Khmer Chameleon
Crossing the border from Thailand into Cambodia, you know that you've entered into another country. Cambodia lies to Thailand's East and the road instantly loses its seal, the immigration officials become bent, and the cars 10 years older.
After greasing the immigration officials an extra $5 ("new fee") we proceeded into a waiting taxi to take us to the nearest border town and a bus to our first destination. Surprisingly we were not overcharged too much by the taxi driver and what he told us about the buses was true. We paid the fare and off we went.
I have spent the past week moving around bits of Cambodia and must say I love the place. I find the Cambodians to be un-aggressive and quite honest (most disarming - being a paranoid white boy and all) and their attitude generally is one of co-operation. For example, if they ask you if you want a taxi you may smile back and say no. They'll you alone. Weird, but welcome. I guess I was preparing myself for the worst i.e. India.
I spent some time along the South Coast of Cambodia and found it to be very quiet, which I liked. The same turquoise water and blue skies that you associate with Thai beaches, but empty of drunk/hopped-up English youth. Suits me.
My friend and I hired some off-road bikes to explore a little further inland and ended up in a village not far from the main highway. The locals were curious but not that interested. We bought Cokes and sat and drank them, me making friends with a pig, and I took in the scene around me. All the buildings there were on stilts and most of those were under water already. It's the end of the wet season here so these come in useful. The owners of the little shop we were sat in were smoking and having a laugh. They seemed not bothered by our presence. Even the grubbiest looking children came over to say hello and would go all shy when you said hello back.
This was to be the general feeling for the trip and as we approached Phnom Penh, their capital, I was apprehensive that it would be a little tougher getting about there. Capital cities tend to bring the worst out in people. Not being a city lover I guess I would say that.
Phnom Penh is very quaint looking. There are no high-rise developments and although the roads are very busy there is no carcophany of horns or shouting. Even the taxi drivers here are as mellow as their country brethren. The guest house is cheap and clean, and the staff friendly. I take back what I said about cities.
I've had the whole day here today and decided to go and visit a couple of places. One was an ex-prison camp and the other a mass grave.
Cambodia used to be called Kampuchea until about 15 years ago. From 1975 until 1979 it was run by the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot was their leader and in those 4 years he pursued the aim of turning Kampuchea into a peasant dominated agrarian society, along the lines of Mao's aims for Chine in the 1960s. During this "Great Leap Forward" 2 million Cambodians died in the fields or the prisons. As time went by all Cambodians, intellectuals, the short-sighted, foreigners, "counter revolutionaries", and none else who they fancied, were tortured and executed. Not just one man but his wife, children, and family.
Prison S-21 lay in the South of Phnom Penh and killed many thousands during its operational lifetime. It was a school until 1975 when it was seized by the Khmer Rouge and turned into cells; primitive brick walls sub dividing the large classrooms. Some of the interrogation suites have been left more or less as they were found, though the bodies are no longer there (there are photos of those). Large rooms with nothing other than an iron bedstead, some manicles, and electric wire to show for intense suffering inflicted upon the victims. The holding cells are tiny and dark. There are dead rats in some of them, assuming that they are not original the place must have stank when filled with the dying and the bleeding. Being within earshot of the interrogation rooms would have given detainees a lot of think about too.
One set of rooms downstairs have been cleared and the portraits (or mug shots) of most of the victims have been put up on boards. There are thousands of these black and white pictures of people looking straight into the lens knowing that they will never leave this place alive. Thousands of eyes look at you as walk through the rooms. Towards the end of the displays are photos of the dead and, frankly, mangled. Pretty gruesome stuff.
Many prisoners from here were taken by the guards, normal Cambodians who were too scared to disobey orders, to a field 14km South West of Phnom Penh. This was the mass-grave site here a memorial now stands.
The pits that were exhumed housed over 8000 bodies of men, women, and children; each buried like-with-like. The memorial stupa in the centre of all this hold the skulls of the victims all stacked upon one another. Thousands of empty eye sockets stare back when you go inside and the musty smell turned my stomach. Some of the skulls are very small and nearly all of them are cracked or show signs of trauma. They were all executed by bludgeoning as ammunition was too valuable to waste on executions.
All of this took place into my own lifetime which means to me at least it all feels very close. The Cambodians to not speak about it, understandably, and I only found out that my taxi driver lost his parents to the revolution by clumsily working out his date of birth.
I called the Cambodians largely mellow but I feel that a lot of this peace must stem from the bloody history. They've seen aggression up close and it wasn't pretty. They know what it is like to have nothing, to have everything taken from them. In the UK we had our civil war almost 400 years ago. How can we know fully the price of conflict? Man's inhumanity to man seems to know no bounds. But then again I knew that already. This just allowed me to get uncomfortably close.
After greasing the immigration officials an extra $5 ("new fee") we proceeded into a waiting taxi to take us to the nearest border town and a bus to our first destination. Surprisingly we were not overcharged too much by the taxi driver and what he told us about the buses was true. We paid the fare and off we went.
I have spent the past week moving around bits of Cambodia and must say I love the place. I find the Cambodians to be un-aggressive and quite honest (most disarming - being a paranoid white boy and all) and their attitude generally is one of co-operation. For example, if they ask you if you want a taxi you may smile back and say no. They'll you alone. Weird, but welcome. I guess I was preparing myself for the worst i.e. India.
I spent some time along the South Coast of Cambodia and found it to be very quiet, which I liked. The same turquoise water and blue skies that you associate with Thai beaches, but empty of drunk/hopped-up English youth. Suits me.
My friend and I hired some off-road bikes to explore a little further inland and ended up in a village not far from the main highway. The locals were curious but not that interested. We bought Cokes and sat and drank them, me making friends with a pig, and I took in the scene around me. All the buildings there were on stilts and most of those were under water already. It's the end of the wet season here so these come in useful. The owners of the little shop we were sat in were smoking and having a laugh. They seemed not bothered by our presence. Even the grubbiest looking children came over to say hello and would go all shy when you said hello back.
This was to be the general feeling for the trip and as we approached Phnom Penh, their capital, I was apprehensive that it would be a little tougher getting about there. Capital cities tend to bring the worst out in people. Not being a city lover I guess I would say that.
Phnom Penh is very quaint looking. There are no high-rise developments and although the roads are very busy there is no carcophany of horns or shouting. Even the taxi drivers here are as mellow as their country brethren. The guest house is cheap and clean, and the staff friendly. I take back what I said about cities.
I've had the whole day here today and decided to go and visit a couple of places. One was an ex-prison camp and the other a mass grave.
Cambodia used to be called Kampuchea until about 15 years ago. From 1975 until 1979 it was run by the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot was their leader and in those 4 years he pursued the aim of turning Kampuchea into a peasant dominated agrarian society, along the lines of Mao's aims for Chine in the 1960s. During this "Great Leap Forward" 2 million Cambodians died in the fields or the prisons. As time went by all Cambodians, intellectuals, the short-sighted, foreigners, "counter revolutionaries", and none else who they fancied, were tortured and executed. Not just one man but his wife, children, and family.
Prison S-21 lay in the South of Phnom Penh and killed many thousands during its operational lifetime. It was a school until 1975 when it was seized by the Khmer Rouge and turned into cells; primitive brick walls sub dividing the large classrooms. Some of the interrogation suites have been left more or less as they were found, though the bodies are no longer there (there are photos of those). Large rooms with nothing other than an iron bedstead, some manicles, and electric wire to show for intense suffering inflicted upon the victims. The holding cells are tiny and dark. There are dead rats in some of them, assuming that they are not original the place must have stank when filled with the dying and the bleeding. Being within earshot of the interrogation rooms would have given detainees a lot of think about too.
One set of rooms downstairs have been cleared and the portraits (or mug shots) of most of the victims have been put up on boards. There are thousands of these black and white pictures of people looking straight into the lens knowing that they will never leave this place alive. Thousands of eyes look at you as walk through the rooms. Towards the end of the displays are photos of the dead and, frankly, mangled. Pretty gruesome stuff.
Many prisoners from here were taken by the guards, normal Cambodians who were too scared to disobey orders, to a field 14km South West of Phnom Penh. This was the mass-grave site here a memorial now stands.
The pits that were exhumed housed over 8000 bodies of men, women, and children; each buried like-with-like. The memorial stupa in the centre of all this hold the skulls of the victims all stacked upon one another. Thousands of empty eye sockets stare back when you go inside and the musty smell turned my stomach. Some of the skulls are very small and nearly all of them are cracked or show signs of trauma. They were all executed by bludgeoning as ammunition was too valuable to waste on executions.
All of this took place into my own lifetime which means to me at least it all feels very close. The Cambodians to not speak about it, understandably, and I only found out that my taxi driver lost his parents to the revolution by clumsily working out his date of birth.
I called the Cambodians largely mellow but I feel that a lot of this peace must stem from the bloody history. They've seen aggression up close and it wasn't pretty. They know what it is like to have nothing, to have everything taken from them. In the UK we had our civil war almost 400 years ago. How can we know fully the price of conflict? Man's inhumanity to man seems to know no bounds. But then again I knew that already. This just allowed me to get uncomfortably close.