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  Siem Reap, Cambodia
Saturday, September 13, 2008

I step outside of my hostel. The heat immediately goes to work as sweat beads begin to drip. I squint my eyes as my contacts harden from the swirling dust that envelopes the entire city. To my left, a rooster scrambles over a soggy mound of trash. Across the street, a malnourished dog lays sullenly in the shade, eying the rooster ravenously but too lazy to give chase. Multiple tuk tuks sit idle down the block. Several of the drivers lay half-asleep and pay me no attention. The rest all energetically and relentlessly seek my business, offering various deals to nearby temples, markets and floating villages. Wondering what I have gotten myself into, I begin my first day in Siem Reap, Cambodia.


Cambodia has faced an incredibly horrific 20th century of civil war, autogenocide, and repression. Cambodians now live in peace, but they still face other serious difficulties. Nearly 10% of babies do not live beyond infancy. Those who do survive to adulthood can only expect to live for 58 years. After arriving from China where countless senior citizens dance, tai chi, and gossip the days away, it was odd to see almost no elderly in Siem Reap. Cambodians are also among the poorest people in Asia with a GDP per capita of only $550.

At one tourist site, a young boy approached me in tattered and stained clothing, begging for food. He looked no older than 6 but malnourishment likely concealed his true age of 8 or 9.  My guidebook informed me that I should not give money to children as they are usually forced to give almost all their proceeds to what effectively amount to begging pimps. So instead I gave him a protein bar. The boy snatched the bar from my hand, scurried about ten yards away, then inhaled it whole as if at any second I might swoop in and take it back. He was one of many children we saw in such condition.

Luckily, conditions improve everyday as more tourists visit the country and spend money. Recognizing this fact, the government has helped create a fantastic tourist industry. A vast improvement over China, signs give detailed information in fluent English. Restaurants from all over the world serve a vast variety of food in an equally vast variety of languages. All tour guides are easily recognizable in bright yellow uniforms. Certified by the government, guides must undergo a several year training course that focuses on history and language training. At any given tourist site, you can hear French, German, Spanish, English, Chinese, and Japanese - all fluently spoken by the Cambodian guides. The only words all of the multi-lingual tours shared were "Angelina Jolie," who filmed Tomb Raider and adopted a child in Cambodia.

Our guide, auspiciously named Lucky, made our trip much more enjoyable and educational. During the civil war, he lived on the Thai border in a UN refugee camp (as did our driver and many other Cambodians). He entered monastic life where he learned to paint, sing, draw, dance, and most importantly speak English. After the UN elections, he removed his robes and returned to Siem Reap so he would not be parted from his family.  Today, he spends his time posing his tour groups into ridiculous pictures like a budding Spielberg. "Put your arms like this and then you stand there like this and then you hold up entire temple in picture," he would command with a persuasive smile that revealed a shining gold tooth. Just recently, Lucky saved up enough money to buy a plot of land for his wife and children. With that essential purchase, he now hopes to make enough money to someday visit another country, maybe the United States.

The ancient ruins of the Khmer Empire form the backbone of the tourist industry. Crumbling stone temples and cities dot the entire country, but the most prominent examples center within a short drive of Siem Reap. All of the ruins date between the 9th and 14th centuries. Lost to the jungles and history, the French "discovered" the ruins in the late 19th century. Beyond their aesthetic value, the ruins have become famous for their split devotions between Hinduism and Buddhism, a result of the somewhat schizophrenic spirituality of the Khmer.

We began our visit by watching the sunset atop a pyramidal ruin. To reach the peak, we had to climb on all fours up a supposed stairway that reached upwards at an impossibly steep 75 degrees. Once on top, we could survey the entire countryside. In the distance, several spires rose above the tree line. With the help of another tourist, we identified the structure as Angkor Wat, the primary attraction of Cambodia. Labeled the 8th wonder of the world, the largest religious building in the world is best seen at sunrise. It is hard to put into words how the jungle's mystique, Angkor Wat's prominence, and the sun's brilliance converged to form the scene. Unfortunately, my camera couldn't quite capture it either.  

In two days, we visited seven temples in total - all of them unique or interesting for different reasons. Some of them are famous, but some I cannot remember their names. Some of them towered hundreds of feet in the air, but some stood no higher than an elephant (which there were several). Some of them had been reconstructed, but some of them were crumbling. Some displayed intricate details, but some were best seen from afar. Some of them were neatly manicured, but some of them were overwhelmed by the gnarled tentacles of giant trees. All of them are worth seeing.

Taking a break from temples, we also took a boat trip to a floating village on the ocean-sized lake, Tonle Sap. It was nice to escape the heat and the dust of the ruins and to see how many Cambodians actually live. It turns out that the majority of the people who live in their boats are not Cambodian but Vietnamese, which led our boat operator to take us to a Vietnamese school. As we approached the school-boat, we could see several dozen young children playing raucously. Before we boarded, we were asked if we wanted to buy the children school supplies. We obliged. As soon as we stepped aboard, the children took their seats with backs straight and eyes fixed forward. We tried to communicate with them, but we quickly got the feeling we were intended to drop off the supplies and leave. Before we finished disembarking, obedience finally gave way like a flood against a broken dike and we could hear the shrill cries of children playing again.

Looking back on the experience, I don't think we visited an actual school. Maybe a daycare, but not a school. When I asked the teacher what they were learning, he smiled and skirted the question.  The books and pens we bought were likely repackaged so that some other foreigner can fulfill their humanitarian urges. Maybe some of my money will trickle down to the kids. Probably not.

Yet despite my pessimism, I also feel like I have accomplished something with my donation, as if 15 dollars and a pack of journals made a difference. Throughout Cambodia there are opportunities to satiate your humanitarian obligations and desires by donating five dollars here or there. And once you do donate, you feel a sense of satisfaction and pat-on-the-backism. But this satisfaction often clouds the questions of where those dollars go and how effectively they help Cambodians. It is already especially hard to answer those questions when people in need stare you straight in the eyes and ask for help. But with the self-satisfaction of already donating, the questions cease to exist in your mind. After all, you have already done your job. Right?

I stepped outside of my hostel. The heat immediately goes to work. The sweat dripped. The dust swirled. The trash lingered. The chickens clucked. The dog eyed. The tuk-tuks idled. The drivers touted. But this time I knew hat I had gotten myself into. I was in Siem Reap, Cambodia, but not for long. I was on my way to the airport and then to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Enjoying a milkshake at the airport's Dairy Queen (the only chain I saw in the city), I already felt the rising tide of reminiscence and longing to return.

[The following is a short, incomplete, and probably accurate modern history of Cambodia]

To say Cambodia has endured a difficult fifty years is worse than understatement. For most of the Vietnam War, King Sihounak tried to maintain a neutral Cambodia. The task proved impossible as the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong began to trek ever further into Cambodia to stage attacks into South Vietnam. This enemy supply line, known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail, faced relentless bombings and attacks from American and Saigon forces. The U.S. government found Sihounak's neutrality unacceptable and consented to a military coup. The deposed King fled to Beijing and then entered into an alliance with the Khmer Rouge, a Cambodian Communist guerilla army. The King, who remained immensely popular, gave the Khmer Rouge enough legitimacy to significantly oppose the government for the first time. Civil war broke out. With aid from Hanoi, the capital of Phnom Penh fell to the Communists three weeks before the fall of Saigon.

Enter Pol Pot. After the Communist victory, the French-educated Pol Pot revealed himself as the true leader of the Khmer Rouge. Seeking a radical revolution that emulated his hero, China's Mao Zedong, he ordered the capital to be emptied. Henceforth, all Cambodians would farm for their livelihoods on collectives. He then began to brutally purge all opposition. Government collaborators, monarchists, pro-Vietnamese, and the bourgeoisie all were killed or imprisoned. With no one left, Pol Pot then turned to arbitrary slayings of civilians. Claiming humanitarian reasons but also potentially seeking a power grab, Vietnam invaded Cambodia and installed a new regime of disgruntled Khmer Rouge.

Still bruised from the Vietnam War and also seeking to improve relations with China, the United States and Great Britain sent economic and military aid to a political coalition in opposition to the new pro-Vietnamese government. The Khmer Rouge directly benefited from this aid. The United Nations eventually intervened and supervised elections in the early 1990s. One out of four Cambodians died in the conflict.

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