Udong Mountain

One of the things the volunteer coordinator told me I have to do before I leave is go to Udong Mountain, which is about an hour away by van or tuk-tuk, and has a bunch of temples built into the top and sides of a mountain. Today, the other volunteer and I took a couple kids and got a van to go for the early afternoon.

I guess rather than describe everything I saw, I'll just put up a few pictures and let you see for yourself:

[Click each for full-size]

Of course, my most lasting memory of the place will have nothing to do with the place itself but instead something that could probably happen just about anywhere. As soon as we got out of the van, a swarm of Cambodian kids came up to the door, as if they had been assigned to us. Some of them spoke English to me and the other volunteer, and one of them was actually quite good, but we didn't really want them because the game is always the same: they follow you around asking for money or offering to give you something small until you pay them... and then they continue to do it until you leave the place. Standard fare for this is jasmine wreaths, sweet-smelling flowers, water, incense, things like that.

At first I thought they would go away once we started up the mountain, but they followed us all the way. One of the older boys, the one who works with me on TOEFL in the library, told me "Don't say you're tired, don't look tired. Even if you are you have to look and say like I'm happy!" Not like it was a huge deal, but I didn't want to be bothered with the whole thing. I should mention that if you did look tired, they would wave a hand fan at you for a while and then ask for money. One of the older girls, the only one who came with us, did end up getting tired after the first big set of stairs and sat down, sweating, and a girl jumped at the opportunity.

This continued on the whole way, and it got kind of tiresome. I just wanted to enjoy the place with my friends, not be bugged by any person while I was there, beggar or rich man, and they never went away, the whole time. Up and down the mountain, the kids were with us the entire time. When we sat down to eat, they still hung around us. Actually, even more came up. Some of them didn't even offer anything, just straight up asked for money. One guy about our age came and sang for us, I think somewhat at our request, and we did actually pay him because he was pretty good. The older girl shouted "soam layk to-r'saab!" at him, which is basically "Give me your phone number please!" (For the curious, the words literally translate to "please number telephone" - see? Isn't Khmea so easy!?) She saw him again and said it again as we left. She was mostly joking though.

But the whole thing is that I don't know how to feel about that situation, whether I should feel bad for the kids/give them money or not. I mean, it's complicated. In general I think it's the whole global system that takes the majority stake in casting this whole country into poverty, and even after that, there are a bunch of systemic factors that prevent those kids from having a high quality of life regardless of my actions. Hell, the most obvious, they were begging instead of going to school - what will they do when they're too old to evoke sympathy? There was a donation box at the end of the trail, but I thought, Do I really think this will go to the kids? And so I considered giving to some of the kids, but I thought, Will this really help them in any way, and if people keep doing this, doesn't it perpetuate the problem of them not working on something else?

I guess that's why I'm here in the first place.

Peace out.