Cambodia....then and now

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I have severe Blog Lag as one of my fellow bloggers put it...this is my Blog from when I was in Cambodia in October...

I travelled from Saigon through to Phnom Penh (Cambodia capital) on a local bus along with eight other travelling companions, people that I had met in Vietnam. Cambodia is a place where most people probably feel more comfortable travelling with a companion, however if you find yourself in the position of being a lone traveller it is a very simple country to navigate round. Not dissimilar to the rest of SE Asia where the logistics of travelling a country are easily taken out of your hands. However you do need to be careful about your personal property especially when travelling on public transport in Cambodia. Two girls that I was travelling with had their cameras stolen whilst on buses, they left their property unattended for a couple of minutes and this was all it took.

History

Although Cambodia is now a well travelled route for many people in SE Asia, you have to look back just a few years to its all too recent history to see how far it has come and what atrocities the Khmer people have had to endure:

In 1975 the Khmer Rouge, led by Brother One-Pol Pot, came to power and turned the country into a land of terror. From 1975-1979, two million people died at the hands of Pol Pots regime, at the time this was 25% of the country’s population.

Within two weeks of the Khmer Rouge coming to power, all people living in towns were ordered out to work into the fields- this was indiscriminate: the sick and the elderly were no exception. When the people were forced out of their homes they were assured by the Khmer Rouge that it was only for “two or three days” however the reality was obviously very different. The Khmer Rouges ideology was to turn the country into a classless society and force its urban population into the countryside in order to create a peasant dominated cooperative.

Cambodia became a closed country. Currency and finance was abolished, hospitals and schools closed and all private property was removed from people and anyone who questioned the authority or disobeyed orders were killed outright. People that wore glasses would live in fear as it was often symbolic of intellectualism and as such would not be tolerated by the regime. The Year 1975 was renamed Year Zero.

The Killing Fields

One of the dangers when you are travelling is that you take a word of advice from a total stranger; I am a big advocate for finding things out for yourself. There was a girl at the hostel who had been to The Killing Fields and had remarked that it was ‘just a field’, not only was this disrespectful to the country that she was in and the memory of what atrocities had taken place there but it was a massive injustice to the very sobering, informative and strangely tranquil place.

The Killing Fields was the ultimate destination for people that were being held at the S21 museum in Phnom Penh. During the years of 1975-78 about 17,000 men, women, children and infants were transported to the extermination camp where it was reported that they were often bludgeoned to death in order for the regime to save bullets, before being buried in mass graves.

Following the end of this barbaric regime, in 1980 the remains of 8985 people were exhumed from the mass burial site. The skulls are now arranged in a glass monument along with clothes and rags that were exhumed, even as you walked round The Killing Fields you could see cloths that had been buried and were surfacing.

As you would expect the place was incredibly still, people walking around reflecting on what had happened, how these people must have felt and moved into a state of quiet. It was hard not to be affected by what was before your very eyes.

S21 Museum

We also visited the S21 Museum; previously this was a high school but was turned into a prison at the hands of Pol Pot and was where people were kept before they were taken to the killing fields. This was a place of torture and the walls were littered with black and white photographs of the inmates, both before and after the torturing. It was also not uncommon to see bloodstains on the wall. Like the Killing Fields its hard not to be affected by the horrific events that lay before your eyes but that is not reason enough to see it, on the contrary you need to see what these people went through.

What I found most difficult to believe was how recently all this took place; I was a toddler in 1979- how could this go on in a ‘civilised’ world? But then I suppose you only have to look at the current situation in Zimbabwe, which at times mirrors that of Cambodia, to be reminded that atrocities are still being carried out.

Landmines

One of the worse elements of the Khmer Regime legacy is the estimated 4-6 million landmines still buried in the country, claiming about 40-50 victims a month, a staggering 40,000 Cambodians have lost limbs in this way.

It is worth being mindful of this when you travel the country and as The Lonely Planet puts it ‘Do not leave the roadside in remote areas, even for the call of nature, as your limbs are more important than your modesty’.

Angkor

Tourism is a massive market in Cambodia and it has increased 40%!e(MISSING)very year since 1998 with Angkor Wat being the main tourist attraction.

If you have spent a while travelling around SE Asia you cannot help but feel slightly 'Temple Tired', that is to take absolutely nothing away from the beauty of these buildings and the faith surrounding them. So if you can-leave Angkor to the last!

Angkor’s 100 or so temples were built between the 9th and 14th centuries AD and reflect both the Hindu and Buddhist religions that the country has seen. The principle temple with Angkor is that of Angkor Wat which was built between 1112 and 1150. It has walls that are nearly one and a half miles long and the central towers represent the Hindu home of the gods with the outer walls being the mountains enclosing the world and the moat around the temple being symbolic of the ocean. It truly is quite a spectacle and the one thing that I couldn’t get over was its vastness-no photos prepare you for that.

We spent the whole day going round the main temples, you could spend a few days at Angkor (if you were really into relics!) but I felt one was sufficient!

We got to Angkor Wat for 5 a.m. and although it didn't seem like it at the time this was a really good idea. It means that you can get to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat, or in our case see it get light (!) also its not as busy then and by ten o’clock when you are ready for a break not only is it busy but getting incredibly hot.

A few pointers regarding Angkor Wat: As protocol in many temples it is necessary to cover up your shoulders and arms, its quite a good idea to carry a small sarong or pashmina to throw over yourself when going into the temples because it gets so hot you may not want to wear a long sleeved top. Don't wear shorts; also if you wear a hat (which is a very good idea as the sun can get very fierce) remember to remove it when entering in the temple.

We were absolutely surrounded by little children at Angkor Wat, they will try and sell you anything and everything, it can be heartbreaking if you haven't been exposed to such poverty before. A good idea is to take sweets or pencils to give to the children, they are more likely to leave you alone if you give them something.

Siam Reap

Siam Reap is a lively town with a bustling area of restaurants-I really liked it (if possible venture out with other people into the town though). Every night at 5pm when dusk was falling and lights were coming on there was a power cut! I went with the two girls in my party to get their police statement and even that had to be done by candlelight…the comedy of the policeman driving into the sunset to buy candles! But the town simply can’t cope with the surge in demand for electricity so everything was conducted whilst holding a candle. Tourists may complain that the electric fans weren’t working but you have to remind yourself that we are the lucky ones, especially when you see the poverty on the streets at night: children begging and landmine victims trying to sell you books-we are lucky that this is another world to us.

The Cambodian people are such a nice race and we had a particularly lovely man working at our hotel, he ended up taking us round Angkor Wat in a tuktuk, because a lot of the temples are far away from each other you need transportation. On the way back to our Guest House we were ran into by a motorbike and our tuktuk went off the road and my friend actually went flying out of the tuktuk. Although it was not his fault he was very close to tears and despite repeated reassurance that it wasn’t his fault he kept on apologising and there was nothing we could do to stop him.

Time to move on

Although I enjoyed my five days in Cambodia, I was really looking forward to getting back to Thailand and so we set off at 6 a.m. and were driven to the border crossing of Poipet. This is the only time that I encountered travel problems in Cambodia. This ‘road’ is well regarded as the worse in Asia, in fact it is more of a dirt track than a road: after speaking to our man at the hotel we were advised that the road had actually collapsed but that some how people were getting through, so we set off in earnest…

Halfway through our journey we came to a standstill, trucks were stopped and there was a massive roadblock. Our driver got out and locked us in the car and within a second we were totally surrounded by locals banging on our windows and wanting us to come with them to get passed the roadblock. The three of us felt very vulnerable at this stage, with not another westerner in sight and no ability to actually get anywhere and are driver AWOL. It actually transpired that our driver was very kindly sorting us out with transport on the other side of where the bridge had collapsed. However before we reached our next automobile we had to cross a plank of wood over an area of water and then on the other side we had to get a motorbike for a mile or so, all the while having “miss, miss…I carry your bag” and people surrounding you, willing you to get on their motorbike. IT WAS CHAOS!

My motorbike driver was great, I hate motorbikes-they scare me senseless but after strict orders to go slow we set off. I actually ended up really enjoying it and told him to put his foot on the gas a bit! We eventually reached our next car and got driven to the border where we promptly joined the queue for the ‘Aliens’.

I will always remember walking back through to Thailand, not that I didn’t enjoy Cambodia but it was like going home…The fact that I still had 30 hours of travelling ahead of me to get back to Phi Phi was totally academic……

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Photos

The Killing Fields
A lot more than just a field...

The Killing Fields
A chilling reminder of the Khmer Rouge regime

THE MAN ON THE FRONT OF THE CAMBODIA LONELY PLANET
HOLDING A LONELY PLANET WITH HIM ON IT!!

Getting off the bus at Siem Reap
You get used to being hassled as soon as you get off the bus throughout Asia but this was the worse all of us had ever seen it.