Crapping on a yak.....overland to the other side of the world and the rest: Day 163 – 11 January 2010: Monkey Business at Pagodas and Garth arrested.

Today I discover more pleasant aspects of Cambodia’s history, visiting the Wot Phnom hilltop Pagoda and the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda.

At Wot Phnom, a pagoda at the top of the hill in a small park in central Phnom Penh, there is a monkey colony of mostly young monkeys, with a few adult females and one large male. Gary approaches one of the young ones to get some close up pictures. It decides to climb up his back and it starts picking imaginary nits from his shaven head. After about five minutes, Gary asks out loud to anyone listening ‘these monkeys don’t bite do they?’ When one of the observing tourists answers ‘yes, they probably do’, Gary gets up from his crouching position to get the monkey to jump off, which it does. However, at this moment, the alpha male monkey leaps out of a bush and nips Gary’s calf, drawing a little blood. It’s not a serious bite, so he decides not to have it checked at hospital, but does get some TCP to clean it.

Yesterday evening, when I got back to the hotel, I found a group of people waiting in the lounge bar area worrying that Brummie Garth had not returned from a day out renting a motorbike. I was not too concerned as it wasn’t late, although it had been dark for a couple of hours. However, if I stayed up like some of them until 6:30 am this morning when he finally did arrive back at the hostel, I would have been very worried too.

The Lonely Planet does mention that Cambodian police will sometimes pull over western tourists on motorbikes and fine them $20 for some non-existent traffic infringement, although it continues that if you are patient, you can get away with just slipping them a dollar. This was the most recent Lonely Planet, but change is quick in this part of the world.

Garth took the precaution of riding his bike in the middle of traffic so that he didn’t get spotted or was at least was difficult for the motor cops to get to. However, he took one turning and found everybody else going the other way, and was immediately spotted by police and pulled over. They wanted to fine him $100, which he refused to pay. They asked to see his driver’s license and he gave it to them. This was a no, no. They confiscated it and told him he had to come to police station to collect it and pay the fine. As he committed no discernable offence, and feeling that they were bluffing, he agreed to go to the station. The end result was though a night in the police station cells until they eventually let him out at 6am this morning, with him finally agreeing to pay USD $20.

In the evening, I play some pool with Jen, Gary and some of the local prostitutes who hang around our hostel. Spending their evenings in bars and guesthouses presumably to pick up custom, they never seem to approach anyone for business, so hence end up being very good at pool.