Kampuchea

Friday, July 14, 2006
Auschwitz on the Mekong

Is what they call the killing fields here in Cambodia...

Its very surreal to be constantly accosted by tuk-tuk/cyclo and moto drivers, all hoping to take you to the tourist attractions, particularly when they are "You want to go genocide museum?" "I take you see the killing fields death camp now?" We did see Tuol Sleng yesterday, the notorious interrogation center that processed 14,000 people from children to elders and sent all but 12 to their deaths at choeng oek killing fields. It is a high school adapted by the Khmer Rouge as a for prison and interrogation center- the banal classrooms bricked up to make cells, playground equipment used to hang prisoners, and other classrooms used for electrocution, beating and torture. The guards were often 10-15 years old, taken because they would not refuse the jobs given to them and could be trained as a new generation of torturers. There is little to say, except that it was horrifying. More interesting still to be there with some very distantly related (olivia's dad's, cousin's husbands brothers girlfriend's niece - there has to be another closer connection...) cambodian friends who showed us around the city and to hear their reflections on their nation's history. What would I do if I were forced to kill for my country. At age 18? At age 13? Why did the world ignore such large scale atrocities. The killing fields were equally depressing, a hundred foot stupa filled with skulls, the mass graves of 20,000 men women and children, their bones and clothing still visible beneath our feet as we wakled over them, trying to feel, trying to undertand what happened. (and this only one of hundreds of such sights around the country, still being discovered)You could see in the skulls where they had been bashed in with clubs to save money on expensive bullets. Weirder still was the local kids playing and laughing around the mass graves, swimming in the swamp adjoining the killing fields and that probably had bodies in it as well. Millions killed in that way. Pol Pot and his "murderous clique" as the signs kept telling us killed almost 3 million people, destroyed whole villages, 2000 buddhist temples, 600 mosques, thousands of schools, emptied cities to force people to work on the land, all in four years, and all for what. I don't know what more to write without becoming embarrasingly sentimental and philosophical, but its just so hard, so sensless, so crazy... Theres nothing I could say anyway that wouldnt be better and more appropriately said by a survivcor, so I'll sign off for now...

The Road to Phnom Penh

Tonle Sap river/ lake was too low to take the boat from siem reap down to Phnom Penh, so we took the overland route instead. Our driver seemed to spent about 30% of the time with his hand on the horn, scaring off motorbikes loaded up with families, water buffalo towed oxcarts, and anyone else nearing us in the road. it was a beautiful drive, through rice paddy after rice paddy, each slightly different hue of green, the stalks growing in the still water and reflecting the houses and palm trees above. Yes, people do still live in thatch houses that are perched on stilts ten feet above the paddies, and only one in ten even has a metal or plastic roof.

We made one bathroom stop in a village where we were inundated by people selling anything to whoever might stop, inlcuding a six year old girl selling a giant platter of friend tarantulas. oh yes, and i have the pictures to prove it. needless to say, i passed on her offer, even of a free sample. They were fresh though, as demonstrated by the still living one she had scampering about on her shoulder.

We finally got to Phnom Penh not too long later, and found our hotel. its a bit like a filthy third world Paris with Cambodians everywhere. It is bizarre to have the french style roundabouts, architecture and boulevards in this unbearably hot and muggy tropical locale. The traffic is again insane, not unlike bangkok. Difficult navigation with no sidewalks, or when there is a sidewalk people are driving their motorbikes on it. The traffic also goes mostly in the right direction, though about ten percent of the vehicles drive on the wrong side of the street, and there are neither stoplights nor even streetlights making nighttime walking a bit less than charming. We walked along the river until the monsoon hit. Waited out the rain up in the Foreign Correpsondants Club, the expat hangout for obvious reasons. Its the whole art-deco bar with comfy leather couches, giant ferns and ceiling fans with french pop music playing experience. Out the window you could hardly see twenty feet the rain was so heavy, but it did manage to clear the air a bit, and let up enough to allow to to continue our walk around the royal palace.

Overall, the royal grounds were a bit like a mini version of Thailand's, though with a more distinctly pronounced french influnce on the architecture. The silver pagoda was pretty cool, with a solid gold buddha and the floors entirely made of sterling silver. Strange to have such ostentation in such a poor country, and strange too that the khmer rouge didnt destroy or sell this all off when they took phnom penh. Overall, a fairly nice city though, with somehow more monks than thailand, at least per capita wandering the streets. And the drive was filled with dozens of construction sites rebuildign the destroyed temples and building new wats, a hopeful sign of cultural recovery post-khmer rouge, though apparently many of the holocaust architects have been found hiding out as monks in the monasteries.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006
angkor whaaaa???

A flight on a minivan-sized bangkok airways flight landed us safely in Siem Reap two nights ago. We arrived at night with only the full moon reflecting in the rice paddies below, which was quite beautiful though impossible to capture by photograph out the window. We took motorbikes into town, blinded and choking on the dust, as our seemingly twelve-year old motorbike drivers balanced our packs on the bikes and headed into the night toward Siem Reap. (Thats not the worst I've seen- today we saw a kid with two full sized pigs-ALIVE! on the back on his motorbike). We got the usual w"'e cant find your hotel'' runaround, always more annoying in the dark, but demanded they stop and just wandered around until finding something.

The khmer food has generally been good- a fish curry called Amok, a local specialty, and sat on the balcony looking out over the sea of motorbikes in the french quarter. The roads are incredibly bad, so you can hardly breathe except after the rain because of all the dust. (The Khmer Rouge killed anyone with enough education to build roads, be an engineer, etc etc making rebuilding extremely difficult.) The French quarter is nice though, New Orleansy apparently with that french colonial charm, that makes me feel like I should be smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee and speaking only in French. Of course, the children here now all speak perfect English, but more on that later.

OF course, the most amazing thing about Siem Reap is not the dusty colonial-france-meets-wild-west charm, but the ruins of Angkor Wat nad the associated ruined city of Angkor Thom. Words cannot do them justice, pictures can hardly do them justice. They are like being in a movie- more incredible because they are so huge that even all the japanese tourists in the world couldnt make them seem crowded. (by the way, do Japanese people spend their lives in Japan looking at each other's vacation photos?) Many places we just climbed up the ruins with no one else there, exploring the carvings and crumbling spledor of the jungle temples. The forest is growing right through ruins in a number of spots, and, well, its just impossible to describe.

Many of the temples are still somewhat active, and you stumble across monks or nuns chanting or giving blessings by enormous buddhas. Heartbreaking though, is the amount of theft and destruction over the years. Its a full sized city in ruins, making it impossible to keep track of the thousands of statues and wall carvings, especially during the wars of the past forty years. There were places where we could have easily just picked up artifacts and thrown them in our bags with no one ever the wiser. You wouldnt even need a chisel. Its fairly disturbing...

There are thousands of adorable khmer kids everywhere speaking impressive english and selling you "cold drink mista" every time you turn around, but its otherwise a very peaceful spot. Even our few words in broken Khmer only seemed to encourage them, not make them leave. And the english is good enough, that they have a refuation for any excuse. "No, you would not come here if you dont have money... My water is better, best in Cambodge... if you are not thirsty now, you buy and save for later... my exact same tshirt is better than all the other exact same t-shirts."

Overall, up there in the top 5 most beautiful places I've ever been. Highly recommended if you can withstand the completely insane heat and humidity, crazy bugs, filth, hassle factor, tiny airplanes or 12 hour busrides, and the literal monsoon rains. I must say though, huddling inside a thousand year old temple as the rain and wind beats at the stone is a pretty cozy place to be.