Cambodia
Trip Start
Dec 01, 2004
1
15
30
Trip End
Apr 08, 2005
Phnom Penh,
Cambodia
Saturday, January 22, 2005
We got to the border by 11:30. The drill went like this: disembark and haul backpacks to a small office facing west, with no doors, no a/c, standing room only. Hand in passports to be stamped by Vietnamese officials (there were 40 of us on the bus) and wait, or pay 10,000 dong at the side window and breeze on by (Gino loves corruption - when we have the money). While we all baked like cattle in a stall waiting for our exit stamps, other travellers arrived behind us, some paid to cut the line and others didn't - more waiting. Eventually (30 min later) Gino and I got our passports and were directed to stall number 9, then 7
01 -
. At stall number 9 a guy behind a desk took our passports and exit papers, copied some information down into a log book and sent us to stall 7. Same thing. Then we were directed to walk, in the noon-day sun, to the Cambodian side about 500m away. Before we got there, however, we had to stop at a little table with an umbrella and wait in line so one more Vietnamese official could look at our passports to ensure they were in order for leaving his country. Fine. The process moved a little more quickly on the Cambodian side and certainly made a lot more sense, but by this time I was feeling a little faint. We sat down at a restaurant in the shade and waited for the rest of our group and by 1:30 we were on our way to Phnom Penh.Renee and Alain, from Ottawa, became our travel mates during this leg of our trip and we were glad to have good company. Our first full day we got ambitious and decided to rent bicycles for the day. Our goal was to ride to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, about 15 km out of town. We came to a fork in the road and went right, which was wrong, but rode about 5 km before we stopped to ask for directions. It was so hot and dusty! We were all sweating like pigs, our clothes were sticking to us and the dust was turning into mud in our elbow creases and the backs of our knees! The roads outside of town are not paved and the truck traffic was incredible
02 - The Memorial Stupa
. We were literally eating their dust. Once we got on the correct road the truck traffic was much less, but there were still motos and tuk-tuks taking tourists to the Killing Fields. Aside from the dust they kicked up, the ride was really enjoyable. We got to see a couple of temples on the way, heard some very cool music, saw a wedding winding down and saw people just doing what they do. The kids go out of their way to shout hello and wave, with great big smiles. It was a good ride.Our guide at Choeung Ek is a survivor of the Khmer Rouge. He was an infant at the time and survived along with his mother. He lost a lot of family, however. Describing our visit to this place is very difficult. We were left feeling empty, frustrated, angry, and very, very sad. Between 1975 and 1979, almost 2 million Cambodians died because of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Choeung Ek is one of hundreds of killing fields across Cambodia where they were executed. It's mass graves were found in 1980 and the remains of 8985 people were exhumed. We walked along paths between holes in the ground that were once graves, and saw bone fragments, teeth and clothing still there in the dirt that we walked on. Our guide explained that only the skulls were kept because the clean-up of the graves was such a horrendous job, picking through all the other bones was not their priority. I'll spare you all the details of how people were killed and I won't even try to retell the stories we heard that day. If you're interested in how and why this happened, there are books on it.
We needed the break we got when Gino's tire blew (see the photos for more explanation). The kids were so friendly and smiley and full of life. With the bike getting repaired and the kids playing snooker, it was good to sit and relax in the shade watching and reflecting
03 - Horrible deaths
. After a round of Coca-Cola, we were off.The rest of the day seems insignificant now. Suffice it to say we found lunch and did a bit of shopping at a nearby market (where Gino scored his straw cowboy hat for $1.00).
Our first day in Cambodia exceeded all our expectations and left us hungry and tired and full of conversation. We ate at the Curry Pot, which has excellent Indian food - we highly recommend it to anyone travelling in the area (we ate there 3 nights in a row). Everything is made fresh to order, including the samosas, and the kitchen is behind glass so you can see how clean it is. Our guest house was in the lake district and we could watch the sun set over it from our shared balcony. The showers were cold but felt so good after being out in the heat all day.
Our next two days in Phenom Penh were just as full as the first, but we stayed off the bikes. On our second day we saw the Tuol Sleng Museum, where people were tortured before being sent for execution. Awful stuff. There were rooms just filled with all the head shots of the prisoners there. Some young, some old. It was scary to look into their eyes. Some of them looked vacant, others look frightened and some were smiling - what did they think was going on? There were torture rooms that we were able to walk into. They all pretty much looked the same with a bed in the middle of the room and all the instruments used for torture placed on it. Each room had a large black and white photo of a prisoner being tortured, on the wall over the bed. In another building within the prison, we were able to walk through the cells
04 - Surveying the damage
. The prisoners were kept in tiny spaces, chained to the floor with no bed and given only a bowl to use for a toilet. They had to ask permission and have it granted before using the toilet. If not, they were punished. Many people died in the prisons before making it to the Killing Fields. On our last day in Phnom Penh, we visited the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda and window shopped in various handicraft shops. I bought some things from a local organization that supports the city's disabled community. Everything there was made by someone with a disability, and I even got to meet the lady who embroidered the t-shirt I bought. I was surprised to see social programs in Phnom Penh. China and Vietnam's programs, if they existed, weren't visible. But in Phnom Penh, there were signs everywhere demonstrating the work going on, like programs for the disabled community, disenfranchised women, university programs/partnerships. We saw billboards with messages about AIDS, using condoms, handing in weapons and the dangers of land mines. I was impressed.
After three whirl-wind days in Phnom Penh, we were off to see the temples in Siem Reap and I had long forgotten about how hot it was the day we crossed the border.
Until next time,
Tobi
