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Published: June 11th 2006
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Another long bus journey, another load of crap aircon, fixed seats and bumpy roads. However at the first stop there was a lady selling deep fried crickets... so I bit the bullet. And the cricket too. It wasn't altogether bad... and certainly better than some food i've been cooked before!
C-Pop Cambodian pop music seems to commonly be a dubious fusion of Khymer and mispronounced gramatically poor english. Now I know given my past posts im not in a position to judge but...
Cambodian Roads They are bloody awful, they really are. And this is the dry season. I dread to think how they will become in the wet. Corruption is a big issue - like the Bangkok Siem Riep mention in a post a few days ago. Another example - the US government have agreed to replace a major road out here for the Cambodian government free of charge. However the Cambodian government wants to charge the US goverment money to allow them to pay the Cambodian people to build the road... see the people we're working with here? Actually the roads were once smooth and shiny, much like a smooth and shiny road. However years of civil
war and its bombing and heavy tank movements have left them as they are today.
A (Pol) Potted History of the Khymer Rouge Not really a history lesson, just to make the next bit make sense. The Khymer Rouge was a communist group that fought to gain control of Cambodia in the years following the 2nd Indochina war (or Vietnam as more commonly known). They had already gained a lot of land in the countryside, but in April 1975 they took Phnom Penn and Cambodia was theirs. The people rejoiced - and end to civil war. But they had stepped from the frying pan into the fire. The Kymer Rouge and its ideology - Anker - was brutal. Educated people were killed. Just wearing glasse was enough to be in this category. Former government workers too, as did those who were too weak to work. Or too strong. Children informed on parents; parents on children. Executions were common, often public, and almost always brutal. Kyhmer Rouge soldiers would cut a mans liver out while he was still alive, cook it, and eat it infront of his family. And if they reacted the family would die too. Infact they might
die anyway. And if the vicious soldiers, often only children, didnt kill you, there was a fair chance that the dawn -> dusk working with only two spoonfulls of rice to eat would. The regime ended (after a fasion) in 1979 with the Vietnamese invasion of cambodia, but peversely the UN recognized the Khymer Rouge as the official government way after this. '79 was the end of the Genocide, but not the end of suffering for the Khymers.*
*for more on this I suggest the book "Children Of Cambodia's Killing Fields" Compiled by Dith Pran. Disgusting, shocking, informative.
The Killing Fields The leads be rather unpleasantly to my first 'sight'of the day after finally arriving in Battambang. I took a motorbike up to Wat Phnom Sampeau. This is a stunning emple perched on top of a rugged hill, hemmed in by steep cliffs and in places built straight across smally canyons. It is also the sight of a Khymer Rouge 'Killing Field'. More accurately a Killing Cave. KR soldiers used the caves - formerly used as a theatre - to kill victims by bludgeoning them with bamboo before letting them fall to their deaths (if still alive) on
the hard rock floor tens of metres below. In the base of the caves was a sad collection of human skulls and scraps of clothing. Some skills were adult. Many were children.
Families came to collect the remains of their relatives after 1979, but often it was too late to actually find their loved ones. Rather than leave empty handed it was not uncommon for people to simply take a skull for each person lost, hoping it was actually their loved ones. Like a sick joke of course it rarely if ever was.
A ride in the country After the surreal and disturbing killing caves my driver took me on a tour of the surrounding country. We passed a number of cliched rural scenes -ox drawn ploughs, villagers bathing in the river, houses built on wooden stilts, and families sitting down to prepare dinner.
Keeping away the ghosts Rural Cambodians belive that spirits come in the night to drink the blood of their children. To keep these spirits at bay they hang bottles of water died red outside their homes, so the spirits drink these instead. Im going to hang a bottle of Thai Whiskey outside mine...
Not necessarily stoned, but ah... researching Sounding like a line out of Pulp Fiction here is the definitive legal low down... Its legal to grow it, its legal to buy it, its legal to sell it, its legal to cook it... but it is illegal to smoke it... but get this... the cops really dont care.
Pizza 0: Duck Embryos 1 Yeah, so duck embryos are kinda just eggs with internal organ and a strange colouration to them. And they taste OK. Important to rationalize these things. Mum, Liz, Remind you of the food of love? Crickets and Duck Embryos in one day... I thought I could relax. Then I found a stall with Snakes and Whole frogs (on a stick of course)... guess Ill save those for tomorrow night!
Alex the human climbing frame Never smile. People think you are a nice person if you smile. Then you end up with 6 Cambodian children hanging off you saying in chorus 'Hello Mister, One Dollar?".
Oh Angelina I can hardly blame them, but the Khymers love miss Jolie. She has a house in Battambang, and thanks to her adoption history and high public profile she has
also been given Cambodian citizenship. My motorcycle driver would give her a free ride anytime. I cant quite tell who wins tho - her or the late princess Di. Di is certainly very popular in Cambodia thanks in no small part to the big help she gave in the awareness and subsequent funding of landmine removal.
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