Travelogue :  Kyvan's Southeast Asia Adventure

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Dec 16, 2005
Phnom Penh Transportation
 

When I think of Cambodia, I think of blood, death, murder, torture, poverty, and Pov (the friend I lost touch with.) But because of its sad history, exotic culture, and the supreme temples of Angkor Wat, this made it the perfect location for my continued exploration.

I decided to not spend too much time in Phnom Penh because you can really see everything within one day. There is no public transportation system in Phnom Penh and that was fine with me because there are plenty of motorbike and tuk tuk drivers you can hire. I hired one. Here's how we met. After I checked into the hotel in Phnom Penh, I took a walk past an outdoor market towards the Mekong. I witnessed piles of chicken that were barely alive. They were bound, soiled, and dirty. It was truly a disgusting sight. But I finally saw chickens. In Vietnam, no chicken meat was ever on sale due to Bird Flu containment measures. I saw food being sold: lots of fried fish on sticks, slushy curries, and potent fish pastes known as "Prahok," which smells like fart and tastes salty, but quite a unique aspect of Cambodian cuisine. Anyway, I know a motorbike taxi driver followed me because he drove up and asked me where I was going. I told him I was looking for a store with internet access. He said, "Come, I'll show you," ushering me to get on his bike. I said, "How much?" He said, no charge. And here is the difference between Vietnam and Cambodia. It was a reflex for me to ask how much coming from Vietnam because that price absolutely must be established before any business takes place. Not once in Cambodia did I feel cheated or gipped or conned. And people were friendlier than I ever imagined. His kind gesture was good for his business. His name was Bunna and I hired him after assessing his friendliness, trustworthiness, and English skills. I negotiated transportation for a day ($6 US) and told him I wanted to leave at 7am the next day...and he was there on the dot as scheduled.

 
Dec 17, 2005
Phnom Penh Whirl-Wind Tour
 

My agenda for today: Tuol Sleng, Killing Fields, Phsar Toul Tom Poung (Russian Market), Wat Phnom, Phsar Thmey (Central Market), Independence Monument, National Museum, Royal Palace, Silver Pagoda, and Boeung Kak Lake for the sunset. I had it all planned out.

Tuol Sleng was what I was most interested in. This was a high school that had been converted into a bloody torture house, and is now the genocidal museum presenting this appalling chapter in the history of Cambodia that ended as recently as 1979. The setting was serene: blue sky, floating clouds, swaying palms, gentle wind, buildings with creamy yellow walls, a grassy quad. It looked like a charming place to go to school. In 1962, this was Ponhea Yat High School named after a royal ancestor of King Norodom Sihanouk. In May 1976, it became S-21 (security office 21), the institution set up by the Khmer Rouge specifically designed for the interrogation and extermination of "traitors" of the Angkor Republic. These were the rules:

• 1. You must answer my questions. Do not turn them away.

• 2. Do not try to hide the facts by making pretexts of this and that. You are strictly prohibited to contest me.

• 3. Do not be a fool for you are a chap who dares to thwart the revolution.

• 4. You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.

• 5. Do not tell me about your immoralities or the revolution.

• 6. While getting lashes or electrification, you must not cry at all.

• 7. Do nothing. Sit and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting.

• 8. If you do not obey the rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire.

• 9. If you disobey any point of my regulations, you shall get either 10 lashes or 5 shocks of electric discharge.

To do anything, even to alter their positions while sleeping required permission from the guards. Anyone breaching rules were severely beaten.

I began by exploring the classrooms/torture chambers. They were simple square rooms, yellow tiled floors, a single metal bed frame in the center, and a black/white photograph enlarged and framed on the wall. I walked closer to see. It was a beaten and bloodied body of a prisoner whose cadaver was on the bed before me. Pools of blood collected below the frame. The classroom itself is innocent by appearance, but to think of what occurred within it is horrifying. You can walk from one classroom to the next, each nearly identical, each a chilling experience. It's documenting history, but this is where this gruesome history took place. Pain, terror, sadness, lashings, electrocutions, sickness, torture, and deaths of men, women, boys, and girls. And we know this because the Khmer Rouge documented and took photographs of each prisoner. There is a gallery of headshots taken at the prison. A collage of individual lives, each with their own story. There were pictures of boys and girls as young as 5. This place really affects your emotions and people have left here feeling depressed, asking how could this have happened?

It was then appropriate to see the Killing Fields, where the KR dug pits and threw the cadavers of tortured prisoners into. To get here, we had to motorbike out of town on dusty, unpaved Cambodian roads. And this was precisely the adventure I was looking for. There was no way I could do this if I had a family and brought my kids. I have done things on this trip that was only possible as a lone traveler or with an adventurous partner. Unforgettable! So the Killing Fields were a bunch of ditches with grass growing over and a building with a glass case enclosing numerous skulls that were found in the mass graves. Some exhumed graves unearthed bodies without heads, some graves only had heads. I saw a tree where children were beaten and killed with a blow to the head with a gardening hoe. It is quite depressing visiting these two places back to back but they present real events that took place in Cambodia. I am learning about the country and couldn't pass up the chance to see this reality.

Onto the Russian Market. These phsars (markets) in Cambodia are congested indoor markets jam packed with vendors selling nearly the same things: t-shirts, bags, fabric, and mechanical parts. The alleys and walkways are so small, vendors sit on their products as there is no room outside their booths to stand. These phsars are basically tuberculosis incubating chambers where stuff happens to be sold.

Passed by Independence Monument towards Wat Phnom. All these colonized countries celebrate their independence from foreign colonists. Cambodia from the French. Wat Phnom is the temple that Phnom Penh was named after. Phnom means "hill" and this temple was on one. Families of macaques surrounded the Wat. Elephant riding encircling the Wat. People selling caged birds for you to free. Not much here so I left for the post office to send a postcard to sis who was back in the States by now. This will be a ritual of mine in every country that I go to.

Bunna dropped me off here because I could do the rest on my own. I thanked him and gave him more than what was agreed. You will find that the service in Cambodia is top notch. Drivers were always reliable and there on time, I never felt cheated or scammed as I did in Vietnam. Cambodians are super friendly, generous with smiles, helpful, courteous, and honest. And when I try to explain all this to people back home, people find it hard to believe! Everyone has an image in their heads that Cambodians are savages, uneducated, and kill their own people. If you come to Cambodia with this impression, you will be pleased to find out that you are wrong. Cambodia is peaceful, laid back, and charming in so many ways.

I walked down the Mekong Boardwalk towards the Silver Pagoda and Royal Palace, which I decided not to see because it was pretty expensive for foreigners and it looked very Thai and I have already seen Wat Phra Keo in Bangkok so it freed up some time for me to see the National Museum, which consisted of many Buddha sculptures and sandstone carvings. Check out the gargantuan half-a-body, reclining image of Buddha cast in iron, and found on the island in the middle of West Baray at Angkor Wat.

On to Phsar Thmey, another dumpy market, congested and dirty. I saw little children wearing clothes that looked like it was someone else's rubbish. So to counter all these images of deprivation I saw, I wanted to see what a luxury hotel looks like in this land of poverty. The Raffles Hotel Le Royal was host to affluent white Europeans who sat under trees with cascading white Christmas lights at poolside. This is where buffet dinners cost >$20 when it takes most Cambodians over a week to make $20.

Well it was about time for the sun to set and it was on my agenda to catch the sunset over Boeung Kak Lake. I hired a motorbike taxi right from the hotel. It's so easy. They call for you. Anytime you need a ride, you got one. So this guy wanted to charge me $3 for the lake and back home. I was quick to reject that because $1 was fair and he quickly accepted after I was going to ask another driver. So he took me through this dark shortcut towards the lake and I was sure he would jump and rob me. But we ultimately arrived at this quaint lakeside restaurant with a wooden deck over the lake. The sky was pink, pink reflected off the lake, and I had a panoramic view of nature's shining beauty once again.

He dropped at my new accommodations, the Spring Guesthouse because the Angkor International Hotel was too pricey at $10. I was living the life as a backpacking budget traveler. I'll be darned if I'm paying $10/nt for a room in Cambodia when I can get it for $5/nt! The Spring Guesthouse was $5, clean, cold water shower, fan room only and I was content. I took my driver out to eat dinner where I ate a Khmer dish called Amok, a fish curry. We chatted about his family, Cambodian history (he doesn't believe Cambodians killed Cambodians) and if they did, they were forced to by another country. WOW! I didn't expect this disillusionment, but I guess it is similar to those who do not believe the Holocaust occurred. This Cambodian history of genocide is equally horrifying to the Holocaust and yet seems ignored because not once do I ever recall learning about it in American history classes.

I made plans to see my driver again at 6am to have him drive me to the bus station for the city of Siem Riep which contains a fascinating Wonder of our World, the Angkor Wat temples. And he was there on the dot as scheduled!