Phnom Penh - A Diamond In The Rough

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Sat on yet another rickety rust bucket coach with only the view outside for entertainment, the highway code or lack of it should I say en route to Phnom Penh certainly made for a giggle or three. Mobile phones do exist here however it's clear hand free kits obviously don't. Bluetooth pffft - whats that they say... no requirements for high-tec gadgets here. On first glance I was slightly confused when I spotted a local whizzing passed on his trusty scooter looking as if he was mummbling words to himself. That was, until I caught sight of a mobile phone squeezed inbetween the strap of the helmet and the crease of his ear, most likely discussing whats for tea with the wife all the while dodging crater sized pot holes and crazed lorry drivers , with 2 sturdy hands safely planted on the handlebars. Only a few miles further an elderly gent on his equally aged plaggy chugged past with two five meter scaffolding poles balanced on each skinny thigh. Safety first had obviously crossed his mind before embarking on this circus balancing act as he had gone to all the extra effort to stuff green leafy bushes into the hollows at each end, I assume this was to fore-warn other motorists of his length, another totally genius idea!



Entering Cambodia through the South Eastern corner from Vietnam took only the morning but there was notable contrast between countries. The weather was glorious with only a single fluffly cloud drifting alone amongst the blue. The land - a flat, lumincescent green plateau. No mountains or distant hills visible to break up the horizon, just lowland plains. Sporadic swaying sugar palms stood amongst the rice paddies. In amongst this dazzling emerald sea, farmers, young and old bent double cultivating the land with huge water buffalo alongside providing a helping hoof. Stilted, rustic homes lined single laned dusty roads which in turn, section off the seasonaly flooded fields for hundreds upon hundreds of soggy countryside kilometers. Had we'd travelled back in time?



Shocked was the initial feeling as we rolled into cambodia's capital. Especiallly considering we'd passed poverty stricken rural communities only a few kilometers previous. We were suddenly in what looked like a metropolis. The New York style grid streets were lined with fairly substantial skyscrapers and impressivly grand government buildings. We even passed a flashy bright orange Lamboughini, I mean; how did that get here and who owned it? It suddenly occured to me that my previous thoughts that this kingdom still struggled through poverty and instability were slightly obscured and maybe not entirely accurate?!



Ali our Tuk Tuk driver swiftly smooth talked us into jumping on his ride straight off the bus. Wearing a red baseball cap back-to-front, stone-washed coloured jeans, a Liverpool football shirt and the obligatory fake pair of Raybands. Ali & Scott seemed to be get on great, I left them for only a few minutes and upon returning they had seemeingly morphed into a pair of gassing old age pensioners conversing about a shared knee injury problem which had subsequently ended Ali's career a few years previous as a pro footballer for Cambodia! He now teaches footy with school kids part-time and a driver/guide so of course we booked him for the next day to begin the loop around the usual tourist hotspots.



We woke at a normal early hour and jumped on-board Ali's smart leather decked out ride. For once we wern't eager with anticipation. Lets face it, we knew the day wasn't going to be all happy & smiley so decided we would pop to the shooting range first and get the fun part over and done with! After a few hundred meters down the bumpy track we arrived. Such a strange set up this shooting business! It was as if we were sitting down for a meal, were were quickly handed a weapons menu. It was far too tempting for Scott to order a three course meal of destruction, starters being a handgun, main course; a sniper rifle and for dessert; well a rocket launcher of course! He decided on the AK47 and loved every second, saving his fairly accurate target poster as proof. He refused the offer of a coconut thinking "why do I want to drink a bloody coconut while I'm shooting a gun, I dont have enough hands to drink and shoot at the same time!" It wasn't until later, that the penny finally dropped and he realised they were offering them as targets not as a thirst quencher, plonker!



I have to admit that previous to reading the "First They Killed My Father" book a few weeks previous, my knowledge of the Khmer Rouge rule and the effects was very little if any at all. So for those reading who aren't still, I will give you a very very brief overview. In early 1975 the Khmer Rouge took control of Phnom Penh and implemented a brutal transformation. They believed an agarian society without class or the divide between rich and poor was the only way Cambodia could flourish and was similar to that of the Nazis. The leader of this radical idea began systematically murdering intellectuals; even those who were unfortunate enough to wear glasses, those who had worked for the government and anyone else that didn't conform was reason enough to be slughtered. Every cambodian was marched into the countryside as slaves joining the rural community to work in the rice fields as "one". Families, even whole communities were killed from either starvation, disease but mostly from the blunt tools used by the suspicous Khmer Rouge soldiers. In the 4 years of rule, 1.7 million innocent lives had perished at the hands of Pol Pot and his regime.



It was at the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek & Tuol Sleng Security Prison we visited to learn a little more. The prison was once a High School in he city but the regime quickly turned it's classrooms into torture chambers. 17,000 detaineees were photographed and each haunted face was now on display. Only seven survived. The prison is in as much as the same state it was left in. I can honestly say we'd never felt such a heart wrenching tug as we walked the corridors and imagined the terror. The noises. The faces of each photograph formed a tiny watery ledge in our eyes and a hollow feeling inside. The killing fields were about 15km from the prison and where most of the prisoners were sent to be executed. It was eerily peaceful. As we walked through the gates it looked just like any other field except for a number of grassy craters and a newly erected memorial. Except it wasn't a relaxing peace, more of a ghostly silence that seemed to drift amonst the orchard. We quickly learned that each prisoner was lined up around a muddy pit, blindfolded and shackled. So as not to waste precious bullets the soldiers brutily blugeoned each victim with blows to the head with hammers or other favoured farming tools. So brutal and cold, incredibly inhumane. We stood at the foot of a large elderly tree; the sign aptly naming it's place as the "Killing Tree". Babies had been held by the ankles and swung to their death here. What was even more spine chilling was the tree's trunk looked like a body, the branches like outstretched arms and the knots in the bark like a gasping face of a screaming child.

The memorial stupa sat in the foreground of now empty mass graves, once filled with 8,000 skulls, bones and the tattered remains of clothing left behind. By the end of the afternoon this left us both feeling slightly depressed & drained. We couldn't really even find words to decsribe the horror we had imagined and subsequently spent the rest of the day in quiet thoughts trying to work out how a human could inflict such attrocoties against another and confused as to how such terryfying events was allowed to happen only a few decades ago. Looking into the eyes of the elderly only reminded us of it's tortured past, and left me hoping that we would never witness anything even close to the hell that they had once before. But could we be so sure that the next elder who's eyes we would look into was a victim? And I'm not so sure the surivivors would want to be stared at in empathy and for us visitors to try and pretend that we could imagine what they had endured.



We spent some of the afternoons strolling along the river front, grabbing a bite to eat and getting tugged on at the heart strings each and every time we were approached by children selling books, bracelets and souvieniers. We didn't think the children were homeless but they were most definatley living in poverty, as were a large percentage of the city dwellers themeselves. Night time proved to be a little un-nerving. The streets we dimmly lit, if at all so we would usually eat in close proximity to the hostel and swiftly make our way back whilst Scott would try and shake off a few of the kids that clung to his leg! In the end I couldn't keep up with the stone faced facade and crumbled once a disabled lady wheeled herself over to the table selling books. I bought one and then immediatley felt guilty as one of the young girls had found out I had cheated her earlier with the same novel... but instead she settled for my baguette which I tempted her with as peace offering. What was really tough is having to say "I'm sorry" more times than I care to remember. It's so heart-breaking but giving money only encourages begging and it's actively discouraged. I dont know if I tell myself that to make myself feel better but we learned quickly after giving a severely disabled elderly man some loose change we became instantly surrounded by more each holding out their hand in hope for a share. I'm ashamed to admit but it was too much to handle, how cowardly is that!?


Faye & Andy were back in town. We bumped into them on the riverfront and arranged to meet for tea. We temporarily parted ways before realising that were booked into the same hostel! We agreed that we'd meet up again in Siem Reap in a few days time as we had all changed plans to bypass Sianoukeville due to the ever increasing wet weather. The forecast didn't look bright and the last thing we had wanted was to be sat stranded in a hotel room at a beach side destination. Before leaving we spent a day wandering around the National Museum, the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda but not without getting drowned by the afternoons monsoon showers. We booked our coach tickets to leave early the next morning excited to leave for Siem Reap and towards the eighth wonder of the world - The Ankor Wat.

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