I arrived in Phnom Penh on Feb. 3 not really knowing what to expect after having read a couple of books on Cambodia and Phnom Penh including the famous 'The Killing Fields'. Interestingly, that book doesn't expound on the actual killing fields at all and has only a single brief reference to it, but describes in detail what it was like to be in Cambodia back in the 1970's and to be a captured slave of the Khmer Rouge. The subject of the book, Dith Pran, was a Cambodian who worked with an American journalist, Sydney Schanberg, and stayed behind in Cambodia after his family and Schanberg left for the US (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dith_Pran). It's a chilling story and I recommend it to anyone who has not read it. Of course there's also the Hollywood version which I've never seen.
The days of the killing fields are now in the not-so-distant past and the Toul Sleng torture camp is now a museum and memorial to the atrocities that took place there (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuol_Sleng). After visiting there one has a real appreciation for the freedom and security we usually take for granted and it opens up the actions of the world's powerful governments to a lot of questions. How an individual like Pol Pot who died peacefully in his sleep while under house (straw hut) arrest and a group like the KR came to be in a position of power with the military hardware to enforce it in Cambodia is an interesting story with a lot of players and threads of responsibility and betrayal woven into it. In the end, that is in 1975, those who could have intervened turned their backs and moved on to more pressing and important matters. It was none other than Vietnam who finally toppled the KR regime in 1978. Such is the way of the world.
In short, I don't care for Phnom Penh. Please allow me to elaborate. It's a nice city in a pretty location at the confluence of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers, but it lacks the touches that make it a pleasant place to be IMHO. In my time in southeast Asia there's one commodity that I've grown to regard as both highly prized and a basic human right and that's public shade. Public shade, exactly that, is simply places where an individual can sit and escape the baking midday sun and Phnom Penh has very little of it. Granted, the average sedentary tourist who arrives by plane or bus and jumps into a taxi or shaded tuk tuk and is whisked from hotel to restaurant to tour site may not care or take notice of the lack of this precious attribute, but I can safely aver that I am not an average tourist because I do a lot of walking to get from place to place and I appreciate the simple idea of public parks and benches in shaded areas that make the difference between misery and relaxed comfort. As a tourist though I'm only sampling what life is like on a daily basis for the citizens of a place that I'm merely passing through and how it affects their overall quality of life and I know beyond any doubt that the citizens of Saigon and Hanoi and other cities in Vietnam have a better quality of life than those of Phnom Penh. Perhaps it's all due to the French influence in Vietnam and perhaps the KR or others in Cambodia destroyed this particular aspect of French influence in Cambodia, I don't know, but to me it really stands out in stark contrast. I found only one public park in Phnom Penh, the Wat Phnom, and it was a long way from where I was staying and I took to retiring to my hotel room each day from about noon to 4 PM just to seek cover from the sun's relentless assault. Furthermore and distressingly, a high priority in Phnom Penh seems to be to clear out space to make room for the growing number of the conveyance of choice among those who can afford it in Phnom Penh, the large SUV. These monstrosities are ubiquitous in Phnom Penh and the drivers choose them for the same reasons they do elsewhere, status and a perception of security. The perception of security however is more grounded in reality in Phnom Penh as a large vehicle lifts the occupants above and shields them from the swirling flow of motorbikes and non-mechanized conveyances that ply the streets and additionally protects them from the aforementioned relentless sun thereby affording them a generous measure of private shade. So there's security for the SUV drivers at the expense of the young or weak who can't get their hands on one and this seems a wonderful way to build a strong society. Perhaps this is the 'new man' that the KR propagandists once referred to. The only amusing aspect to the SUV's in Phnom Penh must be a product of a deep-seated need or insecurity of the owners and is manifest in many of them having large lettering emblazoned across either side that indicates this vehicle parked across the public sidewalk that you're having to detour around or that just cut you off because you're on a motorbike and just what the hell do you think you're going to do about it anyway, that this vehicle is in fact an actual LEXUS or LAND CRUISER. To be fair there's not much difference between the motivations of the citizens of Phnom Penh and the soccer moms and dads in the United States and elsewhere for driving these SUV's but it's just a little more obvious and pronounced and sordid in Phnom Penh.
The conditions in Cambodia are in fact improving and have changed remarkably for the better since the scourge of the 1970's. The country is still peopled primarily by the rural and uneducated who scratch out an existence by subsistence farming and whatever other enterprises they can find to engage in. One will notice the presence of NGO's from every corner of the globe throughout Cambodia who are there simply because they want to help. Well, there may in fact be some ulterior motives at play such as religious or ideological conversion, but Cambodia needs the help no matter what strings may be attached and I say the more the better at least for the time being. One activity that Cambodia gained an infamous reputation for in the 1990's and that thankfully appears at least to be on the wane is the exploitation of children by paedophiles that would travel there as sex tourists. Many tuk tuks and hotels and guest houses and billboards now carry notices regarding what's being termed 'responsible tourism' along with a hot line to call to report any suspected child exploitation. This took root in Cambodia for the only reason it ever has and that's economic need and hardship along with a huge disparity in the monetary means of foreign tourists and some fellow Cambodians. Even the brothels and girlie bars that Phnom Penh was also infamous for seem to be subdued from their hay day. The government is making an effort to not let Cambodia become a destination for this type of tourism either. I spoke with the Swedish owner of a guest house in Phnom Penh's main riverside tourist area who told me these types of bars are being phased out. I'm not so sure about this though because I was chased down by a rather scantily clad young lady who handed me a flyer advertising the grand opening of a brand new such establishment not far from that same guest house! You find these girlie bars everywhere I've been in Asia and I don't think they will ever disappear entirely as the business allure is just too strong. They also exist in parts of San Francisco and other US and other cities.
So back to getting my Vietnam visa. After my arrival in Phnom Penh I took a day or 2 to get my bearings and visit some of the main tourist sites such as the Toul Sleng Museum and then found the location of and ventured down to the Vietnam embassy where I found a visa office along with 3 or 4 staff and a prominently displayed stack of visa application forms and took note of the fees required and the office hours and came to the conclusion that I could just relax and take care of it after spending some time as a Cambodian tourist. The top tourist destination in Cambodia is the temples of Angkor which includes the famous Angkor Wat and I wanted to take a bus up to Siem Reap and see this for myself. I'll cover this trip in another post. Whenever you check into a hotel in Vietnam you have to give them your passport as a form of security and to show them you're there legally with a valid visa. This seems strange initially, but you grow used to it since everyone does it and has been for a long time and you really don't have much choice. I imagine at the more expensive hotels just showing your passport and presenting a credit card would suffice but most southeast Asian hotels don't yet accept credit cards. So I thought I would need to have my passport with me for the same reason in Cambodia and therefore didn't want to leave it at the visa office and have difficulty checking into a hotel in Siem Peap, an additional reason I decided to take care of the visa after returning. Turns out Cambodia is a bit looser than Vietnam in this regard and the guest house I stayed in in Siem Reap never asked for any sort of identification only that I pay in advance. When I returned to Phnom Penh it hadn't occurred to me that the following week was the week of the Chinese Lunar New Year which is celebrated to varying degrees all over the world but especially so all over Asia and the Vietnam embassy had posted an announcement that they would be closed during that time. I was able to submit my application and get a receipt to come back and pick up my passport and visa at the end of the next week after the closure. Luckily I had brought enough money to last that long and my plans were flexible enough to accommodate it, but of course just what the hell did I think I was going to do about it anyway?! The posted fee schedule listed fees for various visa types and lengths including tourist visas for durations of up to one year. For a long time expats living in Vietnam were able to acquire 6-month business visas and have them renewed indefinitely without having to engage in any actual business activity so in essence a foreigner could just live in Vietnam and only need to get a renewed visa twice yearly. Then suddenly late in 2009 the government, that would be the Hanoi Boys, decided to put an end to this and the new rules require an actual Vietnam work permit in order to get a business visa and the alternative left to those using the business visas simply as a way to remain in Vietnam became to acquire tourist visas and renew or extend them every month or to leave Vietnam every 3 months and acquire a 3-month tourist visa. I'm not sure I've gotten these details exactly right because I've found that getting reliable information on visas in Vietnam is a bit like getting advice on treating the common cold or how to best invest that little bit of extra cash you have but the difference here is that there is a definite answer that exists somewhere but no one seems to know it! There are some websites I've found that seem to have accurate information but your mileage may vary once you set foot inside an actual visa office. So I decided to try to get a longer term visa even though I 'knew' that the maximum term for a tourist visa is 3 months and applied for 5 months. After submitting my application, the gentleman behind the plexiglass asked me for $40 which was the fee for a visa of 1 month or less not 3 or more. I enquired in my bad and limited Vietnamese how many months the visa would be for and with this unambiguous exchange accompanied by a show of 3 fingers by both of us he assured me it was for 3 months. So I left the office feeling comfortable that even though I now had to spend an extra week in Cambodia it wasn't so bad because I was getting the visa I came for and it was costing me less than I had anticipated. The next day I departed for Battambang (again covered in a later post) to wait out the Lunar New Year week and return to Phnom Penh to pick up my new visa and ride triumphantly back to Saigon.
I returned the next week after a nice trip to Battambang but getting low on funds and patience and quite excited about waltzing into the visa office and then on the bus ticket counter to put the final pieces in place for my return to Saigon. Upon entering the visa office I was struck by a sense of foreboding by the dozen or so forlorn looking individuals arrayed in the plastic chairs against the back wall, the visa office waiting area. I slid my receipt under the plexiglass and took one of the few remaining plastic chairs. I could hear some of the conversations taking place in English (there was also French and others) and even though uttered sotto voce, could pick up the gist that plans were being shuffled and priorities shifted amid tones of resignation. It was only a few minutes before the only English-speaking member of the staff emerged from behind the glass holding not my passport but the receipt I had just given them. He kindly informed me with a standard insipid bureaucratic smile (or was it a smirk?) pasted on his face that the office in Hanoi was experiencing problems and that they were not authorized to issue any more visas that day and could I please just come back next week. I knew that this was a moment of truth and that if I displayed any anger or frustration it was game, set, match, and please drive (or walk in my case) home safely to wait out the weekend. So I maintained my composure and informed him that I could only do that if he allowed me to spend the weekend camped out in their office as I was out of funds and had already stayed much longer in Cambodia than planned. Of course the comment about the funds was not true but since when is truth anything but a path of guaranteed defeat when dealing with government bureaucrats? He informed me he had made a few exceptions that day and would try to see if he could do one more. I thanked him and returned to my seat. Some obligatory bureaucratic minutes later he reemerged with my application with the good news that an exception had been granted and asked if I could help him out. Those were his words, help him out, by supplying some more detailed information about where I would be staying in Saigon. I informed him that I had an apartment in Saigon and could just give him the address. He responded 'Oh, you have an apartment?' with a slight tone of surprise. Please see former comment about truth and dealings with government bureaucrats. At this point I do believe he expected a little extra incentive in order to be sure that they got all the details correct for my new visa. I can never be sure because I offered nothing, but I've heard enough about corruption in Vietnam from both foreigners and Vietnamese to know it's a common enough practice. He disappeared back behind the glass and finally reemerged once again with my passport. By this time all the fellow applicants who had been waiting when I entered the office had departed, all I believe, planning to return the next week. I quickly flipped open the passport to see that a new visa had been given and thanked the man and walked out relieved. Then I stopped outside the office to examine the visa in detail and discovered to my dismay that I had not only received only a 1-month visa but that it was backdated to the previous week so I was holding in my hands a passport containing effectively a 3-week Vietnam visa! I dashed back into the office and informed the staff member of the mistake and he calmly informed me that my application was for a 1-month visa and that the backdating was necessary for some ridiculous reason I can't recall. I knew immediately I had just had my first encounter with the notorious Vietnamese bureaucracy. The determination to issue me the 1-month visa had happened the week before when I submitted my application for a 5-month visa because I had only been asked to pay the fee for a 1-month, so in that regard at least they were honest. Perhaps that was just their way of slapping me around for having the unmitigated temerity for requesting a 5-month visa when they knew that I 'knew' that the limit was 3 months. I believe the 1 week backdating was done because I failed to offer the proper incentive required for double checking that such details are correct. Again, I'm only speculating on this, but let it suffice to say that all of this was in writing on my application and there was nothing ambiguous or unclear about it and I've never had any problem of the sort any other time when getting a visa and that these highly qualified professional visa issuers deal with these complex matters every day (weekends and holidays excluded) and know very well what they're doing. I wasn't going to fight it because it would have gotten me nowhere and I was so anxious to get out of Phnom Penh that I didn't care.
So now I have 3 weeks to deal with my visa again but I believe it will all work out so I'm not worried at this point. My experience with the Phnom Penh Vietnam visa office underscores a larger point that needs to be made about Vietnam and that's regardless of how well the society appears to run and how friendly most of the people are most of the time and how much the society and economy has been allowed (allowed is a key word here) to open up to foreign influences, the Hanoi Boys still run the show here and they are not democratically elected nor do they tolerate any public dissent. These words would not be allowed to be published to the web if they knew about them and could intervene. Which brings up the fact that sometime since November 2009 the Hanoi Boys have blocked direct access to certain web sites such as Facebook and some other blog sites, but curiously not this one. Of course such simple-minded tactics are easily defeated and short of cutting off all internet access they can't block its content, but there seems to be an overall movement afoot to rein in some of the freedoms that Vietnam has gained in past 15 or so years. One of the highlights of my trip to Cambodia was that I enjoyed watching the Vietnam episode of the National Geographic Channel show 'Bite Me'. What I'm talking about is that a few times while watching this and similar TV shows in Saigon the screen flashed into a sort of multicolored mute test image. I found out from a seasoned Saigon expat that this is the Hanoi Boys pulling the plug on the show because they don't like its content! Let me tell you, that episode of 'Bite Me' (oh the delicious richness!) was startlingly damning in its portrayal of the bugs and snakes and other creepy creatures that inhabit Vietnam and I can understand the concern in Hanoi about the unsavory image of Vietnam such content presents. The fact that this type of information is just pure objectivity (oh that dirty word) and could actually serve to warn Vietnamese and others about some of the (gasp!) natural dangers that exist here matters not when perceived preservation of power is concerned. This is the way of the world. So as much as great social and economic progress has been made in Vietnam in the last couple of decades it's important to keep in mind that the Hanoi government has not in essence changed in many more decades and that the tendency of such governments is to open up long enough to improve the standard of living of themselves and enough of their citizens to maintain social order and then throw up the walls again. Strong words I know, but I see the incipient rumblings of it and hope it's only a temporary spasm of paranoia that will run its course and fade away but it could easily go the other way.
These motorbike and tuk tuk drivers were camped outside my hotel in Phnom Penh every day for most of the day waiting for customers. The solicitations can get a bit annoying, but if you need one you (no kidding) need only cast a glance in their direction and get an instant reaction!
One of the few refuges offering public shade in Phnom Penh, Wat Phnom has all the usual beautiful touches found on most Cambodian wats such as these cobra-like multi-headed nagas.
No comments:
Post a Comment