Advertisement
Published: January 25th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Rob the Conquerer!
"Yep... I did it!" Hello there, people! Rob and I just flew into Kuala Lumpur a couple of days ago, after spending a week in Cambodia. We checked out Siem Reap, the Angkor Temples, and then went over to Phnom Penh. Cambodia is a strange and remarkable land. Of all the places I've been, I've never seen a country with more opposites than Cambodia. What I mean by this is that the country goes from one extreme to the other - economically, politically, and historically.
This is a place where the rich are very rich and the poor very poor. It's not uncommon to see Land Rovers rolling down the streets, right beside a slum that far too many people call home. Most people are uneducated and have no idea how to save money for the future; they are only concerned with the present.
So where is the government aid? Well, the Cambodian government is known to be corrupt and offers little in the way of programs to help its people. A good example of this is the countless number of landmine victims. No financial aid is offered to these people so they are forced to find a way to support themselves.
The Killing Fields
This is just some of the remains of the many victims of the Khmer Rouge... This has led to a cuthroat mentality in regards to income, and as a tourist you'll see this right away. When getting off a bus, 20-plus tuk-tuk drivers are in your face, trying to convince you to stay at some hotel they get a commission off of, and they'll constantly hound you for a ride while you're walking down the street. Children will come up to you while you're eating, trying to sell you books or just looking for a piece of your meal. Amputees are more than happy to wave a severed limb in your face if they think it will encourage you to give them a couple of bucks. It's a very intense situation, and sadly, after a while you just get hardened to it.
Even the history here is contradictory. Cambodia is home to the temples of Angkor, and visiting them is an impressive sight indeed! The sheer size of the place is huge, especially when you consider temples outside of Angkor Wat and Ankor Thom. According to
angkorwat.org, the temples were built between the 8th and 13th century, and are spread out around Siem Reap for approximately 40 miles. Walking throughout these ruins really boggles
the mind. To think that these were built all by hand, and with with such detail! How long did it take? How many people were needed to make just one temple? Heck, just the moat surrounding Angkor Wat is 570 feet wide and about 4 miles long- just the moat! This is one of those places that can't be described; you can't do it justice. It really must be seen to be appreciated.
Sadly, this country is also home to the murders of an estimated 1.5 million people, all at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. In 1975, the Ultra Communist Khmer Rouge Regime (UCKRR) overthrew the government and implemented its own set of rules, best described by
wikipedia.org:
In power, the Khmer Rouge carried out a radical program that included isolating the country from foreign influence, closing schools, hospitals and factories, abolishing banking, finance and currency, outlawing all religions, confiscating all private property and relocating people from urban areas to collective farms where forced labor was widespread. The purpose of this policy was to turn Cambodians into "New People" through agricultural labor. These actions resulted in massive deaths through executions, work exhaustion, illness, and starvation.
In order to enforce this program,
The Khmer Rouge government arrested, tortured and eventually executed anyone suspected of belonging to several categories of supposed "enemies":
*anyone with connections to the former government or with foreign governments;
*professionals and intellectuals - in practice this included almost everyone with an education, or even people wearing glasses (which, in regime logic, suggested that they read a lot);
*ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Chinese, Cambodian Christians, Jews, Muslims and the Buddhist monkhood;
*"economic sabotage" for which many of the former urban dwellers (who had not starved to death in the first place) were deemed to be guilty of by virtue of their lack of agricultural ability.
Go to the Tuol Sleng museum and the Killing Fields, and you will see firsthand where these people were detained, tortured, and killed. You will also see the remains of the victims, many of which are still lying in the mass gravesites. It's not a pretty thing to see, but something that puts the value of life in perspective.
Please don't think I'm trying to discourage anyone from
Road to Siem Reap
The road to Siem Reap is the shits - potholes everywhere, and you can barely see through the dust! Technically, people here drive on the right side of the road, but in reality they have to drive all over it, blaring the horn the whole way. They're that bad. It would make for a killer video game though! visiting Cambodia. I'm not. Quite the opposite, in fact. There are a lot good things here. The people here are friendly, Khmer food is outstanding (try the amok!), and the cities are interesting - both beautiful and ugly. Phnom Penh in particular is really something to see - it's kind of like Bangkok times 10. The commercial buildings here are 10 times fancier than anything you'll see there, and the shit parts are 10 times shittier. It's the New Jersey of Southeast Asia! I don't know if that's accurate or not (I've never been to NJ), but whatever, it gets the point across.
Mostly though, I think that for anyone travelling southeast Asia, it's a place that simply must be visited because it will put the rest of this area in perspective. If you go to Thailand and Laos, you will notice that culturally, these two countries are very similar. This isn't the case with Cambodia; it's much more in-your-face. If you're looking for an easygoing atmosphere, you probably won't find it in Cambodia. You won't get away from the hustle-and-bustle of the big cities either. What you'll find is an intense place with a rich, tumultuous history and
Me & Rob
On the way to the Angkor Temples. a way of life that's black & white, left and right, and always contrasting. And if that's not worth seeing, what is?
Geez, this thing's pretty serious, eh? I'll try to lighten the mood for my next blog, so I'll have to see if I can find anything stupid to do. If anyone has any recommendations for me, well, I'm listening!
Until then, I guess...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.241s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 11; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0396s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Amy Tippette
non-member comment
Hey! I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed this blog posting. It was really nice to read an educational blog with a personal take on the country more than just what someone is doing in the country for their pleasure. Hope you enjoy the rest of your trip!