Visa Run - Pattaya to Sihanoukville (15 page)

I sighed, then went back to bed and lit up a Sihanoukville special and contemplated my luck. I felt a bit better when Stumpy the lizard popped out to say hello and do me a favour. Since Kanya had left so prematurely, an annoying mosquito had been buzzing around my head emitting a high pitched drone. I didn’t have the energy to chase the little bugger around the room myself, but Stumpy came to my rescue and darted forward from his crack in the wall when the mosquito settled nearby. The insect disappeared like magic into the lizard’s mouth on the end of its long, sticky tongue. Stumpy blinked at me and regarded me proudly and I realized I had made at least one friend in Cambodia. The lizard’s tail had grown back now and although it looked strangely stunted, at least he was a proper lizard again.

Although I had evoked the undying love of a common house gecko, it appeared that I was not having so much success with the Sihanoukville girls. I wondered what I had done to upset the lovely young girl so much. In my mind’s eye, I could still see that perfect body when the towel had fallen away from Kanya. This could never have happened to me in Pattaya, where I was always one step ahead of the game. Once again, I became aware just how familiar I had become with Thailand over the years and realized how despite the obvious similarities, Cambodia is a very different country with very different people.

The next evening I set off for the Shark Bar wondering what sort of reception I would receive. Louis the gangster saw me coming and perhaps anticipating trouble, nodded to his toughest Cambodian henchman to take care of the situation. I ordered a beer and the barman approached me cautiously, obviously unsure of my intentions. I beckoned him over.

“I’m not complaining, I don’t want my money back and I have no problem with anyone,” I told him, in an attempt to get things off onto a good footing.

The barman’s hard eyes softened a little as he began to realize he wasn’t going to have to punch anybody, after all.

“But can you tell me if I did something wrong?” I asked him, genuinely wanting to know the reason for the girl’s terror. “I’ve never been to Cambodia before and I don’t want girls running away from me every time I pay a bar-fine because I’ve fucked up. It’s my first time here and I don’t know the score.”

The Khmer barman then relaxed completely and told me what had gone wrong.

“Kanya is a virgin,” he said. “She has never been with a man before—Cambodian or
farang
. You have probably heard this story before, but in this case it’s true.”

The beefy barman looked at me for a few seconds before he continued his explanation, his eyes challenging me to call him a liar.

“Kanya’s mother is very sick and she needs money for medicine so she came to work here. Last night was her first night in the bar. She saw you were a good guy and agreed to go with you because twenty dollars is a lot of money, but she could not go through with it.”

We both looked towards the young girl who was over the other side of the bar watching us nervously, probably thinking I was making a complaint. I smiled and beckoned her over.

The barman spoke to Kanya in Khmer and her face lit up. She put her arms around me and clung to me in exactly the same way as she had done in the bar the night before. Not surprisingly, I had already decided I wasn’t going through another experience like that again, so I bought her an orange juice and gave her a friendly hug, thinking I would choose a girl who looked like she could take care of herself next time I fancied getting my leg over.

Was the barman telling the truth or was it all just a scam, a complicated trick designed to relieve Joe Bucket of twenty bucks without even giving him the chance to dip his wick? Remembering the girl’s terror in the room, I am inclined to go with the former theory. Whatever the case, just for once the cloud did turn out to have a silver lining for Joe Bucket, because Victory Hill is a very small place. It wasn’t long before the word got around that I had let Kanya keep her twenty bucks without relieving her of her virginity, whether it was fabricated or not. After that, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was very much the good guy in every bar on The Hill. Every time I sat down for a beer I was besieged by girls hanging off me, massaging my back and generally being nice until the end of my stay.

Perhaps there is something in Karma after all.

Later on, Le Requin’s brutal mate Didier was less impressed with my compassion.

“You paid for her,” he told me gruffly. “You should have thrown her on the bed and fucked her hard.”

Eventually, I suppose it was inevitable that some other Joe Bucket on a visa run from Pattaya would do just that, but I’m kind of glad it wasn’t me.

What with Louis, Didier, the Vietnamese scammer and the Khmer virgin, I was already beginning to realise that Cambodia truly is a country of contrasts.

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

The longer you stay on The Hill, the smaller it becomes and if you hang around for any length of time you are bound to bump into old Asian hands you know. People are beginning to hear about the way things are shaping up in Sihanoukville and are coming to check the place out for themselves. During my month on Victory Hill I was pleasantly surprised to bump into Alex, a wild Australian sheep-shearer I hadn’t seen for ten years since we had teamed up for a fortnight-long piss up in Vietnam. The last time I had seen Alex the Vietnamese police had locked him up for a night, shaved his head and his long straggly beard and given him a boot up the arse after he had become so pissed he thought it would be a good idea to borrow some poor bloke’s bicycle rickshaw to visit The Street of a Thousand Bars—which hadn’t existed since the war ended in 1975, anyway. Alex found the whole incident highly amusing and said he thought he had looked quiet dashing with his new, free haircut. He was only in Sihanoukville for a night and before he left for The Philippines the next day, we tried reminiscing about our time in Vietnam, but we found that neither of us could remember very much as we were plastered the whole time.

My old pal Jim the Perv also turned up for a brief stay on The Hill to renew his aquaintance with the local Chicken Farm girls, as did Dozy Dave and Piss-Head Harold. The last time I had seen Piss-Head back in Pattaya he was sitting drinking with Old Tim and Young Thomas in the Nikom Court. Thomas told me that three days previously Piss-Head had bought a kebab from the guy who drives around with a mobile kebab stall welded to the side of his motorcycle. Piss-Head had put the spicy, foil-wrapped kebab into one of the many pockets of the safari waistcoat he habitually wore, intending to eat it back in his room later. He then continued drinking his usual intake of ten large bottles of Chang beer; a daily feat that had given him his name. Three days later the kebab seller turned up outside the Nikom Court again and Young Thomas asked Piss-Head Harold if his kebab had been any good as he fancied one himself. Piss-Head’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open in recollection as he remembered his purchase, which was still festering away nicely in the pocket of his waistcoat. Strangely enough, when Piss-Head unzipped his pocket and gingerly withdrew the putrefied kebab, Thomas wasn’t hungry any more.

I was walking down the little bar-strip late one afternoon when I was delighted to see Keeniaw Kevin from Pattaya sitting with his back to me at the Shark Bar, enjoying a cold one. There was no mistaking him—that small, wiry frame, the shiny, sun-burned bald head and the faded denim shirt he habitually wore were completely unmistakeable. Despite the celebrated stinginess that had given him his name, I had always liked Keeniaw Kevin a lot and found the stories of his legendary meaness both fascinating and funny.

Only Keeniaw Kevin could upset the local Thai shoeshine boy so much with his niggardly bartering that he had ended up with one shoe polished black and the other brown in retribution. Only Keeniaw Kevin had the balls to visit Carrefour and Tops supermarkets daily and virtually live off the free food and drink samples they handed out. And only Keeniaw Kevin had the class to purchase a pair of brown plimsolls in the second hand section of the Soi Buakhoa market for ten baht and that turned out to be Thai Boy Scout’s footwear. For months afterwards, every bar-girl in Soi Eight jumped up and saluted him mockingly at his jaunty approach. Keeniaw Kevin was a part of Pattaya’s folk lore, and having always admired people who do anything properly I was extremely fond of the tight-fisted little git.

I walked up behind my unsuspecting friend and threw both arms around him and gave him a bone-rattling shake.

“What are you doing here, you little baldy bastard!” I yelled into Keeniaw Kevin’s ear, giving him a very wet, playful kiss on the cheek.

Only the guy sitting at the bar wasn’t Keeniaw Kevin at all.

Suddenly—as if by magic—I was flat on my back on the dirt road outside. Everything happened so quickly it was almost surreal. By the time I realized what was happening I found myself in an inescapable headlock with a knife that had apparently appeared from nowhere pointing at my throat, and I was staring into the eyes from hell. Instead of the friendly countenance of Keeniaw Kevin that I had expected to see, a wicked looking face with the features of a furious demon looked down at me in anger and astonishment. The sharp blade pressed into the hollow just under against my Adam’s apple and glinted in the sunlight and pricked my skin.

Luckily for me, Louis the gangster had witnessed the whole incident. In fact, he had been chatting to my assailant just before I had surprised him. Jabbering away in French, La Requin leapt over his bar and jumped into the street and pulled the mad little bloke off me before he could do any serious damage with his knife.

I apologised profusely, explaining how the shaven-headed, sinewy little tough guy in the faded blue denim shirt had looked exactly like my good friend from Pattaya. Fortunately, it appeared that even dangerous French gangsters possess a sense of humour and when the amused villain realised I was no threat to him he grinned at me like a cayman and put his knife away. He then gave me a friendly slap on the back and both he and Louis roared with laughter at my shaking hands and palpable relief.

Later that evening, Louis told me his quick-tempered friend was nicknamed ‘The Butcher.’ Apparently he had spent eight years in the French Foreign Legion, where his speciality was unarmed combat. Louis told me how The Butcher was suspected of two brutal murders in Montmartre; but the gang-related killings were so cleverly planned the police had never been able to prove a thing.

This was the man I had given a sloppy kiss and a hard shake and whose ear I had yelled into, calling him a little baldy bastard.

Just recently in Pattaya I had begun to feel my luck had not been quite as good as in previous years, but after walking away from this incident I changed my mind. It was plain that Joe Bucket’s guardian angel had not yet deserted him after all, and was still looking out for his best interests.

I thought it might be a good idea to stay out of The Butcher’s way for a day or two, so that night I decided I would visit the Festival Mansion Casino—number four on Ron’s list of likely spots where he thought I might come across Psorng-Preng or someone who knew her. I have never been a gambler myself, but I guessed plenty of the residents and visitors to Sihanoukville must be fond of a flutter because one of the first things I noticed when I arrived on The Hill was the incredible amount of discarded playing cards that lay all over the ground.

I thought I would get a drink at the Casino and show Ron’s photograph to some of the people who worked there. I knew the gambling house on Ron’s list was situated in a hotel down a quiet road just around the corner from the nearby Marina Hotel, so around ten p.m. I walked into Ekereach Street and asked a security guard who was sitting on a plastic chair at the gate of the impressive looking hotel the best way to get there. I don’t suppose I will ever know if it was the watchman’s sense of humour that prompted him to send me blundering along a supposed short-cut through a small, overgrown wood next to the Marina, or whether he was simply under the impression that
farangs
could see in the dark.

I scrambled up a muddy bank and made my way along a pitch-dark, six-inch wide pathway that twisted through trees and shrubs. Overhanging branches grabbed at my hair and clothes with twiggy fingers as I passed by in the gloom. Thirty yards down the track I realized I had come too far to turn back. I couldn’t see a thing by now, so I struck out blindly in the blackness and made for the lights of the casino that winked invitingly through the trees in the distance. I was already beginning to wish I had employed the services of Narith and his motorbike; and when I wandered off the track and became completely lost in the inky copse I had to fight hard to contain a mounting sense of panic. It was as spooky as a lady-boy’s laugh in there.

There were crashings, rustlings and scuttlings all around me as small animals fled at my approach. I jumped in shock when the shape of a big owl flapped silently out of a tree just by my head. Tiny, fluttering bats missed my hair by inches. I was totally disorientated by now and I couldn’t help thinking that the dark little wood would be a fine place for a desperate Cambodian to hide, waiting for a lost
farang
, intending to bash him on the head in order to relieve him of his wallet. Not to mention the poisonous snakes and insects that could be hidden in the tangled undergrowth that might be laying in wait to ambush me.

My worst fears were realized when I saw two dodgy looking Cambodian men appear from out of the shadows in front of me. I debated making a run for it, but knew I would stumble and fall over a hidden boulder or a twisted root in the darkness in a matter of seconds. So I simply froze. I hoped the two robbers would have the heart to take my money without either cutting my throat or bashing my brains in. The largest of the two bandits grabbed me by the upper arm in grip like a vice and I flinched and waited for a sharp blade to enter my body.

“Are you trying to get to the casino?” my aggressor asked me. “You seem to have lost the path, my friend.” He released his grip on my bicep and took my hand. “Come on,” he said kindly, “I will show you how to get there. You shouldn’t be wandering around here on your own, you know. There are some very dangerous people about.”

I followed my saviour through the trees and back onto the path gratefully and when I finally got to the casino I was still shaking.

There was a bellboy on the door who was dressed in a red hat and a uniform that one of the forty thieves would have been proud of. All he was missing was a long, curved scimitar and a pair of those funny shoes that turn up at the ends. The last time I saw a get-up like that was when Terry got married to a girl from the Golden Time bar wearing what someone had told him was Thai traditional dress, but what I suspect was somebody’s idea of a joke. Unlike the bellboy, Terry did have the curved sword and the upturned shoes and looked very much like Ali Baba himself.

There was a sign on the door of the casino advising you to leave your weapons, firearms, drugs and explosives outside, please. I had never been in a casino before and I sat at the bar with a drink and looked with interest at the punters losing what looked like vast amounts of money on the blackjack and roulette tables. There was also a row of slot machines along one wall that looked about as complicated to operate as cloning DNA to me.

Some of the female croupiers were really lovely and I wondered if perhaps they were chosen to soften the blow of losing all that dosh. A handsome, very well-spoken Cambodian man joined me at the bar and said he was the manager and asked me if I intended to play. I bought him a drink and told him how I was looking for Psorng-Preng. I showed him Ron’s photograph and he took it and studied it intently.

“Yes! I remember that old man!” He told me excitedly. “He came in here one night with a fifty buck note and walked away with nearly eight hundred dollars!”

“And the girl?” I asked him eagerly. The tall, good-looking manager looked at the snap carefully.

“Never seen her before in my life,” he said uninterestedly, and handed the picture back to me.

I had another couple of drinks at the casino and before I left the manager tried to talk me into having a flutter on the roulette table. Although I admit I was tempted by the excitement and the possibilities of the whizzing wheel and clicking white ball, I declined. Somehow it didn’t seem right to blow any of Ron’s money at the casino and remembering my short-cut through the wood, I guessed I had probably gambled enough for one night.

There was a small fair with an old-fashioned carousel set up on a piece of wasteland next to the casino where Cambodian teenagers were playing hoopla and throwing darts and ping-pong balls at balloons and goldfish bowls. It was very crowded and I was the only
farang
there and people were staring. A rough looking bunch of young men who were plainly drunk seemed barely able to take their eyes off me. Perhaps they were merely curious, but after my escape from the dark wood I was taking no chances. I had a quick look at the theatre that had come with the fair being played out on a small wooden stage, missed the ace of spades with a dart by a whisker, then threw a ping-pong ball into a fish bowl on my first attempt and gave my golden, finny prize to a small Khmer girl who was standing nearby watching.

I only stayed at the fair for fifteen minutes. Then, making sure the teenaged drunkards were watching, I hailed a motodop driver who was waiting outside the casino. I asked him if he would please take me back to the Crazy Monkey the long way around this time, as I thought it might be quite a good idea to give the short-cut through the wood a miss.