When we got out of the minibus in Phnom Penh, we were instantly surrounded by three or four guys with business cards of various hotels. The four others who had traveled with us had ideas of where they wanted to stay, which is really the only way to avoid the sales pitches, but S. and I were, throughout this trip, totally indecisive.
"Where do you want to stay in Phnom Penh?" one of us would ask, reading the guidebook.
"I don't know," the other would say. "What looks good?"
"Oh," the guidebook reader would respond, "I don't know. They all look fine. Didn't K. say she liked #11?"
"Yes, but she also said it had bedbugs."
"Oh, right. So maybe not that one."
And then we'd drift off and decide nothing.
Undecided, we were perfect targets for the touts. We looked at all the business cards they shoved at us and shrugged, and went with one of them to a guesthouse that advertised itself as having something like, "the longest veranda stretching out into the lake!" We followed the guy into a long wooden hallway over the water. "You know what this hallway screams to me?" I muttered to S. as we walked, "Cockroaches."
The room was mediocre. The floor was covered in the thin linoleum that never feels clean to me and it smelled musty from an air-conditioner used only when the room had guests and the toilet had no seat. S. and I stood in the room, deciding. It took us awhile (see, above: indecisive.) Finally she said, "You clearly don't want to stay here. Let's find something else."
Down the road, at the end of the tourist strip, we found a little family-run place with very little advertising, no business cards, clean cement floors, and a window offering a nice breeze. I was happy.
"You know," S. said, "with all your traveling in Africa, it surprises me that you can be... picky about where you stay." (In my defense, that was the first place I had rejected for cleanliness, mostly because it seemed like a place where I would wake up to cockroaches running over me in the dark. Ew.)
"I don't think being in a developing country means you have to be dirty," I said. "Cambodians don't want to stay in filthy places. Being willing to live in filth is a sort of snobbery of backpackers, because they think it's more authentic, but I bet the hotels that Cambodians stay in are cleaner than that one. My hotels in Africa were all cleaner than that. It's like clothes. Only the backpackers are wearing dirty clothes, not Cambodians."
It's oddly true, all over the world: rich Westerners take pride in being dirty when they travel, as if it makes them more authentic, while people in so many of the countries they visit take pride in being clean.
"Where do you want to stay in Phnom Penh?" one of us would ask, reading the guidebook.
"I don't know," the other would say. "What looks good?"
"Oh," the guidebook reader would respond, "I don't know. They all look fine. Didn't K. say she liked #11?"
"Yes, but she also said it had bedbugs."
"Oh, right. So maybe not that one."
And then we'd drift off and decide nothing.
Undecided, we were perfect targets for the touts. We looked at all the business cards they shoved at us and shrugged, and went with one of them to a guesthouse that advertised itself as having something like, "the longest veranda stretching out into the lake!" We followed the guy into a long wooden hallway over the water. "You know what this hallway screams to me?" I muttered to S. as we walked, "Cockroaches."
The room was mediocre. The floor was covered in the thin linoleum that never feels clean to me and it smelled musty from an air-conditioner used only when the room had guests and the toilet had no seat. S. and I stood in the room, deciding. It took us awhile (see, above: indecisive.) Finally she said, "You clearly don't want to stay here. Let's find something else."
Down the road, at the end of the tourist strip, we found a little family-run place with very little advertising, no business cards, clean cement floors, and a window offering a nice breeze. I was happy.
"You know," S. said, "with all your traveling in Africa, it surprises me that you can be... picky about where you stay." (In my defense, that was the first place I had rejected for cleanliness, mostly because it seemed like a place where I would wake up to cockroaches running over me in the dark. Ew.)
"I don't think being in a developing country means you have to be dirty," I said. "Cambodians don't want to stay in filthy places. Being willing to live in filth is a sort of snobbery of backpackers, because they think it's more authentic, but I bet the hotels that Cambodians stay in are cleaner than that one. My hotels in Africa were all cleaner than that. It's like clothes. Only the backpackers are wearing dirty clothes, not Cambodians."
It's oddly true, all over the world: rich Westerners take pride in being dirty when they travel, as if it makes them more authentic, while people in so many of the countries they visit take pride in being clean.
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