Living in the past

---

Cambodia (January 20th - February 9th 2009)

Bases: Siem Reap, Battambang, Phnom Penh

Main sights: Angkor Archaeological Park, Battambang bamboo train, Phnom Banan, Phnom Sampeou, National Museum, Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (S-21), Choeung Ek Memorial (Killing Fields), Wat Phnom, Central Market, Russian Market, Foreign Correspondents Club

Top 3 experiences:

1) Seeing sunrise at Angkor Wat (obviously!)
2) Catching a glimpse of day-to-day life in a rural homestay
3) Coming to terms with the Khmer Rouge

Daily budget (travel, food and accommodation): US$25 = 18 pounds

My rating: 8/10

Overview:

The past is everywhere in Cambodia. It's unavoidable. At the temples of Angkor, you come face to face with a millennium-old civilisation that holds its own against the Egyptians, the Romans and the Greeks. At the main cities, you see the legacy of French rule in some beautiful colonial buildings. And at the most unexpected of places, you're reminded of the brutal devastation caused by the Khmer Rouge.

But it's not just the buildings where the past makes its presence felt - it's the people too.

In a literal sense, there are countless visible signs of the Khmer Rouge such as the landmine victims and the scarred bodies. But there's also the sense that most Cambodians today are living the same lives as their parents before them, who followed in the footsteps of their own parents, and so on.

Of course, each era throws up its own unique challenges. The guerrilla warfare of the Khmer Rouge in the 80s and 90s. Genocide in the late 70s. The early 70s, bringing with it civil war and the dubious distinction of being the most bombed country in history thanks to the Vietnam War. And in the background, as strong now as hundreds of years ago, the fear that Thailand and Vietnam are simply biding their time before carving their neighbour in half.

Yet the Cambodians simply endure, suffer and try to get enough rice and fish to fill their stomachs. Life today is much the same as it has always been in a country where past and present are interchangeable.

Angkor:

It's hard to do justice to a place like Angkor, ancient capital of the Khmer empire. At its peak, around 800 years ago, Angkor boasted a population of 1 million when London was a fledgling town of 50,000. The Khmer empire was a superpower in terms of territory - it ruled most of Thailand, Laos and Vietnam from modern-day Cambodia.

But it was something even greater in terms of vision.

Angkor was by far the most spectacular city in the world, a city of temples, palaces and monuments that was regularly rebuilt and enlarged for all of 300 years. It says a lot about the civilisation that most of its temples are still intact after 700 years of neglect.

By far the most famous temple is Angkor Wat, where 5 lotus towers top a 1km sq temple sheltered by a wide moat. Yet when you get up close, what's even more impressive than the size is the level of detail in the carvings circling the temple, where each bas-relief tells a story drawn from Hindu mythology or contemporary history.

It's the same throughout Angkor.

There are about 15 major temples in the park and each one is impressive from a distance but even more so close up. There are towering pyramids (Angkor Wat, Ta Keo and Pre Rup), sprawling monasteries (Preah Khan, Ta Prohm, Ta Som) and oddities (the water-temple of Neak Pean). Then there are dozens of smaller structures, which litter the landscape. Finally, there is the biggest site of them all - Angkor Thom, the royal city within a city. Home to several intricately carved terraces, towers, palaces and the 100+ eerie faces of the Bayon.

It's hard to believe anyone lived in the Khmer empire besides builders and sculptors. Where the hell did they find time to conquer south-east Asia?

Angkor is truly awe-inspiring. A project on such a scale probably couldn't be carried off in modern times, even with all our money-saving building techniques. But 1,000 years ago, when they had to float the sandstone downstream, chisel it into shape and lift it into position?

Today, the towers of Angkor Wat are the symbol of a nation. Scale models can be found by the Silver Pagoda, at the airports and outside smaller wats, while their image features on the national flag and even the national beer. It's a reminder to Cambodians everywhere that, despite all the trials of modern history, they can trace their roots back to one of the greatest civilisations of all.

Rural homestay:

Siem Reap, gateway to the ruins of Angkor, is a wonderful town in its own right. Full of interesting markets, fantastic restaurants and dirt-cheap backpacker bars. Yet, like every backpacker since time immemorial, we found ourselves wanting to escape from our comfort zone and see a slice of 'real' Cambodia.

In other words, live in dirt-poor squalor for a day.

So it was that we arranged to stay with a family in the countryside, about 20km south-east of Siem Reap. 20km that took an hour by tuk tuk and felt like an eternity - how those motorised carts stay upright on the bumpiest dirt tracks imaginable will forever remain a mystery to me. Add in time spent crawling behind village processions, and children blocking the road simply to touch your skin (mine remains milk-bottle white, as ever), and it's fair to say you feel pretty far removed from the main tourist trail.

Here in a rural village like 80% of all Cambodians. Staying with a family that lives off the land like 70% of Cambodians. Where the staple diet of rice and fish depends entirely on the Mekong River - like 50 million others in south-east Asia. Statistically speaking, this is definitely 'real' Cambodia.

It's worth staying in a homestay at least once in your life even if you hate it. Especially if you hate it because at least then it'll hit home what life is really like for most of the world. Most people never experience nice houses, apartments or hotels - they live in dilapidated huts or worse. The very least we can do is experience their world for a day.

I've no doubt we stayed in one of the nice places in the village. It has a TV, radio and separate rooms. Even so, it's a sobering experience. Take the bathroom, for instance. There isn't one. There are 3 toilets in the village, serving hundreds of people. And these toilets double as showers. Well, if by shower you mean using a plastic bucket to pour cold pondwater over your head (and threatening spiders). This definitely isn't the Hilton.

But despite the poverty it's by no means a depressing experience because the people make the most of what they have. There's a sense of community here that you don't get in the cities - members of different families come and go between houses without a second thought. So much so, in fact, that I never quite got a handle on exactly who was in my homestay family and who was from next door.

There's something timeless about that sense of community, as if it has always been this way.

That sense is compounded by the huge number of family photos on display going back generations. Life today probably isn't all that different to life for the people in those old pictures: Grow some rice, hopefully enough to feed your family. At the local market, exchange your surplus for fish and vegetables. Then manually grind up the rice and heat till it pops. Cook with the fish and vegetables and eat for dinner. Repeat daily and pass on your knowledge to the children so that, when you become nothing more than a picture on the wall, they'll be able to do it all themselves.

The Khmer Rouge:

The Khmer Rouge casts a dark shadow over Cambodia. Between April 17th 1975 ('Year Zero'😉 and January 7th 1979, the country was ruled by one of the most ruthless regimes in history.

It was definitely the most incomprehensible.

What logic is there behind a regime that killed up to 3 million of its own citizens - perhaps a third of the total population? Why execute people suspected of being intellectuals when the KR leadership comprised individuals who learnt Marxism studying in Paris? And how did they think forcing every last person out of the towns and cities at gunpoint - even those on hospital operating tables - was the best way of creating a socialist utopia?

Sadly there aren't any answers in the country itself. If anything, you just come up with more questions when you visit the most notorious KR sites. One such site is the S-21 prison, a former school where over 17,000 inmates were tortured but less than a dozen survived (the guards kept meticulous records).

What's particularly chilling about this Asian Auschwitz is that the Vietnamese army left everything exactly as they found it when they overthrew the KR in 1979. Photos of every victim remain on the walls, instruments of torture are still in place, even the blood hasn't been washed off the walls. This torture chamber could almost reopen for business tomorrow.

Then there are the killing fields.

Those at Choeung Ek are the most famous because of their proximity to Phnom Penh and the fact they were where prisoners from S-21 were killed. But in reality there are hundreds, thousands of killing fields across the country. Some are still being discovered, most are unmarked. Wherever you rest your eyes in Cambodia, there's a chance somebody was killed there.

On top of their crimes against humanity, the KR also committed an enormous crime against history. You don't have to spend long in Cambodia to notice that all the pagodas and religious statues look remarkably new.

At the homestay, for example, there's a newly-built temple with a corrugated iron roof and paintwork so bright it makes your eyes water. Lying inconspicuously on either side are some beautifully carved stones, part of a temple that stood continuously on this spot for 1,000 years. Until 1975. Since all active religious buildings were destroyed by the KR, the Cambodians have had to rebuild practically everything. Unfortunately these new places of worship are samey in style and uniformly garish in colour, lacking the weather-beaten aspect that gives a place its character.

The notable exception is Angkor. The KR recognised that the ancient Buddhist and Hindu temples were no longer used and were therefore irrelevant in their quest to exterminate religious thought. Moreover, the KR were keen to present themselves as heirs to the great Khmer empire of old. So they appropriated the towers of Angkor Wat for the national flag and even whisked foreign dignitaries round to dispel rumours of a vast cultural whitewash in the country.

It isn't all good news at Angkor, however. The KR weren't ashamed to loot the temples, crudely hacking out statues and religious artifacts to sell abroad. Nowadays, Cambodians call these thieves 'the bad men'.

Random facts:

Cambodia has more NGOs than anywhere else in the world

Cambodia has half the land of neighbouring Vietnam, but only an eighth of the population.

Impressions:

There are many reasons why Cambodia is a wonderful country. Life here has a completely different rhythm to back home. The days roll slowly by, punctuated by tea breaks, meals and endless siestas. The reason for this is simple - no other pace is possible in conditions such as these. And perhaps there's another factor too, which for want of a better word I'll have to call an absence of ambition. That sounds harsh, but it isn't meant to be.

Cambodians enjoy having long meandering conversations with everyone they meet, seemingly for no other purpose than to pass the time more pleasantly. Outside the cities, there's little sense of capitalism in action here. Everyone's simply focused on getting enough to eat.

For better or worse, the more successful businesses here come from outside - many started by expats and NGOs.

Smitten tourists and aid workers have spotted an opportunity in Cambodia with its expanding tourism market and little in the way of competition. So in the past 15 years there's been an explosion of small family-run businesses. Run by foreigners for foreign tourists, nevertheless many of them have an idealistic edge - whether training local street children, providing community facilities or minimising the impact on local villages. This creates a unique atmosphere - with surprisingly little effort, tourists can feel their dollars are helping the Cambodians rather than raping their country.

Of course Cambodia isn't for everyone. Banish any idea that it's a jungle out there. Through a combination of Agent Orange and growing demand for rice, present-day Cambodia has only a third of the forest it had when the Vietnam War began. Cambodia is a monoculture country, and in the dry season the paddy fields are brown, arid and dusty.

Another issue is that, thanks in large part to the KR, there aren't all that many traditional sites in Cambodia. Angkor and the capital aside, it's fair to say the people are the main drawcard.

Longer term, however, it's clear what the main obstacle is. The spectre of corruption looms large over the country.

To take just one example - the KR trials. Leading figures in the regime such as S-21 boss Duch, head of state Khieu Samphan and chief ideologue Nuon Chea are facing charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in a joint UN-Cambodian government tribunal. But already it risks being discredited. Why? Because of widespread allegations of corruption within the tribunal!

And that's without even considering why it took 30 years to bring the KR to trial in the first place.

While visiting Wat Kor Village in north-west Cambodia, we were introduced to an elderly resident. She was an academic, like her mother, father and brother. But because of their perceived intellectualism, all 3 relatives were killed by the KR and she now lives alone.

In the same village resides the family of Nuon Chea, aka. Brother #2. Before going on trial for crimes against humanity, he was known to drop in on his family for the odd wedding and funeral. Ever so tentatively - and no doubt insensitively - I asked the old lady whether she had any contact with Nuon Chea's family. His family lives just over there, she said pointing, so they see each other around. "But we are opposites. You see, my family are intellectuals and his are communists, so we do not get on."

At times like this, it's impossible not to admire the Cambodian people. For 30 years, they must reluctantly co-exist alongside the leaders of a genocidal regime, one that took the lives of several members of their family. It's as if, post-1945, the Jews found themselves in the same village as Hitler and Himmler for 3 long decades.

But what of today?

Sadly justice in Cambodia isn't assured, and not just because of alleged corruption. Pol Pot evaded it altogether by dying under house arrest in 1998. Meanwhile, there is a real danger that the KR trials - which finally opened in February 2009 - may be too late. 82-year-old Nuon Chea is one of several elderly leaders already suffering severe health problems.

The KR trial is a graphic illustration of the many problems here. Cambodia is a wonderful country for tourists, but under the surface it's also a very troubled one.

Next stop: Vietnam

---