{"id":9119,"date":"2015-05-15T07:50:19","date_gmt":"2015-05-15T00:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/?p=9119"},"modified":"2015-05-15T08:51:35","modified_gmt":"2015-05-15T01:51:35","slug":"kool-kong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/2015\/05\/15\/kool-kong\/","title":{"rendered":"Kool Kong"},"content":{"rendered":"

One might be tempted to dismiss Koh Kong, Cambodia\u00a0as simply another same-same dusty-border-town\u2122<\/span> astride that long and lonesome trail and, when passing through, therefore hole it\u00a0up inside\u00a0of one\u2019s\u00a0hotel room all the day long\u00a0in a bid to escape the overwhelmingly oppressive heat. Better had watch where you point that thing, though, \u2018cause Koh Kong\u2019s denizens are stone-cold, down-right, lock-it-up,\u00a0ass-bumpin\u2019 cool<\/em>. They\u2019re the kind of cool that don\u2019t know<\/em> they\u2019re cool, don\u2019t have a clue in the world what cool even is<\/em>, and wouldn\u2019t give a flyin\u2019 fuck<\/em> if\u00a0you explained it to them. In other words, they\u2019re the badass kind of cool. (Or perhaps there is no other kind?)<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s the proximity to the frontier, allowing enough of the\u00a0Thais\u2019 too-weird-for-words\u00a0voodoo to admix with the inherent Cambodian laid-back disposition to create just that perfect, syncretistic, the-fuck<\/em>-you-lookin’-at? blend. Koh Kong:\u00a0The goddam swirl cone<\/em> of Southeast Asia. Mostly, the cool people are riding bicycles.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s reminiscent, in that way, of Bhairawa, Nepal — another favoured-by-me dusty border town whose bicycle-ridin\u2019\u00a0inhabitants elevate it to near legendary memory-bank status. (And indeed, much as does Thailand’s in Koh Kong,\u00a0the influence of\u00a0Nepal\u2019s inescapable southern neighbour in Bhairawa is surely most palpable —\u00a0yet in\u00a0the end cannot, thank the maker, be said to completely overwhelm the indigenous Nepali vibe.)<\/p>\n

See below a few hastily cobbled photographic examples. But in case the evidence makes it appear that I\u2019m overstating the case, please know that it\u2019s near impossible to get good best shots of the coolest scenes\u00a0\u2013 even with camera at the ready, by the time you realise that\u00a0you\u2019re in the presence<\/em> of cool, the moment has already passed.<\/p>\n

I humbly\u00a0and ashamedly\u00a0do report that I missed one of the very, very best all-time photo opportunities\u00a0\u2013 an eight- or nine-year-old boy ferrying Durians to the family\u2019s Market stall in a rickety wooden cart. \u2018twas not\u00a0(as fate would have it) in this instance the case that it all played out too quickly to capture on film; but rather that my hands were full of produce, and it would\u2019ve made\u00a0retrieving camera from pocket\u00a0such a pain in the asshole. (Guess that\u2019s the difference between myself and a real artist: The latter would be willing to suffer any indignity, to take on any burden\u00a0—\u00a0even if it meant rustling their bags of fruit to and fro\u2019\u00a0\u2013 to reel in the shot they wanted.)<\/p>\n

Oddly enough,\u00a0the Kong also\u00a0appears (to top it off)\u00a0to be some sort of furniture<\/em> hub. Walk around town, and every five minutes or so, you\u2019ll see somebody transporting a massive piece of same from shoppe to home\u00a0— \u00a0atop their motorcycle<\/em>, no less. From the Buddha\u2019s arse to my lips, I promise you\u2019ll get a giggle out of it. Heh, there\u2019s even a local cafe<\/em> whose sign\u00a0boasts of its prowess in\u00a0dealing \u201cevery kind of furniture\u201d in addition<\/em> to its culinary offerings.<\/p>\n

So Koh Kong deserves a day or two of your attentions, sez I. If you stay at 99\u00a0Guesthouse, you can even score a free bicycle to go and check out the local surrounds\u00a0\u2013\u00a0or, simply\u00a0to ride around town pretending that you\u2019re a goddam citizen<\/em> of the Kong,\u00a0secure in the knowledge\u00a0that this fact alone\u00a0makes you\u00a0one of the coolest peeps now-or-ever alive on this-here planet of the Earths.\u00a0(Just don\u2019t arrive on the fucking king\u2019s birthday, or you\u2019ll be shit-out-of-luck\u00a0attempting to suss out\u00a0an inexpensive bed for the evening…)<\/p>\n

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One might be tempted to dismiss Koh Kong, Cambodia\u00a0as simply another same-same dusty-border-town\u2122 astride that long and lonesome trail and, when passing through, therefore hole it\u00a0up inside\u00a0of one\u2019s\u00a0hotel room all the day long\u00a0in a bid to escape the overwhelmingly oppressive … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/durianapocalypse.net\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}