Out With The Guys

Well, I'm in Bangkok. I can't even start to try to explain this place. It's absurd beyond most methods of description. So I will concentrate this post on my final days in Cambodia and get back to Bangkok once it sets in.

My time in Cambodia was clearly time well spent. The experience at the hospital and out in the community will clearly stay with me forever. It's my sincere hope to make it back there again in the near (or distant) future, but next time with Shannon. While I could attempt to tug at your hearstrings with one final tale of some child overcoming poverty or illness or a landmine injury, I thought I would describe for you my most insane night in Cambodia - Thursday night when we went out with the Maintenance Guys.

Let me give you the cast of characters:
1. Ben - 22 from Berkeley, California. Ben, as I mentioned in a previous post is Angkor Hospital for Children's Face Man (the Dirk Benedict character from 1980's hit action TV program The A-Team). He's confident and handsome in a way that gets shit done both at the Hospital and out at the bars. He's also the ringleader for the story I will tell henceforth.
2. Roy - 27 from Los Angeles. My trusty med student. You all know him well by this point.
3. Ian - 24 from Sydney, Australia. Ian is the boyfriend of the lovely Bernadette who is a med student working at the hospital. Ian, who is in finance by training, traveled with Bernadette and has been helping out painting as well as playing with the kids. For the purposes of the following tail, Ian will be known as my Wingman.
4. Josh - 25 from Wyoming, USA. Josh is a mechanical engineer who was backpacking in Cambodia and heard the hospital needed some computer help so he stayed in town for a few weeks to work.
5. The Maintenance Guys - 33 to 35 from Siem Reap, Cambodia although all of them can tell you where there "adoptive" parents live in America ("For the cost of a cup of coffee a day, you can help a child...). Also add to this group the Bookeeper from the hospital, his girlfriend, and the brother in law of one of the Maintenance Guys.

So Ben kept talking about how we all needed to go out with the Maintenace Guys for a night out at a real Khmer restaurant and then on to karaoke - Cambodian Style. The restaurant experience started out well enough. We were brought plates of delicious meats and vegetables and were having a grand old time. At this particular establishment, the "ladies" who served beer worked for the beer company of the particular beer they served. So each "lady" would attempt to get you to drink their beer and be quite attentive pouring and grabbing more bottles, way before anyone was ready for the next. They were quite competitive with one another and occasionally one would sit down with us and pour herself a drink. Rumor has it that they were "available" for after hours pouring, if you know what I mean.

Well, about 45 minutes into the festivities just as a nice buzz was setting in, one of the Maintenance Guys who appeared several levels of buzzed beyond myself decided to get a little handsy with me. Now I recognize there are cultural differences out there and I was chalking it up to that for about the first 15 minutes. "Hey, this guy is married with two kids, he can't possibly be gay" - sort of like the Cambodian Brokeback Mountain. As I've mentioned in previous posts humor is my best defense mechanism and I tried in vain to get Touchy McToucher to back off. Ben and Ian, of course, were having a great time laughing their asses off.

The last straw was the following: With Touchy McToucher on my left, I turned to my right and said to Ian "I am going to the bathroom, if this dude gets up and follows me, you must fucking tackle him". I get up and walk to the "bathroom" - I need to stop here and give you all the following background. There are about 150 people in this open air restaurant, of which five of us are Western. The bathroom consists of a toilet at one end of the dining area surrounded on three and a half sides by a four foot high brick wall (I'm 6'1 for the record). Now, I am nervous enough peeing in front of 150 strangers, but Touchy has really ratcheted up the anxiety level. Miraculously, there was no stage fright ("Hooray Beer") and I made it out alive. As I walk back to the table I noticed out of the corner of my eye, Ian forming a human shield and talking to Touchy about 20 feet from the table. As it turned out, about 20 seconds after I left for my bathroom excursion, Touchy stood up and started walking to the bathroom. Alarmed, Ian yelled across the table to Ben that he was to tackle Touchy if he were to follow me to the loo. Ben, with the assuredness of any Vietnam Vet accused of a crime he didn't commit, yelled back to Ian "well, you better go fucking tackle him!". Bravo Ian. Bravo Ben.

We then rode on to karaoke, which was not quite like hitting Cafe Japone on P Street. Hey, I like karaoke. I just like it when I am eating sushi and I can get up after a Sapporo tallboy and belt out a little Neil Diamond with crowd of strangers singing along. And yes, singing with everyone requires that you to have to listen to that horrible group of tone deaf sorrority sisters singing some awful Belinda Carlise song.

Our karoake experience was a little different. Karaoke in Cambodia is like karaoke in a lot of Asian countries as each group has their own private room complete with tv and wireless mics. This experience was different because in addition to said audio visual equipment, we were each provided with a young lay who would pour our beer and dance with us to the most god awful music I have ever heard in my life. I am quite sure that this was the most awkward I have felt since getting turned down to dance by Heather Cox at the James Fennimore Cooper Intermediate School 7th grade dance. I should also remind all the readers out there that I am a pediatrician and while everyone in Cambodia appears younger than their true age, that theory wasn't really helping my comfort level at the time. The songs were either in Khmer to some awful dance beat or were the most out of date crappy 60's faux-folk songs. That said, everyone put on a good face and tried to have a good time, and I ditched Touchy as he made his way over to Josh. Roy made the most of the evening, taking over on mic and singing songs in both English and Khmer (using the phonetic spelling at the bottom of the screen). It was not unlike a bachelor party although no one was getting married... and everyone was properly clothed, calm down. After about a hour, Ben was busy making an oragami rose for his "lady", and Ian and I were quite sure that we had enough. So we bade adieu and headed home.

A night like that only served to aclimatize (spelling?) me to the Kraziness of Bangkok. I will keep you posted.