Advertisement
Published: February 15th 2008
Edit Blog Post
We took a few buses and a few boats to get to Phnom Phen, Cambodia's biggest city, and after about 10 hours, we were finally there. If you want to travel on the cheap, as we do, the journey is not smooth, nor comfortable, though it keeps our operating costs lean.
I had read about that in this area of the world, tour buses purposely delay your arrival to the destination city, preferring to drop you off late at night at their chosen hotel in hopes that you'll at least stay a night there, collecting a commission along the way. This was the case with us. The area didn't feel too safe, a dirt road with few streetlights. After wandering around for an hour, we retreated back to the chosen hotel. We hate when the tour companies win, but it seemed to be the best option at the time.
From first glance, the city was rather lawless. Moto drivers with no helmets, going any direction on the road they choose, fancy Lexus and Land Cruiser SUVs without license plates, cars with steering wheels on the left or the right, whichever feels best for you, and blatant advertising of all
things grass, happy pizza, happy shakes, anything and everything could be served with a little extra happiness at pennies more.
The drivers of carriage motorbike taxis, called Tuk Tuks, were pretty interesting. They were a combination of taxi driver/tour guide/restaurant promoter/drug salesman/illegal pharmacist. The first question they asked you was "you want ride?” The second, "you want smoke?" Doing anything they can to make a few extra bucks. One of them actually asked us if we wanted cocaine. We've never been offered cocaine before and not sure if we hear right asked, "what?" and he repeated a little louder his previos offer. We had heard right. Ely and I exhanged blank looks and burst out laughing!
Does anyone remember hearing about the massacre going on here in the seventies? I sure don't remember it in my history books. It seems to me that when we pulled out of Vietnam in the mid-seventies, our country sort of lost interest in the area. Well, it probably shouldn't have, an auto genocide equally horrific as the holocaust occurred less than 30 years ago. I can't believe the terrible things we saw in this city. The hate that we learned of will
stay with us always, it scarred our hearts. For anyone interested, let me try to give a layman's history.
Communist ideology was very popular at the time (60s, 70s). With the backing of prominent Communist states, notably China, support grew for a radical group, the Khmer Rouge. We learned of this group’s actions on several tours, horrific. They came to power in 1975, and wanted to wipe the slate clean with the country, declaring the time as YEAR ZERO. They burned all the money in the country, wrecked all the roads, schools, and hospitals; and any intellectuals that couldn't escape were killed, including doctors, teachers, politicians, and soldiers whose interests slightly opposed the majority. At one point in time there were only 50 doctors in the whole country. The people they thought were spies were interrogated, tortured, and killed, and the common people were forced into the countryside, without food and water, forced to work the land to their death, a much slower and torturing death, much less courteous than just executing them on the spot. Cleansing of the ethnic Vietnamese also occurred, but mostly this was auto-genocide, they were killing their own people. Out of 7 million people
in the country at the time, 2-3 million were killed! That percentage is just mind boggling.
We visited one of the most famous sites; a high school turned interrogation/torture/killing center/prison. The soldiers of this radical group were very young, many barely in their teens. Their lack of humanity and the ability of superiors to sculpt their soon devilish minds like play-dough made them extremely dangerous. Many of them killed their parents when asked. Their torturing methods were grotesque. The high school felt like death, the gruesome pictures burned in our minds. The compound was basically in the same condition as it was in the 70s, where some 20,000 people were worked through it. When they provided no material use to the KR, the people were transferred to a killing field some 10k away and executed.
It was a pretty horribly informative experience. An artist in the prison had his life sparred, as the generals needed someone to make sculptures and paintings of them. As soon as he was freed, he painted images of what he remembers, many of them displayed throughout the prison. Our guide, a woman in her forties, was telling us, "This is how my father
and brother were killed. Shot in the head as I watched." and "This is what they did to the babies, throwing them against the killing tree, or in the air, then bayoneting them." "I watched all of these things," she said. For some reason, it wasn't the descriptions of these horrible events that really troubled me, but the tone at which she spoke of them. She could talk about all these traumatic experience without a hitch in her voice, completely monotone and detached she was. By this time in the tour, many tourists helplessly break down crying, an urge I have right now just typing these words. At the end of the tour, I could feel the tears coming up from inside me. I asked more questions about the museum, as I am a naturally curious person. How terrible her job must be, I thought. Like a child with a wound that is scabbing, the child keeps pulling the scab off and it just won’t heal. She has to go around this preserved building of torture and death, reliving her horrible past every day, answering tourists stupid questions while watching them lose themselves, not knowing what to say or even
think. It really saddened us; I felt like the kid pulling off her scab, not allowing her to heal.
The next day, we went to an orphanage, feeling a need to do some good. Our tuk tuk driver arranged to pick us up, to buy some food, and then to visit the kids. We brought them a 120 pound bag of rice, which lasts 1 day. They eat rice for breakfast, for lunch, and for dinner. And you thought weekly school lunch menus were bad. As we got off the tuk-tuk, one little boy jumped up right into my arms, desperately wanting someone to play with. The kids were wonderful. We played with them for a couple hours, then chatted with the director. The orphanage was completely funded by NGOs and private donations like ours. In other words, they didn't have a real steady base for donations. If the donations stopped coming, probably too does the school. The kids studied English, Japanese, and French at the orphanage and Khmer (Cambodian) at the public school.
Their life had very few luxuries. We chatted with a South African woman who visited as a tourist and was so moved that she
decided to stay. Three months later, she is still there, teaching the older ones how to sew and make things. She said the only time they get fruit is when tourists bring it, or when she buys it out of her own pocket. No one can eat candy because their teeth are already rotting badly from the lack of toothbrushes and toothpaste, let alone a dentist. Their shabby, dirty clothes came from donations in foreign countries. Recently, an Australian company donated 10 computers and an American one donated a TV and sound system for music.
Seeing their smiles just killed us, leaving us with heavy hearts. We, simply privileged passengers in transit, their life was painstakingly simply, a standard of living that no one should have to live. Later, we went for dinner and beers, and they presumably just had…rice.
I read a few months back that in our defense budget for 2005, we spent something like $80 billion on the war. Independent analysts have concluded that this money would be enough to feed and educate every needy child in the world, two times over. I also was watching Hilary on CNN a few weeks back. She stated
a number, something like $50 billion that insurance and pharma companies spent last year fighting claims from sick people or dead people’s lawyers. It sickens me that this money is being used to do the things it is doing. You know, it doesn't take much for these kids. A small orange for each of them puts a smile on their faces for an hour.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.167s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 12; qc: 67; dbt: 0.1208s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb