Yesterday my parents and I left Thailand and flew to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. A lot of people I have spoken with have skipped Phnom Penh and flown straight to Siem Reap (where Angkor Wat is). I'm glad we decided to detour in Phnom Penh for the day, it wasn't the most beautiful or scenic place I have ever been, but it is certainly striking and I think it is an important place to see in order to understand Cambodia's past, present and future.
The drive from the airport laid the scene out well - this is by far the poorest capital city I have ever been in. The streets buzz with motorbikes (often with entire families on the back of them) and cars, but there didn't seem to be many traffic lights and everyone seemed to just go with the flow, switching lanes and sides of the street at will, passing, speeding up, slowing down... There are very few tall buildings (3 stories max) and the street was lined with small shops and shacks - and this is the main road in the capital city of the country! I learned from our guide that there was no public transportation system and no taxis (those guy who hung out at my hotel in Bangkok should try coming over here!)
I did not see the amputees that I had heard so much about. In fact, I have been here for 2 days now and I don't think I have seen any amputees. In fairness, I haven't hit the markets yet, so perhaps I will see that there. There are some beggars (mostly children) at the various tourist sites, but nowhere near as many as I thought there would be. In fact, everyone I have met is incredibly nice (no surprise for Southeast Asia), helpful, and most actually speak pretty good English. As I found last year in my travels to China and Japan (where the Chinese in Beijing spoke better english than the Japanese in Tokyo), the poor seem to have better english skills - perhaps because such skills can take them so much farther. One other thing I noticed is that from casual observation the population seems very young - there are A LOT of young people and children everywhere. Which leads me to the next section...
After checking into to our hotel (another beauty) our guide picked us up to see the sites. The very first place we went was the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (called S-21 by the Khmer Rouge). I imagine a bit of a history lesson is in order (I know I never learned any of this in school...). I'll keep this brief, but if you want to learn more, check out this site. The Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975 as the Vietnam War was winding down. Their leader was Pol Pot and between 1975 and 1978 he unleashed a horrible genocide on the Cambodian people that eventually killed close to 2 million people - or, put more starkly, 1/4 of Cambodia's population. Similar to the Cultural Revolution in China, the educated class and politicians (not that the two are exclusive of one another) took the brunt of the Khmer Rouge's punishment. Beyond the genocide, the Khmer Rouge closed all forms of industry and forced the people to move out of the cities and to the country side into forced agricultural labor camps. Pol Pot called his plan "Year 0" and his hope was to create a "new people" to bring Cambodia into the future.
The Tuol Sleng Museum, or S-21 during the Khmer Rouge regime, was one of the torture prisons. Ironically, prior to being a prison it was actually a school. Of the 200,000 people imprisoned there between 1975 and 1978, only 7 survived. The prison we saw was left in much the same condition as it had been when it was in use. The torture beds and steel rods and chains were all there and the rooms were divided by bricks into tiny cells. Several of the rooms were covered with wall after wall of photographs of all the people who came through the prison. Interestingly, every prisoner was photographed by the Khmer Rouge and a detailed biography was kept of their life up until imprisonment. I found it interesting to compare this level of detail to the nameless numbers given to the victims of the Holocaust. The Holocaust victims seemed to be herded like cattle and dehumanized as much as possible. The Khmer Rouge seemed to permit the humanity to remain, but tried to break the men and women who came through the camp. There were no gas chambers here, the prisoners were mutilated, tortured, and starved ... and photographs of it all were on display.
After the prison we drove to The Killing Fields, which was one of the mass graves used by the Khmer Rouge. It was down a long dirt road, the ride was uncomfortable and it was extremely hot out, but the conditions only made the trip more poignant. The Killing Fields are essentially pits that contain anywhere from 100 to 1,000 dead Cambodians - they were not shot, bullets were too expensive, instead they were smacked in the head with a sharpened bamboo stick. Many of the victims fell into the graves and were buried while still alive. There were actually many mass graves all over Cambodia, the one we saw was at Choeung Ek and contained 8,000 bodies. It also has a memorial with a large Buddhist stupa - from the outside it looks like a normal wat-like structure, but when you walk up close you see that it is filled from top to bottom with human skulls. Real ones.
Obviously the visits to these two sites were difficult and considering that there isn't much else to see in Phnom Penh (in the afternoon we went to the Royal Palace which is certainly grand and beautiful, but nothing that really blows your mind), it might be hard to justify the trip. However, as I said in the beginning, I think it was entirely worth our time. The reality of the Cambodian people today is that they have an amazingly rich past (one that I will learn all about at Angkor), but in their recent history they have faced great adversity. Although not necessarily successful, the Khmer Rouge reign was indeed a "Year 0" - the Cambodians have spent the last 27 years rebuilding and only recently have begun to have a somewhat stable government with which to build upon. To be sure they have a long way to go, foreign investment is virtually zero - this is a part of the world that even the ubiquitous McDonald's hasn't touched yet. BUT, I was impressed by the directness with which the Cambodian people are treating their recent history. I have no idea what it was like to visit Germany in the 1960's - had they already come to grips with the horrors of the Nazis? I wonder if they would have engaged a tourist, such as myself, as honestly and directly as I was here in Phnom Penh. This is a city that is not afraid to walk around without its makeup on - and I think that bodes well for the future - and has certainly earned by respect.
Sorry for a post that is a little bit more of a downer than usual - I imagine my thoughts on Angkor will be much more uplifting!
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