The Sadness Continues But Memories Remain

Saturday, the day after Manit's funeral I had to go to the hotel and meet with Lisa, our architect, as we need to choose the plumbing fixtures for Hotel Be and get them ordered. The company representative had come from Phnom Penh to meet us. I did not want to go but knew it was important to place the order. I got on my bike to ride to the hotel not thinking about where the usual route would take me: right past Wat Damnak and where Manit was cremated the day before. As I approached the place it began to hit me again and I started crying again as I drove past. By the time I got to the hotel Lisa was shocked to see me as she had planned on going on with the meeting without me. I did the best I could in the meeting and then left.

The days, weeks and months that have passed since then have been a struggle but I have moved on and still have my wonderful memories of Manit. Never one to wear jewelry or such things I got a red band to wear on my wrist. Actually, they gave us this red thread at the temple to wear and I knew it would not last long so I got the red bracelet to wear for the next year in remembrance of Manit. It is starting to wear but I think it will make it two weeks until the anniversary comes.

I guess I should be grateful to have had Manit in my life, even for a short time. As I mentioned, he was a friend of Sima's from when they were children. Sima worked for me at my house when I worked at Shinta Mani and then came to work at the bar. Manit would come around on occasion and I never really talked with him too much. When, in April of 2005, we need a new bartender, Sima recommended Manit. I interviewed him and he started work right away. Within a few hours of working with him I was thinking, "Why didn't I hire him before?" He was such a delight to work with, great with the customers, staff and a hard worker. When we opened the hotel, he began helping out there until he finally was working there full time. The hotel guests loved him and he got things done, things that other staff members could not figure out. But, he could also get lazy when we did not have hotel guests and when I was not around. I had to talk to him about it finally, just to straighten him out as I knew he could do the job.

I helped Manit to get his passport and we went to Bangkok together to buy things for the hotel. He was a great travel companion, always wanting to see and try new things. Of course he was a bit intimidated by the big city of Bangkok but he would do his best and could usually figure things out. We went to Bangkok a second time and this time we flew from Siem Reap to Bangkok and came back by land. His reaction to flying was a bit subdued but I knew he enjoyed it because of what he told his friends. One thing I did ask of Manit's Mother if she would let me keep his passport as a remembrance of him, of the time we spent together travelling. I was very grateful that she said yes.

My Mother was especially fond of Manit because when she stayed he really spoiled her. She does not do well with stairs so she would just call him when she wanted to come down or go up. He would make her bloody mary's or vodka tonics whenever she wanted one. He would walk her down the Passage to get her manicure or massage. She brought a camera but he knew she could not walk around the area too much so he went out and took pictures for her and brought the camera back to show her what he captured. Same with my friends John and Art. They got to know Manit and see how special he was. They were all very saddened when he passed away.

Another funny Manit story took place in May 2005. My friend's John and Art came to visit Siem Reap. I was going to back to Bangkok with them so on their last day in Siem Reap we took all of the staff to a local hotel to swim in the pool, which is something they rarely if ever have the opportunity to do. It costs $3 per person for a day at the pool, more than the average daily salary in Cambodia and I am happy to treat them to a day like that. So, we arrived at the pool and the staff were splashing around and having a good time. Less than 45 minutes after arriving Sima, Manit and another staff are packing up and leaving. I thought that was strange and not to cool that I pay for them to enjoy the day and they just take off. The next day when I was ready to go to the airport Manit did not show up. Sima said he was not feeling well. I later found out that since Manit had never swam in a pool before, he did not know that the water was chlorinated and not for drinking. He drank so much in such a short time that he got sick and that is why they left early. So, I forgave him but teased him about it later. Here is a picture from that day with Teb on the left, Manit in the middle and Sima on the right:


Manit had a sister living in the USA he told me at the bar one night. "Where?", I asked. I don't know was his reply. I asked him if maybe he could find out from his Mother where his sister lived. A couple of days later I asked him again and he still did not know. So I pressed him harder to find out. The next day he came to me and said, "My sister lives America. My sister lives Colorado. My sister lives Denver." Well, at least I got the answer and it was his sister, brother-in-law and nephew. I helped him to get an email account and Yahoo messenger and Skype and he was able to chat with them online. When Manit died I got their email address and wrote and told them the same things that I had told their Mom, about how special he was and how much he meant to me. I did not hear back from them for a long time but finally received a nice email from them. When I went home that December I brought a package from Manit's Mother that I mailed to them.

So many reminders remain about Manit. He was the one who contacted the person who built the building next to The One Hotel (the old building was torn down and a shell put up). The builder came and showed us the place. Later, when I decided to lease the building he arranged the meeting with the building owner. I thought we would just meet and talk about the possibility but within a couple of hours I had signed the lease and put down the deposit and we were on our way to making Hotel Be. So, Manit's touch remains throughout my life here in Cambodia. This is one of the pictures of Manit I keep on my computer desktop, so he is always there:

The Funeral

Manit died on 5 September and on 6 September the entire day was spent at the Wat Damnak, not far from my house. On Friday 7 September, very early in the morning we gathered again at the temple for the cremation. As this was my first experience of a Cambodian funeral, I was not sure what to expect. As you must know Cambodia is a very poor country, so poor that there was no embalming done for Manit. His body was put into a coffin and covered with large bags of ice to slow the decomposition. This meant the funeral had to go on quickly. We gathered that morning, with all of mine and Manit's friends and family there. There were monks to do chants and then they prepared for the cremation by removing the bags of ice. Then his coffin was lifted and carried three times around the temple before being led to the crematorium. Once there, the lid was lifted off the coffin for us to take one last look at him. I could not do it, I could only lift my eyes enough and saw his foot and that was even too horrible to consider. Then, the coffin was lifted up and put into the fire and the doors closed. I don't know if I have ever felt so horribly sad and empty to know my dear friend was gone.

One of the more interesting things that I learned and experienced from the funeral was the stoic and unemotional reaction from all Cambodians attending, except for Manit's mother, sister etc. The others, including my staff who had worked with Manit for the past year and a half never showed any emotion about his death. I understand that it is their Buddhist nature but it was difficult to reconcile with my frequent crying jags. There point was that he must have had a bad life and the next life will be better. All I could see and feel that someone I cared so much about was gone.

Later that day there was a ceremony at Manit's family's house. I had not met Manit's mother before but Manit was so obviously her son, reflecting her grace and warmth. I found sometime to talk to her, with Sima as my translator. Sima, Manit's best friend, was a true rock during this time but I knew he was really hurting inside like I was. I told his Mother how much her son meant to me. I told her that I considered him my friend but almost like a son because he could make me so proud by the things he did and then could frustrate me with his carelessness or laziness. I wanted so much for him to be a part of my life here in Cambodia and that I hoped that he, like Sima, would be with me forever as long as I was here. She was grateful and understood what Manit meant to me and that he was happy to be a part of my business.

Pictures from the funeral, the viewing:


Preparing for cremation:

Tha Thimanit

The first anniversary is soon approaching for an event that I wish I could put out of my mind: The death of my best friend in Cambodia and my best staff member Tha Thimanit. Last September 4th was one of the worst days in my life, when I found out Manit had died in a motorbike accident. There are so many reasons why this hit me so hard. Of course it was because I cared so much about him but also because I have been so lucky in my life. Everyone that was near and dear to me that had passed on, like relatives or friends, had died of old age or as expected by long illnesses. Never had there been a sudden loss of someone so close to me. Just earlier that day I had spoken to Manit about some things we need to fix in The One Hotel. He came to my house and I told him what we should do. Late that night I was at the bar when his Uncle came and told Sima (his best friend) about the accident. Sima came running back into the bar and exclaimed, "Manit die!" Stunned, I told Sima to go and find out. But, no word came by the time we closed the bar I went home feeling empty and confused. At some point I wrote out an email to my family and friends describing how this was the my worst day in Cambodia (and not to mention Manit's worst day). I drank myself to sleep that night hoping against hope that the news was not true.

The early morning brought the bleary-eyed reality. My staff came to ask me to go with them to the temple where Mani's body laid in rest. I went but was not much more than a zombie. Somewhere early on in the morning I began crying, and there was very little that day that could stop the flow of tears. How did Manit die? The story was that he had gone outside of Siem Reap with some friends and was coming back on Highway 6 that night and, in Cambodian style, had three people on the motorbike. He went to pass a car and collided head on with another motorbike with three adults on it. At 50km per hour (30mph) that would have been an impact at 100km per hour and not a single person wearing a helmet. Manit died instantly I was told, and I believe either 3 or 4 of the six people on the motorbikes died. For those of you who do not know, Camboian traffic, and traffic laws, are a joke. No regulation, no education, no enforcement etc, etc makes for a very bad situation. I had talked to Manit and other staff members (who had accidents) about how to drive more safely, defensively etc. In Manit's case, we had gone to Phnom Penh where I loaned him the money to buy a bigger motorcycle. I rode on the back of the bike with him on the way back to Siem Reap. I kept telling him along the way that he was driving too fast. His response was that it had a good motorcycle and that he was a good driver. I tried to explain that it is not about your motorbike or ability, because there is so much you can not control: like a dog running into your path (or cows here), a child and their ball, other drivers who are not paying attention. You are only as safe as your ability to anticipate and react to what others are doing. But when you are young and feel like you will live forever, the message is not easy to get through. But to this day I know that I tried.

For that first day, I will be forever grateful for the friends that came and paid their respects to Manit and offered their support to me: John and Narisa McDermott were so very kind, Nick Downing from Hotel de la Paix, Dirk de Graaff from Golden Banana Boutique and others who I am sure I am forgetting. I was a mess and yet felt the warmth of their friendship and their appreciation of what Manit meant to them. Later that first day, after spending most of the day at the temple I decided that we would go ahead and open Linga Bar that night. What else where we going to do, sit around and look at the walls and do nothing? No, I felt it best to be together with all of the staff and it was the right idea as we made a small memorial for Manit and many of our friends stopped by to offer their condolences and spend some time with us. It certainly was not about the revenue as I could have cared less. We served drinks to our friends that stopped by but would not take any payments. If they wanted, they could donate to a fund that we would give to Manit's family to help them during this difficult time. Here is a picture from that night:

$2,000 and 10 inches

I just came back from another trip to Bangkok yesterday. I had bought some new plate ware as what we bought originally was from when Linga Bar opened four years ago. I was a bit distressed when I walked into the kitchen recently and saw that we had very little left after four years of use, breakage etc. So, as I was bumping along in the taxi from Poipet to Siem Reap praying that our new plates would not arrive in broken pieces, I remembered a funny story from the opening of The One Hotel.

The story goes that several months before we opened I was given the opportunity to get a flat screen TV delivered locally, at 42" plasma TV. I jumped on the chance realizing that it would be much easier to get it that way. When the TV arrived earlier I brought it to my house and used it in the interim. We measured the area at The One Hotel where the TV would go, built a really cool bracket that would mount on the wall flat and then swing out to be viewed from the bed. A day before we were to install the TV I had to come to the house with our architect Ivan to take some final measurements. He commented that the TV was not very secured (it was being held upright in a base). Nothing to do at that point as it was going to the hotel the next day. That night I went to bed and at about 5am I heard the loudest and worst shattering noise. Somehow the TV had tipped over and landed on the floor. When I leapt from my bed and found it face down on the floor of the living room I kept repeating to myself, "It is ok, it will be fine, it will still work." When I turned the TV over you could see the shattered insides. I then went to my computer and logged on to do a Google search about how to repair broken plasma screens. The results were unanimous: You are out of luck, just scrap it and buy a new TV as the replacement cost is the same as buying new.

It was a tough blow. Later I went to Bangkok and bought a new 32" LCD tv. It was through this process I learned the difference between LCD and plasma. LCD is crisper and cleared and good for smaller rooms (perfect for The One Hotel) while plasma was better in bigger spaces. The new TV cost $2,000 so my joke was that I lost $2,000 and 10" and I don't know which hurt more.

Even though I got the new TV I was determined to get the broken plasma screen fixed. I took the TV back to Bangkok and asked everywhere. The problem was that it was not a name brand TV but a knock off. No one knew what to do with it. I looked everywhere but to no avail. Finally, I found one store that would come to look at it. They said, no way. At this point I was not about to let this TV go (that I had spent more than $2,000 on) so I brought the broken TV back and asked my friend Loven to turn it into an art piece. It now hangs in Linga Bar's dance area and certainly does not receive the proper recognition it should. Someday I will turn it into a coffee table. The interesting thing is that the exact same TV we bought for The One Hotel to replace the broken one was $2,000. For Hotel Be I bought nearly identical TV's for only $700 which shows you the direction of pricing for flat screen TVs. But, word to the wise, keep them secure!

Cambodian Elections

I arrived in Siem Reap to live about four and a half years ago, just after the last election here in Cambodia. In that election no party won a majority of parliamentary seats so for the next year there was no formed government here. Not that you could tell any difference as things went on as normal. So, I was interested to see how this year's election would happen. There was not much suspense as Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party had a firm lock on the political landscape. As the election neared I met with my staff to let them know that I expected them to vote, that I would give them the time off work to do so and I would compensate them for travel expenses or a bonus for those that voted. I did not realize it but voters have to go their home towns/provinces in order to vote, no absentee votes possible. So, some of my staff could not vote due to living to far away. Also, many were not registered to vote. In the end, only three of 15 staff voted but it was kind of a mini-holiday for us as businesses were closed.

I went out for my usual bike ride on Sunday afternoon, election day. I took to the back roads like I tend to do, because the scenery is so much more interesting. I passed several voting booths that had been setup for the occasion along my usual route. It was late in the afternoon and I guess 6pm came and went because as I was passed by a small caravan of motorbikes. On the motorbikes were some election officials with the ballot box and other gear. About six or seven motorbikes in total. I really felt like I was a minor witness to history, democracy as it happened. The caravan continued and I followed along as best I could, interested to see where the ballot box was headed. It ended up a local school and it all felt very normal, very peaceful. Considering the violence of past elections here (with only minor reports of violence this time) I felt a sense of relief about where Cambodia is heading. Then again, with the CPP so firmly in control the prospect of real reform here is not strong. But, progress is not always as fast as we wish it would be but it is nice to know it is going forward.