Cambodia w/ William Childress | You Be Trippin' with Ari Shaffir

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Hello, everybody.

Welcome to You Be Trippin',

the only podcast that is about travel.

There's no way that's true.

Today I'm excited because my friend William Childers is here.

I met William

20.

What year did I meet?

2015.

2015.

In Thailand, yeah.

You brought me to Myanmar.

No, you brought me to Thailand.

Yeah.

You were living in Myanmar.

That's right, exactly.

You gave me a lot of good tips on Myanmar.

Yeah.

But you brought me on my first.

No, my first foreign gig.

That was Turner and them, but like first time to Thailand.

Yeah, that was actually fun.

I picked you guys up at the airport.

Oh, yeah.

As soon as you saw, we were like, oh, you're so fat.

It's so hot.

How do you live here?

Who said that?

You.

Okay, fair.

I was like, fucking Pete.

Like, oh, no, okay, that's me.

No, it wasn't Pete.

Pete's great.

I have no issue with Pete.

No, but the funniest thing is.

It is quite hot.

Yeah.

The guy who

I had to rent that club myself.

Really?

Because the guy who was a British Thai guy who runs it, and he still books great shows.

Nothing against Chris Vagoda.

But he was like, yeah, I don't know.

I'm not in town then.

I don't really know him.

And I was like, really?

I was like, how much for me to rent your club?

And like, have your people work there, your photographer, your ticket people, your mail people, you know, your email people.

Wow.

Yeah, that was.

That's so funny.

Yeah, that was a great gig for me.

Worth a few trials.

Yeah, for sure.

But we're not here to talk about Thailand.

William, where are we headed today?

We're headed to Cambodia.

Fucking Cambodia.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to have another person on this podcast about Cambodia, except maybe myself later.

Yeah.

What a fun place.

It's a fun place.

It's overlooked by a lot of people.

The name has negative connotations, you know, with genocide and Khmer Rouge, if they do know it.

Dude,

you see that picture?

Yes.

It's the wrong side of history picture.

Oh, it's the baby, the tree, the baby, the tree baby.

Yeah.

So my friend Torelli made this for me.

It's the wrong side of history.

It's my tour, and it's me fucking

destroying a baby and saving bullets.

But the crazy thing is, that same painting, you see it at the site.

Yeah.

Oh, really?

It actually has.

Wow.

that's by that i mean the one with your face on it they i'll leave this up here for that the one with my face on it yeah exactly um i knew i i always like to have a fucking memento of some kind that's not gonna work that's just gonna keep falling backwards um when did you start going to cambodia because you've been there a bunch now yeah i did um so i was living in shanghai it was 2012

um it was like really my first vacation out of china after moving to china because when you're over there it's so much cheaper and quicker to fly to all these places.

Dragon Air costs fucking 50 bucks.

Plus, they feed you beforehand.

And that's actually good.

Uh-huh.

And they actually have attractive stewardesses.

Like, they don't fucking do it.

They really do.

And you know what else I loved?

I don't want to interrupt.

Let's get to Cambodia.

But they make your seats, instead of you leaning back, you lean forward.

So then people are like, I'm only fucking myself over by doing this.

And like, oh, I just won't do it.

No, it's brilliant.

It's brilliant.

No,

that was the first trip I took out of China.

And

yeah,

really, I was thinking of Thailand, but a couple other friends were going to go later with me.

So it's just a solo trip.

Oh, really?

Yeah, solo trip.

First time in Cambodia.

And I just spoke with a couple friends that had been there and gave me some good tips.

Yeah.

The

damn dude, I feel like I can get you in again.

Definitely about Myanmar.

But

by the way, this coffee special for you is from East Timor.

It's as close as I get to the region.

Lovely.

All right.

Tamor-Leste.

Very nice.

There's a special thing about those guys who did comedy out

in Asia.

Yeah.

There's this weird bond and a weird shared experience.

And they all seem pretty helpful about telling who I'm wrong.

Like, you got to go to this place.

You got to go to Bagan.

You got to go here.

Well, traveling throughout Asia as a comic

was so rewarding because you instantly are in this city and you have a network where, okay, most of the comics are going to be expats, but they're also going to know the local places to go.

And then some of the comics are going to be locals, and they're going to really show you their part of the city.

It's all about

trying to find locals wherever you're at.

It's crazy because it's such a cool thing.

The Shanghai, I realized this when the locals kind of took me out or whatever.

And it was like, it's this tour guide on another level.

Because you're not just like, I've been there, let me give you some advice.

It's like, I live there.

Yeah.

And so I can actually give you some real advice.

It's also like, this is what it's like being a foreigner living over here.

This is what we deal with.

Or this is what, you know.

Yeah,

it's these great tour guides, and

it really opens up cities and countries for you.

Yeah, and I wasn't doing, I was, I didn't do comedy the first time I was in Cambodia, this was just purely

trip, which is not like,

you know, because it relieves some of the pressure of I don't want to bomb and then have to be on the road for another week or two.

Oh, yeah.

Oh,

well, I will say this.

I think this is the first podcast I've done for Ubi Tripping Podcast where I've been to the country with the person.

Yeah, that's right.

That was me and Sarah Sarah

and

fuck.

Why am I dropping his name now?

Sarah and

New House.

No, no.

I just saw her.

I just saw her in Vancouver.

Oh, yeah, that's cool.

Yeah, we hung out.

She's so fucking cool.

Yeah, no, it's.

I forgot how influential she was on me in my travels.

I think I've got advice from her when I was living over there.

And like, you know,

yeah, it's.

Can I show you my bargaining advice I got from her?

No, what's that?

uh i'll ask you how much something is you be a cambodian marketplace guy uh say whatever amount it doesn't matter uh it's uh okay um

yeah hey hey how much is this that's 50 come on

you could have said one penny and she'd be like no you gotta do better than that my advice is walk away i would always shang how you do the you would bargain with good uh you know intentions and then you're just like no i'm so sorry like it looks great i would love to but i can't and you leave and then then you'll, you're then you get the real price.

Yeah, wait, then 10% of what I said, but you also have to be ready to just not get the thing, yeah.

But it has to be real, yeah.

So, okay, so you're go to Cambodia, go to Cambodia.

I go to are you nervous going there?

Not really, because like at the time, I was kind of down for whatever.

Um, Cambodia was it was interesting because the first I went to Phnom Penh first, which a lot of people skip because it's you know, it's

uh, because the temples, Ankara Watt, are in Siem Reap, and then there's a couple coastal cities that people focus on.

And so Nampen has a lot of the

Khmer Rouge

killing fields.

Yeah.

The killing fields, the

S21, the school they turned into.

S21.

It's the school they turned into a slaughterhouse.

They turned into a concentration camp, essentially.

And they photographed everybody before they executed them.

Literally right before they killed them.

And so there's just a wall of photos of people, like literally like 30 seconds.

30 seconds a minute.

30 seconds before they died.

Wow.

Yeah.

The killing fields were like,

I mean, it's just a concentration camp.

It is.

And it almost seems more brutal.

What would you say?

Like, I've never been to, like, I've, I've never been to, like, a concentration camp, like, in Europe or anything like that.

So this is the first time that.

Normally you associate travel with like really good feelings and positive experiences, but it's going and seeing this awful,

you know, there's a tree with a lump in it from baby's heads.

And,

I mean,

then the sign beside it says that.

Said this tree was dented with baby skulls.

Yeah.

It's

crazy because he's like, you got to save bullets.

And also, he had this great quote that I've used in yoga: better to kill a friend by mistake than to spare an enemy by mistake.

Who's the Pol Pot?

Pol Pot, one of the greatest fucking tyrants of all time.

Yeah.

Wasn't executed, lived for 30 years in Cambodia later, killed a quarter of the country.

Yeah.

And just lived there peaceably.

They went to a very far out of the way town that was all Khmer Rouge veteran dudes, like a retirement community, and then

nobody touched them.

And then one guy they just prosecuted like last year, and he's like 98.

A lot of Cambodia's history is defined by international attempts at justice.

Part of that is the UN ran Cambodia for like a period in the 90s, like three or four years, where it had a flag that was a UN flag with Cambodia, Outline of Cambodia on it.

There's a great book called Off the Rails in Phnom Penh that is about the completely lawless era in Phnom Penh in the 90s.

Like the Khmer Rouge had gone, the government had kind of fallen, it had fallen into disrepair, and somehow the UN decided, I think maybe for the first time,

we're going to be a caretaker.

And it was just nothing but human rights abuses and all, you know, just like.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Because of course they're going to...

Terrible shit.

Damn.

Yeah.

The same thing when the NBA took over the Pelicans.

And they're like, oh, you're just going to trade fucking Chris Paul for nothing to the Lakers?

Fuck off.

Maybe it's not the same.

I wish Zion would be healthy.

God, I wish so too.

Man.

You're a Pels fan?

I'm a Zion fan.

My dad went to Duke, so I grew up

watching Duke games.

Where was your show that I did with you?

I didn't do it with you.

The show was in Phnom Penh.

It was in Phnom Penh.

Yeah.

So the first one was there.

I went to Phnom Penh and had a good time.

It was really cheap.

And as soon as the first took took, the guy was like, marijuana, heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, like everything.

He said nuts.

Right off the bat, he's just like, what do you want?

I got it.

Wow.

And, you know, I would say.

Did you come to us with for happy pizza?

Yeah.

You did?

Yes.

It was crazy.

And the guy's like, extra happy.

And you're like, how much happy is on this already?

It's so happy.

It's fun because you have to make it seem like he charged one extra dollar.

Do they use dollars there?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's right.

You know,

when I was there in 2012, it was like, I just used dollars pretty much.

When I was there in 2014, it was mostly.

And then 2017, like, they want you to use the local currency some places, but.

Well, I want to change a bunch of money, and they're like, don't do that.

And they're like, yeah, I wouldn't change a bunch.

I would change some.

I would change the change.

I would change some.

If you change for a dollar, that was in their local currency.

But he was like, happy, extra dollar.

And I remember having to be like.

I have to pretend like I'm going to really toil over this dollar so that people don't charge me.

I don't know.

I'm really extra happy.

Yeah, really going into it and they're like, fuck, discussing it.

Like, okay, fine.

So he doesn't try to, like, well, for one more dollar.

I'm like, we're done.

Well, yeah, weed is very, uh, it's very laissez-faire there.

They don't give a shit.

There was a, I don't know if it's true or not, but some, supposedly, they used to sell like weed by the pounds in the marketplace, like dirt weed.

And like, traditional Cambodian chicken soup is like, you make it in a huge cauldron, and it includes like bales of marijuana and chicken and lots of other herbs and like

limes and shit like that.

Wow.

It was good happy pizza yeah well it's it's not they don't yeah like weeds no problem there but you know you got to be careful whenever you're uh but like there's places that pretty openly advertise it and nobody does anything and uh some of the spots are we're the bar that pays off the cops here yeah in this town so then it's just pretty much legal yeah for sure and like um when i was in so i went to see them reap and i did a homestay that a girl recommended to me yeah um there's this cambodian woman who lived in france most of her life she fled during the khmer rouge So she kind of like seemed more French than Cambodian, really.

But she had moved back.

When I went there in 2012, she had previously had a French pub downtown, but had gotten swindled away from her and some kind of like a local politician's brother.

I don't remember what the details.

She would get hammered drunk at the Mexican restaurant across the street from it and scream at the guy in her stolen restaurant.

Really?

Yeah.

That lady ruled.

Yeah, she got it back.

She got that restaurant.

Did you rule?

She did, yeah.

It's called Le Grand Cafe in Sam Reepe.

I love that one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I stayed with her, and that made my whole trip because it was purely like, hey, a friend that I didn't even know super well, I knew they were a cool photographer.

Yeah.

So a friend recommended this lady to me.

I took a complete gamble, you know, on going to see a stranger.

And she had a traditional Khmer style.

house like on piers lifted up with like a pool table and hammock and all this shit outside outside there's this beautiful area outside the inside is like this gorgeous like teak and very traditional chimera style house but with some like modern upgrades

sleep in a separate house there is a separate house that has uh two rooms now for boarders because what she does is she her name's madam sang valet she will uh kind of adopt some of the local orphan girls and they'll work for her and like when visitors come they'll do the cleaning and cooking and stuff and then the money that you give to her for the stay which is like a nominal fee it's like that goes to their education.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Dude, it was so ducks were walking around.

That was a later addition.

When I first went there, there was no duck pond.

But as soon as I rolled up, I knew I was at the right place because she had a joint and a bottle of wine

right there.

It was like, hey, welcome to Cambodia.

And yeah.

I forgot.

I just remember right now, we sat there and did talk about me and Mark.

The Chezuti Madeleine.

Yeah.

That's right.

Wow.

What a fun fucking time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that was, but that made my trip because I learned so much from

her.

And beyond that, when you go to see him reap, you're going to see him reap for Ankor Wad.

That's it.

That's it.

It is also.

It's a bit of a party town for hostelers.

Oh,

it's got a fun, fun little downtown area because it's not like overloaded really yet.

It's not like some of the places in Thailand that are like so built up.

Dude, I went from Myanmar, I think either Mandalay or who knows where, maybe in Lei Lake, whatever.

But Myanmar, you know, it's just not built up.

No.

And then straight from there to Chiang Mai.

And it was like, what the fuck?

You see Bird King ads and everything.

And I was there for a month in Myanmar.

And I was like, fuck.

Cambodia is in between.

Yeah, absolutely.

Cambodia is in between.

And it's leaning more towards, you know, developing.

One of the things that I have noticed over my trips there is

like China's development there.

Because they're kind of doing the Belt and Road initiative where they pump a bunch of infrastructure and building projects into Southeast Asia countries on terms favorable to China and then they kind of got him by the balls right that's the way we look at it but it's also the same shit we do we do that too you want exxon like not really like well you're getting it yeah I mean we we you know was it Guatemala was uh like a literally a banana republic

yeah there's some weird history um but uh yeah but so hey guys i just want to break in real quick to tell you why don't you give william a follow he's been so gracious to come in and tell us about cambodia why don't you give him a follow on instagram he's at hey it's chili he's also at hey it's chili on it on Twitter.

If you're there, don't know why you would be.

It's a horrible site for horrible people, but he is there at Hey, it's Chili, Instagram and Twitter.

Myself, I'm at AriShafir.com for all my tour dates and my merch and everything else Ari Shafir related.

My tour dates are wrapping up.

I'm almost done with my entire tour.

It's been two years and I'll be done for the year.

And Adelaide, May 24th, Canberra, May 25th, Brisbane, May 31st, and Sydney, Australia, June 1st at the Enmore Theater.

First show sold out.

Second show is added.

All going pretty fast.

I'm sick right now off flat whites and breckies.

Also, in terms of merch, I got pre-orders for grinders.

They're pretty cool.

Schroomfest shirts.

Schroomfest this year is July 20th, 21st, and 22nd.

Get your Abra Cadaver design Schroomfest shirts.

It'll be shipped out in time for the festivity.

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Only 1,000 ever made.

Get them right now before they're gone.

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There might be a couple left.

I think they're all gone.

And also,

Patreon's been launched, everybody.

First episode's up.

A whole backlog of stuff already in there.

All the travel stuff

from Skeptic Tank, all the weird plugs from the old Patreon, all up there.

The first new episode just went up.

It's all about a tiger encampment in Thailand where I pet a fucking live tiger.

And what I want you to do is, whether or not you're a Patreon subscriber or not, patreon.com slash you be tripping, I want you to send me a postcard from your travels from all over the world.

Yeah, wherever you are, get moving, find a postcard, and send it to me.

I want to see foreign stamps.

This one I got in Australia.

I'm going to send it to myself.

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Send it to

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Let me be a part of your vacations and your travels.

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That's it, guys.

Why are we still talking?

Subscribe wherever you're listening to.

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Pretty cool.

It's been two months.

I'm having a blast.

But you know what else is a blast?

Talking about Cambodia.

Let's get back to that.

I forgot where I was going with that.

Anchor Watt is a little bit more terrible.

Anchor Watt is why you go.

And so a big part of your trip to Anchor Watt is your tour guide.

And you can get a sh and by that I mean, well, there's tour guides per individual temples, but I mean, like, how are you getting around?

Because it is an enormous complex of temples, they're spread out.

You need a driver, you need a driver, yeah, basically.

And

there's plenty of like every Tuk-Tuk driver will be like, Oh, yeah, I'll take you to Incorwatt because they want the money.

They're going to charge you a lot, and they don't have to do shit.

They just sit there and wait, right?

Talk to their friends, but they're also going to maybe not steer you to the best temples, and they're going to steer you to the touristy restaurants where they get a cut.

Right.

You know, like Vegas does with strip cuts.

Exactly.

They're going to take you to, like, oh, here's some great local products.

And it's like their buddy's store, you know.

Yep.

That's what we didn't.

As soon as we landed, the guy took us for suits, like, hey, we don't want a suit.

And the guy just kept us there.

We're like, hey, dude, literally, we're not going to buy anything here.

So can we go on?

He's like, fuck you.

And I'm like, you're my cab driver.

Yep.

Yeah.

Wait, was it?

So I got a driver through her that, like,

that was like, cool.

And he was her friend.

And, you know, he was

learning English.

And he was,

his desire was to have a tour company you know at the time he just had his tuk-tuk and he wanted like a fleet and uh one of the cool things is over my trips there he did get you know when i went the next time he had multiple tuk-tuks and then when i went in 2017 he had like nice like vans like toyota like sprinter vans yeah what yeah okay hold on i gotta break in as we go yeah there's so much to talk about i gotta talk about the food the toilets yeah explain what a tuk-tuk is to the people who don't yeah so a tuk-tuk is um the front of of it is a motorcycle, and the back of it is like a bench seat with a little cover over it.

You know what I mean?

And sometimes it's facing benches, but it's really small and really rickety and fun.

It's a fun thing.

Don't they deck them out sometimes?

In their own style?

Yeah, they'll deck them out.

And like the ones in Cambodia would always have...

Here's one thing, one of those things that you remember when you get back is that they would have like angry birds or something.

They would always have some kind of like...

Yeah, something.

Or it'd be like the Super Mario tuk-tuk.

You know what I mean?

It's always some shit to make you go, oh, yeah, I'm going to take this one.

And like there was the Batman, a lot of Batman, a lot of Batman and Jokers.

Yeah.

But the, you know, it was key to have a driver that didn't that didn't want to rob you or just take a look at like stop and be a lookout while I rolled a joint and smoked it right in front of the temple, you know.

Okay.

So you gave me some advice before before we get actually.

Well, yeah, you gave me some advice before you went.

Yeah.

You said there are these tours they give you.

Tell me if I'm wrong or if I'm misremembering it.

I smoked a lot of weed.

Yeah.

There are these tours where it's like, we'll take you to anchor what, but that means anchor Watt, anchor whatever, and anchor something, and then the last one.

And three of those four, or two and a half out of those four, you don't really want to see.

Yeah.

So you were like, tell them to take you to these four temples.

Yep.

And fuck your regular tour.

I want to go from here to there, to there, to there.

Yeah.

Do you remember what those were?

Yeah, some of them.

I'm not going to remember.

Watt Prom is one.

Wat Prom, yeah.

Watt Prom is the one from Tomb Raider that has the huge tree growing out of the ruins.

It's this epic, it's incredible.

And I, it's one of the like when I travel, I don't get a lot of pictures of me.

I take pictures of other stuff.

This is one where I was like, you know, got some Russian tourists to take a picture of you.

Yeah.

Oh, you got to send me that.

Yeah, I've got it.

Okay.

I think I might also have one.

Yeah.

It's so fucking cool.

It's great.

There's the oh, Bayonne is the one with the faces.

Everybody, when they think of Ankor Watt, maybe they think of the temple, the main temple complex, but i think of the face the temple of faces you know because

because it's so it's creepy and like the size of this whole map yeah and these very like pleased faces these kind of round smooth like yeah pleasant buddha faces yeah

and it has like

It's so unique because they're so old.

The temples are so old that they've got like this special moss that grows on them and they all have their own unique characteristics.

So, you know, the way that different stuff reacts with the different, because the different temples are made of different stones.

Like, there's one called Bante Sere

that is the most ornate.

It is the one that's, like, super Baroque.

That one's like a bright red stone.

Like, that's one of the ones that you just gotta see.

Okay.

Yeah.

I think you, I'm trying to go from memory.

And Karwat is another one.

You gotta see the main one.

You gotta see Ankarwat.

And

Tom From?

Is that one?

Yeah, that might be the one.

There's one that has like, it almost looks Mayan, where it's like a big, like a stacked temple.

I don't, um, that might be that one, but I, I don't recall that.

Anyway, okay.

Yeah.

So they're fun as shit.

It's great.

You feel like Indiana Jones.

You feel like Indiana Jones.

And

also, like, if you read about the fact that they were just, those temples just got lost in the jungle for like hundreds of years.

And then,

like, the people knew about it.

The local people were like, yeah, yeah, that's how, yeah.

And then when, when, like, white people started going to Cambodia, the French were like, get a load of this shit.

Do you know the story of the discovery of it?

No.

So, this is so funny because I remember a Jimmy Carr joke in Montreal was doing Montreal like 300 or something, like 300 years of Montreal.

He goes, what was here before that 300 years?

And they're like, no, it's people coming here.

I was like, but weren't there a type of people here before?

He goes, but just not white people.

Is that what you mean?

He goes, fuck.

I guess so.

He goes, you got to do away with this fucking thing.

So it's like, let's talk about when white people discovered Angkor Water.

Right, exactly.

It's like the first time anyone's seen it.

No, no, humans.

But

some white guy was on a hike and was like, oh, what's this?

And found it.

He thought it was an abomination against Jesus.

Told no one, told like two people and said it was disgusting.

And then it was like 30 years later, somebody else just also discovered it on his own.

Did you see this abomination?

Yeah.

And he's like, oh, this is awesome.

The guy's like, what?

No, I found that.

Believe that.

Yeah.

Oh, I didn't know that at all.

Because they did all used to be completely covered in vines and growth.

And what they're doing, you know, they're still discovering new temples using LiDAR, using like they fly over with laser detection.

Oh, cool.

Unbelievable.

But so it's it's constantly changing I and so every all every time I went to Cambodia I went to Ankara Watt like I don't give a shit if I've been there before it's one of the wonders of the world you know what I mean like you know you don't have to spend the first time I went I spent three days you know going back and forth to temple to temple to temple I've never done that since but like I'll do a day you get a day pass Disney but they'll do like that you can get like a one three or five day pass oh yeah that's right oh yeah yeah

it's one of the more expensive things there but still not crazy if I remember right.

No, I mean you could pay 50 bucks or more for the entry.

I mean that I shouldn't quote any number.

I have no fucking idea what it is now, but like it wasn't cheap, but it's what it is like they don't have a lot else going for them.

And they do have to keep it up.

There's a ton of upkeep.

Yeah, absolutely.

And one of the interesting things that happened when I was there too is a guy came up to me, a Cambodian guy came up to me and was like, hey, hey,

can I stop you?

Hey, immediately your alarm bells go off and you're like, nah, man, I'm good.

I I don't need anything.

He's like, no, actually, I'm an archaeologist.

Like, he was literally there working on a temple and he just wanted to be like, I see you're a tourist.

Do you want to see what I'm working on?

Wow.

And at first, he was like, get the fuck out of my face.

Fuck it, piece of shit.

Fuck off.

What's your fucking chance?

I just screwed on my headphones.

No, no, no, no, no.

Isn't there a way?

Didn't you get in somehow for sunset where they're like, can't be here?

Am I remembering right?

Yeah, it's well,

they try to like control the sunset access to some of the places, and

They just get super crowded is all like it's not like like you can go there.

It's just like some people like really camping out and I just had the tour guide was just like oh, I know a place we can go where other people don't go as much but you can still see sunset on the temples and you know smoke a joint while you see the sunset over Ankorwat, which is pretty fun.

Yeah.

Just for a second, describe these moments when you're traveling where it's just it's it's epic is I guess the word and you you know it

you're just like and and it's a very american thing to do to go like isn't this awesome but like regardless of what country it's still you're feeling it you're fucking watching the sunset over anchor watt

for me when i when i was a little kid i had uh the carmen san diego game where in the world is carmen san diego and that's how i learned about all these other countries and i remember when i was a kid that anchor watt was one of the pictures oh wow and so like it had something to do with like that sparked my desire to travel and all that shit And it was just cool to be there and be like, I remember seeing this as a little kid and thinking, what a far-fung

place this is.

It's across the world and now I'm here.

Wow.

It's sometimes where like the monumentality of the place you're in forces you to be in the moment.

Like it kind of just jerks you into just being like, oh, look where I'm at.

Like this is.

You know, you're not thinking about, oh, what do I got to do when I get back home?

Or what do I, you're just like, you know, wow.

You're in one of the coolest spots in the fucking world in a sunset it's just like even if you have are add and flighty like you will be like oh okay wow when I got back from from Southeast Asia there were all these like writers meetings and they were always trying to get me like let's do a show about it and stuff like but I'm like dude what I've never been able to capture except through a bit of podcasting is how to express you're out all day in this smelly tuk-tuk you're getting to a place it's hot as shit there's no you haven't seen air conditioning and it's like the first time I was there was April which which is pre-monsoon season is bone dry and like 120 fucking degrees.

And all the photos from my time there in 2012, not a fucking cloud in the sky.

And I mean, it was brutal.

But then finally, it cools down.

There's a sunset.

You're there.

And it's beyond that.

You know, there's moats around all these, so you get the sun reflecting off of the water, and it's just, it's magical.

Were you smoking opium in one of these places?

Yeah.

I smoked opium in Vietnam and in Laos Laos and in Cambodia.

I just feel like it's...

Was it Vietnam that you said you rolled it and bribed a guy?

Laos.

That was in Laos.

Yeah.

That you bribed.

Laos, I rolled.

I remember rolling an opium blunt.

We were in Long Probong, which is a beautiful colonial place.

But yeah,

it was

being in the moment.

You know what I mean?

It's like, hey, this is where opium comes from.

Let me just.

In the golden triangle.

What's opium?

What's a high like?

It gets you real.

It gets you kind of a little bit drowsy, but in like a dream-like kind of slight state.

I mean, it's not.

Like Vicodins and alcohol?

Yeah, kind of.

Yeah.

Or like morphine, if you ever had more.

That's what it is.

If you ever had a morphine drip, that's what it is.

So it just,

you know, and like you're not maybe smoking it the best way in a blunt, but like, you know, you still get a nice.

And it's the smell's amazing.

It smells so good.

Really?

Yeah, and like you see like some kind of fragrances that'll say like opium or whatever, but it really does fucking smell good.

Like I remember buying some essential oils that were opium sent from Amazon.

I got it.

I was so disappointed because I was like, this is not fucking opium.

This is not smelling.

You know the smell.

Like, I know the smell of this ain't it.

Stop this.

The first time I smelled crack was in Winnipeg.

And I was like, somebody burning candy?

And then it was like, come across some like summer native, summer native homeless.

And you're like, oh, it's crack.

Yeah.

So,

okay.

Let me see if there's more to talk about in these fucking temples first.

I think, did we just leave?

No, no, no.

I'm mixing up the killing fields in these.

Yeah.

The killing fields in Phnom Penh?

Killing Fields are in Phnom Penh.

Then there's Ankara Watt and Siem Reeve.

Should we talk about sex tourism?

There's so much to Cambodia that's

under

radar, under the raps.

You can always think of Thailand for this, but I remember going, like I talked about psychogeography that Wolf talks about, and one of them was like live music.

I'm looking for live music, and I went on a hunt and I just wanted some local stuff.

Yeah.

Ended up getting advice from somebody local.

And then they told me to one place, didn't have it.

Another place it was like, oh, it's a band playing 80s music, 80s American rock.

But I was like, fine, whatever.

I'm in an expat bar, and I'm like, oh, this is a sex tourism bar.

It's all these 65-year-olds with deep smiles on their faces.

My friend Colin used to call them dads with passports.

You know?

They're just like free.

And a lot of them, you can just tell that they're British right off the bat.

There's a certain, like, a certain red old British man who's been living in Southeast Asia, is completely shiny head bald.

Yeah.

That you always see them with like a 17-year-old girl.

Or boy.

Or boy.

Yeah.

And there's no judgment there.

I never really saw any type of sex.

I mean, I saw like the girly bars, right?

Yeah.

But like, I didn't, you know, there's the under, there's the underbelly of like child sex trafficking in Cambodia.

A lot of that shit happened during the UN years when it was kind of lawless.

And I think most of it's, I think they've tried really hard to stamp it out.

I don't know.

But yeah,

it's one of those things, too.

When you're like, I'm going to Cambodia and people don't, yeah, it's one of those things they don't think they're like, okay,

killing fields,

you know, sex travels.

Yeah.

And it wasn't like sex, they weren't like kidnapping people.

It was just like, I'm at a bar.

These kind of hookers are hanging out.

We're having a good time.

We're not in in a rush.

Yeah.

And they're all just like trying to get a guy on the hook for like maybe something 500 bucks a year.

For sure.

I mean, yeah, they find like a, you know, I've had, I had friends who were old dirtbags that would be like, yeah, this is my friend.

And it's like, we have an arrangement where it's like, it's not his girlfriend, but like, she'll fuck.

And then he buys her shit.

And like, they did the fuck tourism, too, right?

Yeah.

Where it's like, be my tour guide and fuck me.

Yeah, they'll do that.

Yeah.

You never really got into that.

No.

No, I wasn't a sexual person.

No.

I went to a weird museum in St.

Petersburg, Russia, that turned out, I think, to be a brothel.

Wow.

Where they supposedly had Rasputin's dick in a jar.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Rasputin.

So let's talk about Phnom Pet, overcrowded, big city.

It's the major city.

It is the major city.

Overcrowded.

It's on the Mekong.

It's kind of in the plains.

Like, there's not south of Cambodia towards the coast is more mountainous.

And we've got to talk about one of their two of the coast cities, too.

Please.

Okay, we'll get into it.

Do not mention the name of that place that I went to.

Certain places I just try to

keep

their wraps with names.

We can describe it, but okay.

No problem.

You get why, right?

Yeah, of course I do.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No.

Phnom Penh's super crowded.

And as I've was there over the years, there used to be.

So there was like a little island in the middle of the Mekong River because Mekong's huge.

So when you're in like main downtown Phnom Penh, there's a royal palace there too.

It's another great thing to see.

It's really beautiful.

But

it was on the river.

There was this totally undeveloped island in the middle of the river.

And like over the years now, that's nothing but Chinese skyscrapers.

Oh, really?

Maybe skyscrapers is grandiose, but

they're high-rise buildings in a city that's general fabric was low-rises.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

And you see that also in Sienookville, which is a coastal city that now is like, don't go there.

Like, there's no reason to go.

Why?

Built up now?

Yeah.

Unless you're going somewhere else.

It got

Sienookville in the 2012, 2010, they had a lot of Russian mafia there.

And

there's a lot of Russians in Cambodia.

And the,

I want to say, like,

the chief of police of some city was Russian in Cambodia.

Okay.

The chief of police was really?

Yeah.

And that's when people are like, oh, there's some shit going on there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a book called Cambodia's Curse that's about like modern Cambodia, and it might cover,

but it talks about a lot of the yeah, I remember when we went there in 2017, it was getting dropped off.

We went from CM Reap or from Phnom Penh?

From CM Reap, I think.

Yeah.

To Seonville.

That's right.

And where the

tourist bus, not tourist bus, but where the long album bus lets you off is a bit of ways from where you have to go to the ferry.

Yeah.

And it was just like, damn, this place is underdeveloped and and cool.

Yeah.

And now it's changed.

Yeah, like, yes, exactly.

And there, supposedly, there still is like a touristy area, but everything else is just so, and it's specifically like Chinese development there.

And it's like,

yeah.

I mean, it's like, fair enough, develop, I guess.

But that's not what I'm looking for as a tourist, as a traveler.

I want some sort of like old version of things.

They tried to get me to buy, that's where my flip-flops ran out.

They got so stinky from two months of travel.

I had these like Jordans, Jordan flip-flops, and I was like,

couldn't get them.

I was like, oh, they were padded.

And I tried to soak them in soapy water in a bucket.

It was stunk.

So I was like, I got to get new ones.

And then I realized I'm an 11 and a half, and that's unheard of here.

Yep.

And just all these people going like, you're good with a nine.

It'll stretch.

I'm like,

it's the bottom.

What do you mean, stretch?

I wear a size 15.

Like, I just said, forget it.

I had to get my shoes mailed from America.

Oh, wow.

There was like a big shoe store in Shanghai, but I got there and they're all like made out of plastic.

I was like, I'm going to walk three feet this and it's going to just explode.

Yeah.

Like Zion street.

I remember finally finding some and then they broke.

There were knockoffs, like whatever.

And they broke and I was about to chuck them and I was like, oh, wait.

I think in like near like Komodo or something.

And I was like, I can't.

I won't be able to get anywhere.

I pair them.

I'm going to fix the fixed seats.

Yeah, I had to find super glue and not shoes.

And

they repair small value items more in Southeast Asia than other places.

Like you'll be on the street and there'll be an umbrella repair man.

You don't see that anywhere else.

A dude that will just like, oh, is the thing that popped out of your umbrella, you know, where it's let me take a look at it.

Let me, I got it.

Yeah, give me a dollar.

Let me fucking fix it for you.

Yeah.

Wow, yeah.

It's a little bit of just totally umbrella thing.

Yeah.

So, wait, where do we go next?

Well, we were at the, we were talking about how Phnom Penh is built up, and I was talking about Senokeville is built up too.

But there are two other coastal cities that are, I think, worth visiting.

I mean, there's plenty of places.

There's one is Campot.

Okay.

Campot was with a K, right?

Yeah, K-A-M-P-O-T.

Kampot

was like a deep water port in Cambodia, and it was their international port during like the 1800s.

Kind of how I, you know.

And just moved away, moved to Sahanukville?

Maybe over time.

But it was like that's where there was like a Vietnamese community and a Singapore.

It was a lot of Singapore style shop houses.

So if you go to Singapore, there's certain neighborhoods that like, okay, that's what Kampot looks like.

These these shop houses where it's literally a store on the bottom, and then it's like two levels of living and like a nice gabled roof, and they're bright colors, like nice, bright rainbow colors on this crazy deep river.

And

it's a lot of wait, is that the ocean, or is that it's the ocean, but it's where a river hits the ocean.

Where's Cambodia here?

Cambodia's right here.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, so the Gulf of Siam?

Siam?

Yeah.

Well, that's the Gulf of Siam, though.

This will be.

So that's Udong there.

Oh.

Yeah, I'm.

Yeah, this is Cambodia here.

Where do we go?

Was it this island?

Was it in the Gulf?

No, it was here.

It was here.

It was here.

Okay.

Yeah, you're looking at the Malay Peninsula there.

Oh, yeah.

You know, it's not the most accurate map, is it?

It's an old map.

It's like where it's like, somebody's been here once.

Yeah,

I mean, whatever.

And that's something I like to do, too, is I did, I used to Google old travel guides.

If you Google like first english language travel guide to cambodia whoa and it's never like guide to cambodia it's like one gentleman's tales of perambulation throughout the you know

yeah and it's like it's just some rich british guy who's like oh i here's what i found yeah bananas that look different one guy was like i wanted to visit cambodia so i wrote the king and it was like

i wrote the king and he wrote me

he received me yeah

um the islands were so fun the islands are fun there's also so the islands are crazy fun there.

And you're also, there's some disputed territory between Cambodia and Vietnam.

There is a, there is a, not an island, but there is a beach town, more of a fishing village, used to be called Kep,

K-E-P.

Okay.

Years ago, it was a French resort called Kep-sur-Mer, Kep on the Sea.

And there's all, there were all these

like kind of Le Corbusier-inspired modernist architecture homes.

It's got a French influence, didn't it?

Yeah, for sure.

It was French.

Oh, it was French influence in China.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

So it's like an international style of architecture, which, you know, is a lot less ornamentation and stuff like that, more modern and streamlined kind of.

Very out of place in Cambodia.

There were all these houses there, these resort houses in Kep,

and they fell into disrepair, and it was a major site of fighting between Vietnam and Cambodia, because they've had wars too.

It's so funny because Vietnam.

Vietnam kind of stepped in at the end of Khmer khmerou china because they're like they're trying to encroach on us they always have these big masses always encroached on cambodia wow and vice versa so like now what i mean is now there's all these you see the skeletons of these modern style houses that are like covered in bullet holes and you know falling apart but some of them have been uh beautifully fixed up and you can there's a hotel there's a hotel there i don't know if i want to give the name don't give the name yeah just there's a hotel there's a great hotel i don't want people trying to walk in your footsteps i want them to find what you found.

When you found a great

place to stay for a homestay, it's like you found it through a friend.

It wasn't like the thing to do.

No.

It was just your adventure.

Yeah, that was that was my advice.

There's another one that's probably equally as good.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, like this, there's one in particular where they've taken three of these old villas and converted them.

So like you get a whole floor of it, basically.

And it overlooks the ocean.

And there's like an infinity pool and like a little thatched roof breakfast hut you go to.

And there's a

yacht club there is what they call it.

But it's just like a pier

where you can sit there and have like seafood dinner with an Angkor beer sitting at the ocean.

Angkor beer.

Angkor beer.

Angkor beer.

Damn.

Angor beer.

Dude, you know what I really regret is not having.

I see those TV shirts.

The shirts.

I saw a guy on a Bintang shirt yesterday.

I was like, I could have had that.

It takes you back.

I have a...

Nope, it's not that.

It's from Guatemala.

Their beer.

It's like a big rooster, and I'm like, I'm glad I got it.

But Bintang is like, it takes you right back.

Yep.

Or I say Bir Lau.

Ber Lau.

Beer Lao Dark.

Beer Lao is great.

Beer Lao Lao.

It's probably one of the best ones.

Of all the local beers, Beer Lao.

Beer Lao Dark is

my favorite.

It's a high-quality beer.

Mandalay beer is trash.

Myanmar beer wasn't terrible, but it is 51% owned by the military, or probably more now.

But it is like you are supporting genocide while you're drinking.

Supporting house arrests.

Half of this money is going towards keeping this bitch in line yeah for sure

um um

damn that sounds fuck up no but there's like a fishing village and it where it's all like fisher women yeah like it's and it's they fish for crabs mostly and um

i had like the

i can't tell if it's just because of where i was but it seemed like that one of the best

no buddy

it's ruined the shot dude yeah keep going it seemed like one of the best meals i ever had though where like the lady caught the crab and i bought some crab and she cooked it up with fresh green pepper pods.

Fresh green pepper pods.

You take the pepper out of the green pods, then you dry it out, and then you have your peppercorns.

So like it's like baby pepper, basically.

Wow.

Kampot in the area, Kampot and Kep are known for pepper cultivation, like as in like salt and pepper, pepper.

Yeah.

So like

they cook a lot of stuff with different variations of pepper that you might not think of.

So this is like the fresh green pepper that's like really like

kind of fresh and sharp.

It's good, yeah.

Is um, I guess that brings us to the food.

Do you remember any of it?

I remember one dish, yeah.

Well, I remember the locklack, low-lak, local, which is like it is, it's very good, but you could all, the way you look at it, you're like, oh, this is like if you just microwaved fish because they wrap it in banana leaves and steam it, you know, cubes, yeah, it's like fish and

it's I wouldn't describe it as fish lop.

You know what I mean?

Because it's not because lop, like Laotian lop, is like tiny little granules of the meat.

No, it's like a fish salad kind of steamed in a

rice or fries?

With rice, yeah, for sure.

And

it's another quick meal, too.

It's a good quick meal.

Another thing there,

as they do a lot of barbecue, like, you know, like hot pot type barbecue and stuff like that, which is like not my favorite.

Like, you know, I have to cook my own food.

Come on.

Yeah.

There's.

I had, I don't know if this is Cambodian or Vietnam because I had them in both places.

Yeah.

This style of eating, you'll know better than I will.

Where it's very small dishes.

There's a

bucket with coals in the middle of the plate.

Yeah.

It's kind of grilled, but you can't.

You get the triangle shape.

Yeah.

And you get like 10 pieces of chicken fried up on your own and then give it to each other.

Yeah, that's what that's a big thing there.

Yeah.

It takes like four hours for the meal.

Yeah, that's so slow in little bite-sized that everybody's like, oh, give me me an order of frog, give me an order of chicken, give me an order of beef.

That's one of the

communal.

It is.

Oh, really?

You have?

Yeah, I think I've got a photo of sitting around with some friends there.

I've

that I'm really happy with the photos.

Oh, yeah, here we go.

Yeah, that's literally one of those right there.

That's it.

Wow.

That's what I'm and then that's

Phil besides

oh the the chef.

Is that the chef tour guy?

No, that's never guy.

I saw this guy when I was there in 2012, and I haven't run into him since.

Yeah, it's like that.

Or sometimes it'll just be a bucket with like a shitty grate on it.

Yeah.

But it's also like they had this weird thing of like, you don't serve yourself because you're a king, and I'm a king, so I don't serve myself.

Yeah.

Let me serve you.

Yeah.

And then you serve me.

It's very, there's a nice little ritual.

You know, there's things like that.

Like in China, if you toast somebody, you're trying to have your glass lower than theirs to show that they're like

that.

Yeah, so they'll put it on the ground.

It's a a shine of respect.

A lot of cultures will like literally fight over the check where it's just like, no, no, no, like you're not going to and like they'll

yeah.

We went on a food tour.

We went on a food tour in Samurai.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Stephen Halcrow

and he ran a food tour there

with his wife Nina.

And

they just take you around like four or five little places.

You eat like one of the markets every little place.

Like we had like some kind of a beef curry type thing okay we had some tells you the origin of it tells you the origin it was one of the cooler things i've done yeah we went together for sure yeah it was just us or just no there was like a weird couple that went no no no i mean with it with sarah no they weren't they didn't come right no i think we met up with them and yeah there was later that couple where a guy i really wanted to this chick and she was like we're definitely just friends they were friends that went on a trip together and he was trying to make it happen yeah and that's not and she ate everything she was like, tarantula.

He's going for it.

Well, that's like, why not?

Why not?

You know, and one of the things they had was sausage stuffed frog,

which was real fucking good.

Everything was good.

Yeah, it was really good.

And we, except for, okay, when I was there the first time in 2012,

the tuk-tuk driver that looked out for me and everything, he did take me to where he goes to eat lunch.

Yeah.

And we had balut together.

Balut?

And I remember liking it then.

I remember being like, oh, it wasn't bad.

You know, you have your lime and pepper dipping sauce.

Yeah.

but man when we had it on the food tour i was just like

dope

you got to tell them what it is yeah uh balut is a duck embryo yeah

and so you crack the egg and like you see it looks like something from like a tool album cover you know what i mean

it's like it's the beginning to form it has feathers and bones and a beak and eyes but it's like gooey sort of but it's together but it's like bones are soft it's like yeah you know it's big and then half the egg on the inside is super hard like bone still i guess it would suck that out yeah yeah

i remember some guy pass some local guy passed by and goes you go dance tonight which he means for yeah it's supposed to be good for

yeah

yeah of course i mean i ate it but it was like pretty gross yeah i i

i really feel like the first time i had it it was just like oh this is new this is cool it wasn't bad and then when i tried it again i was like nah i don't i don't want this yeah i had two different times i had these beetle larva in in ecuador yeah and one time was like not good it was like left out for a while.

And the other time was fresh and very good.

I don't know why I tried it the second time, to be honest.

But

anyway, yeah.

Yeah, no.

The seafood there is great.

Like Cambodian seafood when you're at the coast is unbelievable.

It's a lot of curries.

Like they do it.

Like the pepper thing was like a seafood.

It was like crab, pepper, and like some curry tossed into a wok with like ginger and another.

I mean, you can't go wrong with all that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's one of the countries that has watery curry.

Myanmar has kind of oily curry, watery curry.

Thailand, you get a little bit thicker, a little bit more coconutty.

I feel like Cambodia, it gets thin again.

I don't know if there's any truth to that.

It's just interesting how it slightly changes around the region.

It's just like, oh, it's like close enough so they have overlap, but like, you know, not.

Because there was a lot of shit that was called curry in Myanmar that was like not.

It was real oily.

It was,

you know.

I took Big J and Bobby Kelly for Burmese food.

Oh, really?

And they were like, I'm shocked that they allowed it.

But I was like, we were in somewhere where it's like Fort Wayne, Indiana, where it's like giant population

yeah and they're like big population what kind of eyeball stew is this I'm like just eat it come on they're like all right was it Mohinga it was Mohinga Mohinga is fucking phenomenal it's the only thing they have oh and tea leaf salad yeah which is like better as an idea yeah okay well we got to get back to Cambodia

What were the toilets?

You remember the toilets situation?

Oh, so this is what this was the first time I,

like I said,

I'd been to China, never been anywhere else in Asia.

Go to Cambodia.

I remember having to shit like around the temples or something.

And they have like little bathrooms every once in a while.

And like, I walked in, and first of all, I was like, thank God, not squatty potties.

But that's way tough for you.

Yeah.

Whatever.

I'm more flexible now than I was then.

I lift and do kickboxing now.

Then I'm just a sedentary drug addict.

I have photos from my trips to Cambodia, and I just get progressively fatter as the years go by.

All that fresh fish.

Like, I want to go.

Yeah.

You're gaining weight off this.

Yeah, look, man, I got gout when I was living in Miami.

Yeah.

Wow.

Too much beer.

But no, what was I saying?

The toilets.

The toilets.

But they have bum guns.

They have bum guns.

And that was the first place I'd ever been that had bum guns.

If you don't know what it is.

It's a new thing.

It's a metal water hose that's attached to the back of your toilet.

Okay, it's the thing, you know, when you pull up from a sink synthesis, you have this, like, it's like stuck in, and you can pull it up, and it's got this metal hose in it.

It's got a little handle.

You can wash dishes or whatever.

And it doesn't have an adjustable nozzle.

It just sprays or doesn't spray.

That's it.

Yeah.

And yeah, it's like a hose.

Squirt like outside hose.

Honest to God, I thought, I was like, well, everybody wears flip-flops.

Do they wash their feet in the toilet?

Like, I don't know.

And then, like, then I realized, like, oh no, it's to wash my asshole, and it's far superior than not having.

It's great.

It's better than a bidet.

You control it.

You got a bigger flow.

You get in there wherever you want.

My first apartment in Atlanta when I moved back to America, the first thing I did was buy a bum gun.

No, I didn't buy a fucking thing.

I didn't buy the seat thing.

I bought a bum gun.

Bum gun.

You really get in there.

It's called handheld bidet.

They sell it for like 35 bucks on a Home Depot.

Really?

Yeah.

When you attach to the back of your

toilet.

Wow.

It's so useful.

Because sometimes it's strong, way stronger than the little bidet attachments.

Yeah.

But the bidet also goes in one direction.

You got to move your ass to get there.

This, you control.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I forgot about the bum guns.

Yeah.

I love these pops.

Because also, like, you're in the temple.

It's so hot.

You're walking around the temples all day.

You're an ancient temple.

Yeah, exactly.

It's not a great situation down there.

You know what I wanted to ask you about?

So when you're on these tours, do you know anything about Chinese tourists coming in?

Oh, they're the worst.

They are the worst.

And look, I love Chinese people, and I don't mean like Hong Kong people.

I mean, like, I lived in mainland.

I was, you know, the big mainlander, Hong Kong Divide, which I know you know about.

But

as I try to avoid the other groups of tourists, and

it's funny funny because, like,

at first glance, you're like, all right, is this a Korean tour group or is it a Japanese tour group or a Chinese tour group?

And immediately you're like, are they all wearing brand new Nike gear?

Everything brand new Nike, then it's Korean.

I don't know what to say, but when Korean people travel, they wear

everything brand new,

like they're going to

play tennis.

No.

No issue with Korean.

Korean folks.

But Chinese will push through shit.

There's a reason why.

That sense of personal space.

There's a reason why a lot of museums have signs telling people not to piss in public and it's only written in chinese wow please don't shit on the floor chinese people yeah again also not chinese descent no

mainland chinese and i think i think chinese tourists are getting better that's probably like somebody must you gotta tell them well china's worked really hard to like ban some of those people from traveling if they get caught doing stuff like that because they're embarrassed by that too they want to be like get your shit together people i picture two places the pyramids and i picture anchor watt when the bus of chinese tourists shows up just take a deep sigh take your last picture

and go.

It's over.

I know you want to spend more time there, but that's not happening.

It's not going to be worth it.

Imagine a hurricane rolled in.

It's the same thing.

You can't argue with it.

It's over.

And it's funny, too, because the Chinese tour groups will exclusively eat at like Chinese restaurants.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

And they always stay far away.

They don't like it.

They have to come in, take a picture, and go.

So when they're here, they stay in New Jersey.

Yeah.

So

outside of Ankar Watt, there's these kind of highways that you take to get out there and to get to the airport.

And on that highway are all the big, like, there's the big Korean hotels and the big, the big Japanese hotels, the big Chinese hotels.

And it's like, oh, you know, this is like an all-inclusive tour.

You know,

I think they called it.

China was doing that in other countries where Chinese people would go to tour Thailand.

Every penny they spent was, went to a Chinese company.

And then Thailand was like,

you can't do that.

Yeah, you got to put some money here.

Yeah.

Okay, we're going to wrap this up soon.

This is great.

It's so fun because it reminds me

of talking about this shit reminds me of these things.

I forgot about the tours that you told me.

You had great advice.

You asked me to look through my photos.

Uh-huh.

Did that help?

It helped a ton.

And part of it is that

I had bought this little Olympus camera.

It was called the Olympus EP1.

They're far beyond that now.

That's like ancient.

But I bought a lens adapter and had a couple.

It's like kind of a smaller, more compact travel camera.

And it looks kind of like those Leicas.

Like it's kind of cool looking too um but I had these old Olympus lenses one was a fisheye one was like a something that picked up crazy low light like um

I forgot what the app like 1.4 or something I'm not I'm a little fuzzy on all that stuff but seeing my photos where I tried to okay I can tell I was at this temple and then I switched camera lenses to try to get this and it it when you were when you're not just taking like a quick like phone video

when you're in your camera when you're looking through the lens and you're kind of looking at something through that extra layer, and you're maybe trying to frame it up or trying to position it, like it has a different sense memory, I think.

And I'm able to look at the phone,

it draws something out.

So I was going to say, this chick I met in

that writing class, and

she did the

Comino de Santiago.

Yeah.

Oh, that was a great podcast, too.

Yeah.

What?

That was a great podcast with her on it.

It's not out.

No, but you talked to her on Skeptic Tank, did you?

No.

Different lady.

That was a no.

No, sorry.

Okay, that's what I was thinking.

I met her in the same class.

Okay, that's

confusing.

It wasn't funny.

I'll allow it.

But she took, she's a photographer.

She was like, I'm not taking digital.

I'm only taking real film.

Yeah.

She goes, it was too much to lug around.

I had to keep shipping back.

But it was like, they were like, I only get one shot at this.

So, like, let me get the framing, get the one shot.

I can't waste 30 out of the 36 I get.

Yeah.

So it's like, it is more meaningful.

Yeah.

Here's my questions for you.

One, what mistakes did you make in Cambodia that you're like, I wish I hadn't done that or I wish i had done this and i'm like what did you up on um

hmm no that's a really good question um

let's see i i mean the closest i have to that is like i came in there to do shows in like 2014 i think and i was really tired after a show and i i think some of the local comics one of them was a chef uh stephen who alcohol does a tour uh like he had ended up making this great like duck dinner and like had homemade edibles and shit and I just slept through the whole thing.

And Steve and I are good friends, but I remember just being like, everybody was like, yeah, we all missed you.

You weren't there.

I was like, no, I was dead asleep.

I remember you kind of bombed on that show I saw you at.

You were like pissed about it.

Yeah, it wasn't great.

And I wanted to hang out and talk to all the expats.

And you wanted to like, anytime you don't do well, you're like, I want to get the fuck out of here.

Absolutely.

Yeah, no,

that was the one that was outdoors.

Inside outside.

Inside outside.

It's like half.

Right, right under.

Yeah.

Yeah, inside outside.

And it was the only comedy show I saw for four months.

I'm sorry.

It's all right.

But I was like, I remember we got a tower of beer.

Oh, the tiger tower.

Yeah, and it was like, I just enjoyed watching it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was, I've had some really good shows in Cambodia.

There's some fun crowds, like, especially if like.

These pats are wild.

Especially if you know, like, all right, there's going to be a lot of, it's going to be French, Australian, and not many Americans.

Like, you know.

Right.

But then, you know, you can, you can pander and just do shitty American jokes, but, you know.

Yeah.

Do you have any advice for going, if anybody's going?

Like.

Yeah, find a, I mean, I would to Cambodia specific.

Find a homestay

and look, it's not the easiest thing to do.

I assume there's some kind of websites or services or something like that.

There used to be couch surfing.

What's that guy?

Couch surfing.

Couch surfing.

I haven't done it forever, but there's probably something like it.

Or at least

when you're there,

don't just hang out at the touristy places.

I mean, which is easy, but okay.

Your experience there was so much cooler than the hostel I was staying in.

Yeah.

It was so much cooler.

And the hostel was cool.

It had a pool and it was cool people, but like

that homestay

just, it was one of the, I mean, I don't forget it.

Yeah.

It was an amazing house, it was an amazing place.

The lady was awesome.

Just ask locals about local shit.

Even if it's like, I don't know, you run into somebody in a restaurant or a bar or something and just be like, hey, you know,

where do you go around here?

Well, you gave me some advice for Yangon.

You were like, here's four bars to check out.

Yeah.

The 51 bar?

50 Street Bar.

Okay.

That's where we used to have.

I got a proposition on the way there.

Yeah, well, some guy came.

He was like, what are you doing?

I'm like, going here.

I was like, do you need company?

I'm like, no.

He goes, here's my car.

He was just written on a piece of paper.

He's like, Mike.

Turner got chased home by dogs when he performed.

Stand up there, I think.

Yeah.

There used to be packs of wild dogs that would roam around them.

I'm sure they're backed.

This is something I ask everybody.

All right, we got a couple minutes.

What travel advice in general?

So it might have been that.

You might have just said it, but I don't know.

But just in general, travel advice.

I mean,

or travel tips.

Sure, yeah.

I mean, like connect with locals the best way you can.

And like, everywhere you go, there's going to be some kind of volunteer opportunity or something like that to get your foot into like seeing a different side of things.

Because like the homestay, I learned about her personal experience with Khmer Rouge.

Wow.

Coming back.

What it was like coming back and like not feeling Cambodian and then feeling, you know, and that's such a specific story.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, you know, because I first, I first would thought she was French.

She's not.

I mean, she lived in France most of her life, but she has a lot of people.

She has that accent.

Yeah.

And she has a French husband and a Cambodian husband.

That's a whole different thing.

But

no, but so, and then seeing the tuk-tuk driver, who when I was first there, he just had a tuk-tuk.

And when I was back, he had multiple tuk-tuks.

And then I was back.

And then.

Do you remember you?

Yeah, of course.

He took me to dinner.

We were there in 2017.

It was a friend's birthday dinner.

And this guy sat across from me telling me about his mistresses.

Not the driver, one of his friends.

And his wife was right beside him, and he was just talking about his girlfriends.

No, but apparently,

the lady who runs the homestead was like worried about the guy, the tuk-tuk driver.

He was like, she was like, yeah, he's got these vans, but it's like predatory microloans is what she was saying.

What does that mean?

Where they're like,

foreign investors will come in and they'll be like, oh, oh, this is a guy.

Like, just I was explaining, it's like, this guy wants to grow his service, but instead of them maybe giving him like one van, they'll like be like, oh, why don't you take a fleet?

And, you know.

And you got to pay it off.

And then you got to pay it off and then yeah damn interesting they'll give us a part of your company instead yeah yeah but um no but that guy's still going strong he still runs tours there um with cambodia too it'd be like try the best way you can to get a real tour guide for anchor watt don't

don't just hop on a took hook downtown and be like hey i want to go

right yeah you got to know where to look a little bit and it's like it's like where there's all tourists they don't care about you at all and when there's less tourists it's more like a personal thing and there's a cycle that the company the tour companies go through where they just dump people on one side of the most popular temple, pick them up on the other side in 30 minutes, then we go to the next one, then we go to the next one.

And it's just so impersonal.

Yeah, you got to get a guy.

It's so funny, though, because it's a very cheap country.

Yeah.

So the guy's like, I'll wait for you.

I'm like, oh, I might be like three hours.

He goes, yeah, I don't care.

Yeah, he doesn't care.

The second fare for the day?

Great.

I'm feeding my family.

No, it's in most of the time, like with Ankara Watt, you just negotiate like the day.

Right.

You're just like, all right, how much for the day?

I remember I was not clear enough telling the guys, like, I don't want to do the anchor watt tour of these four.

I want to do anchor watt, Tom Fromm, Bayonne, and whatever you told me to do.

And he still didn't quite get it.

And I was like, I walked all the way up this mountain.

I was like, no, this wasn't one of them.

And he's like, oh, you just want to do those?

Yeah.

Well, yes.

I own you the day.

Do what I say.

Well, they don't expect you to know the temples.

Right, right.

Everybody's like, Anker Watt.

And it's like, all right.

Yeah, we'll take you to that.

You know, the funny thing, too?

I guess we got to say this.

Fuck.

I try to keep it an hour, but fuck.

As soon as I was done with the killing fields,

the guy was like, and it's heavy.

It's heavy.

Yeah, it's very heavy.

And he goes, want to go shoot guns?

And I'm like, I don't think so, bro.

He goes, yeah, let's shoot a gun.

Let's shoot a cow.

Yeah, see, that's why my travel experience was better.

I shot guns before I went to the killing fields.

That's smart.

Smart.

Before you're like guns.

Look, I'm Southern.

I'm going to go.

I'm going to be like, let me show y'all how to shoot.

I didn't shoot a cow, though.

You did not?

No.

I didn't shoot one of their sickly, skinny cows.

We didn't shoot guns, and I remember who that fucking British guy was.

Like, I want to shoot.

I've never shot a gun before.

That's right, yeah.

Well, I had never shot a fully auto AK, you know.

It was cool.

We woke those people up in the middle of the night.

We're like, remember that?

Did you come with us to that or no?

No.

Oh, it's just us.

Then I'll save it for my episode of Cambodia.

All right.

You got a podcast or something?

No, not right now.

Chris, okay.

Hey, it's Chili, H-E-Y-I-T-S-C-H-I-L-I.

Follow me on Hey, it's Chili on Instagram, on Twitter.

Get off Twitter, but whatever.

But it's there.

Yeah, dude, you're like really brought me out to a fucking cool place, gave me great advice from Myanmar, and I hung out with you

in CM Reap.

Yeah, it was fun.

And it was cool.

The show was in Phnom Penh.

That's right.

Okay, it was in Phnom Penh.

It was in Phnom Penh because it was in the hostel, I think.

Yes.

And then we went to CM Reap.

That's right.

It was Phnom Penh first.

And then after that, Senecville, and I'm over there.

And you guys split off.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's the way it went.

And then, yeah.

What a fun.

I got to get back.

I'm starting to feel it.

Well, I want to get back to Asia.

Look, do you know how often the bookers there will like contact me and be like, hey, does Ari want to come back to Thailand?

It's so bad.

Yeah.

The problem is, I'm doing better now, so I don't need the $500 and a $30.

Yeah, we'll say, I paid you $500 cash to do stand-up in Bangkok, and I don't think I can get you for that.

I was going anyway.

Yeah.

Well, that was the whole thing.

But the cool thing was, once I was there, it was like, oh, can the locals take me out and show me around?

It's a better tour than just like, I'm on my own.

Yeah.

It was, it got me a few places.

You and Pete were in town for like two or three days, and I feel like you guys saw some pretty cool stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

We saw the pussy show.

So yeah, we saw Papong.

Different episodes.

Different episode.

Dude, thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

This was awesome.

God, I forget when I talked to you guys, same with talking to Sarah.

It was like, it brings me fucking back.

Yeah, I want to go back now.

Like, I've been thinking about Thailand for next year, but like now I'm like, I got to go to Cambodia too if I'm there.

Yeah.

All right.

Guys, thank you very much for tuning in.

Write in, leave comments, do whatever.

If you have any, I don't know, travel tips, would you say leave advice in the comments?

Travel tips for Cambodia?

Yeah.

Or shit you do, or I don't know.

I don't know what to say in the comments.

I say, don't ruin specific places.

Just talk about your story.

Say, like, I went to this great restaurant.

Don't say the name of it.

Yeah.

And what you did there.

People got to find their own shit.

You've got to find your own shit.

And it also changes.

Anyway, thanks, buddy.

I appreciate it.

Yeah, man.

All right.

Damn, what an episode.

God, I miss Cambodia.

What a cool place.

I'm getting memories of it, too.

That food tour in Phnom Penh was really cool.

It was really fun.

Eating the baloo with that guy walking by going, it's good for dancing.

I was like, what does that mean?

He goes, it's going to get your heart.

Don't forget to give William a follow.

Hey, it's Chili on Instagram.

Or on Twitter, if you're on Twitter, as always, I say, get off Twitter.

It's a terrible site for terrible people.

But he's on there at Hey, it's Chili.

I am on Instagram at Ari Shafir.

Follow me there.

I'm also,

this podcast is on there too at UB Trippin' Pod on Instagram.

Go there every week.

We have a little clips from the episodes.

Give it a subscribe.

Also, a lot of times we get all the pictures that the guest has from their trip and we just put them out together in a carousel.

It's fun.

It's fun.

It's a fun follow.

No politics.

All fun travel stuff.

God, I miss Cambodia.

There's some fun, fun stuff.

Today's episode was produced by your Mom's House Network, a podcast network owned by my friend who has more Nazi memorabilia than anyone I know.

Studio was built on Indian burial ground.

Not the one that was recorded in today, but his.

Sacred Indian burial ground.

They got it half price.

He got it on the cheap.

Tom's a good businessman.

He knows he's sacred into the burial grounds.

No one's protecting him.

So he's like, buy up land for cheap.

No one's there

to protest because they're all trying to change the name of the Washington Redskins.

Edited by a great man named Alan Coffey.

Did a great job.

Yeah, I have a memory right now of leaving the killing fields.

Nope.

Nope.

Leaving CM Reap, leaving one of the temples,

one of the anchors.

Anchor what?

That's what I'm from.

And then just seeing these monkeys just on the ground, just like...

Begging for food.

God, I think I have a picture of that.

Actually, you know what?

That's an episode for the Patreon.

Patreon.com you be tripping.

If I have a picture of that, that's exactly what that is.

That's an episode for the Patreon.

Damn.

The Low Klock.

Who's been to Cambodia?

Leave a comment.

Leave a comment on the YouTube if you've been there.

You ever have the Loklock?

It's like chopped up beef on top of French fries or rice.

I got to do an episode myself about Cambodia because I had a bit of a different experience than Childress did.

What did you guys think of the ones with me as the guests?

I'm going to be doing a lot of those.

Got to find different people that are questioning enough to ask me.

But

yeah, damn, Cambodia.

Fucking rules.

I got to get back to Southeast Asia.

I miss it.

I really miss it.

I miss the happy pizza and see him reap.

$1, extra happy.

$1, extra happy.

I had to wring my hands.

But I don't know.

A dollar.

I don't know.

It's going to go.

You just have to pretend like it's really ringing.

Of course, I can afford a dollar.

But if you say sure, then he's going to be like, oh, actually, it's $2 more for extra, extra happy.

I didn't want to bargain with him.

Just give me the happiest you can.

$1 will be plenty.

when it was happy weed infused speaking of weed i got merch on my website rishafear.com uh grinders i got grinders i got um

yeah that's right i'm a melberg guys i can't do a podcast without seeing some melburnian street art um

got grinders for your spices i got uh

jew vinyl oh it's so beautiful the ju vinyl is so fucking pretty you guys anyone who's into vinyl go ahead and get that right now the pre-order they're coming out in july they'll be available for you as will the shum shroom fest shirts will be available at the same time shroom fest this year shroom fest is july 20th 21st and 22nd and our old pal at abracadaver has made it another beautiful design 10 i think of all the proceeds are going to maps multidisciplinary association for psychedelic studies what wow

and guys if you go to cambodia or if you go anywhere first of all leave comments on the youtube page i want to hear and follow along everybody likes to follow along go for tips on what to do when you're there people go there and be like what should i do they go to the comment section as well as the stuff we left out and they see what other people did.

It's a fun little community.

No, you're good.

You're good.

It's okay.

What else?

What else?

What else?

What else?

The problem with doing these in other places that you really are bothering other people and it's not it's not really you.

It's it's their world and not yours.

So leave comments and we all join in together.

Subscribe.

I'm almost at 50,000 subscribers in almost two months.

It's pretty fucking cool.

Pretty fucking cool.

Let's go places together.

And if you're somewhere, get a postcard.

Send it to me.

I'm going to read it on the Patreon.

You don't have to be a Patreon subscriber to join in by sending it.

You be tripping, 151 First Avenue, number 49, New York, New York, 10003,

USA.

I want to see stamps from across the globe.

That's it, everybody.

Hope you're having a good time.

Until next week, and next week, what a good episode.

Jasmine Shah, a woman I met at a writing seminar.

and she was speaker at the writing seminar in paris by rolf pots she did the camino de santiago a 30-day hike from the bottom south the top of france all the way through the top heart of spain and over to it's a ruta de comino ruta de camino i don't know anyways so cool she's a photographer by nature one of the non-comics we'll have on this podcast and uh what a fucking blast trip i would love to do that one I would love to do that one.

30 days hiking in the fucking backwoods of Spain.

God damn, that seemed cool.

Right on the coast.

Just took a lot of pictures of that.

We have a photographer taking pictures.

Oh, it's going to be full of pictures of that one.

Subscribe to the YouTube.

Guys, until next week, hope you get out there.

Hope you see the world.

Keep tripping.

I'm Auri Shafir.

See you then.