Cambodia (October 2008)

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November 6th 2008

Published: October 24th 2012

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the2moons

On The Mekong

Near Vinh Long, on the way to Long Xuyen.

Hello

This is another travel story by Judy & Bruce

Originally, we published this story in our 'Vietnam - Cambodia Journey' blog (which was one journey). But, with two countries, and a heap of photo's, we've seperated the material into two stories.

We entered Hanoi in northern Vietnam in late October 2008, and followed the Banana Pancake Trail around the north of Vietnam and then down highway 1A to Saigon. If interested, you can find that blog here .

Largely because we were in a mindset of Cambodia when we departed Saigon, we will 'commence' this 'Cambodia' blog from the time we departed Saigon.

From Saigon

We had stayed only one night at Saigon. We'd decided that after being 'up country' the big hectic city might be too much. And, anyway, our Visa's were due to expire. We left Saigon on a bus heading for the Mekong River. We'd booked a boat trip along (up?) the Mekong River to Phnom Penh (Cambodia) as our 'exit/entry' method.

The 'journey' was part tour and part travel. The bus took 4 hours to get us to the River, where

Mekong River houseboats

These 'houseboats' have fish farms under the floor!

upon we were put on small boats for a 'cruise' around 'floating markets' (sort of), and shown village industries (rice paper making, lolly making, etc.). All very 'nice', but not our choice of 'tour' (especially with dozens of other 'tourists'😉. The 'free' lunch was at a wayside stop and was horrid. It again confirmed why we like to do our own thing!!!

Later we headed to another bus and a drive westward via Long Xuyen to Chau Doc for the night. A good meal, a very ordinary hotel, and glad to be on the move the next day.

Morning saw us herded early onto small boats to see Vietnamese 'fish farms'. The fish fillets that Coles & Woolies sell as 'Basa' come from these places. What the Vietnamese Gov't has done is set up a fish fingerling breeding 'factory' to sell to individual 'farmers' who buy a few hundred take them home and put them into a huge bamboo basket type construction fixed under their houseboats. Each day (or several time a day) they open a hatch in their living room and feed the fish with manufactured pelletised fish feed. Once 'mature', the houseboat owner scoops them out

Fish feeding frenzy

Feeding Mekong catfish

and into another basket (about 1 metre in diameter) to put into the bottom of their own long boat (but 'in the bottom' means into a hole in the boat the size of the basket). Once with the right amount of fish in the baslket, the owner takes them to a fish processing factory (or the local market - whichever pays most).

We were taken to a minority village (Muslim) for the obligatory souvenir 'opportunity'. Then, we were herded onto a bigger boat to head into Cambodia. When we say bigger, it would have been licenced in a western country to take about 20 pax. But, there were only about 10 of us. Within a short while, Judy & I had 'related' to all the others and so it had now become an enjoyable journey. This was the journey Judy & I wanted. We enjoyed 3 hours on the Vietnamese side, and after the border crossing, and lunch in Cambodia, boarded a smaller Cambodian boat for a supposedly 1 1/2 hour trip (but with the Mekong in flood, it took over 3 hours).

The slow boat trip along the river edge was all that we'd hoped for and

Fun in the Mekong

Nice to see you!

more. Every time we passed a village (and there were plenty), the kids would come and wave to us as if they'd never seen a boat of tourists before; but they had as this was a daily trip were were on. Many of the other 'sights' revealed to us a small insight into local 'life'. Eventually, we 'arrived' in a place that we'd never heard of and taken by tourist van to Phnom Penh.

Phnom Penh

In Phnom Penh, Judy & I looked at our schedule and realised that we'd made a mistake and had a day to 'fill in'. We could have gone to our next destination (as planned) and bought accommodation there, or stay in Phnom Penh. We decided on the latter. Others on the boat had talked about things they wanted to see in Phnom Penh, and we felt remiss that we hadn't sheduled time for us to do similar. Here was our opportunity.

We joined a British couple in their late 20's to visit some museums. This enabled us to share a tuk-tuk. It turned out to be a very wise move for reasons we could only learn later. First we went

Tuol Sleng High School

An almost innocuous public building, except for the recent past!

to the museum at Choeung Ek, then to the Tuol Sleng Museum. These were the reminders of the Pol Pot regime or 'Khmer Rouge' atrocities.

We learnt that after the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh, they divided the city into 4 districts. In 3 of the four districts, the people were told to leave their houses and march out of the city for 'education'. Generally many to an eventual death via starvation, or disease.. The 4th quadrant was the wealthy area and most of these people were left there. We learnt they were told they were needed to 'build' a new Kampuchea. But, each household was systematically rounded up and interrogated to determine their 'rank', knowledge' etc. Over weeks, those that had prestige and knowledge were taken to a place that had been a large high school. The Tuol Sleng High School. This had been hastily converted to make a prison. And, the purpose of the prison was to extract information - usually by atrocious torture. Those that weren't 'needed' for the prison were taken to Choeung Ek. Generally, it was only males that went to the prison, the women and children were sent directly to Choeung Ek. Once

Choeung Ek

The road to the end.

a prison inmate was no longer needed, he was also taken to Choeung Ek. Choeung Ek was one of the infamous 'killing fields'. There is a glass walled tower monument there some 20 metres high filled with the skulls of many who had died there. Not all remains of who were murdered there have been removed. The site has been dug largely to establish the situation and to show the depth of depravity that then existed.

We learnt that each of those that were to die were chained, made to kneel, and one by one murdered. As the Khmer Rouge wanted to 'save' bullets, people were not shot to death. Instead, a person would use a club or iron bar to whack the prisoner (generally adults) on the skull to make them unconscious, then another person would come behind and cut their throat. We just could not come to terms with the idea that while the first murdered soul would be in fear of their fate, the last would have had to listen to the others being murdured before them and with no way of escape. We read that their Buddhist faith enabled the murdered to generally remain calm.

No title necessary

A picture of a picture from the Killing Fields.

But, then again, the chained people were also beaten if they made a noise.

We also found it hard to reconcile that even in such an atrocious situation, adult humans would kill children by kicking in their heads, or beating babies against a tree. Young women were raped before having their bodies ripped open with a knife.

There is so much more that we could tell you, but I'm sure you've got the picture. Perhaps the hardest thing to convey is the absolute horror and deep emotional feelings that Judy & I experienced while at these two places. I'm sure you can read our words and gain some semblance of our feelings, but to be there, to see the photos, to see the actual instruments of torture on display, to see film footage of survivors explaining the atrocities, put us in another place.

While we had anticipated having 'feelings' and asked our British friends if we could go our own way and meet up before heading off, having similarly compassionate people with us helped us sort of come to terms with the reality of both the day, and the facts of what we had observed. One can

Phnom Penh

The King's Palace

only endure one's emotions in silence for so long before one feels compelled to talk.

After returning to our hotel, Judy & I ventured into the central area of Phnom Penh to visit the National Museum (Khmer culture) and the Royal Palace. In both places, and also around the city proper, there were many beggars. Again, for us too many. Clearly, someone was carting them from the countryside so that they could be used as a means to collect westerner 'gifts'.

We also noted that there is a huge, I mean immensely huge - disparity between rich and poor in Cambodia. The senior gov't staff and wealthy drive around in Mercedes, BMW, Range Rover, Lexus, etc. There are almost no other car brands. And, ordinary sedans are almost non-exitent. What got us was that gov't dep'ts would have their logo on a Lexus version of the Toyota Landcruiser. To us, a Lexus is a rebadged Landcruiser with extra goodies and sells for a heap more dollars. We could not reason why such a poor country allows its gov't elite to drive such expensive cars. And, in contrast, the 'ordinary' population were forced to drive around on very old

Phnom Penh

The National Museum

motorcycles (possibly 2nd hand from Thaland/Vietnam). Everywhere poverty and elitism are marked.

If there was a middle class, it was the Buddhist monks. They live very well (much much better than Vietnam). And, the Buddhist temples are being (re)built in much glory all over Cambodia. Perhaps like Thailand, when some degree of prosperity occurs, the monks get to live very well.

By the time we'd seen the Royal Palace, where the King lives in absolutely amazing prosperity, we couldn't take much more. We went back to our hotel and showered to go to dinner. We entered a western oriented restaurant and had a beer. A horrible french person was berating the staff that he was not getting satisfaction from his staff: he hired only the pretty ones and used them as his personal 'objects' by 'sleeping' with a different one every night. Judy had a go at him, and we were promptly evicted. What we learnt by talking to the Cambodian (female) manager is that the french guy owns the place, is extremely sexist, and believes it his right to have Cambodian women serve his needs. Without any middle class, morals are obviously absent!!

The day was

On the Road

Cambodian highway stop.

one that will remain in our minds foreever. It wasn't just the horror of the atrocities, or the impact and consequences of poverty, it was also the inhumane treatment of anybody in the name of making a quid. Put simply, our sense of being ourselves was overwhelmingly challenged.

Siem Reap + the Angkor temples

With Phnom Penh a vivid reminder of the need for morals and ethics, we took a bus to Siem Reap and Angkor. Stopping at 'bus stations' along the way was often a dusty experience. Bitumen is clearly a (relatively) costly item in Cambodia.

We scheduled 3 full days at Siam Reap. In hindsight we needed all of that to see the remains of the Angkor 'civilisation'. The Angkorians were Khmer people who at their height 'existed' between about 700 AD - 1230AD. During that time, the kings were (initially) Hindu, then Buddhist, then Hindu. The display of temples and such are truly worthy of World Heritage status.

For us, when reading up on the extent of the temple 'evidence', we were faced with trying to determine what to see and how. We decided to start at the historical beginning and observe

The Many Faces of Angkor

A road that circuits the Angkor site (with entry gate and wall in the distance).

the changes to building style, and religious demonstration over time. We feel that this was the only sensible approach as without some structure, one could very easily get 'templed out' and miss the relevance of the overall site/s.

On reflection, other than Angkor Wat (one temple) and the Bayon (part of another temple), we came to the view that two Angkor temples in eastern Thailand provided a more historical 'story'. Nevertheless, the overall Angkor site (and specifically Angkor Wat) is impressive by definition of (1) scale, (2) history and (3) all being in an accessible area. After 3 full days (up at 5am so as to start early and beat the crowds, and also avoid some of the absolutely intense heat during the middle part of the day), we were somewhat relieved to leave Siem Reap and head to Kuala Lumpur to return home.

Please look further through our 'pics' as we were reallyt impressed.

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😊

Additional photos below

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