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

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

SPONSORS: -Get 10% off your entire order at https://thefreezepipe.com/ with promo code TRIPPIN On this episode of You Be Trippin’, William Childress travels to Cambodia and smokes a joint at Angkor Wat. On the show, he and Ari talk about the Killing Fields, fishing villages, and stinky shoes. They also discuss opium, genocide, and sex tourism. Other topics include: Chinese tourists, tour guides, food, and bum guns (look it up). It sounds like a pretty epic place. Rikreay! You Be Trippin' Ep. 15 https://www.instagram.com/arishaffir https://www.instagram.com/youbetrippinpod https://store.ymhstudios.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Where you been and where you going? This is Ari's Travel Show, yeah. We're gonna talk about travel today. It's UB Trippin', yeah. So let's be clear. When it comes to shipping internationally, can I provide trade documents electronically? Mm-hmm. The answer is FedEx. Okay. But what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments? How do I find all the... Also FedEx. Impressive. Is there a regulatory specialist I can ask about? FedEx.

Oh. But let's say that... FedEx. What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx. Where now meets next. Hello, everybody. Welcome to UB Trippin'.

The only podcast that is about travel. There's no way that's true. Today, I'm excited because my friend William Childress is here. I met William... What year did I meet you? 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, not on 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. Me and Pete C. As soon as he 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. I'm like, oh, no. Okay, that's me. No, it wasn't Pete. Pete's great. Yeah, Pete's great.

I have no issue with Pete. No, but the funniest thing was- It is quite hot. Yeah. The guy who... I had to rent that club myself. Really? Because the guy who was... There was a British Thai guy who runs it.

And he still books great shows. Nothing against Chris Vigoda. But he was like, yeah, I don't know. I'm not in town then and 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 email people. Wow. Yeah, that was... That's so funny so funny yeah that was a great gig for me worth a few but we're not here to talk about thailand no william where are we headed today we're headed to cambodia or fucking cambodia i don't know if i'll ever be able to have another person on this podcast except maybe myself later. What a fun place. It's a fun place. It's overlooked by a lot of people. The name has negative connotations with

genocide and Khmer Rouge, if they do know it. Dude, did you see that picture? Yes. It's the wrong side of history picture. Oh, it's the baby, the tree baby. Yeah. So my friend Torelli made this for me. It's the wrong side of history. It Oh, it's 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. Oh, really? It actually has. Wow. And by that, I mean the one with your face on it. I'll leave this up here for that. The one with my face on it I'll leave this up here for that the one with my face on it yeah exactly I always like to have a

fucking memento of some kind that's not going to work that's just going to keep falling backwards when did you start going to Cambodia because you've been there a bunch now yeah I did so I was living in Shanghai it was 2012 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 nothing. Exactly. Plus they feed you beforehand. And that's actually good. Uh-huh. And they actually have attractive stewardesses.

They don't fuck around here. Yeah, 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. You lean forward, yeah. So then people are like, I'm only fucking myself over by doing this?

Yeah. 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. Oh, yeah. The, damn, dude. I feel like I could 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 Timor-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 everyone you gotta go to this place you gotta go to Bagan

you gotta go to here traveling. You got to go to Bagan. You got to go to here. Well, traveling throughout Asia as a comic, like, 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. And 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 um yeah it's it is it's these great tour guides and um it really opens up cities and countries yeah yeah and i wasn't doing i was i didn't do comedy the first time i was in cambodia this was just purely

oh really which is not like it's nice 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 UB Trippin Podcast Where I've been To the country With the person Yeah that's right Me and Sarah And

Fuck Why am I dropping His name now Sarah And Not Newhouse No No and fuck why am I dropping his name now Sarah and not Newhouse no I just saw her

in Vancouver oh yeah that's cool she's so fucking cool I forgot how influential she was on me in my travels but she's I think I've got advice from her when I was living over there yeah it's can I show you my bargaining advice got advice from her when I was living over there.

Can I show you my bargaining advice I got from her? No, what's that? I'll ask you how much something is. You be a Cambodian marketplace guy. Say whatever amount. It doesn't matter. Hey, how much is this? That's $50. Come on!

You could have said one penny. And she'd be like, no, you got to do better than that. My advice is walk away. Walk away. Shanghai, you would bargain with good intentions. And then you're just like, no, I'm so sorry. It looks great. I would love to, but I can't.

And you leave. And then you get the real price. Yeah. Wait. 10% of what I said. But you also have to be ready to just not get the thing. Yeah, it has to be real. Okay, so you go to Cambodia.

Go to Cambodia. Are you nervous going there? Not really, because at the time I was kind of down for whatever. Cambodia was interesting because the first, I went to Phnom Penh first, which a lot of people skip because it's, you know. Because the temples, Angkor Wat Wat are in Siem Reap and then there's a couple, uh, coastal cities that people focus on. Um, and so Phnom Penh has a lot of the, uh, genocide, the Khmer Rouge, um, killing fields.

Yeah. The killing fields, the, um,-21, the school they turned. What's the S-21? It's the school they turned into a slaughterhouse. They turned it into a concentration camp, essentially. Wow. 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. Dying in a minute. 30 seconds before they died. Wow. Yeah. The killing fields were, like, I mean, it's just a concentration camp.

It is. It's a death camp. And it almost seems more brutal. What would you say? I've never been to a concentration camp in Europe or anything like that. So this is the first time that normally you associate travel with really good feelings and positive experiences. But it's going and seeing this awful. normally you associate travel with like really good feelings and positive experiences but it's going and seeing this awful yeah there's a tree with a lump in it from baby's heads and i mean then the sign beside it says that and said this tree was dented with baby skulls yeah it's

it's crazy because it's like you gotta save bullets yeah 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 that, Pol Pot? Pol Pot, one of the greatest fucking tyrants of all time. Wasn't executed, lived for 30 years in Cambodia later, killed a quarter of the country, and just lived there peacefully for 30 years.

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. It's, it's a lot of Cambodia's history is defined by international attempts at justice. Yeah. Part of that is the UN ran Cambodia for a period in the 90s, like three or four years. It had a flag that was a UN flag with a lot 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.

The Khmer Rouge had gone. The government had kind of fallen into disrepair, and somehow the UN decided, I think maybe for the first time, we're going to be a caretaker. Wow. And it was just nothing but human rights abuses and all, you know, just like- Oh, really? Yeah, just terrible shit. 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. You 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 time I was there, I went to Phnom Penh and had a good time. It was really cheap, and as soon as the was in Phnom Penh. You were at, yeah. So the first time I was there, I went to Phnom Penh and had a good time. You know,

it was really cheap and as soon as the first tuk-tuk, the guy was like, marijuana, heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, like everything. It's 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 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 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, 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 went 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 some. If you change for a dollar, that was in their local currency. But he was like, have the 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 you don't try to charge me i don't know really extra happy yeah really going into it and like

fuck disgusting i'm 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 last night fair there they don't give a shit there was a i don't know if it's true or not, but supposedly they used to sell weed by the pounds in the marketplace, like dirt weed. And traditional Cambodian chicken soup is like you make it in a huge cauldron, and it includes bales of marijuana and chicken and lots of other herbs and limes and shit like that. Wow. It was good to happy pizza. Yeah. Weed's no problem there but you

know you gotta be careful whenever you're uh but like there's places that pretty openly advertise it and nobody does anything and 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 cm reap and i did a homestay that the girl recommended to me. 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 a local politician's brother. I don't remember 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. Dude, that lady ruled. Yeah, she got it back. She got that right. Did you watch? She did, yeah.

It's called Le Grand Cafe in Siem Reap. I love that one. Yeah. I stayed with her and that made my Yeah. It's called Le Grand Cafe in Siem Reap. 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.

And 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 Khmer style house but with some like modern upgrades did you 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 is madame sang valet she will 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 edition. 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. I just remember right now, we sat there and did a podcast about Myanmar.

The Jezutimide. Yeah. That's right. Wow. What a podcast about Myanmar. The Jezutimide. Oh, yeah. That's right. Wow. What a fun fucking time. Yeah, and that made my trip because I learned so much from her. And beyond that, when you go to Siem Reap, you're going to Siem Reap for Angkor Wat. That's it.

That's it. It is also a bit of a party town for hostlers. 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 Lake 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 yeah and i was there for a month in myanmar and i was like fuck yeah cambodia's in between yeah absolutely cambodia's in between and it's leaning more towards you know developing they're one of the things that i have noticed over my trips there is um 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 them by the balls, right?

That's the way we look at it, but it's also the same shit we do. We do that shit. We want Exxon? Not really. Well, you're getting it. Yeah. I mean, was it Guatemala was literally a banana republic?

Yeah. There's some weird histories. But 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 HeyIt'sChili. He's also at HeyIt'sChili 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 HeyIt'sChili. Instagram and Twitter. Myself, I'm at arieshafeer.com for all my tour dates and my merch and everything else Arieshafeer 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. 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 of flat whites and brekkies. Also, in terms of merch, I got pre-orders for Grinders. They're pretty cool. Shroomfest shirts. Shroomfest this year is July 20th, 21st, and 22nd. Get your abracadabra designed shroom fest shirts uh be shipped out in time for the festivity and pre-order the vinyl for jew

only 1 000 ever made uh get them right now before they're gone they are going fast um the signed ones are no longer i think there might be a couple left i think they're all gone and also patreon's been launched, everybody. First episode's up. The whole backlog of stuff already in there. All the travel stuff from Skeptic Tank, all the weird plogs from the old Patreon, all up there. The first new episode just went up.

It's all about a tiger camp 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 youbetrippin', 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. I'm going to read it. I'm going to put it on the wall behind me and make a whole wall of postcards from you guys, the listeners.

I want to go where you've been. I want you to keep me there in your hearts. Send it to YouBeTrippin151 First Avenue, Box 49, New York, New York, 10003, USA. Let me be a part of your vacations and your travels. I want to see those foreign stamps. That's it, guys. Why are we still talking? Subscribe wherever you're listening to. I'm almost at I want to see those foreign stamps. That's it, guys. Why are we still talking? Subscribe wherever you're listening to.

I'm almost at 50,000 subscribers. 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.

Angkor Wat is the reason you got up on that. Angkor Wat is why you go. And so a big part of your trip to Angkor Wat is your tour guide. And you can get a, and by that I mean well there's 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 and there's plenty of like every tuk-tuk driver will be like oh yeah i'll take you to angkor wat 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, Vegas does with strip clubs. 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 did. 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, hey dude literally we're not gonna buy anything here so yeah can we go on he's like fuck you and i'm like you're my cab driver yep yeah wait so i got a driver through her that like that was like cool and he was her friend and um you know he was he was learning english and he was um he 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 when I went in 2017, he had, like, nice, like, vans.

Like, Toyota's, like, Sprinter vans. Really? What? Yeah. Okay, hold on. I've got to break in as we go. Yeah. There's so much to talk about.

I've got to talk about the food, the toilets. Yeah. Explain what a tuk-tuk is to the people who don't know. Yeah, so a tuk-tuk is the front 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 it's and sometimes it's facing benches uh but it's really small and really rickety and fun it's a 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 like you remember

when you get back is that like they would have like angry birds or something they would always have some kind of like 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 gonna take this one and like there was the batman a lot of batman a lot of batman and jokers yeah um but the you know it was key to have a driver that didn't uh that didn't they didn't want to rob you or just take it would like stop and be a lookout while i rolled a joint and smoked it right in front of a temple. Okay. So you gave me some advice 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. Smoked a lot of weed. Yeah. There are these tours where it's like, we'll take you to Anchor Watt. But that means Anchor Watt, Anchor whatever you to Angkor Wat, but that means Angkor Wat,

Angkor whatever, and Angkor 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. Yep. 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. Waprom is one. Waprom, yeah. Waprom is the one from Tomb Raider that has the huge tree growing out of the ruins. It's this epic. It's incredible. 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. Oh, you got to send me that. Yeah, I've got it. Okay. I think I think i might also have one yeah it's so fucking cool it's great um uh there's the oh bayonne is the one with the faces everybody when they think of anchor watt maybe they think of the temple the the main temple complex but i think of the face the temple of faces you know, because it's so creepy. It's the size of this whole map. Yeah.

And these very, like, pleased faces, these kind of round, smooth, like, 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 out of different stones like there's one called bante sre that is the most ornate it is the one that's like super baroque um that one's like a bright red stone like that's one of the ones you just gotta

see okay yeah i think you i'm trying to go from memory and krawat is another one you gotta see the main one you gotta see anchor and tom from is that one yeah that might be the there's one that has like it almost looks mayan or 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 like indiana jones you feel like indiana jones and um 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 grown and like the people knew about it the local people were like yeah that's out 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 what 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 it's 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. Fuck it up.

Yeah, so it's like, let's talk about when white people discovered Angkor Wat. Right, exactly. It's like the first time anyone's seen it. No, 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. Let me see this abomination. Yeah. And he's like, oh, this is awesome. The guy's like, what? No, I found that. Leave 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 L using lidar using like they fly over with laser detection unbelievable um but so it's it's constantly changing i and so every all every time i went to cambodia i went to ankara 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 i 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 I'll do a day. You get a day pass. It's Disney. But 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, i shouldn't quote any number i have no fucking idea what it is now but like it wasn't cheap but it's it is like they don't have a lot else going for them uh and and they do have to keep it up they 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 um hey can i can i stop you hey

and immediately your alarm bells go off and you're like no man i'm good 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 i first was like get the fuck out of my face piece of shit fuck off what's this fucking chair just put on my headphones no no no um isn't there a way didn't you get in somehow for sunset where they can't be here am i remembering right yeah it's well like they try to like control the sunset access to some of the places and um they just get super crowded is all like it 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 Angkor Wat which is pretty fun. Yeah.

Dude, just for a second, describe these moments when you're traveling where it's just, it's epic is I guess the word, and you know it. You're just like, and it's a very American thing to do to go like, isn't this awesome? But regardless of what kind of, it's still, you're feeling it. You're fucking watching the sunset over Angkor Wat. For me, 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 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 this 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-flung 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 what i gotta do when i get back

home or what you're just like yeah wow you're in the one of the coolest spots in the fucking world in a sunset it's just like even if you have are ad and flighty like you will be like okay well 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 the first time i was there was april 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. There's moats around all of 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.

the water and it's just it's magical when you're smoking opium in one of these places yeah i i smoked opium in vietnam and in laos and in cambodia i just feel like it's it was it vietnam that you said you rolled it and bribed the guy laos that was in laos yeah that you brought laos i rolled i remember rolling an opium blunt we stated we were in long pervang which is a beautiful colonial place but yeah it's it i don't i it was uh 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 yeah what's opium what's the high like um it gets you real it can get it gets you kind of a little bit drowsy, but in like a dreamlike kind of slight state. I mean, it's not. Like Vicodin's an alcohol?

Yeah, kind of, yeah. Or like morphine, if you've ever had morphine. That's what it is. If you've 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 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 this is not fucking opium you know the smell like i know the smell this ain't it the first time i smelled crack was in winnipeg and i was like somebody burning somebody burning candy? And then it was like, come across some like 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 Angkor Wat and Siem Reap.

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Order today and get free shipping and say goodbye to harsh smoke forever. Let's get back to the episode. Should we talk about sex tourism? There's so much to Cambodia that that that's under under radar under the wraps you always think of thailand for this but i remember going like i talked about psychogeography that wolf talks about and what 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 um ended up getting advice from somebody local and then they told me 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 um was uh my friend colin used to call them dads with passports you know they're just like free and if 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 the 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 everybody

there's the underbelly of like child sex trafficking in cambodia a lot of that shit happened during the when the un years when it was kind of lawless and it i think most of it's i think they've tried really hard to stamp it out i don't know yeah um um but yeah it's, I think they've tried really hard to stamp it out. I don't know. Yeah. But, but yeah, it's, it's one of those things too. And 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 a rush. Yeah. And they're all just like i'm at a bar these kind of hookers are hanging out we're having a good time we're not in a rush yeah and they're all just like trying to get a guy on the hook for like maybe it'll sell me 500 bucks a year uh for sure i mean yeah they find like uh you know i've had i had friends uh there were old dirt bags 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 do 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 yeah i wasn't a sex tourist um 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. Ra-ra-ra-rasputin! So let's talk about Phnom Penh. 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 got to talk about one of their two of the coast uh cities too please okay we'll get into it okay do not mention the name of that place that i went to there's certain places i just try to like um keep no wraps with names we can describe it but okay no problem you get why right yeah of course i did okay yeah yeah um no uh phnom penh super

crowded and like as i was there over the years there used to be actually there was like a little island in the middle of the mekong river because mekong's huge yeah so when you're in like main downtown uh phnom penh there's a royal palace there too is another great thing to see it's it's really beautiful but um 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 like chinese skyscrapers wow really maybe maybe skyscrapers is grandiose but it is they're way high they're high-rise buildings in a city that's general fabric was low rises you know oh interesting yeah and you see that also in uh scenicville 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 unless you're going somewhere else it got scenicville in the 2012 2010 they had a lot of russian uh mafia there and um there's a lot of russians in cambodia um and the the i want to say like this the chief of police of some city was it was Russian yeah Cambodia okay the chief of police was really yeah and that's when people like oh there's some shit going on there 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 from cm reaper from phnom penh

from cm reap i think yeah too soon yeah that's right and where the where the tourist but not tourist bus where the the long travel 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 cool yeah and now it's changed yeah like so yes exactly and they're supposedly there still is like a touristy area but everything else is just so uh and it's specifically like chinese development there um and it's like um yeah i mean it's like fair enough develop i guess that's not what I'm looking for as a tourist, as a traveler. I want some sort of old version of things.

They tried to get me to buy, that's when my flip-flops ran out. They got so stinky from two months of travel. I had these Jordan flip-flops. And I couldn't get them. They were padded. I tried to soak them in soapy water in a bucket. It was stonk so i was like gotta get new ones and then i realized i'm at 11 and a half and that's unheard of here yep and

you just all these people going like you're good with a nine it'll stretch it's the bottom it's what do you mean stretch you know we're size 15 like i just had to get it i had to get my shoes mailed from america oh wow there was 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 in this and it's going to just explode. Yeah. Like Zion's shoe.

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 near Komodo or something. And I was like, I can't. I won't be able to get to it.

You've got to repair those. I had to fix these. Yeah, I had to find super glue and not shoe stores. And they repair small value items more in southeast asia and other places like you'll be on the street and there'll be a umbrella repairman 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 let me take a look let me i got it yeah give me a dollar let me fucking fix it for you yeah wow yeah instead of just that's a detail yeah so wait where do we go next well we're at the we were talking about how

panampan is built up and i was talking about scenicville is built up too but there are two other coastal cities that are uh i think worth visiting i mean there's plenty of places there's one is campot okay campot was for the k right yeah k-a-m-p-o-t campot um was like a deep water port uh in cambodia and it was their international port during like the 1800s um kind of how i you know and just moved away moved to san anugvel um maybe over time right but it was like that's where uh 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 camp hot looks like these these shop houses where it's literally it's a store on the bottom and then it's like two levels of living in like a

nice gabled roof and they're bright colors like nice bright rainbow colors on this crazy deep river and um it's a lot of uh wait is that the ocean or is that it's the ocean but it's it's where a river hits the ocean where's cambodia here cambodia's right here oh yeah oh so the gulf of siam cm yeah well that's the gulf of siam though. This will be... So that's Udon there. Oh. Yeah. Yeah, this is Cambodia here. Where did 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... The Malaya Peninsula there is... Oh, yeah.

Yeah. You know, it's not the most accurate map, is it? It's an old map. Yeah. It's like where it's like somebody's been 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. Wow. And it's never, like, guide to Cambodia. It's like one gentleman's tales of perambulation throughout the, you's like it's just some rich british guy who's like oh here's what i found yeah bananas that look different one guy was like i wanted to visit cambodia so i wrote the king you know i wrote the king and he received 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 um there is a uh there is a not an island but there is a beach town more of a fishing village it used to be called

kep uh kep okay years ago it was a french resort called Quai Sermier, Quai on the Sea. And there were all these kind of Le Corbusier-inspired modernist architecture homes. Because it had a French influence, didn't it? Yeah, for sure. Oh, and you're an architect, too. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So it's like an international style of architecture, which is a lot less ornamentation and stuff like that, more modern and streamlined kind of look.

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 hates China. Vietnam kind of stepped in at the end of camaro china because like they're trying to encroach on us they always have these big maps 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 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 the hotel there. There's a great hotel. I don't want people trying to walk in your footsteps.

I want them to find, like, what you found. When you found a great place to stay for a homestay, it's like you found it through a, it wasn't like the thing to do. No. It was just your adventure. No, that was my own specific. 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 a infinity pool and like a little thatched roof breakfast hut you go to and there's a uh

and 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 seafood dinner with an anchor beer sitting at the ocean. Anchor beer. Anchor beer is what it is. Anchor beer. Damn. Anchor beer.

Dude, you know what I really regret is not having, I see those t-shirts. The shirts? I saw I got a Bentang 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. Or I say Beer Lau. Beer Lau. Beer Lau is great. Beer Lau. Beer Lau. Beer Lau Dark. Beer Lau's great. Beer Lau is probably one of the best ones. Of all the local beers, Beer Lau Dark. Beer Lau Dark was 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. Probably more now. But it is like you are supporting genocide while you drink it. Supporting house arrests. Yeah. Half of this money is going towards keeping this bitch in line yeah for sure um um

damn that sounds fucker no but there's like a fishing village and 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 i didn't tell if it's just because of where I was, but it seemed like one of the best meals I've ever had. I didn't know, buddy. You ruined the shot, dude. Yeah, keep going. It seemed like one of the best meals I've ever had, though. 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 it's like baby pepper, basically. Wow. Campot and Kep are known for pepper cultivation, as in salt and pepper. Yeah. So 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 sharp 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 loklak loklak loklak 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 laoishan lop is like tiny little granules of the meat. No, it's like a fish salad kind of steamed in a... Over rice or fries? With rice, yeah, for sure. It's a good quick meal, too. It's a good quick meal.

Another thing there is they do a lot of barbecue, like hot pot type barbecue and stuff like that, which is not my favorite. I have to cook my own food. Come on. There's... I don't know if this is Cambodian or Vietnam stuff like that, which is not my favorite. I have to cook my own food. Come on. There's- I don't know if this is Cambodian or Vietnam, because I had them in both places. 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. It's kind of grilled, but you get- Oh, like the triangular shape? You get 10 pieces of chicken fried up on your own and then give it to each other. That's a big thing there. It takes like four hours for the meal. It's so slow and little bite size that everybody's like,

oh, give me an order of frog, give me an order of chicken, give me an order of beef. And it's so communal. It is. Oh, really? You have? Yeah, I think I've got a photo of sitting around with some friends there.

It's communal. It is. Oh, really? You have? Yeah, I think I've got a photo of sitting around with some friends there. I'm really happy with the photos. Oh, yeah, here we go. Yeah, that's literally one of those right there. That's it?

Yeah. Wow. That's Tom, and then that's Phil beside us. Oh, the chef. Is that the chef tour guy? No, that's a different 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 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. Everyone's like that. Yeah. So they'll put it on the ground. It's a sign 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 be like. Wow. Yeah. We went on a food yeah um we went on a food tour we went on a food tour we were in we got sam right yeah um yeah steven halcro uh and uh he he ran a food tour there um uh with his wife nina and um we they just take you around like four or five little places you eat like one little thing uh-huh every little place like we uh 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 coolest things i've done yeah we went together

for sure yeah it's just us or just no there was like a weird couple that went no no i mean with it with sarah and no they weren't they didn't come no no i think we met up with them and yeah there was a couple where a guy really wanted to fuck 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 he didn't tarantula i'm going for it you 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. 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, nope. You got to tell them what it is. Yeah. 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 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 been 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 passed some local guy passed by he goes you go dance tonight which he means. Yeah, it's supposed to be good for fucking. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I ate it, but it was pretty gross. Yeah, 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 want this. Yeah, I had two different times I had these beetle larvae in Ecuador. And one time was not good. It was left out for 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 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 Curry's like they do it like the pepper thing was like a seafood was like Crab pepper and like some curry tossed into a wok with like ginger and other i mean like you can't go wrong with all that yeah um 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 more coconutty yeah i feel like cambodia gets thin again i don't know if there's any truth to that it just feels right how it slightly changes around the region yeah 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 yeah you know i took a big j and bobby kelly for uh 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 was like Fort Wayne, Indiana Where it was like

Giant population They have a weird Yeah And they were like What the fuck kind of Eyeball stew is this? I'm like just eat it Come on

They're like 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 gotta get back To Cambodia What were the toilets? Do you remember The toilets situation? Oh so this is what This was the first time i i like i said i'd been i'd been to china never been anywhere else in asia go to cambodia i remember uh 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 yeah that's that's pretty tough for you. Yeah. Whatever. You know. Okay. I'm more flexible now than I was then. I lift and do kickboxing now than I was just a sedentary drug addict. Like, 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. Gain weight off this. Yeah. Look, man. I got gout when I All that fresh fish. Like I want to go. Yeah. Gain weight off this. Yeah. Look, man, I got gout when I was living in Myanmar.

Oh, really? Yeah. Wow. Too much beer. But no, what was I saying? The toilets. The toilets,

but they have bum guns. They have bum, and that was the first place I'd ever been that had bum guns. That's a new thing. It's the, 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 sometimes you have this like it's like stuck in and you can pull it up and it's got this metal

hose and then 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 it's like a hose squirt like honestly god i thought i was like why everybody wears flip-flops do they wash their feet in the toilet like i don't know and then like i was like oh no it's to wash my asshole and it's 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 i didn't buy the same thing i bought a bum gun bum 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 it 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 it. Access. Yeah. Yeah. I forgot about the control it. Yeah. Yeah. I forgot about the bum guns.

Yeah. I love these podcasts. They remind me of shit. You're in the temple. It's so hot. You're walking around the temples all day. You're in an ancient temple. Yeah.

It's not a great situation down there. You know what I wanted to ask you about? What? 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 i love chinese people and i don't mean like hong kong i mean like i lived in mainland i was you know the big mainlander hong kong divide which i know you know about but yeah i mainlanders but as i try to avoid their groups of tourists and and it's 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 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 korean when korean people travel they wear like the everything brand new like wow like like they're going to play tennis. I have no problem with Koreans. No. Great. Great folks. But Chinese will push through shit.

There's a reason why a lot of- No 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 Chinese tourists are Chinese descent. No, no. Mainland Chinese. And I think Chinese tourists are getting better. That's probably like 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 Angkor Wat. 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 gonna 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 when they and they always stay far away they don't like very far come and take a picture, and go. So when they're here, they stay in New Jersey. Yeah. So outside of Angkor Wat, 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 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 went to a Chinese company and then Thailand was like

you can't you can't do that yeah you gotta put some money here yeah okay we're gonna wrap this up soon this is great

it's so fun because it reminds me Just talking about this shit reminds me of these things I forgot about the tour until you told me You had great advice You asked me to look through my photos 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 like travel camera and it looks kind of like those lycas 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 a phone video a thousand of 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 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 so i was gonna say this chick i met in in in uh that writing class and and she did the um she did the um camino de Camino de Santiago yeah oh that was a great podcast what

that was a great podcast with her on it it's not out no but you talked to her on Skeptic Tank didn't you no

different lady that was a oh sorry okay that's what I was thinking I met her in the same class okay yeah yeah yeah

you got it what's so 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 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 you know like what'd you fuck up on um hmm 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, Steven, who does the tour.

He had ended up making this great duck dinner and 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, everyone was like, yeah, we all missed you. You were a thing.

I was like, no, I was dead asleep. I mean, but... I remember you kind of bombed on that show I saw you at. It wasn't good. 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 under, yeah. Yeah, Inside Outside, and it was just... 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 beer oh the the tiger tower yeah and it was like i just enjoyed watching it yeah yeah yeah that was i've i've had some really good shows in cambodia there's some fun crowds like especially if like pats are wild especially if you know like all right there's gonna be a lot of it's gonna be french australian and not many americans like you know right um 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 uh 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, but that got creepy. 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 at 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 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 shows. I got a proposition on the way there. Yeah, well. Some guy gave me, he was like, what are you doing? I'm like, going here.

He was like, do you need a company? I'm like, no. like no it goes where's my card it was just written on a piece of paper he's like like uh turner got chased home by dogs when he performed stand up there i think yeah there used to be packs of wild dogs would roam around i'm sure they're back um this time i ask everybody all right we got a couple minutes um what travel advice in general so it might have been that it might you might have just said it but i don't know but just in general travel advice in general and 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 whatever 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 where to get your foot in to like seeing a different side of things because like the homestay I learned about her personal experience with Khmer Rouge

coming back what it was like coming back and like not feeling Cambodian and then feeling you know and Because the homestay, I learned about her personal experience with Khmer Rouge. Wow. Coming back. What it was like coming back and not feeling Cambodian. That's such a specific story. Yeah. Because at first I thought she was French. She's not. I mean, she lived in France most of her life. She has that accent.

Yeah. And she has a French husband and a Cambodian husband. That's a whole different thing. But no. has a french husband and a cambodian husband that's a whole different thing but um but no but so and then 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 um 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 uh the lady who runs the homestay was like worried about the guy the tuk-tuk driver he was 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 um foreign investors will come in and they'll be like 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 i want you to take a fleet and you know um you got to pay it off and then you got to pay it off and then yeah damn interesting like 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 angkor wat don't don't just hop on a tuk-tuk 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 whether it's all tourists they don't care about you at all and when there's less tourists it's more like a personal and there's a cycle that the company the tour companies go through where they just dump people on one side of the 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 it goes yeah i don't care. Yeah, he doesn't care. A second fare for the day?

Great. I'm feeding my family. No, and most of the time, like with Angkor Wat, 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 Angkor Wat tour of these four. I want to do Angkor Wat, 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. I'm like, yes. I own you the day. Do what I say.

Well, they don't expect you to know the temples. Right, right, right. Everybody's like, inquire what? And it's like, all right. Yeah, we'll take you to that. You know the funny thing, too? I guess we've got to say this. Fuck.

I try to keep it an hour, but fuck. as soon as i was done with the killing fields yeah the guy was like what and it's heavy it's heavy yeah it's very heavy and he goes wanna go shoot guns and i'm like i don't think so bro he goes yeah let's shoot a gullet shoot a cow yeah see that's why my travel experience was better i shot guns before i went to the killer that's smart that's smart before you're like look i'm southern i'm gonna go be like hey let me show y'all how to shoot yeah i didn't shoot a cow though you did not no yeah 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 show 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 were like remember that did you come with us

to that or no no oh it was just us then I'll save it for my episode of Cambodia alright you got a podcast or something

no not right now great just look heyitschilly h-e-y-i-t-s-c-h-i-l-i follow me on heyitschilly on Instagram on Twitter get off Twitter but 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. Instagram and 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, not in Siem Reap. Yeah, that 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 Siem Reap. that's right okay it was in penampan it was in the hostel i think yes yeah and then we went to cm that's right it was penampan first and then after that cynicville and i'm and you guys split off yeah yeah yeah that's the way it went and then yeah so what a fun i gotta 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 me and be like, hey, does Ari want to come back to Thailand? Does he want to come back? So bad.

Yeah. The problem is I'm doing better now, so I don't need the $500 and the $30 hotel room. Yeah, we'll see. I paid you $500 cash to do stand-up in Bangkok, and I don't think I can get you for that now. 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 were in town for like two or three days I feel like you guys saw some pretty cool stuff yeah, yeah, we saw the pussy show so we saw pop on a different It's different episode um dude. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. This is awesome guy 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 you guys, same with talking to Sarah, it was like, it brings me fucking back. Yeah, I want to go back now. I've been thinking about Thailand for next year, but now I'm like, I've 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 travel tips? Would you, I 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 gotta find their own shit.

You gotta 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 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 balut the guy walking by going that's good for dancing I was like what does that mean? He goes, it's going to get you hard. Don't forget to give William a follow. Hey, it's chilly 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 chilly.

I am on Instagram at Ari Shafir. Follow me there. I'm also, this podcast is on there too. At UV Trippin Pod on Instagram. Go go there every week we have 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 a fun follow no politics all fun travel stuff god I miss Cambodia there's some fun fun stuff Fun travel stuff. God, I miss Cambodia. There's some fun, fun stuff. Today's episode was produced by your mom's house network. 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 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 Sacred Indian Barrier Grounds. No one's protecting him.

So he's like, buy up land for cheap. No one's there to protest because they're off 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 Siem Reap.

Leaving one of the temples. One of the anchors. Anchor what? Tom Fromm. What are they? 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 slash Juby Trippin. If I have a picture of that, that's exactly what that is.

That's an episode for the Patreon. Damn. The low clock. Who's been to Cambodia? Leave a comment. Leave a comment on the YouTube if you've been there. You ever have the low clock? It's like chopped up beef on top of french fries or rice. I gotta do an episode myself about Cambodia because I had a bit of a different experience than Childress did. What'd you guys think of the ones with me as the guest? I'm gonna be doing a

lot of those. Gotta 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 in Siem 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. But it was happy.

Weed infused. Speaking of weed, I got merch on my website, rhfear.com. Grinders. I got grinders. I got, yeah, that's right. I'm a Melbourne guy, so I can't do a fucking podcast without seeing some Melburnian street art. I got grinders for your spices. I got a Jew vinyl. Oh, it's so beautiful the jew vinyl 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 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 abracadabra 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 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 is that you really are bothering other people and it's not really you 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 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 trippin'. 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. She was a speaker at the writing seminar in Paris by Rolf Potts. She did the Camino de Santiago, a 30-day hike from the bottom south, the top of

France, all the way through the top part of Spain and over to, it's a Ruta de Camino. I don't know. Anyway, it's so cool. She's a photographer by nature nature one of the non-comics we'll have on this podcast and what a fucking blast trip I would love to do that one I would love to do that 30 days hiking in the fucking backwoods of Spain god damn that seemed cool right on the coast took a lot of pictures of that we have a photographer

taking pictures oh it's gonna 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 Rory Shafir see you then