This list isn’t only comprehensive and deadly (pun intended) accurate, it’s also scary. Furthermore, I have the distinctly unpleasant task of bringing three new likely causes of death to the attention of the American public. And, unfortunately, if trends continue, these three causes will supersede all others on the list by 3rd quarter fiscal 2010. Here they are in no particular order:
Unlicensed Cambodian Drivers.
I have found my life threatened on numerous occasions each day by this particular vector of doom. Riding the Best, Most Beastliest Cycle of 2008 on the streets of Siem Reap carries with it a modicum of risk that very few can imagine. Everyday that I toe that plastic alloy space age composite material super pedal, I have to look the grim reaper in the eye and say “Not today, you greedy, bony bastard!” But its not just bicyclisters that have this problem, its anyone who decides to venture outside the confines of a sturdy, load bearing structure. Even staying indoors is no guarantee that the Unlicensed Cambodian Driver won’t come crashing through your front door like some kind of anti-heat seeking missile searching out your A/C and refrigerated beverages. It would be prudent of me to point out that in the context of this description, the words “Unlicensed” and “all” can be used interchangeably. Licensing isn’t something that the people, government or general public, have decided to concern themselves with. But to their credit, it seems that the children certain things about driving in primary school. I say this because the only way that I could consistently witness some of the things that are commonplace here is if the practices were ingrained in the children at a very young age, so as to circumvent that pesky little thing called common sense.
First, all cars in Cambodia are apparently hybrids. But it’s not a response to impending threat of another cause of death on our list, global heating. In fact, the hybrid cars are in no way motivated by any issue of ecology. They’re not even electric hybrids. They’re sonic hybrids. Not like the hedgehog. Not not like sound waves. Cambodians have been taught, by some official body, again due to the overwhelming amount that the practice is employed that their motor driven vehicles operate on a delicate combination of gasoline and horn honks. They honk the horn when people are around, they honk their horn when no ones around, at intersections, in parking lots, at ducks, cows, buildings, people, light, air, water, and rocks. They honk their horns when they’re horny. They honk ‘em for Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, and Allah. They honk their horns for world peace. But mostly they just honk them as an alternative source of fuel. Apparently, they can increase their mileage by up to 2 percent just by driving with the horn duct taped into an “on” position. In the U.S. we would need to inflate our tires to the proper pressure and put down the tailgate to see such an increase in the efficiency of our automobiles. Monday, I saw a small child, no more than 3 years old getting his training in horn honking/gas saving. He was standing (an issue I will briefly address later) on the front of a moped, while it was in motion and was being encouraged by the other two passengers and driver (remember, moped) to keep honking. It seemed to me like a blatant violation of child labor laws. But if I would have complained, who would have listened?
Waiting for the left turn is also not a concept familiar to most Unlicensed Cambodian Drivers. If an individual arrives at an intersection, and said intersection is saturated with a veritable throng of motor vehicles, the individual will simply drive down the wrong side of the street until some sort of “opening” presents itself and the individual is able to “merge” onto the proper side of the street. Favorite tactics employed by Cambodians to achieve success in this maneuver include, but are not limited to, driving on the sidewalk, driving in the gutter, honking the horn while driving directly into the flow of heavy traffic, closing one’s eyes and meditating oneself to higher plane of existence whereby one might transport oneself to the right lane. As you can see, it’s a different culture, and as such they’ve developed a different approach to the art of the left turn.
This is a game called passing on the left with the gas truck, a favorite Cambodian past time. Extra points are earned for passing into oncoming traffic and overtaking vehicles twice the length of your own. This truck does both with a skill usually reserved for 9 year old blind kids.If I’ve gained nothing else from this experience, I have at least attained greater sense of who one of my deceased relatives truly was. I had an aunt who would avoid making left turns whenever possible. She would make three rights to equal a left. At 9 years old I recognized this and just wondered to myself what the deal was. It didn’t seem like something I should bring up, as in our family we were raised in the vein of those who believe that children should neither be seen, nor heard. But the thing I learned about my aunt from all this is this: she was a psychic. All those years ago, she was anticipating the rise of automobiles in Cambodia, the resulting culture of driving, and what that would mean for Americans as Cambodians figured out how to obtain visas and emigrate to the US. Unfortunately she didn’t live to see her three-right-turn protocol become a social and life sustaining necessity in America. But I’m pretty sure that being psychic, she knew her nephew would go to Cambodia, and that the lessons she taught would someday save his life. For those of you confused with the way I switched from the first person to the third person, essentially without using any transitional device, the his in last sentence was me. Me, Colten. Thanks for that, Aunt Nancy. Thanks.
I promised I would address the child standing on the front of the moped issue. So this is me addressing it. I’ve seen six people on one moped. Granted, one of them was under 20 lbs. and 2 years old, and the other 5 were under 100 lbs. ranging in age from 12 to 60. But it was still six human beings on one moped which very likely commanded an impressive 10, maybe 11 horsepower. Don’t worry, they were honking frequently enough that I’m certain they made it to their destination. Even when there’s only two people on the scooters, they will keep the baby standing in the front. The kids seem accustomed to it. In the US, jail time. In Cambodia, viable means of transporting human babies.
Not on the front but still a little cavalier.
Even though they’re not quite there yet, someday these little pigs will be 500 lb. dead pigs and still be riding in the same lap of luxury.If you do the math, a 500 lb. dead pig passenger and a 100 lb. living human driver should be very difficult to transport simultaneously on a 60 lb. scooter. But I guess it’s just further scientific evidence of the efficiency-boosting power of horn honking. There have also been dead ducks and chickens hanging from a pole lashed across the back end of the scooters. That one makes more sense to me, though because if the driver is lucky enough to catch a hind wind, the dead birds could potentially act as a sail further increasing gas mileage. And I guess, since this is a society firmly rooted in the tenets of magic, both good and bad, it’s not unreasonable to assume that a magic man might be able to reanimate the birds wings, propelling the vehicle into a craft of flight, and bypassing the whole left-turn-drive-on-the-sidewalk-and-endanger-the-lives-of-pedestrians issue all together. They have a saying here in Cambodia, “A flying car is a happy car. A most delicious happy car everyday.”
Also traffic signals seem to be a moot point. They drive on the right, but half the cars have right side drive, further confusing an already befuddled culture of drivers. Most of them can’t see over the steering wheel anyway. Posting speed limits is either thought to be an archaic and primitive practice of brutes, or an unnecessary luxury of brutish western culture. At any rate, they don’t do it. And just to further emphasize how pun-tacular this blog is, I’m going to point out that miles per hour, as in a posted speed limit, is a measure of rate or velocity. But the phrase “at any velocity” just didn’t have the same ring to it. In Cambodia, pedestrians are considered obstacles to be eliminated (with extreme prejudice) as opposed to obstacles to be avoided. There are motor police, but I have literally never seen them do anything except sit in large groups under the shade of a fine tree enjoying a breezy Cambodian winter afternoon. Despite there being no marked lanes anywhere... anywhere... there seems to be an unwritten law that every road, alley, and pathway, regardless of how wide or narrow, is to be treated as though it is a bidirectional 12 lane super commuter expressway with a minimum requirement of 31 honks per minute. I’ve also never seen an ambulance or an emergency response vehicle of any kind. This could mean one of two things. Either there are never any traffic accidents in Siem Reap that are severe enough to mandate an emergency response, or there just isn’t any emergency response. You pick.
Street Dogs (aka Death Dealers)
The street dogs, as they are called, are more of a rural concern than anything else. If simplicity in nomenclature were a concern, they should probably be renamed something like dirt road dogs, or dogs in the bushes next to the dirt road or whatever. I have theorized, using my copious resources of wild speculation that at one point street dogs were really street dogs and existed primarily in, well, the streets. But with the advent of the Unlicensed Cambodian Drivers, and the street dogs lack of natural defense against a new predator, the SUV, the population of actual street dogs actually living in the actual streets has actually decreased dramatically in all actuality.
So one day I had a plan that I would felt would lessen the pressure of teetering on the line between life and death that results from riding the Beast on the streets. Sometimes, I resolved, I would take back roads. I would learn more about the countryside of the country in which I was a welcome guest. I would have an adventure. What I didn’t know is that these adventures would consistently be punctuated by dogs, singular and in groups, feeling the need to assert their territorial claims to the crappy dirt road on which I would be traveling on a given day. Dogs are very intuitive creatures, and according to the K-9 DEA agent at the US/Mexico border, “They’re real good smellers.” When storms come, dogs know. When there’s half of a cheeto at the bottom of a garbage can full of broken glass, 45 lb. olympic weights, and cinder blocks they know as well. So my conjecture, again based on my predisposition toward wild speculation, is that one of the Cambodian street dogs met a native american who told him the tales of the white man. Then this dog told all the other dogs. The dogs being “good smellers” could smell the American on me and intuitively knew that I was here to steal their land. In an effort to avoid the lengthy treaty negotiations, double talk, and reneging of agreements that they knew I would employ in the appropriation of their crappy dirt road, they opted instead, to just try to kill me each time we crossed paths.
A narrow escape.Some have gone a step beyond just defending their territory and have intentionally contracted severe cases of the mange. Now certainly you’re wondering how losing all of its hair and being really itchy and generally looking worn down could benefit a dog. The problem is that your natural ethnocentrism is causing you to think in terms of American dogs and American streets. The answer, ladies and gentlemen, is camouflage. They get the mange, and lose large clumps of hair. This serves two very fundamental purposes in terms of camouflage. It breaks up their outline and it makes them skin colored. Skin colored happens to be the color of the dirt, and by extension the color of many of the roads in Cambodian villages. And looking worn down is simply to lull you into a false sense of security. But these dogs are not to be underestimated. Not only do they have all the natural instinct and athleticism of a normal man eating canine, but they’re also intelligent enough to do a cost-benefit analysis on getting a case of the mange, arriving at the inevitable conclusion that they will be able make more kills with less effort if they can simply endure a bit of itchiness every now and then. So they lay in wait in the numerous number of potholes and ditches that dot the roadways. And by the time you’re close enough to see them, it’s already been too late for 6 full seconds.
It’s like a high stakes game of Where’s Waldo where you can never finish the book, you just get to live long enough to play again tomorrow.The problem is that they’re everywhere. Bob Barker, in all his omnipotent and immortal game show glory, failed to make his signature impression on the Cambodian culture. So where we spay and neuter our dogs, they do nothing and do nothing with their dogs. It’s a bit disarming to see the parade of puppies roaming the backroads of Siem Reap. They’re like little fluffballs of joy rolling around in the dust and the sun. And you forget about the one who looks just like it only bigger, that just moments ago tried to chase you down like an entire pride of hunting lionesses takes out an aging gazelle. But if you kindly, gently, and lovingly, with purest of intentions try to pet one of these seemingly harmless harbingers of happiness, something in their DNA switches on and they reciprocate your good will by eating your face off. The long way. By burrowing through the back of your skull. In a place that has neither licensing for drivers, nor licensing for doctors, I’m assuming that most of the feral dogs probably aren’t current with their rabies vaccines either... you know, cause of the vet situation. So I’ve adopted an official policy of observation from a distance and ride fast as hell in the opposite direction if one appears to be approaching. Also, the dogs don’t come when you whistle. It’s mind boggling.
Finishing off the remains of what was, most likely, their latest human victim.On a somewhat related note, there are some things you don’t expect to see anywhere, let alone in rural Cambodia. All of the dogs here are mutts. And all of them have a very 1960’s approach to free love and reproduction. So over the years mutts have become even more mutts until there’s nothing but mutts. The amount of bastard puppies and baby mama drama in the canine world in Cambodia must be very... a lot. But one time, and I stop a moment to think if it was only something I dreamt, I saw something so unlikely that I tipped over the Beast craning my neck to witness the spectacle. In a nondescript back alley in a village near Siem Reap like any other, I saw a doggie standoff. This is a fairly common occurrence in a place where hundreds, no trillions of dogs roam free to do whatever they damn well please. But this standoff was different. This standoff was between a full grown purebred German Shepherd and what appeared to be a freshly groomed Pomeranian complete with bows in its hair. The Pomeranian seemed to be the aggressor because it was viciously trying to back down the German Shepherd. I stood on the side of the road, dumbfounded, until I was almost killed by an Unlicensed Cambodian Driver in a dump truck. The dogs, nearly hit by the same dump truck, broke it up on their own. It was obvious that after surviving such a close brush with death, they were able to gain some perspective on what’s really important in life. And apparently trying to antagonize a German Shepherd to attempt to swallow it whole was no longer on the Pomeranian’s list of important things to do before it died, which incidentally, would have been at the exact same time as it completed that particular task on the list.
Eating Undercooked Pork while Stepping on a Land Mine
Pretty self explanatory, methinks. If the land mine doesn’t getcha, the trichinosis will.
