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Published: July 18th 2009
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We arrived at Sihanoukville with images of beach paradise in our head, of endless hours sunbathing unbothered on the white sands of Southern Cambodia. We were instead greeted by your typical South East Asian gang of beach scouts, desperate to give us a massage, bracelet, pedicure, manicure, back wax, eyebrow pluck, hair braiding, you name it they’ll do it. However, this was far more intense than any Asian beach (actually, make that any beach in the world) any of us had ever been too. We were completely swarmed, and never left alone. We all felt really down after our beach experience, I left after an hour, I just couldn’t handle it any longer. I was in a bad mood as it was and this sure as hell didn’t help. After a good long nap I made my way back to the beach and after the initial disappointment of that morning I could finally enjoy my surroundings. It’s by no means Whitehaven Beach, but it’s nice enough despite the constant sound of “you want massage?” If Sihanoukville by day doesn’t do much for you, at night it’s a whole other story. One word: buckets. Vodka Redbull, Rum and Coke, any cocktail you
want, they’ll make a ‘bucketload’ of it and literally serve it in a bucket complete with a dozen straws for communal drunkenness. Pure genius. Sitting on a wicker chair on the beach listening to the sound of the ocean and whatever Hip Hop artist they were playing, while downing at least 5 buckets and yelling Hey Boomba (Cambodian for G’day Mate!) to everyone passing by, is one of the best drunken memories I’ll ever have. That my sober friends had to describe most of the night to me the next morning because I couldn’t remember much if it, is besides the point. Let’s just say the phrase “tactical chunder” became a well used term during our time here.
A hugely different experience awaited us in Phnom Penh. The Killing Fields, much like Auschwitz and Hiroshima, isn't exactly a place you ‘can’t wait to visit’, but it’s definitely something you should see at least once in your life, learn what happened, and hope to god it never happens again. We began our day at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a site that is a former high school that was used as Security Prison 21 (or S-21) by the Khmer Rouge,
How Can I Survive?
Long Live Cambodia indeed. where tens of thousands of prisoners were tortured and murdered. There are signs all over the school signaling No Laughter, though that’s the last thing you feel like doing while going in and out of the torture rooms, prison cells and huge halls full of ‘mugshots’ of every single person brought through S-21.
We were taken to the Killing Fields, huge mass graves that were discovered and now kept as a reminder of the horror that took place. In the centre of the fields lies a massive pagoda, erected to contain the 9000 skulls of unknown victims discovered in nearby graves. There are still pieces of bones sticking out of the paths, scattered bits of white broken remains to step around as you walk from one mass grave to the other. It is an extremely depressing place.
After our tours of S-21 and the Killing Fields, it was hard not to see the people of Cambodia in a different light. Surely every Cambodian has a story to tell about the Khmer Rouge time, a story about themselves, their families, or something that happened to a close friend. It happened only 30 years ago, but you wouldn’t know who
had suffered, who had lost loved ones, or who had been forced to kill. One of the hardest things we learned at S-21 was the amount of child soldiers the Khmer Rouge bred, and of the acts they were forced to commit. The fact remains that if they survived they would only be around 40 or 50 years old now, and it’s definitely not something you could ever, ever forget.
After our history lessons we decided to find the local market and get our minds away from the Killing Fields and away from the dark pit of depression we had all started to feel. After a few hours shopping, our bags packed full of souvenirs and a smile back on our faces, we found a tuk tuk driver, handed him over a map of his city and hoped he could take us back to our hotel. He studied the map confusedly for a good few minutes before enlisting his fellow drivers for help.
Q: How many tuk tuk drivers does it take to read a map?
A: 7
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