DETLEV BUCKs diary and his first journey to Cambodia

In the next couple of weeks you will find extracts of the diary BUCK wrote on his journey!
Today you can also find some insight on BUCKs preparations for his first trip to Cambodia.
ENJOY!

FIRST PART OF DIARY

Saturday
Right at the beginning at the airport I got a SIM card from Sreykeos brother- he calls himself “The monk”. It's quite funny, if there is always a man in orange next to you.
So the monk goes back to his pagoda and we go for dinner to Ceangmys Restaurant. Later we go into Sharkys, where you definitely see that the UNO and American soldiers brought the bar culture to this country. All in all it’s like a hard rock café with an old man/ young girl audience- and not to forget pool. I feel bored and we go to a Cambodian disco, called Sparks. The rich people amuse themselves here, but quite funny. The young men dance together and the girls dance in one group- they rarely dance together. I feel like Dirk Nowitzki, I am the only European.

Sunday
The Rock- a man tells me that about 4000 people (of course divided in the different work shifts) work in this discomassagekaraokecasinohotelbox and it is open 20 hours a day.
It was built by two Tycoon brothers, who also own the largest bank and got rid of their third older brother. Two women around 19, who took a year of a volunteer work in a HIV hospice, come with us. Blond women are admired by men here. The place is a mix of disco from Las Vegas and a small village disco. Nearly every girl is employed here.
Then there’s a dance competition between women and men. The women dance as they would perform a lap dance, but when they finish they’re giggling and walk fast back to the row.
Off to Bar No. 1- the Martini Bar. A cosy beer garden with pool and filled with about 70 Vietnamese and 20 Cambodian girls. Here you can eat extremely good pizza, which is often used as an excuse when official NGO men meet here. Funny guys: over-the-hill surfer boys next to stereotype crazy guys with colourful shirts, but also teacher-types.
Outside there’s pool and a bar, and then inside a normal disco; you could shoot this everywhere. Dancing girls and men.

You just stand next to the dance floor and suddenly a Cambodian girl turns around with a huge smile, just a really open smile. Nico asks her how often she’s here. She says only today and then puts her hands in front of her mouth and starts to snort with laughter. Such a laugh often says more than many words. She absolutely wants to dance with me. So we dance. Then- of course- Phaley asks if I want to play pool. But it’s already 3 a.m. and I want to go into the Walkabout and the place empties slowly. Everybody says goodbye. Phaley follows us to the door, where a weird dwarf is perhaps always placed on the ground to beg. Phaley is looking after us, because the evening draws to a close and now she gets nothing. She backs the wrong horse. I’m an idiot, I could have also give her money, but you can’t always be great.

It’s strange, I talk about responsibility in the movie and recognize that during the research- maybe out of respect for the movie- there is definitely no actual want for sex . The topic also makes you sad although, even if I don’t see the movie as sad. The music is rather funny. Shake your monkey, monkey.

So if you read these lax lines many things maybe aren’t easy to understand at first, but I think it’s necessary to capture the first impressions, since you forget.

Detlev Buck