “This is fookin’ boss!”

  The lake was shallow, and even as we swam farther out from the shore, our feet could touch the bottom. At one point, I stood and sank into the mud with the water only coming up to my mid-chest. It was then I noticed the figures of three people ambling along the embankment from the village. They were coming our way.

  “You see that,” I pointed.

  “Nah, mate. I’m well blind without my specs.”

  “It appears we got company.”

  “Yeah?”

  I felt the pinpricks of paranoia creep into my skin.

  “They’re walking this way.”