Advertisement
We arrived in Phnom Penh via Air Asia on Thursday. The capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh is a bustling city, full of energy (or chaos), history and traffic. We set of from the airport in a taxi and were immediately witness to the incredible transport system of the city, or lack of. Various vehicles sprawl across the road coming from any and every direction. If ever the phrase 'every man for himself' was appropriate it is on Cambodia's roads. So far, traffic around Asia has been novel, fun, exciting and disordered but this was just frightening, amazingly we haven't seen any accidents...yet. It seems these drivers have a sixth sense. Transport around the city varies from sitting on the back of a motorbike to cruising around in an air conditioned taxi, however the most popular and notorious mode is the tuk tuk. The tuk tuk is basically a motorbike with a trailer of sorts attached to the bike. They are all over south east Asia and seem to be the popular way of getting around, however I have not seen quite as many as there are here. On every curb and street corner there are swarms of drivers announcing 'tuk
tuk, tuk tuk sir. Where are you going?' As you can imagine this becomes very annoying, however to lose your temper in Asia is not the done thing and so we continue with a polite 'no thanks', which works, at least for about three metres until we meet the next set of drivers. All is not bad though, once we navigated the gauntlet of tuk tuk drivers and caught our breaths we soon realised we were in a very beautiful city.
Phnom Penh is quite charming and the people are incredibly friendly. Smiles are everywhere. There is a lot of French influence present which is very apparent in the architecture and baguette shops. On our first day walking around I couldn't help singing Nancy Sinatra's 'These boots are made for walking' from the opening scene of the second half of Stanly Kuberick's film, Full metal jacket. I know its probably set in Saigon, but the street corners here reminded me of that opening sequence (minus Matthew Modine and the 'me so horny' prostitute). The same thing happened in Laos when we were driving past paddy fields, Creedance Clearwater's 'Fortunate son' came into my head, this time from the Vietnam
sequence in Forrest Gump. Its funny how so much of the world gets seen through film, I remember New York and thinking how familiar everything was, but having not been there it was obviously the result of too many movies. After wondering around, reminising about old war movies we stopped for lunch. The food here is fantastic and relatively cheap, one of the national dishes is the Amok curry. Fish is traditionally used for the Amok which is baked in a banana leaf with coconut milk and various spices, it tastes really good. Helen is doing a cooking course in Cambodia on Saturday, maybe she'll learn how to make Amok!
After lunch on our first day we braced ourselves for a visit to S-21, the Toul Sleng genocide museum. To fully understand the horror of S-21 I am going to have to give a brief history lesson. Cambodia has a very rich and deep history of which I am slowly learning however its most recent history is quite sickening. In 1970 the King of Cambodia was overthrown by US supporter General Lon Nol of the political party the Khmer republic (indigenous people of Cambodia are known as
Khmer). During this time the Americans were fighting communist North Vietnamese, who in order to reach the south were using trails through neighboring Loas and Cambodia. As a supporter of the US Lon Nol allowed the Americans to bomb suspected trails throughout Cambodia much to the detriment of his own people. Naturally this caused a great deal of resentment amongst the rural population and with the help of the deposed king a peasant army formed, nicknamed the Khmer Rouge. The army was led by Pol Pot who with his forces, in 1975 stormed Phnom Penh and overthrew the government. Pol Pot forced all of the people out of the cities and towns and forced them into slave labor, under a communist banner he renamed the country the Democratic Kampuchea. The poor, uneducated and easily controlled mostly rural Cambodians became the ''old' people and their despised educated city dwelling counterparts became the 'new'. Over the next four years Pol Pot's regime systematically tortured and murdered all of the 'new' people, turning families against each other or simply tearing them apart. Much of this torture happened at Toul Sleng or prison S-21.
Toul Sleng was originally a school but was
taken over by Pol Pots forces and turned into a prison and torture centre throughout his bloody regime. At the height of its activity up to 100 prisoners were executed every day including women and children. The museum now stands as a monument to these atrocities, no longer backed by the government and for some too harsh a reminder the former school is visited by hundreds of tourists a day. There is an air of somber quiet at Toul Sleng and rightly so. For me and Helen some of the exhibits were a bit much. The grounds have four main buildings, two remain as they were, with cells, chains and other instruments of torture on display. The other two house the documented evidence of the Khmer rouge and reactions and exhibits by Khmer artists. The documentation was perhaps the worst part, on one level runs a long corridor of thousands of 6''x 4'' black and white photographs of Toul Slengs victims, for Helen the images of children was too much. I imagine the museum has had the same effect on us as if we had visited Auschwitz. As horrific and saddening the place is I'm glad that future generations can
bear witness to the horrors of the human race in the hope that such things can never happen again. During his reign Pol Pot's Khmer rouge killed nearly two million people including many of his own people as fear and paranoia took their grip. On 25th December 1978 the Vietnamese invaded and overthrew the regime the following January. Pol Pot fled to Thailand and did not meet his demise until 1998. The years that followed were harsh and uncertain, even now the legacy of Khmer Rouge continues. More than two decades on the international war crimes tribunal for Khmer Rouge leaders is only just beginning.
Cambodia today is still an uncertain place, it has the highest proportion of HIV cases in south east asia and a population that is divided by the very rich and the very very poor. The government seems very short sighted and is suggested by lonely planet to operate not unlike a dictatorship with former members of the Khmer Rouge still operating within the government, including the Prime Minister, a former Khmer rouge guerrilla. However, hope remains, the arts are flourishing, the people we meet on the streets seem optimistic and the country is
opening up to the benefits of tourism, we just have to make sure our money goes to the right people.
Wo!!, sorry if that all seemed as bit depressing but after having seen it and learnt of this recent horror I felt the need to inform. Sorry if you didn't want to know. Moving on, as to end on a lighter note let me tell you all about Wat Phnom and monkeys!!!
Wat Phnom is the most revered temple in Phnom Penh and sits upon the only (supposedly) hill in the capital. Surrounded around the temple is a small park which in some ways operates as a roundabout for the crazy traffic. The temple itself wasn't that impressive, at least not for us. It was the monkeys that were the real highlight. Not being a monkey expert I think they were types of Macaques and they dominated the park. There was about twenty or thirty of them running around. We spent a few hours sat watching and laughing as people fed them. It wa a nice reprise after the horrible afternoon spent at Toul Sleng. As we left the grounds of Wat Phnom i noticed two
huge fruit bats in a tree opposite the US embassy. I was surprised to see them in the heart of the city but they looked quite content. Well that's enough of my ramblings, we're off to Siem next to visit the temples of Angkor, hopefully it won't be half has hectic as Phnom Penh.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.089s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0493s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Jo Worley
non-member comment
Just Incredible.......
...reading this one brought tears to my eyes so to actually experience it....makes me realise the ignorant bliss that we live in every day. Miss you, love you x x x x