Advertisement
Published: September 28th 2011
Edit Blog Post
It takes a bit of imagination to see why this city was once called the "pearl of Asia" in the 1920s. It must have been a genteel, graceful place with it's French colonial architecture, pleasant riverside promenade, wide streets and boulevards. However, after decades of civil war and the reign of the
Khmer Rouge the city, in it's current state, is still mostly shabby and definitely not chic(so far). Yet it's one of the more memorable cities I've been to, not least because of its history and its people. It's a city that makes you contemplate the dark side of human nature as well as our capacity to forgive and survive. I spent 3 eye opening days here.
My hotel the Velkommen Inn is located just off Sisowath Quay which is the main boulevard along the water front. It was clean, cheap with a great view of a wall. In the evenings, by the river walk, locals bring their families and hang out, play sepak takraw (like hacky sack but with a bamboo ball) or exercise (line dancing for older adults and hip hop for teenagers).One of the things I enjoy in travel is seeing how the locals unwind. It seems that mall
culture has yet to invade this part of Asia. There are food carts selling boiled corn, fruits and one that I call the Fear Factor cart (bugs, cricket, frogs, snakes all fried). I tried the crickets (like chips but prickly) and frog (really tastes like chicken).
My first morning I set out to tackle the two most popular (notorious seems a more fitting word) sights related to the
Cambodian genocide :
*
Cheung Ek is one of the many killing fields here in Cambodia. About 30 minutes by tuk tuk ride from the city center this is where the prisoners from Tuol Sleng were executed and buried. Walking the grounds which were once an orchard is a chilling and difficult experience. Everywhere there are signs of the unimaginable horror that transpired here, trees were babies heads were bashed, another tree that had speakers mounted to drown out the screams and several pits where the about 20000 remains were found. There is also a small museum detailing the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge. The place is dominated by a stupa (Buddhist monument) that houses a glass case containing the skulls and fragments of clothing of clothing of the victims. The skulls
were grouped according to age and gender and some showed obvious signs of trauma.
Tuol Sleng was even more gruesome. About 3-4 buildings which were once a school were used by the Khmer Rouge as their primary detention center in Phnom Pehn. It is estimated that 20,000 men, women and children were tortured here. Looking at the walls of photos of the detainees staring back into the camera was a very haunting experience.
One of the buildings had class rooms that were used as torture chambers. When the Vietnamese army liberated the place in 1979 they found the remains of 7 victims still shackled to metal bed frames and beaten to death. The rooms were left as they were found, with some very graphic photos of the victims.
Of the 20,000 detainees only 7 survived, kept alive because they were artists who could produce sculptures and paintings for the Khmer Rouge. I was very fortunate to meet Buo Meng one of the 3 living survivors. He was a tiny man who was quick to smile. Through a translator he asked me where I was from and smiled when I said the US and the Philippines.
The rest of my
time here was spent seeing the Royal Palace grounds (the palace itself was off limits due to the holiday), the silver pagoda (named for the silver floor tiles), the national museum (which had sculptures from the temples in Ankor) and the Russian Market (lots of cheap t-shirts and souvenirs).
One night I went to the Cambodiana hotel bar with a couple of Filipino NGO workers I met at Tuol Sleng. The hotel was huge and very fancy, could be a sign of things to come for this city. We listened to a Filipino cover band perform Rihanna, Bruno Mars, etc. In between songs we talked about the work that they do (land rights and Oxfam), the state of politics in the Philippines and Cambodia and travel around the region.
I also spend a few hours just walking around town, trying not to get killed while crossing the streets or while eating street food.
There is something special about this city/country, even though it has ways to go before it catches up with its neighbors. Sure poverty is very prevalent and it's short on picture perfect scenery but the people here are just so nice (even the vendors are not pushy).
In fact all of the locals I met here were very welcoming, open and friendly. The ones I asked about how their families were during the time of the Khmer Rouge had no reservations about sharing their experiences. I just find it outstanding that after all that these country has been through these people are not jaded, paranoid or xenophobic.
It was Pchom Ben here when I visited and some of the shops were closed. It's like their version of memorial day. Everyone goes to the pagodas to make offerings to their ancestors. During my visit to the killing field there was a ceremony with monks. At the pagoda by the river people were lighting incense, leaving offerings of flowers and food and buying birds (small finches). They release the birds as a way of demonstrating the Buddhist teaching of benevolence to all creatures.
I leave Cambodia for a blitz of a trip to Vietnam, Saigon and Hanoi in 6 days!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.287s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 16; qc: 72; dbt: 0.0809s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb