Monks on Motorcycles

Greetings.

Well, my evening out with the crew on Wedensday (see previous post) was a fairly sedate affair. No tales of ribaldry to report. What was interesting about the night however was that as I walked to the bar after parking my bicycle I encoutered none of the usual harassment from the street kids begging. What's with that? Well, in the great tradition of shielding monarchs and VIPs from the reality of poverty, all the street kids were rounded up and trucked out of town to some sort of camp. You see, the Prime Minister was coming to town the next day and we've got to keep appearances up. The Hospital was contacted by reporters concerned about the condition of some of these kids but alas when people from the hospital tried to go out and see the kids, they were told the kids were "moved". Good stuff.

I have been trying to do a good job taking as many pictures as possible here although I don't have a flash so I can't get anything from inside the hospital. The picture that has been most elusive to me , however, is catching a shot of a monk riding on the back of a moto. Even better, two monks riding on the back of a moto. Everytime I see this magnificient site I am either too slow getting my camera out of my bag or I've left my camera back at the guest house. Last night I stationed myself outside of the Pagoda two blocks from my guesthouse and waited to no avail - there would be no Pulitzer for me this year. Later, after returning my camera to the safe haven of my room, I once again rode by the Pagoda and to my astonishment the greatest shot of all appeared - a minivan full of monks. The motherload!

For any of you that know me well at all know that I'm a little obsessive about numbers - stats, lists, facts, figures, what have you. Now I have never understood how a certain currency is valued against another, but this month has been a nice object lesson for me in the absurdity of economics in Cambodia. It's crazy that I can get not one, but two deep fried bananas from some lady on the street for 12 1/2 cents but gas still costs $3 a gallon. The crazier thing is if the banana lady says that it's 25 cents, people will argue with her. 12 1/2 cents people! I realize that it's a 100% increase but come on, she spends all day dipping bananas into some sort of heated batter. How many goddamn bananas does she need to sell to make a living? (side note: average adult earn $1 per day in Cambodia) I don't think I need to tell you that my guest house costs $5 per night to illustrate my point any further that, in general, it's cheap here.

What is interesting however, is the influx of foreign money (whether or not it stays in the country is a different issue). I spend the majority of time here either a.) working at the hospital with insanely poor people b.) at my guesthouse with thrifty backpackers or c.) out with the other docs, who frankly are pretty thrifty as well. I was impressed as I traveled out of town to the temples last weekend at the number of unbelievably beautiful hotels along the road (of course, in between the open fields of oxen and/or trash). What's amazing is last night I went to get a drink with Varun, Ben (he's like the Faceman of Angkor Hospital) and the Australians at the Grand Hotel. Now in addition to have entertained guests like Angelina Jolie (rumored to have been there Thursday night) Charlie Chaplin and Jackie Kennedy, the cheapest room rate is $300 per night or roughly the annual income of the average Cambodian. I am not saying this is bad, I'm just floored by the numbers. Thanks for bring me down, Mike. Good work.

Well, one more week to go and then it's Bangkok.