jonathanperkin
Greenlighter
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2015
- Messages
- 4
The Happy Hippy
We arrived by nightfall; there were five of us crammed into a small Cambodian taxi, four of across the back seat and Freddy in the front with our luggage. It was a long journey but we had finally arrived. We piled out into the heat of the jungle night. We did not know what to expect. All we saw was a main building with shacks adjacent to it on all sides.
We walked up the driveway and were greeted at the gate by the main host Joe. Joe was a short man. He had a pallid expression, covered in sweat and was only five foot tall with hunched back. He looked like and was a junkie. He was half talking and muttering madness straight from the start of meeting him. We had chosen this particular guesthouse because we had read online that it cultivated and sold a high strain of cannabis but it was quite obvious from the owner’s demeanour that there was more to it.
So there was Freddy, Tom, Will, Dom and I. Tom and I were put in an air-conditioned room upstairs and the others were put in a less prosperous room downstairs with just fans and apparently uncomfortable beds. I never checked out their living quarters but two days later, enough was enough, and they moved out and moved down into the town of Skhinoukville, to stay in a proper hotel leaving Tom and me in the heart of darkness.
Joe was a crystal meth and heroin addict. We first realized this about 15 minutes after putting our bags into our rooms when he pulled out a bottle and a straw and started smoking ice in front of our ‘trying not to be shocked’ faces. He offered us some. We all politely turned down his offer and stuck to the weed. Joe had employees if you can call them that. I reckon he just paid them in junk, as they all look terribly thin and under nourished. He seemed almost god like to them. It was only after leaving the place I found out he was manufacturing methamphetamine there on site no wonder they thought he was god.
Tom and my days consisted of waking up rolling joints the sizes of our forearms. We would walk down to the beach and smoke them in the warm shallow seawater, which was waist deep for hundreds of meters out. All this seemed perfect to us and we had made no plans to leave. Joe also had an extensive drug menu, which we would delve into testing and experimenting all the different pills and powers. In particular we bought a lot of ketamine. The ketamine came with rules. Joe did not want us to leave our room while under the influence on ketamine, he was scared we would start ‘fucking shit up’ and scaring the other guest. The rules were broken a lot seeing as we were on the stuff all day and night.
There was a particular incident, which happened at night where Tom had laid a line down, the size of one of the cabinets in the room and we both had one. It made me bed ridden. But for some strange reason Tom went downstairs to speak to Joe. I assumed he was getting more drugs. Anyhow he returned seemingly hours later and he had told me he had pissed Joe off and it was over ordering a pizza. I said ‘who cares lets do some more ketamine’. Tom said ‘not until the pizza gets here’. I was thinking you probably never even ordered a pizza its all in your head but sure enough 15 minute later Joe opens the door to our room. Throws the pizza at us, yelling ‘here’s your fucking pizza’. Maybe we should have respected his ketamine rule.
There was another incident with ketamine and Joe. Joe had a lounge downstairs where he would sit and smoke ice. Tom and I sat with him and asked if we could put the film Full Metal Jacket on. Joe agreed and during this film, Tom and I thought it would be necessary to do some ketamine and seeing as we were sitting with Joe. We thought it would be polite to offer him a line. Joe accepted and it messed him up. Joe had a small Cambodian wife called Mai. While on ketamine Joe kept on reminding his wife, he was on ketamine in his stupid Australian accent ‘hey Mai I’m on ketamine’. We decided to leave him in his state he was being too loud and annoying to enjoy a good film like that.
Joe’s guesthouse was called The Happy Hippy and Joe, the leader was anything but happy. He did not sleep. He was on chemicals all day and night. He was drugs personified. It’s good to be staying somewhere like this when you are into drugs yourself but he was on a different level, an evil level. He walked with a sort of stoop and his greasy; sweat-ridden face looked cold even in this climate. Tom and I would escape from The Happy Hippy’s madness to a huge casino, which overshadowed the guesthouse. It was open 24/7, it had a good restaurant, ATM’s’ and all the gambling essentials but I don’t gamble. It also had a small shop where you could buy all your essentials like chocolates and sweets. It was the perfect getaway. Another perfect getaway was the beach where with our massive joints we would just sit in the sand and chat for hours and forget about Joe and his gang of crack heads. Sadly, we would always have to go back into the hole, from which we came.
One night we decided to go into Shkinouville and meet the other guys as they were settled in downtown and knew some good bars, so we bought two ecstasy pills from Joe and hailed a rickshaw to take us there. The town was about a 15 minutes drive away. Fred, Dom and Will had been coming up here during the week to score cannabis, as Joe’s was the best in town. We arrived at the bar. It was cool; there were swimming pools, girls and a crocodile. The ecstasy had put us not in the same mood as the rest of the party so it was not long before we were in a rickshaw off back to Joe’s, planning to buy some of his LSD and more ketamine. Which we did. The night was haze. I remember a point where we are facing each other on a sofa’s downstairs, pitch black with no lights on and there was a small cocker spaniel dog running around our legs. We were just giggling like schoolgirls. The LSD makes you sleepless, so no matter how much ketamine we did we never got knocked out. We would take it in turns to knock on Joe’s living quarters, a caravan; to see if could give us the right pills to make us sleep. He would shout at us for waking him up although I doubt he was asleep and then add the pill to our ever-growing drug bill.
The Happy Hippy had an honesty bar also; it was a book on top of a fridge full of coca colas and beers. If you took one, you mark your room down. Ours was getting big. At one point, one of Joe’s workers left the honesty book in our room and we realised we had entries in two parts of the book. Thinking fast tom ripped the biggest bill out and burnt it in our ashtray. That will teach those meth heads.
By this point we had been there well over a week and a half and shown no signs of leaving. The place had sucked us in and was showing no signs of spitting us out. The longer we stayed; the crazier it got. The relationship with Joe was deteriorating. At first he treated us with slight respect now he just shouted about bills and nonsense. What did we care we wanted his drugs and he had a hell of a supply.
It was only after leaving The Happy Hippy and being back in the UK that I got a real idea of the supply that Joe had. Unfortunately, the Cambodian army raided Joe not long after our stay there. They uncovered a large scale operation of heroin smuggling, methamphetamine production and off site cannabis cultivation, all this plus his own collection off illegal pills and potions.
It was an experience, which I would never get to live again. It was a bit like living in a crack house in Brooklyn New York but in the Cambodian jungle. It was wild, rock and roll; the casualties were Joe and his strange gang of followers. Maybe they deserve to be locked up right now or maybe they just need rehab and help like normal addicts.
We arrived by nightfall; there were five of us crammed into a small Cambodian taxi, four of across the back seat and Freddy in the front with our luggage. It was a long journey but we had finally arrived. We piled out into the heat of the jungle night. We did not know what to expect. All we saw was a main building with shacks adjacent to it on all sides.
We walked up the driveway and were greeted at the gate by the main host Joe. Joe was a short man. He had a pallid expression, covered in sweat and was only five foot tall with hunched back. He looked like and was a junkie. He was half talking and muttering madness straight from the start of meeting him. We had chosen this particular guesthouse because we had read online that it cultivated and sold a high strain of cannabis but it was quite obvious from the owner’s demeanour that there was more to it.
So there was Freddy, Tom, Will, Dom and I. Tom and I were put in an air-conditioned room upstairs and the others were put in a less prosperous room downstairs with just fans and apparently uncomfortable beds. I never checked out their living quarters but two days later, enough was enough, and they moved out and moved down into the town of Skhinoukville, to stay in a proper hotel leaving Tom and me in the heart of darkness.
Joe was a crystal meth and heroin addict. We first realized this about 15 minutes after putting our bags into our rooms when he pulled out a bottle and a straw and started smoking ice in front of our ‘trying not to be shocked’ faces. He offered us some. We all politely turned down his offer and stuck to the weed. Joe had employees if you can call them that. I reckon he just paid them in junk, as they all look terribly thin and under nourished. He seemed almost god like to them. It was only after leaving the place I found out he was manufacturing methamphetamine there on site no wonder they thought he was god.
Tom and my days consisted of waking up rolling joints the sizes of our forearms. We would walk down to the beach and smoke them in the warm shallow seawater, which was waist deep for hundreds of meters out. All this seemed perfect to us and we had made no plans to leave. Joe also had an extensive drug menu, which we would delve into testing and experimenting all the different pills and powers. In particular we bought a lot of ketamine. The ketamine came with rules. Joe did not want us to leave our room while under the influence on ketamine, he was scared we would start ‘fucking shit up’ and scaring the other guest. The rules were broken a lot seeing as we were on the stuff all day and night.
There was a particular incident, which happened at night where Tom had laid a line down, the size of one of the cabinets in the room and we both had one. It made me bed ridden. But for some strange reason Tom went downstairs to speak to Joe. I assumed he was getting more drugs. Anyhow he returned seemingly hours later and he had told me he had pissed Joe off and it was over ordering a pizza. I said ‘who cares lets do some more ketamine’. Tom said ‘not until the pizza gets here’. I was thinking you probably never even ordered a pizza its all in your head but sure enough 15 minute later Joe opens the door to our room. Throws the pizza at us, yelling ‘here’s your fucking pizza’. Maybe we should have respected his ketamine rule.
There was another incident with ketamine and Joe. Joe had a lounge downstairs where he would sit and smoke ice. Tom and I sat with him and asked if we could put the film Full Metal Jacket on. Joe agreed and during this film, Tom and I thought it would be necessary to do some ketamine and seeing as we were sitting with Joe. We thought it would be polite to offer him a line. Joe accepted and it messed him up. Joe had a small Cambodian wife called Mai. While on ketamine Joe kept on reminding his wife, he was on ketamine in his stupid Australian accent ‘hey Mai I’m on ketamine’. We decided to leave him in his state he was being too loud and annoying to enjoy a good film like that.
Joe’s guesthouse was called The Happy Hippy and Joe, the leader was anything but happy. He did not sleep. He was on chemicals all day and night. He was drugs personified. It’s good to be staying somewhere like this when you are into drugs yourself but he was on a different level, an evil level. He walked with a sort of stoop and his greasy; sweat-ridden face looked cold even in this climate. Tom and I would escape from The Happy Hippy’s madness to a huge casino, which overshadowed the guesthouse. It was open 24/7, it had a good restaurant, ATM’s’ and all the gambling essentials but I don’t gamble. It also had a small shop where you could buy all your essentials like chocolates and sweets. It was the perfect getaway. Another perfect getaway was the beach where with our massive joints we would just sit in the sand and chat for hours and forget about Joe and his gang of crack heads. Sadly, we would always have to go back into the hole, from which we came.
One night we decided to go into Shkinouville and meet the other guys as they were settled in downtown and knew some good bars, so we bought two ecstasy pills from Joe and hailed a rickshaw to take us there. The town was about a 15 minutes drive away. Fred, Dom and Will had been coming up here during the week to score cannabis, as Joe’s was the best in town. We arrived at the bar. It was cool; there were swimming pools, girls and a crocodile. The ecstasy had put us not in the same mood as the rest of the party so it was not long before we were in a rickshaw off back to Joe’s, planning to buy some of his LSD and more ketamine. Which we did. The night was haze. I remember a point where we are facing each other on a sofa’s downstairs, pitch black with no lights on and there was a small cocker spaniel dog running around our legs. We were just giggling like schoolgirls. The LSD makes you sleepless, so no matter how much ketamine we did we never got knocked out. We would take it in turns to knock on Joe’s living quarters, a caravan; to see if could give us the right pills to make us sleep. He would shout at us for waking him up although I doubt he was asleep and then add the pill to our ever-growing drug bill.
The Happy Hippy had an honesty bar also; it was a book on top of a fridge full of coca colas and beers. If you took one, you mark your room down. Ours was getting big. At one point, one of Joe’s workers left the honesty book in our room and we realised we had entries in two parts of the book. Thinking fast tom ripped the biggest bill out and burnt it in our ashtray. That will teach those meth heads.
By this point we had been there well over a week and a half and shown no signs of leaving. The place had sucked us in and was showing no signs of spitting us out. The longer we stayed; the crazier it got. The relationship with Joe was deteriorating. At first he treated us with slight respect now he just shouted about bills and nonsense. What did we care we wanted his drugs and he had a hell of a supply.
It was only after leaving The Happy Hippy and being back in the UK that I got a real idea of the supply that Joe had. Unfortunately, the Cambodian army raided Joe not long after our stay there. They uncovered a large scale operation of heroin smuggling, methamphetamine production and off site cannabis cultivation, all this plus his own collection off illegal pills and potions.
It was an experience, which I would never get to live again. It was a bit like living in a crack house in Brooklyn New York but in the Cambodian jungle. It was wild, rock and roll; the casualties were Joe and his strange gang of followers. Maybe they deserve to be locked up right now or maybe they just need rehab and help like normal addicts.
