California Bloodlines

I've been listening a lot to the latest Johnny Cash release and the Springsteen tribute to Pete Seeger (Sorry if you're hearing more than you'd like at Jungle but it's my bar and I like it...). Listening to these records and being back in California got me thinking a lot about another one of my favorite American artists, John Stewart -- the singing one, not the funny one. I'm listening to his new album The Day the River Sang as I write this. I've been a fan of John Stewart for more than 30 years. The first big concert I went to was John Stewart at the Santa Monica Civic in 1974 and I remember it like it was yesterday. Most of you reading this I'm sure have never heard of him. He was a member of the Kingston Trio folk group during the sixties. Since 1968 he has put out a wonderful catalog of music as a solo artist with fleeting commercial success (his album Bombs Away Dream Babies peaked at #10 on the Billboard charts in '79). In 1977, some 50 rock critics and DJ's of U.K. and U.S. were asked to list "the ten greatest rock albums of all-time, in order of preference". The list was compiled by Paul Gambaccini for Rolling Stone in 1978. His 1969 album California Bloodlines rated #36. As I write this I realize just how long ago this was. But it remains one of my favorites, an album I will never tire of.

Watching Deadwood now on TV, I remember a fantasy I had that I would produce a film starring John Stewart -- a Western -- and featuring his music. I think I hated my job at the time. Yea, I'm sure I did. It was when I was a VISTA (the domestic Peace Corp) in 1978-79. Shitty. I digress. A movie with John Stewart would have been great, the guy has an amazing presence. We're both a lot older and John's voice isn't what it once was, but like Johnny Cash, the ravages of time impart a new poignancy to his music even where he doesn't hit all the right notes.

Living as I do in the third world, I am reminded every visit home of John's song "Botswanna", his ironic reflection on living life in Malibu with the awareness of the impoverishment that lies out of sight (when you live in Malibu) if not out of mind. It's a song that I could offer as part of the answer to the question "why do you choose to live in Cambodia".

Botswanna
Lyrics by John Stewart

Oh I live in California,
I can look out at the ocean,
On the silver blue Pacific,
It is always there to see.
But I'm so busy working
That I don't have time to see it,
But it's the knowing that it's there
That means a lot to me.

And it makes it hard
When I close my eyes,
When I can see the pictures,
Taken at Botswanna,
The pictures of the children
With the flies in their eyes.
Ohhhhhhh, credo dom-i-no,
Ohhhhhhh, credo dom-i-no.

And those with all the money,
They are having nervous breakdowns,
And they're always taking pills
To make them feel the otherwise.
Oh, how could I ever stumble
Or complain that things aren't going right?
How could I ever fail
To see rainbows in the skies?

And it makes it hard
When I close my eyes,
Because I can see the pictures
Taken at Botswanna,
The pictures of the children
With the flies in their eyes.
Ohhhhhhh, credo domi-no,
Ohhhhhhh, credo dom-i-no.

Oh, faith it is a fire,
And it's fanned by the winds of thanks,
I am worried of our numbers,
And I'm worried of our ranks,
As we fire up the Porsches,
Fighting to survive,
And we look for valet parking
Out on Rodeo Drive.

It makes it hard,
I wonder if God cries,
When he sees the pictures
Taken at Botswanna,
The pictures of the children
With the flies in their eyes
Ohhhhhhh, credo domi-no,
Ohhhhhhh, credo dom-i-no.

And I'm not my brother's keeper,
For I do not have the power,
Is it part of some great game
That they play on the other side?
Because it's all that I can do
To just keep myself together,
Still I see the faces
In the blue pacific tide.

And it makes it hard
When I close my eyes,
And I can see the pictures,
Taken at Botswanna,
The pictures of the children
With the flies in their eyes.
Ohhhhhhh, credo domi-no,
Ohhhhhhh, credo dom-i-no.

Is it not for us to wonder?
Is it not for us to question?
Is it not for us to cry out,
"This cannot be denied?"
For we are but a family
Without walls, but we have waters,
And every face you see,
Is you and it is I.

And it makes it hard
When you close your eyes,
And you can see the pictures
Taken at Botswanna,
Oh, the pictures of the children,
Mm mm m mm mm,
Yeah, the pictures of the children
With the flies in their eyes

He's still around, recording and performing, and a short while back he stopped into record an interview and some songs for American public station WXPN:

World Cafe from WXPN

John Stewart, a Folk-Music Forefather

by David Dye

World Cafe, May 30, 2006 · With an impressive 40 year music career, John Stewart is a true music veteran. Best known for songs like "Daydream Believer" and "Gold which became hits for The Monkees and Fleetwood Mac, (no, Gold was a hit for him--ed.), he continues to write uniquely American songs. His songs have been recorded by many artists, including Joan Baez and become some of the most memorable in American music history.

He began recording at 19 with his first group, The Cumberland Three. He then joined The Kingston Trio in 1960, which recorded hits like "Where Have All The Flowers Gone" and "Greenback Dollar." Since embarking on his solo career in 1968, he has recorded over 25 albums and established an international reputation.

His latest release, The Day the River Sang, is an exercise in minimalism. Each of his songs has deep meaning, including "New Orleans," a poignant piano-laden tribute to the pre-Hurricane Katrina Crescent City.

You can listen to the audio feed of the interview and some songs here on NPR. Click on my Odeo Podcast button on the right side of the blog (or here for the lazy) to hear John's 40 year old Peace Corp ad. The Jungle Podcast also has a couple of old Trio recordings and one with John and Nick Reynolds . Have me play "Botswanna" for you at the Jungle when I'm back.

Corruption and poverty get school dropout blame
Phnom Penh Post
By Cat Barton and Sam Rith

At 11am on a recent weekday, Daun Penh district in Phnom Penh is filled with the excited chatter of children as they spill out of a school playground in a messy, giggling wave.

Schoolchildren in neat blue-and-white uniforms, clutching text books, are a common sight. Across Cambodia, primary school enrolment rates are now the highest in the region, according to the 2006 World Bank poverty report.

But despite the increase in enrolment, poverty and systemic corruption throughout the education system are causing a worrying number of children to drop out of school too early to benefit from instruction, education officials told the Post.

"Dropout rates in Cambodia are the hot point for my association," said Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Independent Teacher's Association (CITA).

"If we look at children aged between 13 and 15, only 26 percent attend school, so 74 percent of children of this age have no access to schooling. This is a very serious problem for Cambodian society; if education cannot develop, a country cannot develop."

According to 2005-2006 education statistics compiled by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport the average dropout rate for grades 1 to 6 (primary school) is 11.4 percent per year. For grades 7 to 9 (lower secondary) this jumps to 21.4 percent per year, and for grades 10 to 12 (upper secondary) 17.8 percent.

"If students drop out of school under grade 3 they will be ignorant and illiterate," said Pok Than, Secretary of State for the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport. "But if they manage to finish grade 3 then they will be able to read and write."

The ministry could not provide an aggregate of this data, but the UNDP estimated in its June report that 65.5 percent of students leave before completing lower secondary school, grades 7 to 9.

"Dropouts are caused by many things," said Than. "Some families are poor and cannot afford for their children even to start lessons, some allow their children to start school but then stop them studying as they need the children to work."

The economic importance of child labour for poverty stricken families is a core factor in explaining why such children drop out. In the short term, a working child can bring more benefit to family life than a child receiving an education.

"The poverty of the student's family forces them to abandon their studies," said Chhun. "Students' parents do make them go to work, do make them finish their studies early so they can earn money. Children drop out of school to help their families financially."

But it is not just the loss of the child's earnings which serves as a deterrent for an education. According to experts, lack of funding for teachers' salaries has lead to widespread corruption at all levels of the school system and has driven the price of an education beyond the reach of many of Cambodia's children. The average salary for teachers in Cambodia is $40 a month.

"Teachers taking money from students is also another key reason causing children to drop out of schools," said Than.

It has become an accepted norm for teachers to charge children for their schooling, said a teacher at a Toul Kork primary school, who declined to be named.

"As a general rule teachers ask students to give them money - 200 riel - to attend lessons each day," she said.

But there have been reports that informal and corrupt fees can be much higher. Teachers have been known to reserve part of the curriculum for teaching in private fee-charging lessons outside school hours. Students who do not attend the private lessons are likely to fail end-of-year exams and be unable to move up through the school grades.

Chhun said the underlying cause of these extra charges - and consequently their role in increasing Cambodia's drop out rates - is the fact that teacher's salaries are too low for them to survive without demanding these extra fees.

"A salary is like oil for a motorbike, it makes things work faster and smoother," he said. "Salary increases would help drop out rates as teachers wouldn't have to charge for extra lessons. When they don't have a salary the teachers are not focused on work, they are worrying about how they will live."

The realities of the Cambodian education system mean that most teachers, even if committed and enthusiastic, are struggling to make ends meet on a very low civil servant salary and hence often have little option but to charge for the services.

"Teachers feel very bad demanding money from students, we really don't want to ask for money in this way," said the Toul Kork teacher. "But if we don't, how can we make sure our own family survives?"

Teachers make an effort to identify and assist, rather than charge, poorer students, she said, as they know that they would otherwise drop out of school.

"Teachers only charge the students whose parents are able to support them," she said. "If the teachers know that the children are poor, they will not charge this money and they will often try and support these children - for example giving them books and pencils to help them study."

The Ministry of Education is aware of the problem of teacher corruption and has taken steps to prevent teachers charging students for lessons.

"The Ministry has recently issued a letter asking that teachers stop taking money from students," said Than. "Also, the ministry has begun awarding scholarships to poor families, especially to poor girls, because more female students stop their studies."

But in terms addressing the root of the matter - low teachers salaries - the Ministry has yet to take action.

"Teacher's salaries are low, the salaries of ordinary Ministry of Education staff are low," said Chhun. "That is an obstacle for the effective implementation of the policies of the Ministry of Education."

Increasing teachers' salaries would lead to an improvement in the quality of education in Cambodia, said Chhun.

"If we could eliminate corruption, stop power politics in the Ministry of Education, raise teacher salaries, then the quality of education would automatically improve," he said. "For example, teachers would be able to afford to study more themselves. The way to uphold and improve education is the salaries of civil servants, especially teachers."

Raising teachers salaries is particularly important in light of the fact that for many children, their parents will not only be unable to afford education, but unable to understand the long term benefits which will accrue from schooling.

"Families know that, in theory, if their children finish education they will get a higher salary, will get a good job," said Chhun. "But they have not ever seen these long term benefits materialise."

The Ministry of Education is seeking to overcome both the econonic barriers and encourage parents to see the value of educating their children.

"Our study last year showed that only 9 percent of students who have scholorships from the Ministry of Education drop out of school," said Than. "Hence the Ministry wants to expand and develop its scholorship program."

Taking action to combat Cambodia's high drop out rates is imperative if the Cambodian government is to meet its Millennium Development Goals - one of which is ensuring access to primary schooling for all. Currently too many of Cambodia's young people, such as Mon Sophoan, 28, who sells ice in Chroy Chang Va, are unable to access the education which is their right.

"I started school in grade 1 when I was thirteen but I stopped studying in grade 2 because we were having problems in the family and I needed to work," she said. "I feel very sorry to be a human being with no education, with no knowledge - I am not jealous of those who have an education, but I regret very deeply that it was not possible for me to study."

A Blast at the Shack

A great opening for Sugar Shack the other nite. The place was packed with Sarina's friends and new customers, the BBQ -- our Jungle cooks -- was excellent, the music (thanks to DJ Jack-Jameson) danceable. Guy's panel in the back of the bar changes the place much for the better. Sweet!

Fresh fears for Khmer Rouge trials

By Guy De Launey BBC News, Phnom Penh

The death of Ta Mok, one of the main leaders of Cambodia's brutal former Khmer Rouge regime, has confirmed the fears of long-time proponents of the country's genocide trials.

All along they have warned that delays in setting up the process would result in key defendants dying before they reached court.

Now the trials will have to go ahead without one of their most important figures.

Some Khmer Rouge-watchers think that Ta Mok could have been the key to understanding what happened in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979.

Nine years on

As military commander, he was behind the Khmer Rouge forces' drive through the country, which eventually brought Pol Pot to power.

He was also a member of the political elite, however, establishing the ideology that eventually led to the deaths of almost two million people.

Ta Mok's courtroom testimony could have provided compelling evidence to link the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge era to the surviving former senior leaders.

Instead it seems that he died without giving prosecutors any meaningful information.

Nine years have passed since Cambodia and the United Nations agreed to work together on the trials, and it is almost three decades since the Khmer Rouge fell from power.

Yet local and international prosecutors only began work at the start of July, with the court proceedings themselves still many months away.

Am I concerned that we are going to run out of individuals to put in the dock? No Theary Seng, author of Daughter Of The Killing Fields

Now the question is whether the remaining possible defendants will ever see the inside of the venue known as the Extraordinary Chambers.

They are all elderly and some have been in ill health.

"What we are afraid of is that one by one the former senior Khmer Rouge leaders will depart from our world," said Kek Galabru of the Cambodian human rights organisation, Licadho.

"At the end, the tribunal will face difficulties in finding key people to prosecute. When they die one by one, little significance will be left for the tribunal."

Another concern for victims' groups is that the former leaders will leave the country to avoid trial.

Apart from Ta Mok, all of them have been living freely in Cambodia, but recently there have been indications that they may be considering their options.

Sole detainee

The former head of state, Khieu Samphan, has reportedly sold his house in the Khmer Rouge stronghold of Pailin, and the former foreign minister, Ieng Sary, has been making regular visits to Thailand.

Campaigners want the authorities to act.

"What are we going to do about this? Put some limits on their travel movements?" asked Youk Chhang of the Documentation Centre, which has been gathering evidence for the trials.

"[It is important] to show some kind of measures so that victims can have some kind of trust in the process. This is a bad beginning, having Ta Mok die in such a way."

The organisers of the trials have called Ta Mok's death "regrettable", but have refused to admit that it could damage the judicial process.

One official suggested it would make "no difference".

Some of the survivors of the Khmer Rouge are equally optimistic.

Theary Seng is the author of Daughter Of The Killing Fields, a book about her family's experiences.

"Ta Mok's death is devastating, because we have lost that evidence. But he is not the only potential defendant - there are thousands of them. Am I concerned that we are going to run out of individuals to put in the dock? No."

The fact remains, however, that the trials will only prosecute those "most responsible" for the deaths of an estimated 1.7m Cambodians, and the number of remaining senior figures is diminishing steadily.

Furthermore, only one likely defendant is currently in custody: Comrade Duch, the former head of the S21 prison where 14,000 people died.

His health has also been a matter of some concern.

Even though there is widespread support for the trials among Cambodian people, there is also a large degree of scepticism over whether they will prove to be a meaningful event.

The survival - and attendance - of the remaining leaders is crucial to the credibility of the process.

Age caught up with Ta Mok before justice.

Many Cambodians are hoping the same does not happen to the other leading Khmer Rouge figures.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/5203412.stm

From Wikipedia:
Ta Mok, also known as "Brother Number Four", was the nom de guerre of Chhit Choeun (c. 1926 - July 21, 2006), a senior figure in the leadership of the Khmer Rouge. His real name is not known; it was been reported variously as Ek Choeun or Oeung Choeun. The military leader of Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge regime, has died in the capital Phnom Penh aged 80.

He was part of the resistance against French colonial rule and then the anti-Japanese resistance in the 1940s. But he was training for the priesthood at Pali when he joined the anti-French Khmer Issarak in 1964. He soon left Phnom Penh and fell in with the Khmer Rouge. By the late 1960s he was a general and the group's chief-of-staff. He lost the lower part of one leg in fighting around 1970. It is believed that he directed the massive purges that characterised the short-lived Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1979), earning him the nickname Butcher. After the regime was overthrown in 1979, Ta Mok remained a powerful figure, controlling the northern area of the Khmer Rouge's remaining territory from his base at Anlong Veng. In 1997, following a split in the party, Ta Mok seized control of one faction, naming himself supreme commander. Pol Pot then fled Khmer Rouge's northern stronghold, but was later arrested by Ta Mok, and sentenced to lifelong house arrest. In April 1998, following a new government attack, Ta Mok fled into the forest taking Pol Pot with him. A few days later, on April 15, 1998, Pol Pot died, reportedly of a heart attack, in his custody.

In 1998, following several key defections, Ta Mok was forced to flee to Anlong Veng. On 6 March 1999, the general was captured by the Cambodian army near the Thai border and brought to Phnom Penh, where he joined former comrade Khang Khek Leu ("Duch") at the Military Prosecution Department Detention Facility. Ta Mok was the last leading member of the Khmer Rouge to remain at large in Cambodia; other senior figures had died or already made immunity deals with the government of Hun Sen, including Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary.

In prison his detention period was repeatedly extended without his being brought to trial. Under Cambodian law his trial should have begun within six months of his arrest. Initially charged with membership of an outlawed group and tax evasion, in February 2002 he was charged with crimes against humanity. In poor health, Ta Mok's only releases from solitary confinement were for hospital visits. On 21 July 2006 he died in a military hospital after falling into a coma.[1] [2] "He was an old man and died of natural causes, given his poor health and respiratory problems," military doctor Tuoth Nara told Reuters.

Official Opening Party, Sugar Shack

Most of the Jungle's regular customers know that our former manager Sarina has opened her own bar called Sugar Shack just down the street on Sothearos (near the Wat and Top Whiskey. See map). She's now fully staffed and ready to go. It's a great looking, very comfortable place with a nice selection of wines and cocktails, and a great staff.

Come join celebrate her opening with a free BBQ Friday early evening. Free glass of wine too!

Geeky stuff

In the is this really necessary category (nah), you may notice a couple new Odeo buttons on the blog. These allow you, when you've finished rearranging the sock drawer, to send me a voicemail through your computer mike. Course you can always call me. But what fun is that? The other button will allow you to listen to the Jungle Bar Podcast. When it comes (I'll let you know).

The Dump

One of the most popular pastimes of photographers ambling through Cambodia is the trip to the dump here in Phnom Penh. Some leave something behind or do something of value with their photographs, others not. One of our Jungle friends Jason made his way there the other day, his Cambodian family in tow, leaving behind seveal dozens bags of rice. Not enough to feed everyone there, but enough to make a difference to a lot of very poor people. And finding beauty in an insane surrounding. He'll be going back -- with a lot more rice next time and I'm sure would welcome any contribution.

Summer Vacation

I'll be scarce this next month as I take my summer time off (off from what? I know).

I'm off to Saigon tomorrow for a quick visit with California friends there for another session of their now well established teacher training program. CHEER for Vietnam is a very small organization but it does great work. For more information you can visit their website.

I'll be back in time for the offical opening of the Sugar Shack, my ex-manager Sarian's bar on the 21st, then to Kampot for a couple days, taking off for California on the 25th. I'll be back in Phnom Penh August 16.

The girls will take good care while I'm gone.

Thank Youse, Perfidia

I want to thank some great customers we've had here the last couple days. First, to Sergio and Erica, thanks for the company and for bringing the Jungle Music collection offically over (well over) the 40,000 mark. 1,000 tracks of great Cuban and Mexican music. Wow. I really can't thank you enough for your generosity. And hope you enjoyed the Sin Sisamouth versio of "Perfidia" -- I love sharing that one with folks who know the song.

Here is the Sin Sisamouth version for your listening pleasure.

From Wikipedia:

Perfidia (Spanish for "perfidy") is a popular old Mexican song about love and betrayal written by Alberto Domínguez. Aside from the original Spanish, other renditions exists including English and instrumental versions. It was sung or played by many artists like Glenn Miller, Nana Mouskouri, Linda Ronstadt, Nat King Cole, Perez Prado, and Ben E. King.

Lyrics:

Nadie comprende lo que sufro yo

Tanto que ya no puedo sollozar

Solo temblando de ansiedad estoy

Todos me miran y se van.

Mujer,

si puedes tú con Dios hablar

Pregúntale si yo alguna vez

Te he dejado de adorar.

Y el mar,

espejo de mi corazón

Las veces que me ha visto llorar

La perfidia de tu amor

Te he buscado por doquiera que yo voy

Y no te puedo hallar

¿Para qué quiero tus besos

si tus labios no me quieren ya besar?

Y tú,

quién sabe por dónde andarás,

Quién sabe qué aventura tendrás,

Qué lejos estás de mí

Second, thanks to Andrew and his friends for celebrating Andrew's 19th birthday at Jungle. Though I have not received a Gates Foundation grant to study the matter, my guess would be that the average age of our customers is somewhere well north of 19, so it's great you guys were here to celebrate. One of you wiped out Whitney's playlist, but I forgive you, and in time, I'm sure Whitney will as well. Best of luck guys. 19? Should I have carded you? Was that wrong?

We know Jack

Cool

ASEAN To Sign Accord On Visa-Free Travel

July 11, 2006 2:49 p.m. EST

Komfie Manalo - All Headline News Foreign Correspondent

Manila, Philippines (AHN) - Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) can now travel within the region without visas starting next month. The initiative is moving forward as a result of the respective leaders formally signing the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Visa Exemption (FAVE).

A report from the Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar as saying that the 10-nation ASEAN will meet on July 23 for their annual meeting and sign the agreement.

Some ASEAN members are already in place with bilateral agreements that allow their citizens limited travel without visas.

Communist Laos and military-ruled Myanmar are surprise signatories in the accord. The Laotian government requires all foreign visitors to secure a visa before entering their country. However, it has a visa-free travel agreement with Cambodia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore.

While the reclusive Myanmar does not allow any foreign national to visit the country without a visa. Vietnam has an existing visa-free travel agreement with most ASEAN members, except neighboring Cambodia and Myanmar.

FAVE is aimed at standardizing these bilateral agreements into a uniform pact that will allow citizens of ASEAN to visit member nations without a visa for a period of two weeks.

ASEAN is comprised of Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Brunei, Myanmar and Vietnam.

Dengue Fever Update

A couple of tidbits related to our friends with Dengue Fever (the band that is). First, while still hoping to return to Cambodia in the near future, they are soon to embark on a mini-European tour toward the end of the month, their first tour outside the US and Cambodia. Per the press release posted on their website:

Los Angeles, California based Cambodian pop band Dengue Fever (www.denguefevermusic.com) is confirmed to play their first festival shows outside the United States this summer.

Dengue Fever will headline the Afisha Weekend ( http://msk.afisha.ru/) in Moscow, Russia on Saturday July 29, 2006 with Canadian artist Buck 65, and performs at the Sudoeste Festival (http://www.musicanocoracao.pt/) in Zambujeria do Mar, Portugal, outside Lisbon on Friday August 4th, 2006. Previously, Dengue Fever's only non-U.S. dates have been in Cambodia.

Additionally, Dengue Fever will be announcing more live dates in North America this summer and fall including a date on the prestigious Seattle Music and Art's Festival Bumbershoot in September, as well as the Chicago World Music Festival. A headlining Midwest and East Coast tour of the United States and Canada will be announced shortly.

Unfortunately I will miss them when I'm in L.A. Rats!! Best of luck to them.

They also scored a nice article in the SF Chronicle (rumored to be a newspaper of sorts though I have my doubts):

Cambodian Pop Goes Far

The Cambodian pop music of the 1960s seems like an unlikely template for an American rock 'n' roll band, but that's the sound that captivated Dengue Fever keyboard player Ethan Holtzman during an especially perilous trip through the Cambodian countryside in 1997.

"I was up in Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat (the ancient temple complex built by Khmer kings between the seventh and 13th centuries) with a friend," Holtzman says. "We got a ride back to Phnom Penh in a small pickup truck. My friend was coming down with dengue fever, getting delirious, and the driver was blasting Cambodian pop music from the late '60s on his tape player. The truck stopped in every town to pick up more riders, and with the heat, the overcrowding and my friend's fever, it became surrealistic. I always have my ears open for things that sound good, and that music really made an impression."

Before he flew back to Los Angeles, Holtzman picked up every cassette of Cambodian pop from the '60s he could find.

"My brother Zac had just moved back to L.A. after living in San Francisco for 10 years," Holtzman says. "Coincidently, someone at Aquarius Records had turned him on to a compilation of Cambodian pop. Rather than doing the usual rock-band thing, we decided we'd figure out how to play some of the Cambodian stuff, with me on accordion, Zac on guitar and Paul Smith on drums."

Holtzman called the band Dengue Fever in honor of his friend (who survived) and the wild ride that brought Cambodian music to his attention. After adding bassist Senon Williams and horn player David Ralicke to the lineup, the band started hanging out in Long Beach, home to a thriving Cambodian community.

"We saw Chhom Nimol singing at the Dragon House," Zac Holtzman recalls. "We wanted her to front Dengue Fever, but she was already a star in Cambodia. She sang for the king and queen of Cambodia before coming to the U.S. and made a good living singing traditional music at Cambodian weddings and funerals. She wasn't sure she wanted to sing with a bunch of Americans. We set up an audition and invited Nimol and several other female singers. The other girls told us Nimol was too famous to audition. When she did show up, all the other singers suddenly got laryngitis."

Nimol spoke little English, but the music needed no translation. The band's early repertoire was mostly covers of '60s Cambodian rock hits, and they wanted to present them as true to the originals as possible. Singing in Khmer let Nimol introduce American audiences to the cadences and inflections of Cambodia. Cambodian melodies are usually based on five-tone scales, with dense clusters of ornamental and improvised notes. Nimol's singing and the band's American version of Cambodian psychedelia created a sound that was strangely familiar and totally distinctive.

"The body of work we started with was completely Cambodian and sung in Khmer," Ethan Holtzman says. "When we realized most of the pop singers from the '60s were murdered during the Khmer Rouge years, it became important to pay tribute to those fallen musicians, to bring some light to the impressive body of work they left behind."

In the '60s, during the Vietnam War, Armed Forces Radio broadcast the sounds of U.S. pop music throughout Southeast Asia. Cambodian artists heard the call and began to adapt rockabilly, surf, soul music and garage-band hits marked by the sound of the Farfisa electric organ into a unique sound that rivaled the innocent power of American pop. When the Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975, most of Cambodia's pop singers and musicians were killed. In the late '90s, when things began to thaw, the sounds of the '60s resurfaced.

Dengue Fever's re-creation of those vintage sounds -- dominated by Zac's twangy spaghetti Western guitar and Ethan's energetic keyboard work -- was an immediate hit, both in the Cambodian clubs of Long Beach and regular Los Angeles rock venues. With Nimol delivering the Khmer lyrics with her impressive vocal range and high-voltage charisma, the band took off. It won the L.A. Weekly's best new artist award in 2002 and its albums "Dengue Fever" (2003) and "Escape From Dragon House" (2005) have been universally praised for their unique blend of Cambodian and American garage-band rock.

Late last year, Dengue Fever did a short, successful tour of Cambodia.

"The last time I was there, I was a tourist," Ethan Holtzman says. "This time we came to play Cambodian American rock music. We did a concert on national TV and they kept airing our show over and over while we were there. We were drawing crowds everywhere we went. Even in the middle of nowhere farmers would come over and ask to have pictures taken with us.

"When the Cambodians heard that Chhom Nimol was in a rock band, they were afraid that she'd sold out, but she got a lot of respect for Cambodianizing the Americans. We played clubs that were usually full of American expats, and Cambodian kids would cram into the place and sing along with all the songs. We also got to play with the few Cambodian musicians who survived the Khmer Rouge years, masters of traditional music.

"We met Kong Nai, who plays chapei dang veng, a two-string, long-neck guitar-like instrument. He's blind and wears a white gown and wraparound shades. He took us all into his world by playing traditional songs; we played along and improvised with him. We recorded what we did with him and the other traditional players we met. Some of that music will be on our next album, which will be all original compositions.

"We've found a good balance with our American interpretations of Cambodian music and the cadences of Nimol's singing in Khmer. The beauty of her singing is a big part of our sound. Her vocals have the quality of another instrument. When she hits certain notes it gives everyone chills."

---

Dengue Fever plays at 9 p.m. Sat. at the Independent, 628 Divisadero St., San Francisco. $13. (415) 771-1421, www.theindependentsf.com.

J. poet is a freelance writer.

MLB All Star Game: Wednesday 8am at Jungle

Rogers, Penny named starting pitchers
Associated Press

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Kenny Rogers has gone from all-star scourge to All-Star game starter. The Tigers' left-hander, the top winner for the team with the best record in the majors, will be on the mound for the AL on Tuesday night against Brad Penny of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Rogers will be trying to extend a nine-game AL unbeaten streak.

Rogers is 11-3 with a 3.85 ERA, while Penny is 10-2 with a 2.91 ERA. Rogers will be ready - he hasn't started since Wednesday, lasting 5 2-3 innings in a victory against Oakland.

"He's well-rested," AL manager Ozzie Guillen said of the decision to start Rogers.

Penny, a Broken Arrow, Okla., native, also made his last start Wednesday, allowing two runs in seven innings against Arizona, but also pitched one-third of an inning in relief Sunday in the Dodgers' 3-1 win over San Francisco.

Guillen was limited in his choices as three top AL starters pitched Sunday: the Blue Jays' Roy Halladay (12-2), the White Sox's Jose Contreras (9-0) and the Twins' Johan Santana (9-5).

"There's a lot of guys that deserve to start, but it was unfortunate they pitched yesterday," Rogers said.

Rogers will be throwing to his regular catcher, too, in Ivan Rodriguez - it will be the first time the Tigers have had the starting battery in an All-Star game. Rogers will be the first Tigers pitcher to start the All-Star game since Jack Morris at the Metrodome in 1985.

It was this time a year ago Rogers was under intense scrutiny for knocking down a cameraman during a videotaped tirade.

Rogers, then with the Rangers, was charged with a misdemeanor in Texas after videotape of the June 29 incident showed him walking onto Ameriquest Field in Arlington and pushing a television camera to the ground. He agreed to attend an anger management class to avoid further punishment.

"It was very difficult," Rogers said. "I'd be lying if I said it wasn't hard, but I think I grew up with it and it made me a little better. ... Every challenge in my life that's come my way, I try to take advantage of anything I can learn from it and try to be better."

NL manager Phil Garner, attending a news conference Monday morning in Pittsburgh less than 11 hours after a 7-5, 12-inning loss to the Cardinals in Houston, unveiled a batting order that finds the Nationals' Alfonso Soriano leading off and playing left field, followed by CF Carlos Beltran, Mets; 1B Albert Pujols, Cardinals; RF Jason Bay, Pirates; SS Edgar Renteria, Braves; 3B David Wright, Mets; 2B Chase Utley, Phillies; C Paul Lo Duca, Mets and Penny.

Bay will be out of position; he has played left field and center field for the Pirates but has almost no experience in right field.

Garner decided to hit Pujols third and Bay fourth, rather than the other way around, because Bay has hit so well against Garner's Astros with runners on base.

"Every time somebody's on base, he becomes a different hitter," Garner said.

Guillen will lead off with Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki, RF, followed by SS Derek Jeter, Yankees; 1B David Ortiz, Red Sox; 3B Alex Rodriguez, Yankees; LF Vladimir Guerrero, Angels; C Rodriguez; CF Vernon Wells, Blue Jays; 2B Mark Loretta, Red Sox and Rogers.

See the game at the Jungle. 8am Wednesday!

Johnny Cash: A Hundred Highways

The fifth in the Rick Rubin produced American Recordings series by Johnny Cash was released July 4 and it is heartbreakingly beautiful.

Hear the entire American Recordings series at t he Jungle. Total number of Johnny Cash tracks in the library: 330.

Hay Dos Platos Nuevos

Two new items not yet on the Jungle menu but now available are our Breakfast Burrito and Baja Fish Tacos. Both are yummy. Fish tacos are absolutely the best in Phnom Penh. When i go back to L.A. I will have the tacos at Senor Fish and that experience may result in a tweak or two but i'm pretty darn happy with them as is. We get great fish here. I'd kill for some reasonably priced chorizo to throw into the burrito but I'm afraid that's on the MIA list here. Still the breakfast burrito is quite nice too. Hope you enjoy them both.

Soup Nazis Vietnamese Style

GEORGE: Um, excuse me, I - I think you forgot my bread.
SOUP NAZI: Bread -- $2 extra.
GEORGE: $2? But everyone in front of me got free bread.
SOUP NAZI: You want bread?
GEORGE: Yes, please.
SOUP NAZI: $3!
GEORGE: What?
SOUP NAZI: No soup for you! [snaps fingers]
[cahsier takes George's soup and gives him back his money]

VietNamNet – As the country moves toward global integration, Hanoi has been taking stock of its hospitality services, yet restaurants and hotels are still plagued by bullies, who shout or swear at their customers.

Pho, the most common breakfast food in Hanoi, draws hungry punters to a myriad of establishments, such as Pho Thin, Pho Ly Quoc Su, Pho Bat Dan, and Pho Co.

The horror of a long wait

Arriving at Bat Dan in the old quarter on a hot summer’s day, and just finding a place to park our motorbikes was a real problem. Dozens of people were standing in two long queues waiting for their bowl of pho. It was not pleasant standing in the Hanoi summer heat along with the sweating throng.

My friend got his chance first. About eight minutes later it was my chance to get my noodles. Then we had to find a seat. The small restaurant didn’t have nearly enough space, and people were sitting on the pavement outside.

But even on pavement it seemed that every seat was occupied. Some folks were milling around waiting for someone to finish and leave their seat.

After 40 minutes waiting, my friend and I had to take separate seats. If customers come in a group of two or three, it’s likely that they will not be able to sit together at a table unless they wait right through lunch.

Nevertheless, when talking to one of my friends who are a food connoisseur, he told me that, there are still many these restaurants in Hanoi, handed down from generation to generation, where the owners are the king’s, not the customers.

King of pho, foul of mouth

In these restaurants if customers are not shouted or sworn at, then they are already having a good time. One bun restaurant at Ngo Si Lien Market has the dubious honour as having the foulest mouthed workers.

The noodles are mixed with pork, all in all a very tasty dish, and this particular restaurant attracts many customers. However, the owner, a woman in her 50s, and her daughter, are ready to swear or produce long strings of sailor talk for their customers.

For instance, a customer asking for more meat or spices would be greeted with “Why didn’t you fxxxxx ask me before?”. Patrons urging them to move quickly with service after being made to wait, they will be offered a retort along the liens of “Don’t fxxxxx push me. I don’t have 10 hands.”

Several weeks ago a customer lost his temper after being offered too many choice words, and dished the owner up several knuckle sandwiches. She was forced to languish in hospital for a few days and think about her shrewish tongue.

This is not such an isolated incident. In many other kinds places, bia hoi, hairdressers, camera repair shops, you name it and the service is lousy, and the staff ready to give you a piece of their mind if you dare complain.

When asked, shop owners usually say that they are the top shop in their sector, and as they have no problem attracting customers, they don’t need to provide good services. Some blame their poor service on the subsidy period, and that they don’t need to change as they are doing well enough.

People who have a good knowledge of Hanoi often categorise customers who choose this kind of service into three different personality types. They include those folks who actually miss the subsidy period, another type who think that pho or ice cream culture means going to the same place as everyone else, because after all, that place is “number one”. Then there are the folks who believe that such service is part of Hanoi’s charm.

Many restaurant owners say that they have been shouting and swearing at customers for so long, that the punters actually expect it, and any change in their habits may drive people away.

Writer’s always blather on about how Hanoians don’t just go to restaurants to eat, but also to enjoy ‘the special, unique atmosphere of Hanoi dining’.

This could be true for some restaurants, where diners are forced to stand in long queues, yet, why are other, more traditional restaurants, La Vong grilled fish for example, doing so well without the shouting and swearing.

Eat up or get lost

Each restaurant deals in their own specialty and one could forgive the occasional accidental outburst on a baking hot day. Perhaps in their kitchen cooked heads, shouting and swearing are terms of endearment to customers. The simple truth is that in many restaurants in Hanoi, owners and their staff ignore their customers needs.

In a restaurant where food for breakfast is served, some customers from the south ordered omelet and bread. After waiting for some time there still seemed to be no food forthcoming, and the hungry customers tried to remind the waiters that their food hadn’t come. One waiter didn’t look up from whatever he was doing but said the food would be another 15 minutes. When the customers called again, the water said “It’s only been 14 minutes”. One customer growled “Making an omelette takes two minutes”, to which the surly waiter replied “Every customer here has to wait for 15 minutes. It is the restaurant’s regulation,”

“That’s ridiculous!” The customer said not believing what he heard.

“If you don’t like then get lost”.

Another irritating ploy is when customers order just one or two dishes, but waiters bring out too many, or entirely the wrong dish. Waiters will also allow customers to order dishes from the menus even though they don’t make said dishes, and don’t bother to tell the customers, rather just make something else.

At one renowned restaurant, which is in a very good location in Hanoi, customers ordered tea after their meal. “We don’t have tea,” the waiter replied. But when a big group of foreign tourists walked in, out came the cups of tea.

In the book on globalisation in different places written by Thomas L Friedman called “The Lexus and the olive tree”, there is a short paragraph about Hanoi. The author wrote that after he had lunch at the Sofitel Metropole he ordered tangerine for dessert. The waiter told him “We don’t have tangerines”. At that time it was the right season for tangerines and many were being sold on the streets. The writer went on, “Every morning I have seen tangerines on the tables for breakfast. Are you sure?”

“No, we don’t have any,” the waiter insisted. When Friedman changed to watermelon, the water went to the kitchen. After few minutes he brought out tangerines and said, “We don’t have watermelon, but I found some tangerines.”

To explain this, some people say that Hanoi was wrapped in the darkness of the subsidy period for a long time and the integration has not changed much, as it has done in Saigon.

The second reason is that Hanoians simply don’t demand much of themselves or their peers.

This reason is further confirmed by the fact that restaurants that have good locations such as near rivers, lakes or town centre normally have a bad reputation. As these restaurants are located in good places, they don’t bother to find ways to attract more customers.

It is estimated that every day VND20bil (US$125,000) is spent on marketing for goods and services in Hanoi. However, in hospitality, services are still appalling.

(Source: Tuoi Tre)

ELAINE: Hi there. Um, uh -- [drumming on countertop] Oh! Oh! Oh! One
mulligatawny and, um....
what is that right there? Is that lima bean?
SOUP NAZI: Yes.
ELAINE: Never been a big fan. [coughing] Um..you know what? Has anyone ever
told you you look exactly like Al Pacino? You know, " Scent Of A Woman."
Who-ah! Who-ah!
SOUP NAZI: Very good. Very good.
ELAINE: Well, I --
SOUP NAZI: You know something?
ELAINE: Hmmm?
SOUP NAZI: No soup for you!
ELAINE: What?
SOUP NAZI: Come back one year! Next!

Seinfeld video here.

Contemporary Art: After troubled past, new expressions in Cambodian art

Street 178 is my street, the galleries described in this article being just a couple blocks away from my apartment. It's a great little neighborhood with lots of small galleries in addition to bazillions of places which carve Angkor style statues like we have at the Jungle. For a while I tended to avoid the galleries and frame shops since they never failed to have these paintings which seemed to feature my Apsara dancer ex-girlfriend. I'm over that, but I'm a real creature of habit in terms of my wanderings -- in L.A. I would drive 20 miles so I could go to the same car wash, 5 miles to do my laundry...silly. I did venture out past Rory's Pub and to one of the galleries when my friend Michael was visiting from California and I'll have to check more of these out.

Contemporary Art: After troubled past, new expressions in Cambodian art
By Robert Turnbull International Herald Tribune
Published: July 5, 2006

The clutch of galleries on Phnom Penh's Street 178 offers a pageant of Cambodia's cultural history. From the colossal faces of Angkorian kings to apsara dancers swathed in amethyst and ruby, the ubiquity of these images provides ample evidence that the Khmer Rouge ultimately failed to extinguish Cambodia's resplendent heritage.

But how far do the parameters of Cambodia's imagination extend? While the country's artists are naturally keen to merchandize potent symbols of national identity, casual visitors to this country might be forgiven for finding the same icons on anything from beer cans to swimming pools a tad repetitive.

When the Cambodian-Americans Sopheap Pich and Linda Saphan returned to live in Phnom Penh a few years ago, they found little in the way of an art scene, nor did they find any word for visual arts in the local language. A handful of artists were working together in isolation, with neither official recognition or government support.

Determined to root out the maverick and to encourage contemporary artistic expression, the two formed an artists' group called Visual Arts Open (VAO). For their first show, in December, 16 painters and three photographers exhibited in nine galleries around the capital. It was the first group showing in Cambodia since the 1960s and laid the foundation for a cutting-edge art scene.

For Cambodians, the images proved resonant, startling even. In one painting, a crowd silently gathers to light candles for pchum banh, the ceremony of the dead, as night falls in Phnom Penh. In other images, a single drop of water hits a moonlit ocean, an ant balances a fish five times its size on its head, or rats scurry for safety as lightning cracks over a deserted Phnom Penh street.

But why has the evolution of the arts scene taken this long? Unlike in neighboring Vietnam, where a secular culture was established well before independence, Cambodia's culture was for a long time trapped in a kind of suspended animation. French colonialists set up schools for the faithful replication of bas- relief imagery and ornaments (kbach), ever-mindful of the demands of tourists, who came in large numbers after the Exposition Coloniale in Marseille in 1906.

Only after independence in 1953 and the arrival of foreign teachers in the capital were young art students introduced to the Post-Impressionist styles of Gauguin and Picasso, and to a range of new media from gouache to crayon and oil. An association of about 30 Cambodians organized landmark exhibitions, patronized by Cambodia's monarch, King Norodom Sihanouk.

Sadly, the subsequent wars put an end to all that: 90 percent of artists either left Cambodia or died during the civil wars of the 1970s.

It will doubtless take years to revive that level of activity. In the developed world, the plastic arts are at the front line of iconoclastic individualism. But the concept of "art for arts sake" has been slow to take root in Cambodia, a poor country heavily dependent on tourism for survival.

At Phnom Penh's only government- run art school, the Royal University of Fine Arts, Ramayana scenes and idealized landscapes with bamboo huts and swaying palms characterize an entrenched "Cambodian classicism." Official reaction to VAO's efforts has been guarded. Straying beyond the limits defined by the nyek kroo, or teachers, can be seen as a kind of betrayal, inducing loss of face. "Artists in Cambodia have so much to say," Pich said, "if only they could find the courage to express it."

But Pich, 34, remains confident that the plastic arts will eventually become part of the vanguard of mainstream society. Pich's idealism and wiry intensity make him a perfect catalyst for change. A graduate of the University of Massachusetts who later attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he works like a missionary, luring the artists he feels have potential away from commercial impulses and toward "new ways of seeing."

As for Hen Sophal, flattering portraits of Phnom Penh's smart set were his stock-in-trade until he was encouraged to explore corruption and the darker side of the capital's nightlife. He was initially reluctant to delve into controversial areas, but a conversion resulted in a flood of startling canvases that set the bold tone of the December show.

His signature piece, used for a recent book on the Khmer Rouge genocide trial, features a grinning Pol Pot squatting on a mountain of skulls.

Preoccupations of poverty, the environment and the loss of culture unite a number of VAO's artists. Prominent in Prum Vichet's still-lifes, for example, are waste and leftovers, the detritus of Phnom Penh's consumerist culture. Chhoeun Rithy documents the disappearance of architectural heritage, replaced by boxlike supermarkets and Thai-style mansions. And Saphan has painted a series of blackened portraits of Phnom Penh's nouveaux riches to draw attention to fallacious ideas of beauty, especially with regard to skin color.

Cambodia's only truly international figure remains Vann Nath, an artist whose work is bound with singular personal destiny. One of only seven survivors out of 20,000 who perished at the Khmer Rouge's notorious Toul Sleng detention center, he was commissioned by the Vietnamese Army in 1979 to document the gruesome events that took place there. Van Nath's shocking and unforgettable depiction of innocent men and women surrendering to execution and torture constitutes an unparalleled first-hand account of genocide.

Pich's work stands out for its intellectual maturity. His amorphous rattan sculptures, intricately woven with wire, combine the monumental and the sensual while building on the Cambodian tradition of basket-weaving.

A handful of other cultural organizations have provided long-term institutional support to the arts in Cambodia. Both the French Cultural Center and Reyum, a research institute, have mounted exhibitions of contemporary artists. Meanwhile, Java Express, a restaurant- gallery run by the American Dana Langlois, has fostered the first serious collaboration between Cambodian artists and those of other Asian countries.

So what is the next step in the evolution of Cambodia art? Pich is planning the second VAO group showing for next year. Meanwhile, he wants Cambodian art to find a niche in the international market, as Vietnamese and Thai art have done. He is exporting his own work for a solo show at the Dongxi Gallery (www.dongxi.no.com) in Vestfossen, Norway from July 23 to Oct. 1.

Former King Intervenes in Monivong Community Eviction
VOA News
Ratana Seng
Phnom Penh

Ex King Norodom Sihanouk intervenes in the Monoving community residents' eviction by the Ministry of Interior, whose houses will be demolished by Wednesday.

In a message to Royal Palace official Kong Sam Ol, posted in his personal website, the former monarch appeals to the government to find justice for the people who live in a community for destitute people who have been there for almost 20 years.

Government spokesman and minister of information Khieu Kanharith says that he does not know about the whole situation yet.

He says that he has not received any document or message from the Royal Palace. He says that the Phnom Penh city hall arranges for a new place in Ang Snuol town, Kandal province for those residents.

About 118 families were ordered by Chief of National Police Hok Lundi to vacate the premises and their houses be demolished by Wednesday July 5. The gates are closed, and electricity and water are shut off.

NGO Licadho director Pung Chhiv Kek expresses her dismal at the governmnent's use of violence on the people for the benefit of private companies for development.

Chili Fried Hangovers?

By 8pm the crowd was standing room only at Jungle for our July 4th party. Amazing what a little free food will do...

Thanks everybody for sharing the 4th with us. Next year maybe will do mentos and diet coke rockets in the street.

Cambodians ride 'bamboo railway'

By Guy De Launey BBC News, Phnom Penh

Travellers in Cambodia have to deal with one of the world's worst train networks.

There is only one passenger service a week, and it often travels at not much more than walking pace.

So people in the north west of the country, near Cambodia's second city of Battambang, have taken matters into their own hands.

They have created their own rail service using little more than pieces of bamboo. The locals call the vehicles "noris", or "lorries", but overseas visitors know them as "bamboo trains".

A tiny electric generator engine provides the power, and the passenger accommodation is a bamboo platform that rests on top of two sets of wheels. A dried-grass mat to sit on counts as a luxury.

It would be a white-knuckle ride - if there were actually anything to hold on to.

The bamboo trains reach about 40km/h (25mph), with the track just a couple of inches below the passengers. Warped and broken rails make for a bone-shaking journey.

But the drivers insist it is a safe form of transport.

"We're very careful," said 18-year-old Sok Kimhor, a 10-year veteran of the bamboo trains. "We look out for children and animals running across the lines, and we have to slow down when other trains come along."

Unofficial role

Low fares add to the appeal, but the service is not without its quirks. There is only one track - so if two trains meet, the one with the lightest load has to be taken off the rails so the other can pass.

The bamboo trains have been an unofficial part of the Cambodian transport network for years. The official railways survived decades of civil war and sabotage by the Khmer Rouge, but all those years without maintenance have taken their toll.

Recent cuts to the timetable mean the official service to Phnom Penh now departs just once a week, and local people are left little alternative but to use the bamboo trains.

"I use the bamboo trains to go to Battambang from my house in Phnom Teppedey so I can buy medicine," said Sao Nao as she sits on the rails with a small group of people, waiting for a nori to depart.

"They're very safe - a motorbike taxi is too fast, and if I use one of those I sometimes get dizzy and fall off. On a bamboo train I can sit down and go to sleep. You can't do that on a motorbike."

Motorbikes would also struggle to take the loads that bamboo trains happily lug - indeed they often form part of the cargo, alongside freshly-harvested lychees, machine parts and timber for building houses.

Deserted

While there is plenty of bustle around the bamboo trains at their improvised stations outside Battambang, the city's main station lies deserted. Cattle chomp on the grass growing over the rails and children play on the tracks without any fear for their safety.

In Phnom Penh, the story is much the same. The station is beautiful, but three battered carriages are all that is left of Cambodia's passenger rolling stock.

The director of Cambodian Railways, Sokhom Pheakavanmony, admitted that passenger services are currently woeful, but said that improvements were on their way.

"In a plan under discussion with the Asian Development Bank right now, by 2010 we will be able to complete the rehabilitation," he said.

"I think that if the rail condition is good, the passenger trains can run. I hope that in the future, people can use the trains to move from one area to another area, and from one country to another."

The ultimate goal is for Cambodia to be a key part of a railway linking all of South East Asia, but that seems a long way off to the people of Battambang.

Despite official efforts to discourage the service, they will keep the faith with the bamboo railway until they see concrete proof otherwise.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/5110236.stm

Published: 2006/07/04 12:08:22 GMT

© BBC MMVI

4th of July Asbury Park Phnom Penh

Jungle Bar celebrates the 4th of July with happy hour prices all day long, free burgers and chili fries 3pm - 8pm. Join us!!

Sandy the fireworks are hailin' over Little Eden tonight
Forcin' a light into all those stoned-out faces left stranded on this Fourth of July
Down in town the circuit's full with switchblade lovers so fast so shiny so sharp
And the wizards play down on Pinball Way on the boardwalk way past dark
And the boys from the casino dance with their shirts open like Latin lovers along the shore
Chasin' all them silly New York girls

Sandy the aurora is risin' behind us
The pier lights our carnival life forever
Love me tonight for I may never see you again
Hey Sandy girl

Now the greasers they tramp the streets or get busted for trying to sleep on the beach all night
Them boys in their spiked high heels ah Sandy their skins are so white
And me I just got tired of hangin' in them dusty arcades bangin' them pleasure machines
Chasin' the factory girls underneath the boardwalk where they promise to unsnap their jeans
And you know that tilt-a-whirl down on the south beach drag
I got on it last night and my shirt got caught
And that Joey kept me spinnin' I didn't think I'd ever get off

Oh Sandy the aurora is risin' behind us
The pier lights our carnival life on the water
Runnin' down the beach at night with my boss's daughter
Well he ain't my boss no more Sandy

Sandy, the angels have lost our desire for us
I spoke to 'em just last night and they said they won't set themselves on fire for us anymore
Every summer when the weather gets hot they ride that road down from heaven on their Harleys they come and they go
And you can see 'em dressed like stars in all the cheap little seashore bars
parked making love with their babies out on the Kokomo
Well the cops finally busted Madame Marie for tellin' fortunes better than they do
This boardwalk life for me is through
You know you ought to quit this scene too

Sandy the aurora's rising behind us, the pier lights our carnival life forever

I don't rememer the first time I heard 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) but I imagine it was 1974 or early '75. I first saw Springsteen perform it in October '75 at the Roxy in L.A. a few weeks after the release of Born to Run. It has stuck with me as one of the most evocative pieces of music I've ever heard. In 1990 my girlfriend and I made a pilgrimage to Asbury Park and Freehold to pay homage to The Boss. Asbury was decrepid, with an unfinished hotel on the boardwalk not unlike the monstrosity which blights my view across the Tonle Sap. But Madame Marie was indeed still there. And Robin and I had a wonderful time in and around Asbury. And there was no film in the camera. DOH!!

Video here.

The Sunday Times

Never eat a whole spider

A new tented jungle tour sidesteps Angkor to find the real riches of Cambodia: just mind those arachnids, says Vincent Crump Even before I get out of the car, I can smell them. Three girls of 10 or 11 are crowding around us, and thrusting their stinking Rasta-style hairdos right under my nose.

But these are not hairdos at all; the girls have metal platters on their heads — platters brimming over with fist-sized spiders. Their dreadlocks are not dreadlocks, they are hairy legs.

The spiders are dead. They smell so pungent because they’ve been soaked in soy and deep fried. And now I’m expected to eat them.

I am in Skuon, home of the world’s most repellent roadside snack: a thing even less palatable than the 3am doner kebab. I hand over 500 riel for an incy-wincy portion — one arachnid — and finger it uncertainly, wondering if it would be rude to put it in my sunglasses case and take it home to scare the milkman. The legs are the size and colour of a Cadbury’s chocolate finger, though if your chocolate finger was as hirsute as this, you’d definitely take it back to Sainsbury’s.

Just then another car pulls up and a German named Ulli jumps out. Ulli is not pussyfooting about. He buys a dozen spiders, hands his girlfriend the camera and takes a great big bite. It’s even worse than I feared: brown gunk explodes down his chin, and he’s spitting and choking. Tra, my safari guide, turns away and winces.

“Never eat the abdomen,” he whispers. “Eggs or excrement.”

Skuon is the first staging post on my sally into undiscovered Cambodia, and a taste of things to come. Until a decade ago, the phrase “undiscovered Cambodia” was travel tautology — but then Pol Pot died, the Khmer Rouge was finally vanquished, and the world, its wife and a busload of in-laws flocked here to visit Angkor, lost capital of the god-kings, the most humdinging archeological site in Asia. Now, a million tourists pitch up each year, including Korean coach parties wielding megaphones.

Angkor must be seen, certainly — but if you wonder what the 1,000-year-old civilisation of the Khmers looked like before it got “discovered” by French colonists and tarted up for the megaphone masses, you need to strike out beyond Siem Reap into Cambodia’s steaming, spidery highlands. Here lie the outposts of Khmer empire: Sambor Prei Kuk, a religious complex even older than Angkor; Koh Ker, jungle stronghold of the usurper king Jayavarman IV; and especially Preah Vihear, a cathedral-sized monastery chipped into the top of a 2,000ft crag. A new “temple safari” promises to take travellers with intrepid urges to find them — and that’s what I’ve signed up for: just me and my tent (and my driver, my tour guide, my cook and my factotum).

The brains behind the safari is Nick Ray, Lonely Planet author and self-styled temple-hunter, whose love affair with Cambodia has gone from collecting bottle-tops for Kampuchea to unearthing Angkorian citadels for Angelina Jolie to romp through in her Lara Croft hot pants.

“People think the places you’ll be going to are just for the hardcore dirt-bike community and Mick Jagger in his helicopter,” Nick tells me. “It’s not an easy ride, but once you arrive, you get to spend dusk and dawn alone in your own personal temple — no hawkers or hassle, and a feeling of spiritual communion that’s hard to find nowadays at Angkor. It’s a blast. That’s what I love about Cambodia: it’s still as much an adventure as a holiday.”

Spider savouries are only the start of it. The big worry with back-country Cambodia is not coming home with too many legs but too few. During decades of murderous civil war, the northern hinterland was sown with 4m landmines, and the road to Preah Vihear is staked out with grinning skull and crossbones — which mean step off the trail and you’ll end up like Long John Silver.

We bid goodbye to 21st-century Cambodia in Kompong Thom, a one-horse, two-horsepower town full of kamikaze mopeds loaded with chickens and children. The high street is like a life-or-death Dodgem rink, and I see one chap with a full-grown pig strapped sideways across the pillion of his scooter — which is funny, but not as funny as when I realise the pig is alive.

Soon we’re out in the country and space-hopping north along vivid red-sand roads through the rice paddies and sugar palms, where babies and buffalo bathe together in the levees. Mopeds dwindle away to ox carts, pick-up trucks to ploughshares, and Tra points out a woman baking fish inside a mud oven by the road: “This is the way of cooking that’s depicted in the bas-reliefs at the Bayon temple in Angkor,” he says. “Life hasn’t changed for 900 years.”

Our temple pilgrimage begins with impeccable chronological logic at 7th-century Sambor Prei Kuk, a prototype Khmer capital from 200 years before Angkor. It is so far gone in forest that I don’t see it coming. A monstrous octopus is eating the gatehouse — Tra says it’s a strangler-fig tree — and beyond, crumbling brick shrines scatter like stamped-on sandcastles through the jungle. The only other visitors are two backpackers, and the tourist infrastructure amounts to three ragged boys with scarves draped over their forearms, who trail behind us from temple to temple like pages — steadfast and silent, never once begging a sale.

We wander between the sanctuaries, dipping into their cool, kiln-like interiors, inhaling the solitude. The sun-spangled woods feel curiously English, more Christopher Robin than Mowgli — though, as far as I know, Christopher Robin never grappled with huge female pudenda. These are the yoni — suggestively shaped altars secreted inside each shrine, and originally pierced by the sacred phallus of the Hindu deity Shiva.

The stone members have long since been plundered, but inside one sanctuary we find evidence of continuing worship: a shapeless boulder draped in a scraggy orange krama, the Cambodian scarf. Tra thinks it’s a totem set up by villagers to the spirits of health or harvest — their flyblown offering of rice and incense speaks of the animist beliefs of the Cambodian countryside. Asia’s earliest temple city may be tumbledown but it seems nobody remembered to tell the locals it was “lost”.

We jolt on northward on bomb-site roads, the scarlet skulls multiplying, the jungle pressing in. To the west lies tomorrow’s target, Koh Ker, where I’ll scramble to the top of a 120ft pyramid on a rickety ladder and find myself sole overlord of a 10th-century settlement almost as big as Angkor — a hundred of its monuments still lurking, unclaimed by archeology, somewhere in the undergrowth.

But tonight we plan to camp at the furthest-flung wonder of the lot: Prasat Preah Vihear, the “Great Temple in the Sky” — three centuries’ worth of super-intricate gods and monsters chiselled straight into a cloud-snagged mountaintop by successive Angkor emperors. The journey time is unpredictable: it depends how many plank bridges are down and how many stops you make to drag crumped Land Cruisers out of a ditch. On our trip it turns out to be one of each — plus one mini-monsoon that soaks us through as we batten down the roof rack. Six hours in all, by which time our driver, Siha — button- collared and bespectacled when he picked me up at the airport — is bare-torsoed and bulging-eyed, with his krama knotted round his forehead like Ben Gunn.

The last half-hour is straight up the side of the Dangrek mountains on hair-whitening hairpins, the road crumbling under our wheels like in a Hitchcock car chase. A hilarious three-inch kerb separates us from gory oblivion.

It’s worth it. At the top, mist froths mythically around a mighty pink causeway, pedlars wobble under the weight of milkmaid-type yokes, and a few Thai day-trippers from the other side of the mountain straggle back to their cars. Yes, there are other people around — but that’s where our tents come in. It is four o’clock, two hours till dusk: time to spend completely alone with the Angkorian ancients.

While Siha and the rest of our retinue make camp, Tra and I set off to climb the staircase of broken-topped sanctuaries towards the temple summit, swarming hand-over-hand across a terrifying rubble of Hindu iconography: writhing serpents, gaping birdmen, mad-eyed demons. This is Indiana Jones made real: along shadowy corridors, into flooded vaults, never sure whether you’ll find Buddhas or bats. We finally emerge onto a craggy balcony 2,000ft above the jungle, where kings once came to greet their gods. Sunset seeps across the plain; the roar of the cicadas is lion-loud. It’s quite incredible.

As we descend again, Tra points out pockmarks in the temple ramparts: “Gunfire. The Khmer Rouge retreated here in the 1990s. Preah Vihear was their last stand.” When we get back to camp, now perfumed by tree-resin torches, Chung the cook is dishing up chicken with lemongrass. It’s the most astounding camp site I’ve been to, knocking Happy Valley Caravan Park and Silage Plant, Porthmadog, into a cocked hat. I feel privileged to be here, and very well looked after. Time to crack open my sunnies case and hand round the spider legs.

Vincent Crump travelled as a guest of Audley Travel

Travel details: Audley Travel (01869 276360, www.audleytravel.com) has nine nights in Cambodia from £1,895pp, including flights from London, a two-night temple safari, four nights in Siem Reap and two in Phnom Penh. Or try Regent (0870 499 0911, www.regent-holidays.co.uk.

The safari can be booked independently through Hanuman (00 855 23 218356, www.hanuman tourism.com): the two-night tour, starting from Siem Reap, with a guide and meals, costs from £350pp.