After recounting the long-winded version of Cambodia (Day 1), it's more than past time to share Cambodia (Part 2). Since it's about one and a half months after the fact, my ability to recall everything has faded a bit. Plus, people like pictures, right? So here's some pics of a memorable week in Cambodia, with just a few stories to share about them.
Phnom Penh was a cool city. It had a good mix of sights to see, markets to walk through and bargain in, and culture to enjoy. One of the great things was hooking up with the Ultimate Frisbee club that plays there every Sunday morning. The traffic in the city was ridiculous, as you can see from the picture. It seems that no one really stops at intersections -- everyone just slowly tries to make their way through them, which causes a rather comedic amount of unneeded congestion throughout the city.
Toul Sleng Genocide Museum ("S-21")
This somber excursion took us to the site of the school-turned-political prison that the Khmer Rouge used in the 1970s for the questioning and brutal torture of people suspected to be counterrevolutionaries.
Choeung Ek (primary site of "The Killing Fields")
Less than 20 kilometers south of Phnom Penh is a mass grave site for victims executed under Pol Pot's regime. A large monument now stands there, holding a tower-worth of skulls dug up from the site. Also described in detail at the site were the horrific ways these executions were carried out and kept under some cover.
Angkor Wat
A long afternoon bus ride got us from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. The city of Siem Reap had the feel of a cozy U.S. college town, with lines of restaurants and pubs on the main district streets. Curiously, in the supermarket the city also had Western conveniences for Western prices, a luxury not found in Chiang Mai for sure!
The city of Siem Reap itself was nice, but the reason for the journey there was to see Angkor Wat. At some point, this site was (or still is, I'm not sure) on the list as one of the Wonders of the World. The geographic area it encompasses is quite huge. Visitors can walk through the temple ruins and enjoy the beautiful architecture still somewhat preserved. We joined the ranks to watch the sunset at one ruins site (and laughed as the hundreds of tourists clapped when the sun finally disappeared into the horizon, who does that?), and then had an early next morning to see the sun rise over Angkor Wat itself. This place is like a photographer's dreamland!
Landmine Museum
We made a side trip to visit the Landmine Museum as well. This museum is the work of one man who, once trained to build and place landmines, has since dedicated his life to safely finding and dismantling them. Landmines are a harsh reality of life in Cambodia, primarily a consequence of the Vietnam War. Every day we saw a number of people missing limbs, both adults and children.
Floating Village
On another side trip, we got a local to take us down the river to see the sunset and learn a bit about the "floating village." What does that mean, a floating village? It means that people who live there actually have tiny little houses that are like rafts. Part of the year they station themselves along the river, and the part the float their house down to the lake. (In the picture you can see a change of location in progress). Economic opportunities in this area are rather limited, so they can use all the visitors they can get to supplement their income.
If I were to make a generalization of the Khmer (Cambodian) people, I would say that they are incredible personable people. The people here were genuinely friendly. Sure, for many people their economic livelihood is coupled with their ability to market themselves and attract a customer. But I got the sense time and time again while in Cambodia that their desire to help and at times even go way out of their way to please their customers was very sincere. They saw a relationship with a person before they saw a money-making venture, and that was refreshing!
The two examples that come most quickly to mind are Rambo and Saran. Rambo became our go-to tuk-tuk driver in Phnom Penh. For as big of a city as Phnom Penh is, it was crazy how many times we ran into him, and the great thing was he remembered us and our plans each time. His persistence in offering us his transportation services in a friendly way, his care to follow through, and his good humor earned him his spot as our official Phnom Penh chauffeur.
Saran was our go-to guy in Siem Reap. As we were walking out of a pharmacy to buy sunscreen, Saran had himself ready for action. In very theatrical style, he opened up his arms wide and with a huge grin on his face said something to the effect of "Hey, you need a tuk-tuk driver!" I don't know how many times we'd been hassled for a tuk-tuk driver already that day, and how many times we just shook our heads no and walked away. But Saran must have done exactly the right thing at exactly the right time and place -- in fact we weren't even ready to ride a tuk-tuk for another hour. We told him we'd ride in his tuk-tuk in a little bit, not convinced that he would wait for us for an hour if he found other customers ready for a ride, and not even fully convinced ourselves that we would fulfill that promise to get a ride from him. But sure enough, in another hour we got a ride in his tuk-tuk. There wasn't much talking at first, but after a bit we could hear him singing in the front. I joined in a bit, and after some time we were quite unabashedly singing songs together, I think much to the amusement of the tuk-tuks we passed along the way.
After a day of singing and talking about life (despite our very different lives we still had a lot in common, even being the same age), we wanted him to be our tuk-tuk driver for the next day's ventures as well. He didn't even want to accept the amount of money we had agreed on for his driving anymore. On the second full day, we enjoyed a pizza dinner with him and said goodbye to someone who had become a good friend in such a short time. We're still in contact via email.
Children
It was something rather sad to see in Phnom Penh, the children who spent their evenings going from person to person trying to sell books for money, that is. You could see they wanted to be children, to have fun and to be free from obligation, but they were occupied with supporting their own lives at such an early age. The mix of serious economic necessity and playful childhood innocence when they came around to sell their books (or sometimes I think more just to hang out and have someone to talk to) made for a unique dynamic that has left a lasting impression on me as I think of Cambodia.
As you might have guessed from this short description of my one week in the country (there's so much more that could be said about the places we saw, the landscape and countryside in general, etc.), it wasn't your standard getaway destination to escape reality. In many ways, the realities I saw in Cambodia were not easy to take in, nor were they feel-good things. Cambodia has a harsh modern history which is still evident today and has resonance in the stories of many of the people we met. I'd encourage everyone to brush up a bit on their modern world history and do a bit of reading about Cambodia.
Blessings,
Eric
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