This has certainly been a trip of many “firsts”. First time visiting a developing country, first solo adventure, first scuba diving experience, etc. But as this Cambodia trip winds down, I started thinking to myself: I could technically have done all of these activities elsewhere. I mentioned in an earlier post: choosing Cambodia for this trip was a total crapshoot. A crapshoot that – nonetheless – I’ve enjoyed to the max and tried to take full advantage of. But I thought, there’s got to be something I can do to totally justify coming here.

… Why here, why now?

Well, let me just quickly answer that for you: In Cambodia, you can blow up a house. With an RPG.

But before you hear about my first (and likely, only) experience ever using a bazooka/rocket launcher to blow up a house, I have to get some of the boring-but-necessary-because-this-is-a-travel-diary business out of the way.

Question for you: Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night only to discover you’ve gotten a mosquito bite? I don’t know about you, but unless I am able to hit the mosquito immediately, I lie in bed facing the ceiling, eyes wide open. SO PARANOID (and not to mention bitter because I know there is that one mosquito flying around who has stolen my blood. Without asking. Rude.) Well that happened to me two nights ago (the self-ordained “Night-Before-Bazooka”). I woke up at 3:30AM completely disoriented from paranoia and could not for the life of me get back to sleep.

Luckily, I looked in one of the closets in my hotel room and found bug spray. Guys, I kid you not, just three minutes after I excessively sprayed my entire room… I found 4 mosquitoes dead on my bed. It was raining mosquitoes – like something out of a horror movie.

Anyhow, I assume justice was served on the mosquito that bit me, and hence fell asleep around 5AM. It’s sad, though. I thought I’d be able to scrape by this entire trip without a single mosquito bite. Remember the “Expectation” I set before leaving for Cambodia that I’d be mauled by mosquitoes because I usually am under any other circumstance? Well I took extra, extra precautions here and lathered on 30% DEET (insect repellent) like it were suntan lotion (I know, guys. It’s a carcinogen and I shouldn’t have done it. I won’t do it again.) Also, DEET even smells like a carcinogen. P.U.!

But yes, the only time of day I was truly  vulnerable to mosquitoes was the nighttime after I showered; and alas, that one mosquito capitalized on the opportunity. Then it just became a domino effect and I got two more bites shortly after… on my face. So now I have a grand total of three mosquito bites: one on my left arm, two on my face, and a big fat pimple that looks like a mosquito bite (… but I swear it’s a pimple.) Hehe, that was unnecessary. I guess Cambodia was just too much humidity/sweat for my skin to handle…

OKAY COOL. NOW LET’S GET TO THE JUICY PART: So let the record show that this is the absolute closest I will EVER get to being a real life Lara Croft. (But really, can you tell that’s the goal I’ve been anchoring on this entire trip???)

So yeah, I mentioned in my last post that I was completely bored out of my mind in Phnom Penh. Oh, but first and foremost, I want to apologize if I sounded whiny or disdainful in my last post. I absolutely did not intend for it to come off that way – I just simply found most of the things I was doing in Phnom Penh (e.g. the Royal Palace, Aeon Mall) to be uninspiring for my own taste. I’m not saying anything about the value/worth of the attractions themselves.

So okay… back once again in my hotel room – nothing to do. I Google-searched activities to do in Cambodia. Nothing interesting turned up. When I was hanging out with Jeff (my Peace Corps friend) earlier this week, he mentioned something about a shooting range with bazookas. At that time, I thought, Ha! That would be ridiculous and hilarious. Too bad I’ve already planned all my days out in Phnom Penh… Well turns out, the joke was on me – I finished everything I wanted to do in Phnom Penh for the four days in just 1.5 days. And at this point, I was grasping at straws on things to do (which led to that “two-massages-in-two-days” ridiculosity.)

I was absolutely desperate, so I looked up Cambodia Shooting, and emailed the Director Steven. “Hi, I’m interested in shooting an RPG. Just one person. Please let me know if I could do it tomorrow or the day after.” Meh, worth a try. SEND.

A couple of hours later (and I wish I were making this up), I receive the below email from Steven:

… OH, HELL YEAH. SOLD.

I don’t know if you guys have heard the rumors about how you can not only just shoot a bazooka/rocket launcher in Cambodia, but you can literally blow up a living, breathing cow. Later on, I asked Steven if it actually happens. He says he’s never seen it, but has heard about it as well (and is pretty sure it’s done somewhere.) No bueno, though. Why would you ever do that? 😦

Well, anyway, if you guys have time, check out this hilarious Reddit post of a guy who has the most epic of experiences in Cambodia (I promise, it’s on topic.) My friend sent it to me just recently. I will offer a disclaimer, though. This story involves recreational drug use. And animal abuse. Both of which I am NOT condoning. So proceed with caution: I’m sharing this SOLELY for the laughs.

But yes, within 48 hours of emailing Steven, I was scheduled to blow up a house. (Don’t think I’ll ever be able to say that again.) So, real talk: This was as non-sketchy an operation as something like this could be…… but not gonna lie, it was still damn sketchy. I never gave my full name, I never signed any waivers, no nothing. Just a simple “Oh, you want to go? Okay, you’re going.”

Friday morning was a struggle (you just read about my whole mosquito debacle). I woke up groggier than usual… but DUUUUUDE, today was THE DAY. Nothing could dampen my mood at this point.  YEEEEE.

Steven, the Director of the company, and his driver picked me up at my hotel and we promptly went to pick up another customer (his name is John). It happened to be John’s birthday that day (what a way to celebrate!) so we picked up a cake from the supermarket and started heading towards the Shooting Range.

To give you a sense of how “stringent” law enforcement is in Cambodia… while driving, our driver pulled an illegal U-turn directly in front of a police officer. The officer promptly flagged him down and told him to stop. Upon stopping, our driver just rolled down the window, laughed at the cop, pat him on the back, and said (in Cambodian) “haaaa it’s okay right? It’s okay!” The police offer just smiled, pat him right back and said “alright, go.” WHAAAAAAT.

Now you can imagine that even in Cambodia, “the land with no rules”, you can’t just shoot an RPG in the middle of a city. So of course we headed out far, far away, around 60 kilometers outside the city of Phnom Penh into the countryside. It took us around an hour and ten minutes to get to the site, where a few military personnel were waiting for us with all the goods. And by “goods”, I mean…

Of course, ideally I wanted to try ALL OF THEM. But alas, I am under a budget.

So I had my eye on the prize…… I wanted to shoot that damn bazooka.

Why, you ask?

HA – silly question. As a kid, I used to always play GoldenEye 007 (the James Bond game) on the Nintendo 64. There is a multiplayer mode in the game where you only use “Rockets”. The rocket launchers, if on target, were pretty much always lethal. I WANTED TO EXPERIENCE THAT POWER. Moreover, DUHHH, I wanted to be like a real-life Call of Duty character shooting an RPG.

They also had on hand AK-47’s, M60’s, M16’s, etc. Since I’ve only ever shot a pistol before, I figured I’d give a machine gun a whirl. Chose the M60… RAMBO STYLE :).

So those were the toys.

Now onto our target. Like I said, we were in the countryside – complete isolation. Except for that little itty bitty house/hut over there :).

This hut was actually built the morning of (starting at 6AM) by the men of the shooting range for the sole purpose of watching it blow up. ISN’T IT CUTE?!?!?! As you can see/and will see later on, it’s extremely sturdy and structurally sound. The hut was placed ~100 meters from where we shot. It was quite a distance.

Of course, we didn’t want to just blow up the hut. We wanted it to go KABOOMMMMMM[insert infinite M’s]. So inside the hut, we placed one large gas canister filled with diesel (the green and yellow barrel) and two LPG’s (the orange propane tanks).

Okay, at this point, the prospect of shooting a rocket launcher was starting to hit me. My heart began to race.

Btw, if you wanted, you could also throw hand grenades. This is the area they set aside to do so (you aim towards that little pit of water and then duck and cover):

John, being the birthday boy, had the first shot at the hut using the bazooka. I really, really wanted him to blow it up – how awesome would that be as a birthday gift!?

So while he was on the bazooka, I was on the M60. The thought was that if he blew it up, I would use the M60 to shoot at any of the unpunctured canisters to release all the gas and maximize the kaboom.

Even just waiting for his shot was nerve-wracking for me as I was concentrated on aiming the M60. These nerves were compounded by the fact that the first two RPGs John tried didn’t even fire. It was “THREE! TWO! ONE!….. <click>”. No kaboom. AND THAT HAPPENED TWICE. The General had to go back and reload a new RPG into the bazooka each time. Man, I was so nervous to experience my first RPG explosion.

But then the third try… “THREE! TWO! ONE!………<one second goes by> KABOOM!!!” I will never forget the reverberations I felt throughout my body. I lifted my head from aiming the M60 and look at the black smoke rising from behind the hut. John’s RPG had just whisked by the left side of the hut without making contact with any of the canisters. NOOOOOOOO SO DAMN CLOSE. It was truly saddening… but I didn’t even have time to catch my breath.

“Now you!” The General pointed at me.

Oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god

I put in my ear plugs and walked slowly towards him. This is it.

I tried aiming the bazooka. The bazooka itself is only about ten pounds – definitely not heavy. However, it was so much harder to aim because the General was putting so much pressure on the back of the gun to prevent me from pointing it downwards and blowing us all up into a million pieces.

I wasn’t ready. “THREE TWO ONE!” I didn’t fire. “THREE TWO ONE!” Again, I didn’t fire.

“I’M NOT READY!” I yell, laughing nervously. I take a deep breath.

“THREE TWO ONE!”….. <click>. It didn’t go off.

*huge sigh* The General walked back to get another RPG. Good, I have more time to mentally prepare myself. 

When he got back, I again assumed the firing stance and started to aim.

“THREE TWO ONE!”…….. <click>.

*groan* Again? Okay, shake it off. You can do this. Next time’s the charm.

Try number three: “THREE TWO ONE!”…… <click>

OKAY WHO IS PLAYING THIS SICK JOKE ON ME. AM I SERIOUSLY NEVER GOING TO BE ABLE TO FIRE THIS DAMN BAZOOKA? 

At this point, I look back at the group. One of the Generals’ sons (12 years old) was casually biking in holding a bunch of RPG missiles. His air of nonchalance performing this job was quite comical, actually.

The General walked back and loaded another RPG.

Okay, I’m ready now. I’ve had enough practice aiming. Easy peasy.

I hold the bazooka up. Aim. Bingo, I have it.

“THREE…TWO…ONE!” <click>….. KABOOM!!!!

Holy crap, it fired! I just fired a bazooka! I am literally Bond, James Bond. Croft, Lara Croft. 

… except I missed the hut. The explosion occurred a couple of meters behind it.

I look back at Steven. He’s clapping. “Great shot!! You literally missed the hut by about a meter to the right. Awesome.”

100 meter distance, one meter off? I’m think I’m okay with that.

But yeah, the recoil was honestly not bad at all, since the gun is resting on top of the shoulder. It was the thunderous KABOOM that really got me and the power/heat of the explosion. Absolutely incredible.

Steven got it all on video and hasn’t gotten the footage to me yet. I will absolutely share it with you when I receive it. In the meantime, I’ll show you some photos I ripped from my GoPro video (I had a guy help me film while I shot. Replaying it, I thought my reactions when the “duds” didn’t go were the funniest. I was legitimately freaking out LOL.) Again, I’ll share that later on.

If you look really closely at the below picture, you can see the RPG going towards the hut (it’s the horizontal line that’s about to hit where the tree is.) The hut is on the far right.

By that point, John and I were so frustrated with that damn hut.

PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE. 

That hut needed to die.

John decided he was going to go for another RPG. I went back onto the M60 to clean up after him if he was able to successfully blow it up.

… Unfortunately, his second RPG was just short of the hut (I will show you a picture later of how deep that RPG buried itself in the ground).

We were both so aggravated, but also felt semi-defeated. We ended up having to give the hut a head start by setting the base on fire, then we shot our M60 and AK-47, respectively, at the gas canister/LPG tanks.

… BUT EVEN THAT WAS QUITE A FEAT! I swear we were both hitting the canister/tanks soooo many times with our rounds, but nothing would ignite/blow up!

I was on the M60 (Rambo machine gun):

Finally, John switched to an M16, and within seconds…  *hisssss* KAAABOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Fire and explosion! I could feel the heat from the 100 meters away.

But man, was that a truly satisfying way to see that hut go down in flames. Die, hut, die. You were a trooper, but alas, we have prevailed. The smoke off in the distance, after the flames petered out:

You can see here that we punctured that diesel gas container so many damn times, and it wouldn’t ignite. Granted, we didn’t fill it all the way up with diesel (it was only 10L worth of gas.)

Mendi “Lara Croft Rambo James Bond” Sui (A girl can dream, can’t she?)

So much adrenaline! So much excitement! My heart was still palpitating a good hour or two after the bazooka shot.

Now for some (quite frankly, really embarrassing) poses with the guns:

Me and John (he’s from Australia!):

RAAAAWWRRRR!!!

HAHAHAHAHA this photo below made me laugh so hard when I checked my pictures on the car ride back. The little boy who was helping me take photos with my GoPro took a selfie! Not sure if it were accidental or not, but SO CUTE ❤

We (and the General’s boys/friends) walked over to assess the damage to the hut. As you can see, the hut structure was still in tact. Not bad for a four-hour construction job the morning of its impending doom. My hats off to these boys and their fathers for building it!

LOOK AT THAT HOLE JOHN’S SECOND RPG DUG INTO THE GROUND!

Afterwards, we had cake to celebrate John’s birthday. Everyone, including the Generals and the boys, got a slice. It was so heartwarming seeing their faces light up as they took their pieces (as you can imagine, they can’t indulge in cake very often). The look on one of the little boys’ faces when we offered him a second slice is an image that will forever be etched in my memory. Melts my heart thinking about it.

Welp, as you can tell, this was a truly breathtaking experience (LITERALLY). I’m almost positive I will never, ever be able to do this again, so I definitely cherish these moments.

Like I mentioned, Steven took more “professional” footage of the shots/explosion, so I’ll be sharing that with all of you when I get it. I will also post my GoPro footage after editing it a bit (no time now, though).

… Or maybe I’ll post it unedited so you can see my ridiculous reactions to all the “dud” RPGs… HAHAHA. Yeah, maybe I’ll do that. When my internet is faster :).

Hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my final FULL day in Cambodia! Went out with a BANG, eh?? 😉

I will post one last blog entry wrapping up my entire trip to Cambodia in the next couple of days. It’ll serve as kind of a “Retrospective/Lessons learned” type of post.

Cheers!

With love,

Mendi

13 Dec This entry was published on December 13, 2014 at 8:24 pm. It’s filed under Asia and tagged asia, Cambodia, solotravel. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.