Day 46 - Phnom Penh

  Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Thursday, October 18, 2007

THIS WAS A VERY DIFFICULT DAY FOR US, FULL OF DEATH, GENOCIDE AND HORROR, SO PLEASE DON'T READ ON IF THIS IS LIKELY TO UPSET YOU...

After another appalling night's sleep (which involved me sleeping with my head by Katie's feet in a desparate attempt to catch some of the child-blowing-through-a-straw-esque air conditioning), I awoke at about 6am, sweating like a wilderbeast after a midday jog around the Sahara.

I sat outside and watched the early morning activity on the riverside, and enjoyed the breeze, wishing that it would carry through our balcony door and towards our bed.

Katie slept ok (after me chilvarously giving her the air-conned side of the bed !), and we officially woke at 08:30, with enough time to shower, dress and meet our tuk-tuk driver ("Nic") downstairs...

We had expected a motor-mouth entertainer who might drive us a bit crazy with his mockney accent, but instead he had strangely morphed into a shy librarian...

So we had a very quiet trip out to the Killing Fields, which was appropriate considering the morbid nature of the destination.

I don't know what I expected, but it certainly wasn't what we saw, with a large "stuppa" containing the bones & skulls of the 7,000 bodies exhumed in the early 1980s.



Apparently a total of approximately 17,000 bodies are believed to be in the immediate area, but they have not yet decided to examine all of the mass graves.

I think I expected to see visible human remains and dirt fields, but they are actually green fields with dips or mounds suggesting mass graves. As you walk around you can see items of clothing poking up from the ground below which is horrific but really reminds you that these are not innocent rolling meadows, far from it...



For those of you that don't know much about the Khmer Rouge & the genocide that they enforced on their Cambodian population, here's a quick but hopefully accurate summary:

Pol Pot and his affluent cronies studied in France in the 60s, where they became fascintated with the Marxist communists that they met there, and their ideology.

They came back to Cambodia and integrated heavily with the Chinese communists, at a time when communism was sweeping SE Asia with Chinese and Russian support.

After a poorly executed coup, which only exaggerated the corruption within national and local government, the Khmer Rouge recruited the exhiled - bitter but popular - recently deposed King as their leader, and with his goodwill were able to gain an initial foothold of resistance among the population at large.

With their figurehead's respectability (many peasants saw the King as a living God), particularly amongst the peasants & farm-workers, their Khmer Rouge movement soon became a strong resistance movement, and grew in strength across the nation's countryside, especially with the Chino-Russian support behind the scenes.

Eventually the Khmer Rouge were able to lay seige to the capital (Phnom Penh) and all other cities, and when they entered the city limits forced out all residents from their homes and places of work, forcibly directing them to the countryside, and into abject poverty and extremely 'hard' labour, if they were lucky.

The Khmer Rouge leaders idolised Chairman Mao, and his "Cultural Revolution" in China, taking inspiration from his purging of the affluent middle/upper classes and the bourgeouis "elite", so followed an identical path when they took power in Cambodia. 

They duly executed all those connected to the previous regime, as well as all academics, doctors, and any professionals with qualifications. As time went on this remit was expanded to target any "enemies" of their movement, no matter how subjective this notion was.

The Khmer Rouge soldiers themselves were usually very poorly educated, and often brain-washed or hooked on opium, and were manipulated by their superiors to follow their tragic agenda. More often than not the soldiers were children, from 10-15 yrs old. All they knew was death, rape and torture, that was their life.

After driving everyone out of their homes (regardless of age, health, disability etc), the Khmer Rouge leaders lived in the huge mansions left behind in Phnom Penh and oversaw the largest genocide of a country against its own people, possibly larger even than the systematic persecution of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals etc by the Nazis in Germany during WWII.

Estimates of the death toll vary, I guess it's impossible to know accurately, but they say that somewhere between 750,000 and 3 million people died between 1975 and 1978, depending if you include the carpet bombing of the SE corner of the country by America, who were targetting the Viet Cong hiding on the Cambodian border and often hundreds of miles inside.

Compare this to an estimated TOTAL population at that time of approx 8 million and you will realise that up to 40% (FORTY PERCENT !!!) of the Cambodian population was killed under Khmer Rouge rule.

Musuems, hospitals, libraries, and any buildings of note were left to rot, as the Khmer Rouge focussed on their own brand of extreme communism, working their people to death across the country in a naive attempt to become self-sufficient economically and to return to the glory days of the Angkor Wat period, when Cambodia were truly a superior culture to their neighbours, possibly even to any other nation on earth at that time. 

They also REMOVED any form of currency, which I don't believe any other brand of communism has ever attempted ? Their rationale was that "Ankor" (the name behind which the KR government hid) would "look after their people", so if they worked hard they would be looked after and therefore have no need for money.

In truth, the only people 'looked after' were those peasants and farmers who supported the Khmer Rouge when they were still a resistance army. These people were often elevated to become divisional territory leaders, despite having no education, experience or even being able to read. They brought with them their prejudices and plotted revenge against those previously richer than themselves..

Needless to say their decision-making was also diabolical, contributing massively to the death toll as their incompetent leadership and corruption undermined any of the projects on which the new 'enemies' of the regime worked.

How the Cambodians could plummet from the intelligence and magnificence of Angkor Wat to the tragic brutal fascism of the Khmer Rouge in only 8 centuries is impossible to explain.

Sadly the only world superpower at the time (America) had been badly affected by their intervention in the Vietnam war, so were never going to do anything to help the Cambodia people against their communist oppresors. It seems that the world simply turned a collective blind eye to the genocide of a generation.

(Interestingly, please note that Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge at nearly EXACTLY the same time as Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese, yet I doubt that it even made headlines outside Asia)

Some years later, after an incursion by the powerful North Vietnamese (who you will remember from previous entries were the strongest army in SE Asia at the time, thanks mainly to strong Chinese backing/training), the Khmer Rouge government were eventually overthrown.

It seems that the Chinese at some point realised that they were backing the wrong horse, and swung their weight away from the KR and behind the North Vietnamese, in an attempt to secure (communist-led) stability across SE Asia... which suited their political agenda of course.

Anyway, the North Vietnamese army were too strong for the Khmer Rouge, so they eventually fled the cities, yet continued to fight a guerilla war for a decade against the North Vietnamese (and ultimately an independent Cambodia), and were only truly extinguished as an army a few years ago.

Sadly their leaders and politicians were able to metamorphose into the next reincarnation of Cambodian politicians, and their impact can still be felt at a political level here. The leaders of this genocide have on the whole managed to avoid prosecution, although Pol Pot's #2 was recently arrested to face a war crime tribunal...

In fact, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot, was never brought to justice, dying eventually in the 90s in the Cambodian jungle while waging their guerilla war against the government.

His genocidal regime still poisons the memories of the Cambodian people, and it is absolutely extraordinary how friendly and happy most of them seem today considering the fact that most of them must remember life under the KR.

The population here refer to the Khmer Rouge period simply as "the bad times", and seem intent on trying to rebuild their country into somewhere to be proud of, rather than ashamed of.

IF YOU"RE INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE, I WOULD DEFINITELY RECOMMEND RENTING "THE KILLING FIELDS", A FANTASTIC SEMI-AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FILM IN WHICH THE - OSCAR-WINNING - LEAD ACTOR WAS ACTUALLY A SURVIVOR OF THE KILLING FIELDS, OR THE BOOK "SURVIVING THE KILLING FIELDS", ABOUT THE REAL-LIFE EXPERIENCES OF THAT ACTOR.

It was decided to leave some of the most disgusting Khmer Rouge institutions intact, as reminders to the world of the horror which suffocated this people, in the hope that nothing like it would ever be allowed to happen again.

One of these reminders (to go back to the beginning) is the Killing Fields museum, which is essentially a large field with holes where various mass graves which have been dug up, and a number which have not, as yet.

There are a few wooden signs stating hard facts like "2,500 bodies found here, all without heads", or "1,453 bodies found here, all women, all without clothes". It is very difficult to process these words in a rational way, we found ourselves staring over the immediate area, trying to imagine the horror, but thankfully never able to visualise anything like the truth.



The stuppa itself was horendous, particularly as they kept the clothes of most of the victims at floor level, and then layered the skulls and bones above them on shelves, according to the victims' sex and age. It was a very morbid catalogue of genocide, and a mere fraction of the total loss, but a very potent symbol.

As I said earlier, it was very difficult to really process what we were seeing.

The last thing we saw before leaving the Killing Fields was a poster which offered a very brief explanation of what happened in Cambodia in the mid-1970s, worth a read if you can expand the image...



We then took the tuk-tuk back to town, stopping at the Russian market. There are many streets here which are named after various sponsors of Cambodia over the years, some with Russian names, others with Chinese, others with French. It makes a confusing map of opposing and often contradictory histories...

The market was large but a bit of a disappointment, or perhaps we were still stunned and trying to process what we had seen earlier.

Our next stop was the Genocide Museum, another attraction which was unlikely to improve our sombre mood, but which was certain to increase our awareness of how lucky we all are to be born in these skins, and at this time.

Sure enough it was even more barbaric than the Killing Fields. "S-21" was the name that the Khmer Rouge leaders gave to this torture camp, designed to extract "confessions" from the academic and professional elite which they blamed for "corrupting" Cambodian society.

Over 4 years, something like 30,000 people passed through this one camp alone, which was previously a primary school.

When the city dwellers evacuated to the countryside, the Khmer Rouge took over the school, and had soon adapted the classrooms, turning them into torture chambers or rows upon rows of tiny prison cells.



The barbarism of the KR torturers is well documented, but even with our prior knowledge it was hard to process the pure hatred that we were exposed to in this camp.

The methods of torture were astonishing in their brutality, to the point where it was almost impossible to relate to the pain that the victims must have experienced.



If the inmates (children, women and men) died during their torture, they were thrown into trucks and buried in the Killing Fields. If they survived, they were dispatched to the detention centres at the Killing Fields, and murdered in often sadistic ways.

There was no way out of S-21, one way or the other you would be terrified to the worst possible extreme, and then killed with no mercy.

The KR for some reason kept extensive records of their war-crimes, photographing every single inmate.

These photos have since been blown up in memorium, a display which was very difficult to look at, aisle upon aisle, room upon room of mugshots, some terrified, some smiling and obviously oblivious as to what they were about to suffer, probably because they were lied to in an attempt to make life easier for those transporting them.



Note that after the genocide, the KR leaders subsequently claimed that they had "no knowledge"of S-21, a shocking and evil suggestion.

We spent a horrible 30 minutes walking around the torture camp, looking at photos and drawings of what occured here, a real assault on your senses, but something that I think has really helped us appreciate the amazing lives that we have, and the incredibly trivial challenges that sometimes wear us down.

The living hell that these inmates went through defies any lucid description.



Something I did find very interesting was that the literature does not just blame the KR for the genocide, it also blames the darkness inherent within all human beings, which allows them to participate in brutality of this nature, and to even enjoy it.

I thought that this was a very brave thing to say, that evil lurks within us all somewhere, but thankfully very few of us ever get see it within ourselves. They had the perfect scapegoat on which to pin the genocide, but chose to suggest that the base reason for the genocide is the nature of human beings, not merely the twisted views of a few individuals.

After the genoicide museum at S-21, we headed for a famous wat on the "Phnom" (hill) on which the city was first settled, which was unfortunately not much more than a magnet for begging children and some terribly mal-formed adults, presumably victims of the Khmer Rouge.

After what we'd seen earlier it was impossible to ignore the terrible injuries of the adults, even if we could only guess at the cause of their afflictions. All we knew was that relative to these people we were incredibly lucky, and rich, and that a dollar or two was an extremely small thing to us, and a very big thing to them. I hope that doesn't sound pious, I just think that we had a better sense of perspective after this morning's experiences.

We then asked our driver to take us back to our hotel, 2 hours earlier than we'd agreed for our "day trip", and we offered him more than the agreed rate of $10.

He proceded to argue with us, saying that he deserved more money, and we were astonished, sad, and for once, angry.

We had been very careful the day before to clearly explain what we expected, and how much we were willing to pay, and we gave him more than this as a tip.

Despite this, he continued to be aggressive, and we both got quite upset about it, maybe some of the emotion from this morning was coming out, we felt that he was being dishonest and trying to take advantage, so we stood our ground and ultimately walked away.

Maybe he was upset that we had given money to beggars 'doing nothing', so wanted more for driviing us around ?

Maybe he hoped that we would be open to emotional blackmail after the horrors we'd witnessed today, but if so he misjudged this, we certainly weren't in the mood to haggle.

This definitely left a sour taste after all we'd seen, I just hope that this wasn't part of his strategy all along, to play on the emotions and guilt of his passengers.

We then had a very average lunch in a very average restaurant, we were even charged for the free handtowels that are often offered to us before we eat (!!).

They also increased the cost of everything on the menu when the final bill came, but neither of us was in the mood to argue as we were still shocked by the driver's behaviour, and what we'd seen this morning, so we didn't argue over a few dollars.

After lunch we booked our bus ticket to the town of Battambang in the west of Cambodia tomorrow, and also our plane tickets from Siem Riep (Angkor Wat) to Bangkok.

The bus tickets were dirt cheap, but she warned us that the bus was "not high quality", and the flights were a rip-off, something like US$ 300 for 2, but going overground would take too long and lose us time.

Apparently Bangkok Airlines (allegedly) pay the Cambodian government NOT to pave the road between the two cities, to force more people to pay for the expensive flights. It's an 18 hr bus journey from Siem Riep to Bangkok, and after our experiences in Viet Nam that was NOT going to happen...

At least the prices between Siem Riep and BGK are fixed, so it doesn't matter when you book the flights, you are ALWAYS going to get ripped-off.

After that we walked to the Royal Palace (this time with Mrs Fey Jnr in appropriate clothes !), and were blessed with warm sunshine, so the complex looked fantastic. It even looked better than the Bangkok Royal Palace complex, but I guess it is only 50 yrs old so as well it should...



The one thing we did notice was that there were LOADS of people working on the buildings in the Royal Palace, which were in very good order, yet the museums at the Killing Fields and S-21 were in a real state of dis-repair and seemed tragically underfunded.



To be honest I had expected more from both of the morning's sites (as exhibitions), they could have done SO much more to increase the experience for visitors.

It would not take much to make the exhibits even more powerful, and definitely more informative. It seems that the Cambodian government are more concerned about their royal buildings than the horror that their people went through only 30 years ago. (Apparently a Japanese company own the Killing Fields musuem so seem intend on making profit, rather than providing a learning experience)

It's not even that the Cambodian government are trying to forget, otherwise they would have bulldozed everything, they just seem to have their priorities in the wrong order. Unless (and I really hope not) they realised that they could make a few quid from tourists...?

That said, perhaps they choose to move forwards, rather than look backwards, and they have a fantastic city here, which is split between a very poor local population, and a very rich area servicing the even more affluent tourists. Clearly their economy will benefit more from the money spent by the tourists, so maybe they want them to go home with stories of a beautiful capital, rather than of death & torture...

Anyway, the grounds of the Royal Palace were very impressive, and a welcome respite after the depressing sites visited earlier.



We saw some monks moving between some of the temples, trying to avoid the tourists as they did so.



By now it was boiling, so we finished off our tour of the grounds and walked back to the riverside.



The riverside in Phnom Penh is nice enough without being very attractive, but doesn't seem to be teeming with life like many of the other waterways we've seen so far.



It was a 20 minute walk back to the hotel, which helped us clean our heads a bit for the night ahead.



After a well-deserved nap in our room I relented to Katie's pleas to go "somewhere nice" to get over the horrible things we'd witnessed earlier, so we headed for the Foreign Correspondent's Club, an old ex-pat dining club which is now a very well maintained (and very expensive) restaurant.



We just made 'happy hour', so necked 3 cocktails each in 20 minutes, and staggered to our table by the balcony, overlooking the river. It did help take our mind off the depressing things we'd seen earlier, but before long our minds had wandered back to the dark corners and we were discussing the horrors all over again.

We also splurged on an expensive but average Cabernet Merlot, and had 3 courses each plus sides, but as some of you well know there is NO telling Katie when she is in the mood for some nice food ! (and as others will know I am very unlikely to argue !)



Over $80 later (more than we would usually spend in 2 or 3 days total) we were walking back down the river banks with a smile on our faces, so I guess it was worth it.

I know how purile and superficial that sounds, but I'm being honest, it had been a very challenging day for us, one that we can only try to understand from the Cambodian viewpoint, but we were glad to be alive and happy to have eaten good food and to be madly in love with each other and with our life together only just starting. I know, pass the bucket ;)

Ok, clearly all the drink is going straight to my heart, so I better disappear and get on with the packing, as we're up at 6am for an early bus to Battambang.

Sorry for the long post today, but hopefully it will help some of you learn a little bit about what we've seen and experienced today, and a tiny fraction of what these incredible people suffered within our short lifetimes. You cannot help but compare their experiences to the current situations in Iraq, Darfur or Zimbabwe, but that can wait for another day...

Ok friends and family, please appreciate what you have, and if you feel down over the next few days please try to imagine what the Cambodian people have had to experience in their own country relatively recently, at the hands of their own leaders and countrymen, and please be thankful that you are here reading this, surrounded by safety, democracy, and people that love you.

Including us ;)


Al & Katie xx