A gecko lullaby, the annihilation of a Nation and Angkor What???? (Part 1)

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December 23rd 2011

Published: December 23rd 2011

“Maybe you are scared to try something new?…Never resist the unfamiliar. Just keep your mind open and suck in the experience”

Alex Garland, The Beach

If I was any more relaxed than I am at the moment I think my body would just stop working and slowly dissolve, disintegrating atom by atom into the sands of Ao Yai beach. I am on little Ko Chang – a small island on the west coast of the Thai Peninsula where there are no roads, no vehicles, no hot water, no electricity (except when the generators kick in for 4 hrs each night) and very very few people. I’m lying in my veranda strung hammock outside my little bungalow – a mere 30metres from the calm waters of the Andamen sea which lulls me to sleep each night as it makes its nightly journey up and down the two tone beach, the black and white sands interlacing like plaits on the shore. I can see the sea’s cerulean sparkle through the grove of Don Sak trees that cling to the sandy soil which give me great hammock inducing shade throughout the heat of the afternoon.

I am staying at Cashew Nut Resort but Resort is a somewhat over ambitious term for this collection of tiny bungalows that dot the 3kms long beach. It is simplicity personified with an outdoor kitchen amidst the cashew trees, where the lovely staff serve up freshly cooked meals on demand. There is a covered raised wooden area with tables, chairs, raffeta mats and cushions to lounge on. My bungalow is a stone’s throw from the main area (good thing as I have lost my head-torch and wouldn’t want to negotiate the forest in the dark) and it also means little effort to stumble from the hammock to the kitchen area to procure a freshly squeezed glass of chilled pineapple juice, kept cool by the huge containers which are filled up with ice block deliveries from the mainland each day.

I have an extremely comfy double bed with princess-style mossie net where I lie listening to the calls of the resident gecko - like a lullaby, a cold water only wet-room (with a tap and shower but no sink) which comes complete with large brown spider who moves around during the day but always returns to the same spot each night. A non-flush toilet is in the corner so you hurl buckets of water down the orifice to get rid of your ablutions and gaping holes in the floorboards looking down onto the sandy earth beneath. There are only a handful of people here and one can walk the entire length of the beach without seeing another soul. Forget Koh Samui, Koh Phi-Phi or even worse, Phuket or Pattaya. The island of Koh Chang is exactly what I was looking for and I have found it. Not many others have. The people who are here are an eclectic bunch who are much older than many of the people I have met along the way in SE Asia. Some are long term residents who appear to have opted out of a conventional existence in exchange for this remote, undeveloped island where there is literally nothing.

Considering the stress of travelling with Andy, I’m surprised my body and mind has slipped into such a tranquil state so quickly. I kicked the bladder infection on the head with the assistance of my own pharmacy – a 3 day course of ciproflaxin and left the mainland behind for this secluded and peaceful place. It was so secluded and peaceful when I got off the local boat from Ranong on the mainland, I wondered if I would go stir crazy within 48 hrs but my god, I know how to do nothing when I put my mind to it. This is a place for reading, for contemplating, for strolling in the shallows of the sea, for sundowners admiring the orb of fire disappearing on the horizon…..

The days so far have panned out as follows: Wake as the sun breaks through the canopy and starts to heat the shack up – about 10am….. bikini on and hop skip jump to the deserted beach for a morning swim. Sarong wrapped, eat freshly baked bread and fried eggs and Thai coffee (always sweetened Thai-style with condensed milk) on the ‘resort’ veranda. Return to the beach for some reading and sun worship until noon. Freshwater bracing shower in the bungalow and into the hammock for a few hours of snoozing/ episodes of Nip/Tuck (Sandy – you’ve got me hooked!). A massage under the shadow of the beautiful mangrove tree on the edge of the beach. Stagger back to the hammock to sleep off the effects of the massage. A freshly made Thai curry for lunch and then post food siesta – back in the hammock. About 4pm the sun starts to cool so a stroll along the sands to each end of the bay which sits beneath the verdant green jungle rising up behind. Clambering over rocks where hermit crabs scuttle away in unabashed surprise. A sunset swim to cool down and then a bottle of Chang beer on the beach whilst the sun grows ever more ochre and sinks for the night on the aqua horizon, Return to the ‘resort’ for some spicily tossed fresh stir-fry or fish that has literally been snatched from the ocean moments before. More reading or conversations with anyone who happens to be around (currently there is a Belgian girl, Eveline here who I have enjoyed dinner with. Prior to that a trio of gorgeous funny guys (Colin, Ali and Dave) from Poole in Dorset and now a lovely Swiss German couple of girls, Magdalena and Laura and also a rather buff Dutchman named Jack). Come about 830pm, it’s time to slip under the mosquito net and watch a movie on the netbook before falling asleep and then 12 hrs later the whole day starts again. Alternatively, a nighttime stroll through the algae rich waters of the sea, their bio-luminescence sparkling like a thousand diamonds as your feet disturb them. The moon is the only light to guide you to the Thai Bar – a collection of loungers on the sand where bottles of Hong Thong whiskey are served on ice round a driftwood beach fire…the perfumed smoke rising like incense into the night. Whilst the generators are on, the coloured lights frame the bar and mellow tunes mix with the sound of cicadas performing their nightly concert.

Its proper bliss out time and although I am sure the novelty of this sedate pace of life would eventually wear off, for the time being I am reveling in the lethargy (the greatest decision I have to make is green or red Thai curry!), the sun, the sea, the jungle and the absence of a less than satisfactory travelling companion. The irony is that Andy originally wanted to come out to visit not for the mighty Khymer temples of Angkor Wat or the 4000 islands of Southern Laos but for chillax and beach-time in Thailand. A mere week or so after he arrived he decided that beach-time may not suit him and it wasn’t what he was looking for….I don’t think he knows what he is looking for.

So it is time, I can’t really continue to entertain you with stories of dappled shadows amidst groves of cashew nut trees or watching the swifts skimming through the thermals catching insects at sunset or the sea eagles hovering over the gentle surf…… I need to bring you up to speed with the adventures since leaving Pakse in Laos. I have been dreading this moment as although there have been some wonderful experiences, the whole of the past few weeks has been clouded by the physical and emotional trials and tribulations of Andy. There were some happy moments with him but overall it would be fair to say that his decision to come out here was not a good one. I had my suspicions when he said he was planning to quit his job and wanted to join me but not heeding the advice of many friends, I didn’t discourage him from joining me. Doh!

Travelling is not always easy (although this bit is :-)) and he is someone who has not done a great deal. I am not judging him for that at all – I hope I don’t sound intolerant when describing his malaise as he couldn’t have asked for two more understanding companions to venture through Laos and Cambodia with. It was from the moment he arrived that he seemed uneasy, untalkative, unable to relax and enjoy the idiosyncrasies of SE Asian life. At times I tried to get him to articulate what he wanted but he was totally unable to discuss, to share, to talk and all his frustration and sadness manifested itself with a catalogue of physical complaints which rendered him miserable and unhappy for days at a time. It didn’t help that he suffered immediately from a case of the squirts but Im not convinced if this was a case of Man-Flu….

So, as a result, his enjoyment of all the incredible things we got to see and do seemed tainted with a disagreeable , monosyllabic silence which I eventually gave up on – and I don’t give up easily! One of the best days for me in Cambodia was where I stopped trying to help him or snap him out of his moody grumps and took off on my own for the day.

I had the most atrocious history education at school and can quite comfortably say my knowledge is appalling so I take every opportunity I get when travelling to learn about how a country has got to where it is today. Visiting the Tuol Sleng Museum therefore was essential. Here in 1975, a matter of days before I was born Tuol Svay Prey High School was taken over by the security forces of Pol Pot and became a prison known simply as S21. During his regime, this became the biggest centre for detention and torture in the country. In the 3 years it existed as a jail, 17,000 were afflicted with the most heinous punishments for unfounded reasons. The Khymer Rouge interrogated innocents suspecting them of being spies for the CIA or KGB and men, women and children were horrifically tortured leading to false confessions and thus death. As the revolution grew further out of control, generations of torturers and executioners who had previously worked at S21 were themselves in turn, interred, savagely treated and murdered.

What I found the most disturbing about S21 wasn’t the barbed wire stopping prisoners from committing suicide by jumping off upper level balconies or the piles of iron bars and chains that they had their hands and feet tied to forcing them into permanently contorted positions. Nor the piss-pots in the “class”rooms which were used (when full) to wake a detainee by pouring the contents over him as he slipped into unconsciousness during torture. The thing I found the most difficult to see was the fact that this used to be a place for education. For children to learn and grow up in. Climbing frames in the playground had been used to hang and torture victims and classrooms had been turned into tiny bricked up individual cells. It was most chilling, very eery and a testament to the very depths that humanity can sink to.

The one bright light in the morning was bumping into Laura and Sayo – two girls we had shared our bus ride with the previous day across the Laos to Cambodia border where corruption was on both sides. I calculated that officials managed to procure a further 8$ per person for additional “stamping fees” Some I challenged, others I didn’t so I only walked away from the crossing $3 out of pocket. Others just paid up. Guess I was feeling revolutionary as I entered Cambodia….

After Tuong Sleng I ended up spending the rest of the day with the girls which involved lunch in the crazy central market, failing to get into the Grand Palace and Silver Pagoda (as our pashmina/scarves to cover our bare arms were not modest enough), sunset drinks on the river, a visit to the Foreign Correspondents Club and finishing off with fresh sugarcane juice and noodles sitting on floor-mats at the Night Market. I got back to the hotel to find that Andy had spent much of the day watching TV in the hotel room (it would seem, in the dark) having declined to come as the museum would depress him too much….. each to their own but I think it is almost a duty to educate yourself about these things and what better place to do it than in situ. Watching Cambodian reality TV would depress me far more …

The following day he did decide to join me for the further sombering experience of visiting The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek – a little way out of Phnom Penh and reached by a hired tuk tuk that bounced us on rutted roads , through dust clouds away from the urban sprawl of the capital city. Through the use of individual audio guides we walked round the site at our own pace witnessing first hand where the 17,000 people imprisoned at S21 were subsequently executed. Rounded up and brought for extermination – men and women were beaten to death with basic farming implements or had their throats cut by the razor sharp leaves of the sugar palm trees (all with the intention of saving bullets).

Cambodians destroyed each other en masse under a dictatorship which took communism and agrarian reform to the limits of humankind. The experience of being in a place with such a brutal history was harrowing but necessary to witness to understand Cambodia. Genocide has happened since the Khymer Rouge and undoubtedly will happen again. What was especially painful about Tuong Sleng and The Killing Fields was the sheer ignorant monstrosity of the decimation – innocent victims were butchered because , for example, they wore glasses and were thus deemed too intellectual to be part of the transformational society and a threat to the proletariat. Babies and children were smashed to death against trees to prevent any acts of revenge if a new generation grew up. Tossed into mass graves, DDT was poured over the putrefying bodies to speed the decomposition up and disguise the growing stench.

In 1980 – only 2 years after the regime was overthrown, the remains of nearly 9000 people were exhumed from mass graves and the bones of these are now laid to rest in a Memorial temple (stupa). You are allowed to enter the Stupa and the sheer numbers of skulls rising above you in rows upon rows is a powerful sight. 43 graves are still untouched and shards of bones, fragments of teeth, and shreds of clothing lie around the site as the earth shifts and the contents rise to the surface.

I came away from Choeung Ek with statistics that astounded me. During the regime, 1 in 4 people in the country died. That’s 25% of the population. Many were massacred in the Killing Fields situated all over the country but millions more from starvation as the crops failed and the ‘simplicity’ of an agrarian communist society destroyed itself. Even more staggering is the fact that Pol Pot – the architect of it all died without penance and even after the slaughtering became public he was still protected by the UN. It is only very recently, some 36 years down the line, that others involved have been brought to trial and confessed to the atrocities. Now, it would seem a private company (and not the Cambodian people) are profiteering from this shocking chapter in the country’s history as the Killing Fields Museum and Memorial Centre is now privately owned.

Whilst waiting for Andy at the exit, I read through the visitor book filled with emotional responses to the experience of visiting the site. One in particular caught my attention and I can’t think of a more pertinent quote to end Part 1 of<a name="_GoBack"></a> this blog with:

“UNDERSTANDING is all it takes to RESPECT one another. When we RESPECT each other we can LOVE each other. Thank you for helping me to understand”.

On that note, I shall sign off. Part 2 of my final blog to follow.

Han x

15th July 2015

Jack
non-member comment

Very well written, I can visualise that lovely island. I have read a book about the rise of the Pol Pot regime not long ago. This recent history should be more undere attention. I like your blog!

Hbc001
hbc001

Thank you!
Thanks so much jack. I'm glad my writing has captured it for you. Very kind! X

A gecko lullaby, the annihilation of a Nation and Angkor What???? (Part 1)

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