Phnom Penh
Trip Start
Mar 03, 2005
1
20
235
Trip End
Ongoing
Phnom Penh,
Cambodia
Tuesday, May 3, 2005
Things started pretty well. The airport was straight off the "Brand New Airport" assembly line. The guy holding up a card that said 'Mr Adrian K Murray' didn't speak English, but he did drive a brand-spanking new Nissan 4WD with air-con, with plush seating and complete with LCD TV screen showing Cambodian karaoke. And the hotel I'd booked into for the night wasn't expensive, but turned out to be better than some of those dished out with FSQ. I felt at ease immediately.
After checking in I asked the hotel desk as to where the restaurants were. She pointed down the street and said "by the river. 15 or 20 minute walk". I looked down the street into semi-darkness, and it seemed to go a long, long way with motorbikes running everywhere. So I asked "um, so its safe right?". She looked at me kind of blankly, waited about five seconds and said "yes".
After my walk through the backstreets of Phnom Penh at night, I was faced with my first cash transaction in this country. Dealing with cash in this country is unusual to say the least. It is common, and acceptable to use either US Dollars, or Cambodian Riel. Its also common for you to get change back in both currencies. Its about 4,000 Riels to the USD, so if you are looking at change of US$3.50, you'll get three US dollar bills, and then 2,000 Riel as well. And if you are me, with little experience with the green back, you'll stare at it for a while working out what the hell it is, before moving on the second lot to make sure its 2 by 1,000 Riel notes, and not a couple of slips of rubbish that you've been given.
It is blisteringly hot and humid here in Cambodia. Even at night it sits in the early 30s, and my forehead a constant stream on perspiration. "Summer season, very hot, very quiet" say the locals, so I quickly decide that if its like this at night, then the best strategy for the day is to get out very early and get back for some mid day respite.
Prior to the Khmer Rouge takeover in 1975, Tuol Sleng was a school. As part of their abolishment of education, and their decision to imprison enemies, the educated, the rich, the suspected traitors, anyone they felt like or in many cases their own members, the KR turned the school into the prison known as S-21. But it was more than a prison - S-21 became the most evil place in the KR regime. It became a place of imprisonment and torture for an estimated minimum of 17,000 people, with only 7 surviving alive.
The school is now a museum to the genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge. From 1975 to 1979 it was overseen by older KR members, but most of the guards and those who did the 'dirty work' of torturing, beating and killing the inmates, were incredibly mostly aged between 10 and 15.
It is a horrendous place. They have left a lot of the buildings as they were when it, and the meticulously kept records, were discovered when the KR were overthrown in 1979. In Building A, you stand in an old classroom, with a metal bed in it, with shackles, and an old ammunition box (the inmate's toilet). The only thing on the wall is a photo taken immediately in the room when the building was discovered - the photo features a body lying on the bed, killed by some means of torture (axe, hammer, mallet, nails torn out, or other method), with a pool of blood on the floor. Its then as you stand next to the bed, looking at the photo of the same room 30 years ago, you realise that the mark on the floor is the mark left by the pool of blood. And you are standing in that exact mark, with the blood stain still visible on the floor beneath your feet.
There are a number of rooms like this. They were used specifically for torture or as cells for higher ranking people. Upstairs are individual cells built into the classrooms. On the third floor is open rooms, where prisoners were shackled together by their ankles, 20 or 30 on the same piece of metal. The hallways have barbed wire around them, which prevented the inmates from hurling themselves off the building by suicide to 'escape' a tortured death. Those that didn't die at prison, were taken to Choeng Ek, the most famous of Cambodia's "Killing Fields", just 15 kms from Phnom Penh.
My guide told me that her father, brother and sister were killed by the KR, and that the remainder of her family fled to Thailand for three years. Luckily where the originally lived was only a few hundred kilometres from the border, as running the gauntlet of KR troops encircling the border areas and country was a dangerous game in itself.
I don't profess to knowing all about Cambodia in the 1970's, but I have been reading a bit as part of coming here. The KR attempted to wipe out the past, by declaring "Year Zero" as they took power, by taking any worldly goods from those with them, by killing anyone with an education, by putting the uneducated in control, by clearing the cities of people completely, and by separating families. They created a circle of fear where everyone became suspicious of family members and friends, as often accusing or raising suspicions about another helped keep you alive. They nearly wiped out the future as well, as apart from the millions who died from the genocide, it is suspected that millions more died from starvation, with millions more displaced into refugee camps. Around one third of the countries population ended up being killed or displaced to other nations because of the Khmer Rouge control.
When you come to Phnom Penh you do feel as though you have to see these things, to get a feel for the people. You can feel it just below the surface - the younger kids seem to know of it without knowing all about it, but those in their early thirties and beyond seem to have it just behind their eyes somewhere.
I haven't read enough to understand why it happened. But I suspect I'd never understand it anyway. It was sheer madness.
All that before 11am.
I returned to the hotel for a break from the stifling heat, and then made my way to the Royal Palace. I'm a big fan of the Royal Palace in Bangkok, and as this has been built in a very similar style, and is much smaller in scale, it is therefore a bit of a "ho-hum" experience for me. I then asked my Tuk Tuk driver to drop me at the Russian Market. You can't pick up a Black Russian cocktail, or a Kalishnikov, or any caviar, so I can't confirm as to why its called the Russian Market. But I can confirm that walking through its corrugated iron building dropped another couple of litres of sweat out of me in no time at all.
The Tonie Sap river runs through Phnom Penh, and its along the river where most of the night restaurants are. Hence I plonk myself down in one of them for a few refreshing ales and some noodles after a hot as hell day. There are young kids walking up and down the street all night selling flowers, and top quality pirated copies of books. I was sold one on Cambodia for US$5.50, thinking I'd scored a bargain. But I soon turned out I'd been ripped off by a tiny 10 year old girl, as the rest of the kids seemed to know about it quickly and proceeded to wander up to me all night, showing the same book and saying "hey Mr Bald Man, same same book $3, not $5.50..."
I hired a Tuk Tuk to take me on the 15km ride to the "Killing Fields" at Choeng Ek, thinking it would be paved all the way. It was paved with orange dust for the last 12 or so clicks, so I arrived with a whole new glow.
There is a large commemorative Stupa at Choeng Ek, which is filled with skulls from those who were 'buried' there. I say 'buried' loosely as mostly were shot at the sight and pushed into mass graves, while others were beaten unconscious and tossed in still alive. Babies were beaten do death against trees. The guard points to one skull with a slice in it and says "Axe", another with one circular puncture, "Hammer" he says, another which was cracked down the middle with a large piece missing, "Hoe" he points. They believe 40,000 bodies are at this site alone, allow at this stage they have only removed 8,000. You walk through past shallow pits a few metres deep which are now empty, but there are parts of bone and clothing from the victims still pushing through the surface wherever you go. Many of my guide's family were a victim of the KR and the fields.
You can't help but look at the ground as you walk through - a tooth on the ground here, you realise you've just stepped on part of a leg bone there, and parts of a ripped shirt are pushing up through the dirt.
I went back to the hotel via Wat Phnom, the largest temple in the capital. But I didn't stay long, as a couple of hours out of air conditioning is enough to drain you. It really is stifling heat. It doesn't rain in Phnom Penh in April or May, and I'm here in the heart of it. I've got an awful case of the Pat Rafters.... that isn't rhyming slang, I'm just sweating profusely and consistently, all the bloody time. I can be sitting in an air-conditioned cafe and still I'll be pouring. It may not rain in Cambodia while I'm here, but if i sit in the same spot for more than 5 minutes there's usually a decent rainfall soon enough.
I've ended up chatting to a couple of interesting expat locals. One has just purchased a Bar, and is in the midst of mastering the art of the use of the small brown paper bag with local officials. He says its to early to tell, but last month they lost a little money, and this month they made a little money. He thinks at worst he'll go home in 12 months a few thousand dollars down but it'll make an interesting chapter in the biography - "when I was a bar owner in downtown Phnom Penh". Another was on holidays, saw an official Mercedes Benz sales office and workshop, walked in and asked if they wanted anyone with experience working for Mercedes in the UK. He says that the pay is terrible in comparison to the UK (mind you they are paying him 8 times more than the most experienced person they have) but given the cheap living expenses here, he'll go home in 2 years time US$20,000 richer.
Entrepreneurial thinking by Westerners in the heart of communism.
