Phnom Penh: June 2015
The first walk in Cambodia
After the rock-hard bed we endured in Saigon, we were very happy with our accommodation in Phnom Penh. We had a little gecko roommate who kept to himself, and a bat nearly flew into Javier’s face while we were in the pool one night. We were back having a delicious breakfast, but boy-o-boy did we miss the coffee, and the milk tea, and the guava juice, and the delicious Vietnamese food. We didn’t win with the weather, it was still just as hot and sticky, but we were able to catch a couple of storms at night. We only had two full day in Phnom Penh, so unlike Vietnam, we had to actually get out of the hotel at a decent time and spend the better part of the day seeing the sights. Funny thing, we were told that Cambodia uses both US dollars and Cambodian Riel. Actually, everything is in USD. What they don’t have are US coins, which is where the Riel come in handy. No coins, all paper. Easy enough.
On the day we arrived, we walked the streets, literally. In most places, there’s no sidewalk between the parked scooters, tables and chairs, and street food vendors. So, you walk with the traffic. We had a good idea of what we wanted to do, both from talking with other people and doing our own research. We were planning on taking the bus from Phnom Penh to Siam Reap, so buying that ticket was first on our agenda. The next morning, we spoke with the receptionist, who not only booked our bus ticket, but also helped us plan our day. She’s also a die-hard Game of Thrones fan, so we stood there and chatted for a bit. We told her that we hadn’t seen any of the 2015 season, and she told us where we could buy bootleg copies…we kept it in mind.
The National Museum
We were within walking distance to the National Museum, so we decided to start there. What was most interesting to me was that everything is about Siem Reap, since that’s where the country first started. The relics inside are all from Ankgor Wat or another temple within that area. I get it that Phnom Penh is the capital, but there wasn’t a single artifact in there from the area. But, it gave us some good history about the country, the religion, and culture of the Cambodian people, so I guess that’s really the point.
Royal Palace
Our next stop was the Royal Palace, but it was closed for lunch, so we did the same. It was recommended to us to eat at a place called “Friends Restaurant.” It is a place where they take young people, and teach them to work in the restaurant. They wear colored T-shirts to differentiate between the students and teachers. I was reading different pamphlets while we were waiting for our food. The one that caught my eye had a picture of two children in a clear box on a pedestal with people taking pictures of them. The caption read, “Orphans are not tourist attractions.” I read on. They talk about how people come to Cambodia to visit the orphanages. It’s like, a thing to do. While this literature acknowledged that most of these tourists have nothing but good intentions, this orphan tourism is actually causing harm to the children of Cambodia. The explanation is long, but the gist of it is, the children are put into these “homes” to make money. Many have living parents, but the parents are poor, and this is a way for them to make money. According to this literature, many people in Cambodia are very poor, but they can still feed their children, but with this, there is a whole generation of children being raised without families, just to make a buck, and this is a huge problem in the long run. Anyway, I tell this story because this group, Friends International, provides jobs for families, schools to learn trades, and basically provides an opportunity for adults and young people to make an honest living, and therefore, take care of their families. I’m such a cynic sometimes, my first thought was, “Is this real?” They are backed by Unicef, and I looked them up online…for what I can see, they seem pretty legit, so I didn’t really mind paying US prices for lunch in Cambodia 🙂 Lunch was expensive, and therefore I think we were both looking for something to complain about, but we honestly couldn’t find anything to fault whatsoever. The food was delicious. Haha! We can be really ridiculous sometimes.
The Royal Palace
It was raining by the time we went to the palace. We had to return to the hotel because I had forgotten to bring a shirt to cover my shoulders, and grabbed my pant extensions just in case. The beauty of going during the rain is that it’s not crowded. We were able to take our time, and enjoy the grounds. It was such a stark difference from inside the palace grounds and directly outside. Inside is so clean, the lawns are manicured, and the buildings clean and beautifully painting. Outside…not so much. We really enjoyed the rooftops of the buildings. They are so ornate and brightly colored. Inside the Silver Pagoda are many statues of Buddha, all made from precious materials. The highlights are a Buddha made of crystal and another bedazzled Buddha made of gold and thousands of diamonds. There were several student groups. They were young, and a few would yell out, “Hi! How are you?” when they walked past. Very cute.
Tiny Theater
We had read about a little art theater close by, and decided to check it out. They play, “The Killing Fields” everyday, along with other films and shows. On the day we arrived, they played The Killing Fields, and then two episodes of Game of Thrones. If only we had known!!! We were greeting by a young American girl behind the counter… Not what either of us had expected. We bought our tickets and a bucket of popcorn and made our way up the tiny stairwell to the theater. The room was small, soundproofed using foam egg crates attached to the wall. They had created stadium seating with cushions you could lie on for the first two levels and comfortable sitting chairs on the upper three levels. When we opened the door, a cat ran out…great. It was just us and another woman in the theater. The screen was good size, and the sound system was decent. The seats were comfortable and I didn’t have an allergic reaction to the cat. I did notice a rather large cockroach crawling up the wall, but I was just surprised I didn’t see more. We walked home along the beach, and by the time we arrived, we were really sticky. We quickly changed and jumped in the pool to cool off, aaaaand…this is where Javier was viciously attacked by a bat, or maybe he saw it coming, screamed and jumped out of the way.
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The Memorial at the Killing Fields
We started our day early. We had a lot on our plate, and we’ve noticed this country likes to monsoon in the afternoon. We grabbed a tuk-tuk driver from outside of our hotel and headed off to Choeung Ek, one of the many killing fields. We watched a film that gave us history specific to Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek, which was very helpful in understanding exactly how the two are connected. I have to admit, I was very ignorant about this part of history. I had heard of the Khmer Rouge and of the genocide, but I didn’t know why. I thought the killing fields were like concentration camps. We learned that Choeung Ek, specifically, was created because the number of people murdered at Tuol Sleng was too much for the prison. They needed more space to bury the bodies.
Learning a little history.
Tuol Sleng, or S21, was originally a high school. During the time of the Khmer Rouge (1975-1979), it was converted into a prison and execution center. Some of the rooms still have the small brick and wooden cells intact, while others have been cleared out and now display pictures and information boards. The buildings are all the same layout: 3 stories, stairs on each side, and a walkway along the front of the rooms. One of the buildings left in the original condition has barbed wire fencing that covers all three floors of the face of the building. I overheard a guide telling his group that the wire was put up some time in 1976 because a prisoner committed suicide by jumping from the third story. As expected, the place is horrible. There are pictures of all the prisoners that were in S21. They have the tools they used for torture, and have many pictures of prisoners after they had been tortured to death. The pictures are both disturbing and extremely sad. The ones that bothered me the most were not the gory death photos, but the mugshots where they are smiling. What kind of a person would smile under those circumstances?
The School
There are testimonies of survivors, as well as S21 workers. There is also an excerpt of a visit by Sweden to Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge. What it said was that delegates from Sweden were invited to Cambodia to show what the Khmer Rouge was all about. At this time, the Cambodian boarders were closed, and the only accounts of what was happening in the country were from refugees who made it to Thailand. The Swedes found the country to be orderly, clean, and the people happy. They never saw the horrible murders they had heard about and only saw a handful of soldiers. For all intents and purposes, Cambodia looked like a beautiful, thriving country with happy, healthy people. These individuals went back and wrote papers, books, and other literature defending Pol Pot and saying that the stories from the refugees were fantasied and in some instances, downright lies. They spread this message throughout the west, confusing many governments. This may have been the reason why the Khmer Rouge, although kicked out of Cambodia, was still acknowledged as the governing body of Cambodia by the UN for the following 12 years. These individuals were clearly duped, but the really bothersome part of it was that out of the 5 Swedish delegates who were involved, only one has since apologized for his role is defending Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge. The rest still, “…deem Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge to be reasonably sound.” Can you believe that???
The Killing Tree
Choeung Ek is 15km away from S21. At some point, there was too much killing, and not enough room to bury everyone. Choeung Ek was chosen to be the burial ground. They would bring the truck at night, take some people straight away to be killed, and put the others in a large warehouse. There were no lights inside the warehouse and the people were not allowed to speak to one another. The mass graves were already dug and the people were killed on the side and thrown in. The stories are absolutely horrible. They didn’t use guns because bullets were expensive, so instead they used knives, garden tools, and sometimes even jagged palm branches. There were huge speakers that hung from a tree in the middle of the killing field. They would blast music, which along with the noise of the generator, would mask the screams of those being killed.
The Killing Fields
At present day, the mass graves are now shallow pits. There are still pieces of bone and cloth that can be found not only in the pits, but throughout the area. There are signs all over stating, “Don’t step on the bones.” There is a large tree next to one of the graves. It is said that the soldiers would hold the babies by their legs, bash the heads on the tree, and throw them in the pit- usually while their mothers watched. There is a memorial in the center that holds the skulls and large bones that were found in the graves. Today, the place is quiet, almost serene and peaceful. It’s hard to imagine the atrocities that occurred there.
Although our time in Phnom Penh was solemn, we learned a great deal, and are both grateful for the intense history lesson.
To see more pictures of Phnom Penh, click HERE.