Abandoned summer residence of the king – A dead body is a real problem
N 10°28'47.6'' E 104°17'32.7''
Date:
10.05.2017 until 28.05.2017
Day: 680 – 698
Country:
Cambodia
Province
Kêb
Location:
Kep
Latitude N:
10°28’47.6”
Longitude E:
104°17’32.7”
Total kilometers:
23,717 km
Total altitude meters:
71.018 m
Sunrise:
05:42 a.m. – 05:39 a.m.
Sunset:
6:16 pm – 6:20 pm
Temperature day max:
37°C
(Photos of the diary entry can be found at the end of the text).
Violent thunderstorms, deep thunder, bright lightning and heavy downpours determine the daily weather on Kep beach. “It’s going to be bloody wet if we keep driving,” I say, looking through the panoramic window of our room. “Not so hot anymore,” Tanja replies. “That’s right, better wet from the warm tropical rain than from sweating.”
After we had our business visa in our passports, we actually only wanted to stay here for a week to finally get up to date with our records. However, time literally slips through our fingers like a bar of wet soap.
“Now is your fun time,” I say to Ajaci after my training session. His red ball in his mouth, he follows me to the beach, tail wagging. He now waits impatiently for me to throw him the round thing 20 to 30 times. For the locals, the now familiar event is the best circus act. They rush over with their smartphones, take photos for all they’re worth, clap and cheer. Children are our dog’s special fans. They are amazed and laugh boisterously when Ajaci chases after the flying ball like a rocket, grabs it in the air with an acrobatic leap before it hits the sand, then slows down his chase so that the sand flies up high, makes an extreme U-turn to run back to me and then lays his red, round prey at my feet and waits impatiently for me to knock the ball out again. “That’s enough now,” I say, as my four-legged friend will only come to an end if he falls over unconscious. Back at our little hotel, I shower him off the sand. Once we have satisfied our hunger with a hearty breakfast, we get down to writing for our social networks, the website and the upcoming Vietnam book.
In the late afternoon, I go with Ajaci to the nearby tropical forest to watch the wild monkeys, as I have done so often in the last few days. We follow a path that leads to the king’s abandoned vacation retreat. A Cambodian family lives in the ruins. Richard, the Dutch manager of our small hotel, told me that all the rich people who own houses and land in the country let poor families live in them. The reason for this is that if the houses are not used for a long time, no strangers should settle there, which the legal owner would then find difficult to get rid of. This is not a problem for a poor family, as they have no rights or cannot sue for them due to lack of money. However, the facility is large and very run-down. Curious, I trudge through the dilapidated buildings with Ajaci, always on my guard not to accidentally step on a snake dozing in the sun. Sometimes monkeys scream excitedly from the roofs of the ruins when we enter their realm. Somehow it feels like Ajaci and I are actors in an old Hollywood movie. Birds chirp, butterflies flutter between the blossoms of some of the trees. The only thing missing to make the scenery even more perfect, apart from the many monkeys, would be trumpeting elephants and roaring tigers.
“The humidity and the enormous heat in May and June should not be underestimated in this country,” the hotel manager Richard explains to me as I discuss our travel plans. “I know, that’s one of the reasons why we’re staying here longer than originally planned,” I reply. “It won’t get much better in a week or two. After the rain comes the sun. This causes the water to evaporate and creates the high humidity. I had a somewhat overweight guest not too long ago. He was staying in the room next to yours. As I walked past his room, I saw him lying stark naked on the floor in his own excrement. I got a shock because he stopped moving and thought he had died. A dead body is a real problem because when a guest dies in a hotel, the police come to investigate. It’s not necessarily about finding out why he died, but about extorting money from the hotelier. That can be very, very expensive.” “Extort money?” I ask in surprise. “Yes, yes. You never know what the police are up to. It’s best to keep contact with the so-called law enforcers in the country to a minimum.” “And what happened to your guest? Did he survive?” “He had heatstroke. He was unconscious. If he’d drawn the curtain in his room, we wouldn’t have discovered him until the next day. That would have been it. We realized he was still breathing and carried him down to the street. It wasn’t easy to get a rickshaw there because nobody wants to transport a half-dead person. If he dies in your cab or rickshaw, the driver has problems with the police again. That’s one reason why nobody wants to do it.” “I don’t suppose there’s an emergency service like an ambulance or anything like that here?” “Ha, ha, ha, you’re funny. No, there’s nothing like that in this region. There is a hospital in Kampot, but you have to get there somehow.” “Did you take him to Kampot then?” I ask. “Sure. He was looked after there for 24 hours and pumped full of electrolytes and whatnot. He was back the next day.” “And was he all right?” “He was fine. You couldn’t tell by looking at him. But I told him to leave the hotel. I was really worried that it would break down again. People are often so unreasonable. They come here to the tropics, drink too much alcohol, eat too much and drink too little water. That can be fatal here. Especially if you don’t have good health or a good constitution…
If you would like to find out more about our adventures, you can find our books under this link.
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