Cambodia

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I emerged from the cool shadow of the stone temple into the baking sun. I walked along the ancient bridge, flanked by majestic carved figures on either side, back towards to waiting tuk-tuk. A quick glance at the statues shows an oddity. A rough hollow where the face should have been. Most have had them brutally chiseled off. At the end of the bridge I am approached by two beggars. They both, like many I've encountered recently, have missing limbs. This is Cambodia, a country shaped like a heart whose history is drenched in blood. A country who's ancient and recent past are ever present, like a blood stain on a glorious fabric. A country that holds a genuine wonder of the world still quite hidden away in the jungles of its remote North-West, and genuine national tragedy, in the reign of terror instigated by Pol Pot and the Khamer Rouge, that can rival the Holocaust in its horror, and is still within living memory.

I was travelling from Don Det with my friend Graham, and as our bus trundled south through the Cambodian countryside, the differences with Laos were stark. It was a lot more built up with bricks & concrete compared to Laos’ bamboo & string. It was much flatter, with buffalo wallowing in paddy fields that stretched undisturbed to the horizon & beyond. But the main thing that I noticed was how dirty it seemed. I know coming from a supposedly molly-coddled Englishman this may seem like a bigoted exaggeration but literally there was rubbish all along the sides of the roads stretching for miles & in the towns & villages we passed there were regular piles of rubbish strewn in front of houses by the roadside where children played.

Another thing that struck me about Cambodia was the somewhat excessive signs of politics. As we travelled through, every village had several houses devoted to The Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) & other political movements, even when there were only a few buildings in the place. This was a reminder that we had re-entered the world of 'democracy'.

Phnom Penh (pronounced nom pen) was our destination. We arrived late at night & trekked into the large backpacker "ghetto" next to the Boeng Kak 'Lake' - more of a large rank pond in the middle of the city with mud coloured water. No matter how hot it got in the city I had no desire to swim in it! And in Phnom Penh it got hot. Really hot. After 2 months in SE Asia i'd felt like i'd acclimatised to the heat, but i'd never felt it to be as oppressive as it was in Phnom Penh. The wall mounted thermometer read 35oC at night. I suppose the fact we only had one small fan between two in our room didn't help!

The city is like most other SE Asian cities, bustling, vibrant, and mental! I would not want to drive on these roads, having to compete with trucks, cows and an endless streak of speeding tuk-tuks. On the first day we visited the gruesome block buildings of S-21. Security Prison 21 (S-21) was a former school who's classrooms were cleared of children and converted to a prison by the Khmer Rouge. The nature of these buildings history holds poignant significance. The twisted philosophy of the regime that education is a worthless evil and political "re-education" is a necessity. Countless Cambodians were tortured and executed here. Wandering the abandoned rooms, eerily silent, the atmosphere of suffering and brutality is everywhere; from the rusted iron beds and ankle shackles; the bare concrete walls; the dark reddy-black stains on the otherwise bare tiled floors. In each room is displayed a single photograph of the gruesome scene that greeted the liberators of the prison. There's a horrible moment of recognition as I'd recognise the same bed, the same shackles, the same stain on the floor but fresher. However, the pictures also showed the rooms' last occupant where they lay, dead.
The rooms continue in this vain until the last few. In these are displayed documented photo records of the inmates of S-21. They stare out defiantly at you behind beaten up faces. Some of them are babies, surely less than a year old. All enemies of the regime. The last room contained a glass case filled with bones and skulls. Human skulls. A shocking reminder of how real this all is.
The next day we visited the infamous Killing Fields, located a few miles outside the city. This is where the inmates from S-21 and the like were taken to be executed. It was, without doubt, the most surreal place I have ever been. It is like a park, with a lake in the middle, very green with trees and bright with colourful flowers. Butterflies flutter aimlessly through the air, and nearby the sound of schoolchildren playing carries over the hushed grounds. But then there is a large monument in the middle, about 20 metres tall that contains shelves and shelves of human skulls. There were thousands of them, piled unceremoniously on top of each other. A horrible reality check to remind you that you're surrounded by the remnants of death. More of Cambodia's bloody history that just hangs in the air like a think smog.
We wondered the grounds and noted the grassy depressions that indicated the site of a mass grave. The scale is shocking but its hard to picture the tragedy when all my eyes can see are rippling water, flowers, and butterflies. If S-21 stands like a gloomy, Auschwitz style reminder to the heartbreak, then the Killing Fields are more like a battle field, soaking up the horror like a sponge and repainting it with natural beauty. It shows how easy it is to forget what happened but here the monument of skulls ensures it never will.

Cambodia though, has a glorious past as well as a gruesome one, and a few hundred miles to the North-West of Phnom Penh lies the ancient temples of Angkor. A collection of many temples and other buildings with the most famous of these being Angkor Wat. This was the centre of the mighty Khmer Empire hundreds of years ago. The whole region stretches over 1000 square kilometres and was the biggest pre-industrial city the world had seen. Yet, in a sober reminder of the fallibility of great civilisations, it's power diminished, it's people were scattered and Angkor was abandoned. It remained hidden for hundreds of years, empty and forgotten, swallowed by the twisted vines of the jungle; a Lost City.

The closest town to the temples is Siem Reap, about 6-7 hours by bus North West of the capital. On our way there our bus broke down and we we stranded at the road-side. Luckily there were 'services' close by that sold food of all varieties from pineapple to grilled tarantula. The young girls who sold the pineapples watched in amusement as I studied the huge spiders with a timid fascination. I was offered a live one to hold but i wasn't too keen. The girls, never ones to miss an opportunity, then waved the beasts in my face threatening to put one on me if i didn't buy the pineapple!! I wonder how that sales technique would go down back home!

The temples are way too vast to explore on foot so the way we did it was to hire a tuk-tuk driver for the 3 days we were there. We started early the next day when our Tuk Tuk driver picked us up from the hotel. We visited the main attraction on the 1st day; Angkor Wat. It is the biggest of the temples, instantly recognisable since it adorns almost everything Cambodia, from the bank notes to beer bottles. It is a magnificent stone palace, decorated in seemingly endless series of stone carvings depicting ancient battles & customs. My favourite temples, though, were the smaller, more open ones. Angkor Thom, with it's amused looking stone faces. The Elephant Terrace, where a series of marching stone elephants form a wall between two complexes. Ta Prohm, where giant trees intertwine with the walls, showing how the jungle had tried to reclaim the temples for its own.

What stood out to me the most was how you could roam, at will, over the majority of the complex. There were many occasions when I found myself completely alone among the ruins. Discovering hidden stairs & mystery, cobwebbed passageways. I loved the feeling of exploration & imagined myself as a vintage archaeologist the likes of Howard Carter or Indiana Jones. This is an experience you simply can't get in most other major historical monuments.

We pretty much saw the lot in Angkor, from sun-rise over Angkor Wat, to sunset at the top of Phnom Bakheng and everything in between. It took us all of the 3 days. With the scope of the place and the majesty of the buildings and the jungle, that was the least it deserved.

I was scheduled to leave Siem Reap and Cambodia after the 3rd day & move on to Vietnam, but I just had one more thing to do. Some friends I'd met in Laos, Hayley and Karen, were arriving that day and I wanted to spend the night with them. I ended up getting far too drunk in the lively bars on the aptly named Pub street and missing my bus out the following day. The same thing happened the next night too. In the end I stopped buying a bus ticket until I was sure I'd make it! I also developed a nasty infection in a cut on my ankle. I tried to treat it myself at first, but it kept getting worse and eventually I couldn't walk. I went to hospital & ended up needing a week of treatment. So it looked like I was staying in Siem Reap for a while.

On about the 3th day of my procrastination we all visited a local orphanage. Around the tourist areas of Siem Reap, particularly at night, there are swarms of street kids begging for money or selling you things. I heard not to give them money, but you need a cold heart to refuse a small child. But as I grew more accustomed to life in Siem Reap I noticed a couple of things. The children would beg, and as soon as they had something they would pass it to an adult watching close buy. These people using the kids for their own gain made me feel angry. So one day a couple of us decided to buy them all a meal at one of the many street stalls. That way we knew that they were at least getting some benefit. Between us we bought about 12 meals for the kids at a cost of less than a dollar each. They were fun, cheeky little buggers with infectious smiles. The kids at the orphanage were no different. We all bought them basic gifts. I took a football & spent at least an hour playing football with the kids. It was amazing to see them all laughing & playing. These orphanages are doing amazing work. When we left we donated as much money as we had. I felt that it would be better used here than on the street.

As we were leaving the kids all lined up to wave us off. That will be my enduring memory of Cambodia. Not of the temples, or the killing fields, but these amazing children. My leg was healing & I could walk again so it was time to move on. I'd spent over 3 weeks in Cambodia & Vietnam was waiting.

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