Forty Barangs on a Boat – “Go Go VSO!”

VSO PO, PP (there's never too many acronyms in Cambodia)

Piling into a cattle truck in our luminous pink t-shirts and spotless white caps the VSO boat-race team, all 40 of us, looked more like a gaggle of overgrown nursery-school kids being on a day trip than serious contenders in Cambodia’s most prestigious sporting event – the Phnom Penh Boat Race. Years ago the annual race down the Mekong was held to identify the strongest and bravest Khmers who would serve as the king’s personal guards. Today, the prize at the end of three days of racing is monetary rather than a job promotion but the prestige remains the same. Provincial teams qualify throughout the year in a series of trails and Phnom Penh teams are given places based on previous years’ merits, ability to pay and the closeness of their relation through marriage to those in power. Unsurprisingly, Hun Sen’s cronies had two boats in the race. Then there was us. And the Army boat. And the Navy boat.

Luckily, we weren’t actually pitted against the Cambodian Navy but against Kandal Province, who, kitted out in their professional looking red and blue uniforms only served to make our bright pink affairs even more laughable. One benefit did come from them however; it made our impending failure seem less great as it was made clear from one glance at us that we were not in this with any expectations of serious sporting prowess. They must have jumped for joy at being drawn against the only Barang boat in the competition. It was effectively a free ticket into the next round.

After being pretty much towed up the river by our opponents and setting off back downstream, they were ahead of us by half a boat length after just a few strokes. Finally, we reached the end of the course (although missed passing between the actual finishing flags having veered off course sometime before) and had an official position of 3rd out of 2 boats due to our being overtaken by the winning boat of the race behind us. Nevertheless, this is a considerable improvement on last year’s 7th out of 2 boats so it’s a considerable achievement in my eyes!

Even if our race was a debarcle, the atmosphere whilst we were squeezed in the boat rafted up between some of the best rowers in Cambodia exchanging pleasantries, jibes and dodging flying bottles of drinking water which I think were thrown in generosity, is not something I will forget soon. Yet again, I feel privileged, if slightly uneasy about it, that I have experienced something that even most Khmers won’t get to take part in.