Pearl of Asia / The Disappeared

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Born of radical communism, the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh in 1974 after Cambodia had endured five years of foreign interventions, bombardment and civil war. Initially received with joyous celebration, the Khmer Rouge quickly initiated the systematic extermination of its own population. By the time the Vietnamese drove the Khmer Rouge into their Thai camps in 1979, between one and two million Cambodian's were dead...

It is hard to imagine a more tragic and heartbreaking history. And in Phnom Penh, once known as the "Pearl of Asia" and regarded as one of the most beautiful cities in Indochina, you might expect a city that has endured so much darkness would be shrouded in an endless gloom, survivors swallowed in a vortex of grief and bitterness and a new generation struggling with the burden of a grizzly legacy whose damage you can see every day on the street...

You will look twice if you see an old, wrinkly couple together such is the serious imbalance in the population structure of Cambodia... Everybody is young!

There is nowhere in Phnom Penh were this confounding misery is felt more that at Toul Sleng, the interrogation centre of the Khmer Rouge for the educated and elite, previously a school, hastily converted into a slaughter house were up to 20 thousand people were tortured and ultimately perished. In my humble opinion this is the one absolutely essential site to visit when in Phnom Penh, not out of morbid fascination but for a sobering reminder of the atrocities committed here... The atmosphere is no where near as charged as I expected and initially I have to say that I found it pretty much impossible to comprehend or sense the horror and pain that once existed here...

It's the photographs of the victims however (some staring back with venom and something resembling defiance but most with a chilling, empty, heart-broken acceptance of their inevitable demise) that really shatter you with the incomprehensible scale of the reckless hatred of the Khmer Rouge...

But, a country of contradictions (even more so than India), Cambodia often seems the most deliriously happy place on the planet!

Returning to the People's Improvement Organisation (PIO) for a quick stint of volunteering as my 6 months in Asia draw to a close, this time teaching children between 14 and 18 years of age, the limitless energy and enthusiasm they all show, bright eyed and always donning a broad smile of excitement, interest and, in the boys instance also endearing mischief, the school children personifie this beautiful and friendly country even more effectively than the symbolism of Angkor Wat.

Toul Sleng may represent the haunting past but the school and, perhaps even more so, the Olympic Stadium, sums up perfectly all the things I love about Cambodia and Double P today...

Built in the 1960s for an Asian Games that never happened, after finally accepting that the Lake Taupo Half Marathon in August is fast approaching, the Olympic Stadium is the venue for perhaps the most surreal and awe inspiring runs I have every had...

I dash around the huge grey concrete ball of dust in the fading light... Hundreds of locals dancing and stretching in a mass aerobics class, a live wire performance of smiles, music and infectious laughter lining the terraces... As footballers lump the ball around the waterlogged pitch and young Khmer couples simply salter through the stadium soaking up the electric atmosphere that beats through everyone there like a second heart...

This joyous explosion of energy takes place every night!

It's the people that really make this country stand out in South East Asia... Child like, positive and seemingly at all times open to everything and everyone, Khmer people smile every day in a way that back in Europe we reserve only for the rarest of occasions…

I will miss Cambodia.

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Comments

[Natalie Thomas]

Cambodia
Matt I'm so happy you had a great time in Cambodia! Fill me in on what all you did after I left in April to go back to Thailand for the New Year. So you extended your time at the orphanage? Any other travels? xoxo

[Sebastian W.]

I couldn't agree more
I couldn't agree more with that "It's the people that really make this country stand out in South East Asia... Child like, positive and seemingly at all times open to everything and everyone, Khmer people smile every day in a way that back in Europe we reserve only for the rarest of occasions… " It is a very special country!