Mar 2

Mar 2 Angkor Away (The Angkor Series Book 1) - Steven W. Palmer

Angkor Away (The Angkor Series Book 1) by Steven W. Palmer

Book excerpt

Chapter 1

It was a Tuesday, mid-August, and the downpours of earlier had given way to a sweltering and cloying heat that forced its way into every pore of your being even when indoors and close to a fan. The steam rising from the pavements and roads produced an almost otherworldly aspect to the cityscape, and I couldn’t wait to get back to my villa in Toul Kork and the relief of a long cold shower and an even colder beer. But business came first. I was waiting to meet Chamreun, a former air force colonel who was my main contact in Cambodia’s drug supply chain. And I don’t mean those shitty $15 bags of weed that the tuk-tuk drivers sell to dreadlocked rich boys and girls travelling the world on trust funds and mummy’s debit card. Oh no, this was primo quality weed: seeds imported from America and Amsterdam and retrained farmers in the provinces lovingly growing and tending the new crops that had seen their average monthly wage triple. But the big earners were the elite landowners and former forces personnel who had realised the potential of this new cash crop. From Koh Kong to Battambang, from Kampot to Kompong Som, acres of hidden fields were introducing Mary Jane to the Cambodian landscape. Not to mention the other pies we had our fingers in. Toyota Camrys were becoming Range Rovers and Lexuses. Two-bedroom apartments were becoming four-bedroom villas. Everyone involved, from their own comparative positions, was getting rich, and I was helping them do it.

I had first come to Cambodia many years before on a side trip from Thailand. It was the mid-90s then and the country was still recovering from decades of turmoil and civil war.

At that point, the only barangs making a buck were the NGOs and the UN workers, half of them preying on the very children they were supposed to be helping, and the other half lost in a haze of opium or alcohol.

Other than the wonders of the Angkor temples, I hadn’t been impressed much. There seemed to be a lack of vitality in the people I met, hardly surprising given the events of the preceding years. I didn’t return for ten years, and the difference was startling. Cambodia had got its smile back, and this second viewing had made me fall in love with the place. I spent a fantastic six weeks in 2005 wandering the streets of Phnom Penh, the riverside at Kampot, and the beaches and dusty roads of Sihanoukville. From that point on I visited at least twice a year. I loved the Khmer people and the changes you could see happening, despite the chaotic past, the corruption and the poverty.

Jump forward now to mid-2013. At this point I was based in Chiang Mai. I had nurtured a relationship with two of the brightest chemistry students Thailand had produced in a decade and between my funding and their laboratory know-how, we were churning out 20,000 hits of high-quality LSD every week. But one of them turned into what is known in the business as a ‘stupid bastard’. Took his burgeoning profits and started flashing them about: flash cars, flash clothes, and flash women.

And it wasn’t long before this attracted the attention of the local mafia which meant of course that the upper, and corrupted, echelons of Thailand’s armed forces were involved. I received a visit one evening from a rather jovial army colonel sent on behalf of his superior. My choice was simple. So simple that there was no choice.

They were taking over my business, my lab, and my two bright chemists. If I provided them with all my contacts and transportation knowhow, they would both let me live and, rather generously, pay me a stipend of $5,000 per month. It really was an offer I couldn’t refuse, especially the living part.

But they also knew that without a chain to market, their product only had limited appeal in Thailand. And every contact I had were old and trusted friends and one word from me would see them shut off the chain. So, the $5,000 was a small price to pay given the profits they would be raking in. There’s only so much acid you can sell on Khao San Road or one of the islands. The real profits lay in the west and the quality we were producing was taking $10-20 at street level. So, I shook his hand, shared a few Johnny Walkers, and packed my bags. Despite the seeming friendliness in the deal, I knew I wasn’t welcome in Chiang Mai anymore.

I wasn’t sure where I wanted to settle next, or even if I wanted to stay in business. My bank accounts were healthy and a chunk of my profits from the last few years was invested in several projects and portfolios scattered around the globe that gave me a pretty pleasant annual return. But a friend from back in London had recently bought a bar in Sihanoukville, on Cambodia’s southern coast, and he invited me down to chill out for a few weeks, so I had some time to consider my options. I packed up my trusty Mitsubishi Pajero with all my worldly goods, and in particular my collection of prized Thai Khon masks, and headed off on a road trip across Thailand and into the Kingdom of Wonder.

Chapter 2

Sihanoukville is a strange creature. On paper this should be a thriving resort in the style of the South of France. After all, it is Cambodia’s only real beach destination. The reality however is a little different. The more upmarket hotels cling to the boundaries as if afraid to dip their toes into the sordid interior. Cheap beach bars crowd the central beach area, home to drug dealers, prostitutes, and thieves, and that’s just the tourists. Shoddily put together sound systems pump out plastic music from dusk until dawn and the beach is littered with discarded bottles and cans. The police are virtually non-existent after dark, scurrying home as if they realise the tea-money opportunities are far less when the creatures of the night come out. The road leading up from the beach is a mixed bag of establishments from low-cost, low-standard dorms to some more upmarket backpacker accommodations like Monkey Republic. Restaurants in the area range from spit on the floor to pig on a spit with the odd unexpected hidden gem in there too. Move away from that central area and things go up or down depending on the direction you take. Beyond the town to the West lay Otres: some of the best beaches in the area and accommodation split between the decent budget places on Otres 1, and the slightly more gentile resorts of Otres 2. Otres 1 was also home to the decent music scene, well my sort of decent music, of Snooky, though sadly there was still a fair sprinkling of psy-trance in among the wondrous techno, jungle, and dub sounds. Go East/North-East from the central beach and you had downtown: a mix of low-rent guesthouses, low-cost expat bars, and the bulk of the local businesses. Go a little further out and you reached Victory Hill: formerly a lively and bustling area, but now a sad shadow of its former self. This was also home to ‘Entertainment Alley’, a collection of neon-lit girly bars where quality did not always win out over quantity.

But, despite all its flaws, I loved the place. There was a certain gritty rawness about the town that most resort destinations in Thailand had long since lost. And despite its largely exaggerated reputation for crime, I never felt a portion of the threat I had experienced elsewhere in Asia. The only thing I really hated was the stratified cliques that seemed to exist within some of the expat community. From the generally aloof Russians all pretending to be gangsters to the cheap-Charlie alcoholics always chasing a 50-cent beer to the seasonal hipster crowd that staffed half the Serendipity Road businesses. To say that Snooky had its fair share of wankers would be an understatement.