God Bless Cambodia

by Randy Ross

•Requirements: cash reserves.

  •Rewards: sexual diversification, envy of attached friends, no nagging, get to sleep alone after sex.

  •Risks: capital depreciation, falling in love with a prostitute, STDs, and other hidden costs.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: AUSTRALIA

  Fate may come upon you unexpectedly, but you will always recognize the ill wind that drifts from the canyon of distention.

  —W. PITTMAN

  Civilization: Traffic lights, trash collection, freckles.

  After dumping my bags at Melbourne’s Wooluru Inn, a Best Western knockoff near the center of town, I amble down Swanston Street to the waterfront, the Yarra River, taking in the Aussie scene. A fly lands on my lip. I swat it away.

  The tree-lined streets are wide, free of noodle carts, peeing kids, and whiney tuk-tuks. The only droning I hear is in my prefrontal lobe following a twelve-hour red-eye from Phnom Penh.

  After four red-eyes, I’m now a man with a method. During a flight, I skip the sleeping pills, which don’t seem to work at 40,000 feet, and instead drink the free beer and watch movies all night. In the morning, I feel like shit. So what?

  Crossing Bourke Street, I spot the stone façade and copper dome of Melbourne’s historic Flinders Street train station. Skyscrapers hover in the distance. Another fly. Another swat.

  A woman in a suit exits the train station and waves. Do I know her? A tattooed girl on her cell phone waves too. Then a fat guy with a skateboard. Something tunnels in my nose, something skitters in my underwear. Flies are collecting on me as if I were a rotting carcass. I join everyone around me cursing, waving, and swatting.

  I flee down Flinders Street and duck into the Melbourne Aquarium. Animal feeding time begins in five minutes. Then I notice the admission: twenty-five dollars. In Phnom Penh that’s a night with a bar girl in size 00 jeans.

  Outside again, the flies are feeding.

  I’ve just traveled through Southeast Asia, a land of deadly mosquitoes, half-bald rats, and ruthless tuk-tuk drivers. A few Western bugs shouldn’t faze me, but my T-shirt is now a vibrating vest of flies.

  I make a dash for an Asian bistro across from the aquarium. In the dining room, tubular steel lights hang from a vaulted ceiling. The decor: steel and leather, stone and wood. The menu: fifteen dollars for a bowl of soup, not including a tip, something I haven’t included in weeks. I’ll take my chances with the flies.

  Back on Flinders, I run bobbing and weaving by a movie theater: twelve dollars for a Mel Gibson flick. Jews don’t pay retail for Mel Gibson movies.

  Back at the Wooluru Inn, I confront the hotel clerk as if she were somehow to blame: “What’s with the flies? I thought Australia was a civilized, first-world country.”

  She says nothing and hands me a tourist info card entitled, “The Australian Bush Fly.”

  Highlights:

  • From October through January, bush flies are common in Melbourne.

  • The insects feed on bodily fluids: tears, sweat, saliva, and mucous.

  • Bush flies do not bite or sting. They lay their eggs in animal dung, not on humans.

  • The Aussie Salute: A waving motion used by locals to repel the flies.

  • Suggestion: Wear a hat with a mesh net that covers the face.

  A sign behind the desk clerk advertises mesh-net hats with the Wooluru logo for thirty dollars. Jews don’t pay retail for hats with logos.

  My room is a $150-a-night suite with all the amenities: toilets with seats, signs with grammar, and all-you-can-drink potable water from the tap. I call room service and order a fifteen-dollar poached egg for dinner.

  The next day, I wake at noon, drink a glass of water, and order another fifteen-dollar poached egg. After breakfast, I pace around the room and drink two more free glasses of water. I turn on the TV—all the shows and commercials are in English, what luxury—and then shut it off. Outside the window, pedestrians perform the Aussie Salute. For the hell of it, I thumb through the Melbourne Yellow Pages: “Automotive.” “Car Hire.” “Eating.” “Escorts.” Hmmm. “Real Blondes: Naughty, Cheeky, Wet & Wild.” The price: $250 an hour. That’s enough for ten naughty Khmer massages.

  “Finance.” “Fisheries.” “Fitness Centres.” Hmmm. The Bourke Street Health Club is around the corner. It’s worth a go.

  Out on the street, a woman with a quivering headdress of flies salutes me.

  Racing to the gym, I notice a store front with a row of blondes inside chatting on the phone. One catches my eye, smiles, and then holds up an index finger to indicate she’s almost done. Naughty, Cheeky, Wet & Wild.

  I brush off and step inside.

  She smiles, smoothes her skirt, and hands me a brochure featuring thongy women cavorting on a beach. I sit across from her in a cheery, yellow chair.

  “How can I be of help?” Her twangy Aussie accent is somewhere between a British lilt and a Texas drawl. She points to my brochure, which advertises vacations in Singapore, Vietnam, and Thailand.

  “I just came from Southeast Asia and was looking forward to a little civilization but I need to get away from these flies. Got anything with outdoor activities, like windsurfing, here in Australia? I’m on my own so a party scene, an easy place to meet people, would be good too.”

  She leans across her desk and touches my hand. “You know, it’s nearing high season.”

  I shrink into my chair. “Got anything fun and, maybe, affordable?”

  “How about surfing up north?” She points to a map above her. “We have budget packages to Ooloocoolow, Gamawawa, or Boohoowuwu. No flies there.”

  Baby talk from glossy lips. I look at the other towns on the map: Gympie North, Burpengary, Moorooka, Wooloowin, Yeerongpilly.

  I touch her wrist. “I read that Yeow-Ouch-Ouch and Potty-poopoo are also nice this time of year.”

  “Beg yours?” She retracts her hand.

  “Just kidding.”

  Her eyes are small, blue, and lifeless.

  “Right,” she says. “We have something in Keezerbeezer. You’ll fly into Brisbane, hire a car, and stay at the Moringaranga Resort. At the beach, you can take surfing lessons. The whole package is only $2,950 for a week.”

  “What if I skip the car?”

  She looks out the window and smiles at a passerby.

  I pick at a cuticle. “What do you think a cab would cost?”

  Her phone rings and she snatches the receiver out of its cradle.

  “Yeah, Rosie, I’m about to finish up here.”

  She puts her hand on the mouthpiece and turns to me. “If you’re looking to travel on the cheap, I don’t think I can be of much help.”

  She gives me what appears to be an Aussie Salute.

  Back at the hotel, I log onto travelscrooge, and find a hotel, the Royal Paradise, in Keezerbeezer. A one-week package, including flight and public transportation from the airport, costs $1,800, the same as two months in Phnom Penh or three months in Hoi An, cities where my long nose and white skin made me a celebrity, a handsome man. Here, I’m just another white guy too old to be wearing a backpack.

  I turn to Pittman’s book, which, to his credit, has been nearly 70 percent accurate, as he originally claimed. The chapter on Australia lists an array of Aussie gotchas: sharks the size of SUVs, crocodiles the size of sharks, six-foot birds, killer jellyfish, and a condition known as reverse-culture shock, the result of going from the exotic East back to the pasteurized West and finding that your life hasn’t changed. But no mention of Keezerbeezer or flies. I make a note to send a card to Pittman about the flies.

  Back on travelscrooge, I click on a Keezerbeezer video featuring thongy Aussie girls speaking twee English with a southern twang. I wash down an Ambien with a beer and charge the Keezerbeezer trip on my Visa.

  Then I check my e-mail.

  A note from Abe. Maybe he’s getting divorced.

  Burns:

  Glad you’re having fun in Tokyo. Same old shit here, but with a new twist: Amy wants to have a kid. In other d
evelopments:

  You wouldn’t believe the fucked-up thing that happened last week. I’ll tell you when you get back.

  And one from Rachel. Maybe Arturo dumped her.

  Hi Randall:

  Abe said he was going to drop you a note. Heard you’re having a fabulous time in Kuala Lumpur. Arturo and I look forward to hearing all about your trip when you get back in April!

  And one from Uncle Heshie: Hopefully he’s not in jail.

  Hey Nephew,

  See you at the airport on Dec. 15. All’s well on the home front. Nice pad.

  Blog Entry: November 26

  Melbourne, Australia

  Hi All,

  Happy Thanksgiving.

  Sorry I’ve been out of touch. Here’s a quick update:

  • Spent two weeks taking in the sights of Cambodia: Phnom Penh (the Paris of Southeast Asia) and Angkor Wat (the Athens of Southeast Asia).

  • Heading to Keezerbeezer, a quaint, Australian beach town (the Edgartown of the Pacific) for surfing and relaxing. Keep those cards and letters coming.

  See you in a few,

  —Burns

  The flight to Brisbane takes about two hours. At the airport, I hop a train, and then a shuttle bus to Keezerbeezer for a total of four hours door to door. No flies.

  The Royal Paradise anchors a mall and has twenty floors with a revolving restaurant on top. The amenities include everything from conference rooms to babysitting to a waterfront karaoke bar. My room has two queen beds, a furnished balcony, a wide-screen TV, a minibar, a microwave, and a welcome packet with a sleep blindfold. I’m done with hostels and Asian squalor.

  I head for the hotel sauna to sweat out any red-eye residue. A guy wearing a towel, a wedding band, and terry-cloth slippers is slumped on the bench. He is sweating like a Russian mobster and pressing an open can of XXXX Bitter beer against his gray sideburns. I’m guessing he’s about sixty. I take a seat opposite him.

  A young woman opens the sauna door. She glances at the guy’s paunch and then at my face. I haven’t shaved in two days.

  “Come on in, sweetheart,” the guy says to her. “We’re harmless.”

  She glances at the soft-sided cooler by the guy’s feet. “Don’t want to break up the party.” The door slams behind her.

  “Her loss,” the guy says reaching into the cooler. “Tinny?” he asks me.

  A sex-deprived, married guy, probably ditching the wife and kids for an hour—I’m definitely back in civilization.

  He hands me a can of XXXX and then gives me the onceover: Keens with safety pins and board shorts with food stains.

  “Traveling long?” he asks.

  “Been on the road for a few months. Actually I guess I’m still on the road. Randy from Boston.”

  “Ron from Sydney. Where you coming from?”

  “Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia.”

  “Me and my mates used to holiday in Bangkok. Fell in love many times at Soi Cowboy. Nothing beats a good massage, eh?”

  Should I confess to being a part of the club? I’m no longer in Asia. I’m back in the politically correct, straitlaced West. But Australians are supposed to be loose, rough and tumble, a country where men are still men and women are still naughty, cheeky, wet, and wild.

  “Nothing beats Phnom Penh,” I say.

  “Boom-boom-boom!” He flashes me a tiny OK sign, finishes off his tinny, and pops open a fresh one. “You’ll do all right here,” he says. “Go up to Hennigan Avenue. When I was your age, used to leave the discos with a bird under each arm. No bar girls there, but you still have to buy them drinks. You married?”

  “Nope.”

  “I’m turning forty-two tomorrow,” he says. “Been married ten years. We got two ankle biters, both girls.”

  I take another sip and don’t tell him my age.

  “Just have to remember that any bird on holiday is looking for a good rooting. You single guys have it made.”

  I take a closer look at him: a graying tuft between pink teats, a graying fringe around a pink scalp—not exactly a stud. He could be full of crap. Then again, I’m not in Boston or Greece. Maybe Western women are different down under. Maybe I do have it made and just don’t appreciate it.

  Later that night, I change into my best rooting outfit, and ask the kid behind the concierge desk for directions to Hennigan Avenue.

  He removes his earbuds: “Are you having me on? Sir, you don’t want to go to Hennigan. It’s all schoolies.”

  He explains that schoolies are high school kids that overrun Keezerbeezer after graduation, kind of like the bush flies in Melbourne or the college kids in Daytona Beach. The knowledgeable travel agent in Melbourne neglected to mention this.

  “There’s about 33,000 of them here for the week. But we’ve organized a special week of adult activities at the hotel.”

  “Adult activities?” I ask.

  He hands me a list of events and a scorecard. “Schoolie-free activities. And for every activity you attend, you get points toward a fifty-dollar gift certificate.”

  “What can I get with the certificate?”

  “A gift.”

  Activity #1: Happy Hour

  The Bar Cow Cow is all polished stone, brushed steel, frosted glass. On the patio, people are clustered around a semicircular granite bar. The crowd is mostly guys, thirty and older. A few women are scattered about, and everyone is grouped off smoking, drinking, and laughing. I look around as if I’m waiting for someone, and then open a dinner menu.

  Mulligatawny soup: sixteen dollars.

  Pan-fried kangaroo: thirty-five dollars.

  Wagyu rib fillet: seventy dollars.

  I order an XXXX Bitter and stand at the bar. Next to me, a cheeky blonde adjusts a guy’s collar. Australian for “spoken for.”

  Another couple arrives. He orders an XXXX Bitter. She flips through the drink menu.

  “What’s in the Creamy Cud?” she asks the bartender.

  He rattles off seven ingredients.

  “I don’t really care for orange marmalade ice cream. Can I get another flavor?” she asks.

  “How about vanilla bean?”

  “Actually I don’t care for ice cream. What’s in the Rummy Ruminant?”

  “Ice cream.”

  The guy who brought the woman looks at me and rolls his eyes.

  “I saw that,” she says to him.

  He smiles, winks at me, and kisses the back of her head.

  Once again, I’m the extra in someone else’s romantic comedy. The bartender stamps my attendance card, I down the bitter beer and leave.

  Activity #2: Sports

  The next morning, I attend a ten A.M. group surfing class at the hotel beach. The skies are cloudless and fly-less. The waves are massive; when they crash the ground shakes.

  My instructor is about five feet tall, smaller than a wave, and maybe sixteen years old. I’m the only one in the class. I ask about yesterday’s attendance. He says there were more people and most were children.

  “But there was one older lady,” he says.

  “How old?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  An hour into my lesson, my sunglasses are broken, my hat is floating toward Vanuatu, and there’s a burning sensation shooting down the back of my leg. The instructor stamps my attendance card. “Sorry about your sunnies, mate.”

  Back at the hotel, I chase three ibuprofen with a Vicodin and get into bed.

  Activity #3: Pool Party

  I wake at four P.M. and limp onto my balcony. The guy from the sauna is by the pool with what I’m assuming is his family. On the chair next to him, his pink wife is applying sunscreen to a pair of crimson little girls, while he is chatting up a young woman who looks similar to the one who declined his invitation in the sauna. A group of guys from last night’s Cow Cow event enters the pool area. They look around, and then leave.

  I put on my sleep blindfold and crawl back into bed.

  Activity #4: Chocolate Tasting

  At eight P.M., aft
er showering, I head to the hotel sweetshop. I find ribbons and bows, wrapped boxes and glass displays, one employee and me. I am followed by the same group of guys who come in, look around, and leave.

  I don’t particularly like chocolate but after sampling several pieces, I’m getting a nice buzz. Chocolate has theobromine, which is like caffeine, which I usually avoid because it keeps me up at night. A six-piece “Naughty Bits” gift box is on special for nine dollars. The selection includes chocolates topped with bacon as well as truffles filled with Jim Beam. The James. It sounds disgusting. In honor of Ned, I buy it. Back in my room, I suck down a Jim Beam truffle as an appetizer and eat a bacon-topped chocolate for dinner. I have another Jim Beam for dessert. My heart rate hits 110 beats per minute, the fat-burning rate on a treadmill.

  Activity #5: Karaoke

  Inside the Cow Cow, there are tables with candles and seats without people. While I’m sipping a XXXX at the bar, the MC calls out to me over the PA system: “Sir, if you get up and sing, you’ll get double points for winning, there’s no competition.”

  Why is everyone suddenly calling me “sir”?

  I limp up to the microphone. A spotlight shines in my eyes. My hands tremble from the effects of theobromine. I squint.

  “What’s your song, mate?” the MC asks.

  “How about something cheerful, like ‘Eleanor Rigby’?”

  Two more stamps on my score card, a heart rate of 130 beats per minute; my work here is done.

  Back in my room, sleep eludes me. I review my food and drug intake for the day: Six ibuprofen, two Vicodin, six pieces of chocolate, bacon bits, beer, Jim Beam, more beer, and more Jim Beam. I wash down another Vicodin with a ten-dollar Heineken from the minibar.

  While waiting for the pill to kick in, I turn on the TV and watch Bushtucker: Australian for Grub. According to the show, bushtucker is food originally eaten by the country’s indigenous peoples before the arrival of Wagyu beef and mulligatawny soup. There’s been a resurgent interest in the cuisine, which may include moths, ants, frogs, and of course, grubs. The narrator samples a live witchetty grub, which resembles a caterpillar. “Tastes a little like peanut butter,” he says, licking his lips. I think of the smoky taste of Katie’s mouth after she snacked on some black beetles.