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Published: April 2nd 2009
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The boat taking us up the Mekong to the Cambodia border crossing at Vinh Xuong/Kaam Samnor, is an old tug that chugs along the 80-odd kms towards Phnom Penh for over 9 sleep-inducing hours. The glimpses of rural life along the riverbank change little as we pass into Cambodia, through a very friendly and hassel-free border control. The boat eventually drops us at a small dock, where we squeeze into a minibus to take us the final few miles to the Cambodian capital, arriving just after sunset.
The first differences I notice on the way to Phnom Penh are that, whereas in Vietnam, China was visible in both the architecture and people's faces, here in Cambodia there are echoes of India. The wats (temples) that we pass are decorated with Hindu deities alongside Buddha, and the Khmer people's darker skin and less angular features speak of their Indian heritage.
There's the usual nonsense of the minibus dropping us in the most inconvenient part of town, having already driven through the district we want and ignoring requests to stop. We end up in a tuktuk back to the riverside and delivered to the Okay Guesthouse which could actually be called
the Very Good Guesthouse, with it's excellent cheap rooms and restaurant which serves us our first Cambodian speciality, the delicious fish amok, which is similar to a Thai green curry. With full bellies and tired heads we quickly fall into an exhausted sleep.
I wake early because of the heat; Phnom Penh is scorching and our powerful ceiling fan does nothing more than stir the hot air a little. It's even hotter outside and I quickly conceed defeat to the humidity; you can't fight it...it's hot and sweaty and it's not going to get any cooler this side of monsoon. All you can do is move slowly and take your time...we're in no hurry anyway as we stroll along the riverfront. The ornate roof of the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda dominate the skyline in this part of town; it's a lovely area of landscaped gardens and renovated French colonial buildings all along the riverfront housing expensive hotels and restaurants.
The massive central market, Psar Thmei at the heart of town, is a huge complex of covered lanes of stalls selling the usual fake watches and designer labels alongside silks and stacks of krama, the colourful checked cotton
scarf that's a symbol of national identity to many Cambodians as well as being a natty protector from the dust and sun. There's a few new additions to the food hall too: piles of deep fried spiders, beetles and locusts to snack on. Snake on a stick and big pots of steaming snails...before we got to Cambodia I thought I'd try pretty much any food on offer, but I chickened out on all these treats. There's less hard sell as we wander and it's really nice to be able to look at the stalls with no pressure, which results in me actually buying stuff...updating my thin, faded, over-laundered wardrobe for a few dollars. That's a weird thing here, although the Cambodian riel is in circulation, the ATMs all dispense US dollars which is the currency of choice. It feels strange and all of a sudden I feel quite poor without a few hundred thousand in my pocket.
My favorite time of day in Phnom Penh is around sunset, when the working day is done for most and the gardens in front of the palace fill with people playing with their kids, meeting friends for a kickabout and lines of
women take an open air aerobics class to loud disco, led by their camp instructor, resplendent in his 'Kids from Fame' getup. Groups of orange-robed monks hangout in groups outside the temple, some sending text messages as they wait for transport home. I'm just counting how many monks can fit in a tuktuk when an elephant blocks my view; his handler leads him through the traffic, his sad eyes blinkered and his feet clad in chain and tyre rubber shoes.
The riverside bars are full now, where those with full wallets sip pre-dinner cocktails in an Indochine fantasy. The other reality lives on the pavements a few paces away, where women watch over their babies sleeping amongst the rubbish, victims of landmines sell postcards from the low trollies that have replaced their legs, and children that should be in school walk the streets all day and all evening long, selling counterfeit books to backpackers. And after dark, we glimpse the painted doll face of a young girl being led by a western man old enough to be her grandfather. The local charity ChildWatch is doing good work educating local business owners to ensure that crimes against children are reported
where possible, but unfortuntely Gary Glitter has already done his bit for Cambodian tourism of the most grim kind. Even when the girls aren't of questionable age, I find it hard to see the sex tourists, proudly showing off their holiday 'girlfriends'.
On our second day we go to the Tuol Sleng museum, a former school which Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge turned into Security Prison 21 (S-21). In 1975 the Khmer Rouge took control of the country in a revolution that would result in the genocide of 2 million Cambodians, about 20% of the population. Pol Pot's ambition of a Maoist, agricultural cooperative state forced all the people from the cities, and either relocated them to the countryside to work in slavery where many starved to death, or to detention centres like S-21, where they were tortured and ultimately executed in killing fields all over the country. Year Zero was declared, money abolished and all property seized by the state. The priviledged and educated were targeted, branded parasites and enemies of the state before being systematically murdered. For 4 years Pol Pot and his generals, educated in universities in Paris themselves, eliminated all those they feared could threaten the
new system.
In S-21 the records of over 10,500 prisoners were kept, their black and white admission photos fill room after room, their faces showing a range of human emotion...terror, pride and contempt for their captors. This number does not account for their families who were also imprisoned here, the women and estimated 20,000 children from S-21 alone, most of whom ended up in the killing fields. It's an awful, haunted place; old classrooms, the blackboards still on the walls, converted to torture chambers, the wooden climbing frame outside in the playground turned into a gallows. The whole place is an important body of evidence that is being used in the Khmer Rouge trials that have finally begun, just 30 years to late.
A morning at Tuol Sleng leaves me feeling sick and there's nothing that can follow it but a visit to the killing fields at Choeung Ek, about 15kms out of town. 129 mass graves were found here, holding the remains of approximately 17,000 people. A tall white stupa (Buddhist monument) serves as a memorial, a place to light incense and reflect. Contained in it's walls are some 9,000 human skulls should anyone ever forget the
horrors that occured here.
We pay our respects and head off back to town feeling a bit battered. As I watch people going about their daily business, the words of a female guide at S-21 come back to me. Telling how she and her mother ran for a week under cover of night to the Thai border where they found asylum, and how her father and siblings were captured and murdered. In typically upbeat Khmer fashion she said, "I am nothing special, this is the story of every Cambodian". And this is what makes them so special.
There is such warmth and friendliness, and as I people watch, I'm struck by the laughter and banter all around us. It's Saturday evening and the wide boulevard near our hostel is buzzing...music plays from large speakers and families eat ice cream and watch the lights change colour in the huge water fountain. There's a joi de vivre in the air which I guess is born of the knowledge of how precious the small everyday freedoms are, and how easily and unexpectedly they can be snatched away from you. I really like it here; despite the horrors of the recent past,
the visible poverty and seedy side, it's an optimistic place, the people here know how bad things can get.
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