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Published: July 17th 2007
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17-24 July
After a chaotic, early morning exit from Siem Reap, Kris, Carrie and I found ourselves aboard the boat for a leisurely 8 hour journey to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. We began in the Tonle Sap lake, the largest in Cambodia, which later narrowed to the Tonle Sap River and to our destination. We were coming from a place that evidenced the beauty and wonder of the ancient Khmers in Angkor to the capital city, which still reeled from the recent atrocities of the genocide of the Khmer Rouge.
Phnom Penh was set up as the country's capital by the occupying French, and as a result, the riverside is lined with Parisian-style bistros, cafes and esplanade. It's a mixture of colonial architecture, a myriad of hotels and everyday street vendors; from tuk tuk drivers haphazardly zipping along to flash, shiny SUVs and luxury cars with black tinted windows discretetly disposing visiting delegates and royal deputies to important meetings.
After checking out the accomodation options and countless hotels, we opted to stay on the lake, west of the river, home to the backpacking circuit and cheap guesthouses. I was very tempted to go for a colonial
French hotel with a massive room, view of the lake and wonder of all wonders a BATHTUB (the first I have seen in many months), but common sense and my already-overblown SE Asia budget constraints won the day, and we settled in at Happy Guesthouse for a wallet-pleasing $4/night (that's $2 each, folks. not bad.)
We visited the National Museum and the Royal Palace and had a riverside lunch on our first day, soaking up the atmosphere of the city and preparing ourselves for some of the emotionally draining visits that were to come -- S21 school and the Killing Fields. The National Museum is a beautiful building with airy courtyards and everything from pre-historic artifacts of ancient civilizations, statues salvaged from Angkor, and French colonial artifacts. The National Museum was filled with ornate buildings and shrines to present and past royal personnages, and was a beautiful visit, despite the 40 degree C heat. We also took in the fantastic markets -- Central market and the not-to-be-missed Russian market -- buying up souvenirs and replenishing our ratty backpacker wardrobes. One day we even splurged on a fancy hotel swimming pool at the Phnom Penh hotel, to cool off and
catch up on our reading.
Overall, Phnom Penh is lovely, yet I've been struggling for over a week with this entry. I actually put up the photos (usually the most time-consuming and tedious part of upkeeping a blog) while I was still in PP. I just couldn't figure out what to write. I felt sick, I felt horrified, confused being in a country of such sweet, open and friendly, well-adjusted people that had survived such recent horrors. Occupation and genocide are horrific, but occupation and genocide by your brother, aunt, sister, next-door neighbour, your own countrymen, is beyond belief. To receive a death sentence because you could read, write (especially English or French), were educated (even slightly), had been exposed to a city or even wore glasses (a flagrant display of intelligence); to be separated from your entire family and acquaintances and told the only allegience allowed was to Angkar, "The Organization"; to be starved while cultivating the very rice that you were forbidden to eat (most was shipped to China to fund the procurement of arms and ammunition for the Khmer Rouge); all this was overwhelming.
I, of course, read the unbelievably sad "First They Killed My
Father", an account of a spoiled city girl and her family's experience of being "re-educated" by the Khmer Rouge. I felt like I fell into a depression for several days, it was that intense. We visited S21, the former high school that was overtaken and turned into one of the most infamous prison camps and torture centres of the regime. We then went to the Killing Fields, about 15 KM outside of town, where prisoners were forced to kneel before mass graves before receiving a fatal blow to the head with an axe (ammunition was rarely wasted on killing prisoners) and joining the heap of victims in the pit below.
We spent an entire week in Phnom Penh, experiencing the highs and the lows. From fancy dinner at the Foreign Correspondent's Club (where foreign journalists would meet and write) to local cafes and bars in the backpacking district, to the difficult visit to the Killing Fields, we experienced a range of emotions and impressions. One memory that sticks out in my mind was at S21, where we began the visit with a documentary of the prison. The documentary focused on a woman and her husband that were lost to
the genocide as well as an emprisoned painter that was forced by the Khmer Rouge to record their reign of terror in paintings depicting torture and intimidation, I guess to "glorify" the regime. Because of his talent, this painter was spared death and received "preferential" treatment while he witnessed the death and torture of friends, family and other prisoners. He was at S21 the day we visited and through a translator answered questions from the visitors. People asked him how he feels today, what is it like that this detention centre is now a tourist spot, etc. He replied quietly that people must remember history in order to understand the abilities man has to be monsters. Despite his resilience, he still was a broken man. How could he not be?
We were astounded that an organization that forbade any sort of religion or art would commission such paintings. An organization that was ideologically opposed to any form of education or "exposure" to capitalism, was commanded by an elitist dictator Pol Pot (which stands for "Politique Potentielle", potential of politics), who himself had been educated in the finest schools in France.
All in all, it was an intense week
in which I learned a lot and appreciated greatly. It seems a bit dark, but it was a beautiful experience, especially reinforced by the graciousness and openness of the Cambodians we met and interacted with. I won't soon forget it.
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