Conflicted

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Cambodia is, without a doubt, one of the most emotionally-rivetting places I've ever been. Traveling here over the last two weeks has been a roller coaster of highs and lows, hurtling me from one to another with only moments in between.

There are moments of delight in face of the beautiful scenery - lush vistas of green grass, red earth, blue sky, mirrored waters, and simple but beautiful thatched homes, surrounded by the idyllic figures of farmers and their beautiful children (for Cambodian children are everywhere, and they truly are amongt the most beautiful people I've seen), followed just as quickly by pity, pain, and, I'm ashamed to admit it, repugnance at "cities"of shacks, garbage, open sewers, and the people forced to try to scratch out an existance in them.

Times of total bliss, sharing a sunset with friends as they strum guitars making the children of the guesthouse dance; times that you feel guilty about being lucky enough to have in face of the shadow of the horrific history of this country. I'm bewildered as to how these people have survived what they have while maintaining the strength and the hope inherent in the will to live, to continue on, let alone to be the gracious and friendly people that they are.

In Poipet I was forced to avert my eyes from children playing and people living in what could easily have been a Canadian dump and at a road-side street stall along the route to Phnom Penh I was overwhelmed by the gratitude of beggar children when I bought them buns that cost only cents, a gratitude born of begging necessitated not by a need for money to fuel bad habits, but to survive. It was, however, at the Tuol Sleng genocide 'museum' in the capital where I reached by bursting point. To walk into an old high school, a place of learning, which had been transformed into a jail and torture detention centre... The cells are as they were, the walls lined with photos of those who met their end there, and one is suddenly so acutely aware of the history of this place. Millions killed, cities deserted, temples destroyed, an entire generation wiped out... And yet people greet you with smiles, and children approach, eager to practice their english. How could a people survive such a history?

{the last 10 days have been spent in Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville, and Kampot. All places filled with reminders of hate and war, and filled with a people characterized by a vitality not often found in the West. I leave for Vietnam in the next couple of days, but Cambodia will stay with me. Awkun.}

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Photos

Sunset
Sihanoukville

View to Vietnam
Kampot (Bokor)

Sweet Desolation
Kampot (Bokor)

Orchids
In the Jungle (outside Bokor)

View from the River
Kampot

Comments

[Sean]

Thanks
Just wanted to say thanks for sharing your journals. I am planning to go soon. Great pictures posted by the way.

[Bia]

Wow Robin, your journals are amazing and your pictures even more cause for envy...were these trips found in your birthday travel book? Because if so, send it my way! How unfortunate that I don't even have a camera where I am, though settling down in NYC actually can get mundane. People, lights, buildings, taxis, and sights made familiar by movies can never seem to compare to the beauty of history and nature. Missing our days of restaurant gluttony...Bia