Phnom Penh

Monday February 5th 2007

We're off again - blimey where are we now?

I'll tell you. On the 7 a.m. bus from HCMC to Phnom Penh.

This is a good bus, for a change. Air conditioned, pig and hen free and room to stretch one's legs. Things are looking up.

The Cambodian Officials at the border crossing were everything that you might expect. Surly, non-communicative, passive-aggressive. All the things that help give you feel good about the country that you are about to enter.

When our bus left the border crossing without the guide (who was in possession of our passports) and four of the passengers, we feared a scam.
However, we then stopped about one mile into Cambodian territory at a roadside restaurant. About half an hour later, our tour guide and the 4 missing passengers arrived on motorbikes and were reunited with the bus.
It was a very nice restaurant that we stopped at. The floor was carpeted in sheep droppings which in turn attracted swarms of flies. Still, nice lunch.

Actually our Cambodian experience ended up as being very positive and I think it's definitely somewhere that I'll revisit.

So just updating today on 13 February - we're at Changi airport on our way back to Blighty. Plane departs at 12:40 Singapore time, arrives 18:40 UK time. We lose eight hours on the
way. So, it's approx. a 14 hour flight.

So let's just jump back in time again.

Tuesday Feb 5th - Cambodia (Leigh writing).

We booked a tuk-tukk driver to take us to a couple of places today. A tuk-tukk is a motorbike, little chariot combination, much favoured by the Cambodians (for carting tourists around, anyway).
First we go to the Killing fields. There were actually 343 killing fields in Cambodia. These were the places that people were taken to to be exterminated during Pol Pot's khmer Rouge era (1975-1979).

The one that we visit is 15 km southwest of Phnom Penh. There's not much you can put into words with regards to these. 8,500 skulls are exhibited on 17 stories of a central tower which will remain forever as a reminder of the evils of the regime. Fragments of cloth & human bone are still scattered around the area. It all serves as a very bleak monument.

After the killing fields we visited the prison in Phnom Penh which held the people to be executed at the Killing fields. 17,000 people passed through this prison, only seven survived.
Around the walls of this building are thousands of photographs of the victims. Some before and after torture. Some children as young as ten years old. It defies description and left us both feeling down and somehow that it was all not real.

On leaving the prison (now a museum, originally a secondary school), I am totally beseiged by beggars. Most have missing limbs, others are disfigured through burn injuries. I, foolishly reach into my wallet to give a guy who appeared to have very little left of his original face a $1 bill. Suddenly I'm rushed from all angles and can only quickly retreat into the museum grounds once more.

I do manage to prepare myself for the onslaught once more when I re-emerge - I've stuffed a few $1 notes in a separate pocket. This time I'm only met by one beggar, so it's not so bad. I'm still not sure how one should handle all this.

There are over 70,000 victims of land mines still living in Cambodia. Even now 4 people a day are still being injured by land mines, but at least the de-mining of areas is moving along very quickly. Other victims of the Khmer Rouge are those that are still living, but have problems with their internal organs due to the extended period of malnutrition in those years. Apparently some of these health problems are being passed on to the next generation. So, as the legacy of Agent Orange remains in Vietnam, so does that of Pol Pot in Cambodia.