Cambodia: rain, reptiles and ruins

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May 12th 2008

Published: June 1st 2008

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The Killing Fields

Entrance to Choeung Ek.

As Graham and I leave Vietnam behind and travel up the river to Cambodia, we notice the houses become fewer and the jungle much thicker. We also notice how much higher the riverbanks are (10-15 feet) to ensure there is no flooding during the rainy season. We eventually moor at the Cambodian border crossing. We trudge up the steps to Cambodian Customs, which is a set of single-storey buildings in the middle of the jungle. The buildings look just like the ones in my father's photos of Malaya in the 1950s when he was doing his national service. It is as if time has stood still. There are lots of dogs basking in the sun and I'm soon playing with them whilst formalities are taking place. When you go up to collect your visa there is sign next to the window which reads "Please remove your hat". There is also a sign on the lawn near the visa building which reads "Keep off the grass". I remark to a German woman that it's a bit like being at home. She sees the sign, laughs and agrees. I find it all very pleasing. It's a bit like England decades ago in a

Memorial Pagoda

Mermorial pagoda to those who were systematically executed. This is full of human skulls, various bones & clothes of the poor hapless victims of the Khmer Rouge.

time long before Chavs!

We get our visas and board the the boat once more for the last leg of the journey. We pull into Phnom Penh (where the 'p' is always sounded, incase you were unsure.) It is incredibly hot and humid. There is a flight of steps so steep, they seem more suited to some kind of Shaolin monk training than a simple arrival point. I bet "Grasshopper"' never had to carry a 70-litre pack up steps in 36 degrees! The taxi and tuk-tuk drivers descend on us like blowflies. There is one taxi driver, who asks politely and then stands back. I have a good feeling about him and choose him to take us to a hotel. We do our usual room, hot water & price check and decide on the Hotel Indochine 2. Our driver, who calls himself Alex, is very impressed with our modus operandi and tells us so. He asks whether we'd like him to be our driver while we're in Phnom Penh. We've really taken to him and arrange to go on a tour of The Killing Fields the next day. Our first afternoon in PP is quite an experience. There are

Skulls.

There are thousands of these encased in the memorial pagoda.

lots of crumbling French colonial buildings and piles of litter all over the place. They've clearly got a way to go before regular refuse collection is city-wide. It feels so incredibly old-fashioned after Vietnam. It must be the only capital city in Asia to have unadopted roads in the heart of the city! It's weird- you walk across a street and the next road hasn't got any asphalt - it's as if they ran out of money mid-road surfacing. The other thing that hits you is the poverty. We haven't seen poverty like this since India. There is an upside though. There are dozens of NGOs working in PP and you can eat, shop etc. in ways that can really help people. The Lonely Planet has a list of restaurants which are running training in catering and hospitality for Khmers, so we opt for one of these. We have a fantastic meal with great service in a wonderful restaurant called "Friends and Stuff". The staff are wonderfully trained, enthusiastic, young chefs, waiters & waitresses. Jamie Oliver would be green with envy if he came here to see it. If you're coming to PP you've got to eat here. The other

Bones

These bones sat against a tree that children & babies were swung against until they died.

plus is the friendliness of the people. A cyclo driver smiles and shakes Graham's hand as he goes driving by. People also understand "No, thank you" and do not keep pestering you, as they have done in other countries. There's a bar on the opposite corner to our hotel called "Broken Bricks". It looks rather punk rock & resembles a "designer" building site. The owner looks a mess, as if he's been sleeping outside for a few days. All straggly long hair & spotty. Later that evening Graham looks out over the balcony and said spotty man is busy chucking bits of his bar around, (these are the bits he can lift as lots of the furniture involves concrete), and weeping to himself. Graham thinks all is not well in the state of Broken Bricks! This turns out to be true for when we return to PP from Siem Reap a week later it has closed down. One positive thing about this closure is that we watch a Cambodian pop star filming his or her latest videogram amongst the faux rubble. We also discover the cheapest Indian restaurant outside India ever. For $3.00 you can get all the rice &

Tuol Sleng (S21)

These rooms housed single beds used for systematic torture. On the wall is a photograph of a single victim. Believe it or not this whole complex was a school.

chapattis you can scoff, a meat or veggie curry, some salad & extra vegetables. If you have mutton or fish, you have to add another 50 cents. We do take a trip up to the backpacker ghetto a few miles away & it IS a ghetto. It may be extremely cheap for accommodation but it's just not that attractive. Gaynor christens it "Hooverville" and I am offered ye olde hashish/marijuana by the ubiquitous tuk-tuk driver. We are very happy where we are thank you very much, considering we actually stay in our hotel of choice three times.

Our first full day in Cambodia and Alex drives us to Choeung Ek aka The Killing Fields, which are about 10 miles outside Phnom Penh. There is an amazing glass memorial full of skulls & clothing of the victims of Pol Pot's terrible social experiment. You can walk around the whole site which was once a longan orchard. We wondered whether when the mass graves were first discovered, it looked any different from now. Later in the day we see a huge black and white photograph in a museum and realise that it looks exactly the same. The only difference is that

Gallows

Part of the gallows at Tuol Sleng.

the few wooden buildings that were there have been demolished and information signs are in their place. It feels so current and I find myself fascinated by the whole hysterical nature of the Khmer Rouge. The more I read about it the more nonsensical it gets. I remember at school, (as someone who wears glasses), how petrified I felt when I learned how anyone who wore glasses was deemed "too intelligent" and then murdered because any knowledge or education was seen as a threat to Pol Pot's agrarian vision. I think we both had expectations that this would be a very bleak place to visit. It might be on a wet & windy day but today is beautifully sunny so it's quite pretty in an odd way. On the way back into town Alex tells us all about his family and then how his mother became a Buddhist nun after the fall of the Khmer Rouge. After a while he tells us that his father was a pilot and was taken away and murdered for being "clever". It's chilling to hear him tell you this and you realise how nearly every family in Cambodia must have been affected. You can

Leg Shackles

Leg shackles for attaching prisoners to their beds.

see why this country is just starting to get on its feet and understand the reason for so much poverty. It lost all its skills base with the mass murder of so many educated people.

Alex feels it's important for us to fully understand The Khmer Rouge and the link between the Killing Fields and what was happening in Phnom Penh at the time. He drives us to Tuol Sleng in the centre of Phnom Penh. This is is usually referred to as The Genocide Museum. This place is not a purpose- built museum but is a secondary school which was turned into a prison (S21) for those who had committed "crimes" against the regime. I could write for pages but you'd never really understand the insanity of it all. You also realise that some foreigners who were here from 1975-9 were also tortured and murdered, simply for the crime of being foreign, I suppose? What is clear, is that thousands of people were tortured here and made to confess to imaginary crimes. If they survived torture they were then transported to The Killing Fields to be clubbed to death - to save on bullets- and pushed into mass

Cell Block

The fronts of these cell blocks are covere in barbed wire. This was to prevent prisoners from jumping & committing suicide.

graves. Even the torturers were tortured when new torturers were recruited/employed. Tuol Sleng is not for the faint-hearted and I have very mixed feelings about it. I looked out of a window at one point and I could see a man swinging in a hammock in his house and I could see children's clothes on a washing line. You realise that because this place was once a secondary school, it is in the heart of a residential area and people have to live with it on their doorstep. I certainly wouldn't feel happy about living near here or bringing children up so close to such a place. I can't help feeling that it should be razed to the ground. There has been so much psychological damage to this nation that a daily reminder can't possibly help. The maintenance of The Killing Fields is surely enough because it has such a respectful memorial and is out of town. Graham had other ideas about his building's fate. We agreed to disagree because if you're not mature enough to do that, who knows where it will lead - this country is a solemn reminder of that!

It was pretty hard to go

It Was Twenty Years Ago Today...

Looks like the Beatles were here in Phnom Penh. Only joking. Costumes from the little museum in the Royal Palace.

for lunch after a morning of Pol Pot but Alex takes us to little Khmer restaurant he knows and we keep the conversation light. We have an altogether more upbeat afternoon at The Royal Palace. The Silver Pagoda was fab-just the idea of building with a silver floor is so decadent it's worthy of Justin and Colin. The grounds are much more spread out than those of The Royal Palace in Bangkok and in my opinion, much better. Once again Graham disagreed with me... The gardens are beautiful. The yellow flowers and fallen yellow petals on the lawn looked fantastic in the sunshine. There were dozens of huge exotic pot plants and we saw a black & white cat (a royal one we presume) have a huge poo on the flagstones! As former cat owners we are amazed as our cat ALWAYS went in the nearest plant pot even though it had a litter tray! Phnom Penh also becomes memorable for our first experience of the rainy season. Each afternoon the heat & humidity gives way to about an hour of torrential rain about teatime. You can almost set your watch by it. We haven't experienced rain in ages and

Pray for us all.

At the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh.

certainly not heavy rain like this. It's great to see Cambodian children splashing about in the huge puddles outside our hotel and the sound of it is SO LOUD. I enjoy wearing a plastic raincoat and dodging puddles in the market to buy bananas and rambutan. We see some wonderful sculpture, some terrible English in museums and also prop up the bar at The Quay (part of the Foreign Correspondents' Club) one evening. The head barman asks me if I'd like to squeeze his mangoes! This turns out to be entirely innocent. The bowl on the bar are from his mother's tree and he's keen for us to compare the softness of each one. I select one with my preferred level of ripeness and he gives it to me as a gift.

I'm not a great one for museums but the National Museum is worth a visit. It's quite open and sparrows fly in and out while you go round. They also employ women to make bracelets and wands made of woven jasmine flowers, which you can purchase. It's great as you go round the exhibits as there are also jasmine garlands on the Buddha statues and the smell

Bird Bath

Bathing vermin at the palace.

is fantastic. The NM is painted in a dusky pink, almost maroon-colour,which seems to be a feature of Khmer building. I think it's a colour symomymous with the royal family but don't quote me on that. Ther are four ponds in the museum quadrangle, which are teeming with different-coloured fish and are also covered with lotus flowers. Even if you find museums boring, it makes a very pleasant shaded escape from the midday sun.

Like most people who come to Cambodia we are here to see the fantastic temple complex at Angkor, near Siem Reap and we spend six days there. If you're thinking of going, buy a weekly ticket and really spend time going back to places and visiting temples further afield so that you don't get "templed out". It's a six-hour bus journey on good roads & not that much traffic. The "highways" here are only two lanes, the equivalent of an A-road. We are met off the bus by a tuk-tuk/remorque driver called Vichet. He offers to take us to a few hotels. In what seems to be a continuing theme Vichet drives to a hotel with something quite odd to the rear. The manager shows

Under the Boardwalk

In Angkor Thom under a walkway. Three rows of stone pillars supporting a walkway aroung 150-200m long. Much better underneath.

us a lovely twin room on the first floor and waves expansively towards the back of the hotel. He says "My friend has a crocodile farm out the back." We step out onto the balcony which runs around the outside of the first floor expecting to see little specks of crocodile in the distance. This is not the case, however, as there is a bloody crocodile farm directly behind the hotel! It is infact the back garden! We are both speechless as we see huge reptiles crawling around below us. The complete lack of health and safety is not lost on us. It is so bizarre, yet no-one here seems to think it is the least bit out of the ordinary. We are fascinated and would certainly have stayed, had there been a double room but as I said before there was only a twin available. We eventually find a hotel without en-suite crocodiles and begin our Angkor adventure.

We get up at 4am to see sunrise at Angkor Wat. We are joined by dozens of others,in tuk-tuks, buses, trucks & on bicycles. It's as if Siem reap is being evacuated. Everyone is keen to see 'the temple to

Tree at Ta Phrom.

This magnificent specimen was used as a location in "Tomb Raider", apparently. I coudn't fit it all in.

beat all temples' at dawn. I'm glad we chose to come here during low season as it wasn't too crowded. There were hardly any Westerners but a lot of Koreans and new-money Chinese. It is impossible to describe the complex here as there is so much of it spread over miles and miles. We loved the carved faces at Bayon and the parasitic trees at Ta Prohm. If you've ever seen Steve McCurry's photos of Angkor you'll get some idea of the colours and shapes. Jack Warren and I went to one of his exhibitions with our international students a couple of years ago and ever since that day I swore I'd come to Angkor. One of the best days was the long drive out to Kbal Spean. This involved an uphill walk through the jungle to see some carved stone linga (phallic Shiva columns) in a river. I think they definitely qualify as some kind of extreme sculpure! There was also a lovely waterfall with a carving of a turtle and you've guessed it, a crocodile, too. The climb up is full of beautiful butterflies, huge millipedes and what we think was the infamous white jumping spider. The first

At the Root of the Problem.

The roots of the "Tomb Raider" tree. There are a number of trees that are growing around, on, in and over the crumbling temples of Ta Phrom. It feels supernatural at times.

time I saw the "spider" I thought it was a ball of cotton that had fallen off someone's hem! It isn't until it jumps from the ground onto your shoulder or even higher, that you realise you're dealing with a weird living creature. I wasn't actually frightened of it, because it was white. Somehow its whiteness made it seem much less frightening. The walk was good fun and not too many tourists opt to do it so you're pretty much on your own. When we arrived we were informed that they were no longer letting walkers into the area after 2pm as dusk falls early in the thickest parts of the jungle and there had been a sighting of a tiger! Exciting stuff, eh? You are also warned to keep to the marked paths in the jungle as there is a lot of UXO (Unexploded Ordnance) in this area. It mentions in all the guide books that some people who strayed just 200 metres from the path were blown up not so long ago.

We intersperse our trips to Angkor with massage, good food in Siem Reap & frozen Margaritas in half-pint glasses, well Gaynor does. We have a

The Bayon

In Angor Thom. There are 54 towers & each tower has four faces. Each one faces the four points of the compass.

fab full body massage by the wonderful "Seeing Hands 4" centre. All the therapists are blind and it's well worth stepping into some blue pyjamas and having an hour's manuipulation. (You know us- anything for a good cause.). Our first experience of Siem Reap had been the hotel with crocodile farm, so it seemed as if anything could happen. We go to the highly recommended "Dead Fish" restaurant in Dead fish Tower, which was quite a different dining experience. It is a multi-levelled place with Western or Japanese-style seating arrangements i.e. on chairs or on the floor. They have a very eclectic choice of background music and towards the end of our meal we find ourselves singing along to "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from "Life of Brian"! After our meal we pay a dollar and are given a tray of small fish and a pair of chopsticks to, you've guessed it, feed the 18 crocodiles which live in a pit at the back of the restaurant! It seems that when the owners of the restaurant bought the land, part of it was a crocodile farm. They didn't want to kill the crocodiles and obviously they couldn't

Bayon Face.

These are fantastic & sum up the whole Angkor eperience for me.

release them, so they decided to keep them as pets! Steve Irwin would be so proud! It's so lovely seeing people come in and standing talking about them and feeding them. There is also a designated "crocodile keeper" (a woman, as it turns out) who gives you food and info. On the way back to Phnom Penh we stop at the Cambodian equivalent of a service station. Time for some food. They absolutely love their insects here, more than the Thais. Big ones, small ones & those in between. Ladies will happily fill up a bag with the bug of your choice. We had heard that they eat Tarantulas here and today folks we can testify that it is true. Gaynor goes towards a woman, who is selling something or other. It's a black mass. Then on closer inspection Gaynor finds out that they are fried Tarantulas. The woman takes the tray off her bucket & suddenly there is a safe zone around her as her bucket is full of live Tarantulas. Gaynor calls me over & the woman shows me them, pulls one out & puts it on my T-shirt. I pick it it up & put it on

Reflecting Bovines

Cows outside Bakong.

my arm and it's actually quite heavy. Suddenly there is a space around me as well. I couldn't actually muster the necessary-whatever-it-is-that-you-need to stick one in my mouth. We did get it on good authority from a French couple that the legs tasted like hairy chips & an Australian bloke said the abdomen section had the texture of peanut butter. I don't like the idea of either, I'm afraid.

Our trip also involves a trip to Sihanoukville, which is by the sea and named after King Sihanouk. It's developing as a tourist area and we've heard good things about the beaches. We take a five-hour bus journey and are sorely disappointed. The beaches do have lovely white sand but are unfortunately, like a lot of Asia, are covered in plastic bags, bottles & straws. There are even a few glass bottles on the beach which is a bit scary. Big G says the he can't believe how scruffy and horrible the beach bars and cafes look. We both agree that we haven't seen this much filth at a beach since we visited Kolva in Goa. (Note to everybody - DO NOT go there!) The sky is overcast and the

Me and my Nandi

Outside Peah Ko. Gaynor & her Nandi (Shiva's vehicle). After a while it looked alive.

sea looks really grey and messy like the North Sea when you definitely wouldn't want to surf. No sooner have we walked the length of the beach, than a storm blows up throwing down huge drops of rain. We are both thoroughly pissed off having made a special journey to this dump. Big G phones "our hotel" in Phnom Penh (because we bought it!) to tell them we're returning early and I tell the guest house owner what I think of the beach and book us two tickets on the early bus the very next morning. We end up having to eat a crap meal in the guest house because of the high winds and torrential rain. No one is venturing outside. We retire early and are woken intermittently by the wind and lashing rain. I start thinking about the tsunami a few years ago and feel more and more anxious. I am so happy when we pull out of Sihanoukville the following morning. We arrive back at our hotel and feel as if we're returning home, which is a bit odd. We both feel very comfortable in this city. We tell the receptionist about the filthy beaches and the

Banteay Kdei

You just know that one day that building will be crushed by the might of nature!

storm. She tells us that the local news is full of warnings about storms in southern Cambodia due to extreme weather in Burma! Having seen the recent news this is now totally understandable.

We have now had our fill of Cambodia and with the rainy season upon us feel it's time to move on. We trade in some books we've finished with at a secondhand bookshop and buy the LP for Laos. We decide to make one final stop at Kratie as it's on the way to Laos. We would like to see the famous Irrawaddy dolphins which live in the Mekong River. They're the only freshwater dolphins in the world and despite recent protection, there are very few left. Kratie certainly feels like the back of beyond. The market square is muddy, quite smelly but very lively. Rooms are dirt cheap and as basic as they come. We hook up with Dary "The only Female Moto driver in Kratie", (it says this on her T-shirt), for a trip out the next day to see these mysterious river dolphins and a couple of temples & villages. We head out in a convoy of four; us two and a German

Gaynor at Kbal Spean

Still in the Angkor area. A small fountain near the River of a Thousand Linga. Five minutes before this she had a butterfly on the end of her hooter.

couple. We get to Kampi, the boarding point for the dolphins. As they are rare, you don't expect to see any. The boatman drives out into the Mekong & then you see & hear them. He cuts out the engine & paddles around. They are really pretty & different from from the stereotypical dolphin. These are greyish black & have round, blunted heads. In all we see around a dozen. They don't jump & play but it's damned exciting stuff all the same. We spend the rest of the morning looking at a few temples, a village & stopping off at Sambok mountainn monestary, which is on a hill. We are dropping off the Germans as they wish to spend the night in a Buddhist monestary. What one night will give them, I don't know. I think the head nun also thinks this as she seems to believe they want to stay for three nights. On the way back to Kratie, I feel very sleepy and fall asleep on the the back of the bike, waking up just before I fall off. This has happened before & happens on buses, except it's obvoiusly not dangerous on buses! It's the rhythm

I have no idea what this is but it's alive & it jumps.

Could be a spider. It had legs & could do a static jump beyond Olympic standards. Crazy, just crazy!

of the road.

The next day we leave Kratie for Laos. We are heading to an island in the Mekong called Don Khon. This all involves three minibuses & one boat. We had to get our Laos visas for this border point in Phnom Penh. We went for the express service, which means you get our visas the same day. You pay your $100 for two visas & see that they give you a two month visa. That's excellent. Then you get to the border & the guard gives you a stamp for a month & there's bugger-all you can do about it. It's goodbye to Cambodia & hello Laos.

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