Battambang/Phnom Penh/Siem Reap

No witty titles this time around, unfortunately.

I'm back in Siem Reap after having done a circle around Cambodia--there are more flight options from Siem Reap than Phnom Penh, and its a better town to relax in for a day. Tmw, I will be flying Siem Reap-Phnom Penh-Singapore, but I don't connect in Phnom Penh. The airline I'm flying, Jetstar, flies a triangle route, routing the aircraft Singapore-Siem Reap-Phnom Penh-Singapore. I leave around 745 am local time, and arrive around 1205 local time--singapore is an hour later than cambodia.

Singapore will be my last stop, as on the 21st I fly Singapore-Hong Kong-Los Angeles-DFW.

I was going to go help out at an orphanage today, but since the place is 1.5 hours away, I sent off an email just to make sure it was okay to stop by two days ago, but unfortunately the email inbox was full. I also assumed that I would be able to make airline reservations yesterday, but for whatever reason, I was unable to (rant start: thank you, mastercard. I spend 20 minutes on the phone with one of your representatives in the Singapore airport trying to iron the situation out, the person telling me it is okay, that my credit card should work, but it still doesn't. It was working fine for the first month, but now you tell me that it didn't work because I was out of my area? How does that make sense? If that was the case, then why wasn't it flagged back in Malaysia when I started the trip? rant end), and had to do it this morning. By the time I was finished, it was too late to head out there--which is too bad.

In spite of Cambodia's myriad problems, it does have a ton of honest NGOs working here. If you ever want to take a volunteer-vacation, come to Cambodia, and contact these places directly--don't pay some middleman to set it up for you--lots of these legit places have websites and can be easily contacted.

Lonely Planet describes Battambang as a small, lazy riverside town with well preserved french architecture along the river. I describe it as one boring place with crumbling french buildings and the only nightlife to be found is one of the various girly bars. I tried going to the place that the book recommended--a bar seemingly popular with expats, but it was a sketchy looking shack, and so I had my driver take me back to the hotel, after declining several "massage" offers, as well as an offer to take me to a place frequented by former Khmer Rouge members. Drinking with dictators--I'll skip that.

In my brief time in Battambang, however, I did go out to some limestone hills for a nice panoramic sunset view, and saw bats emerge from their hiding place at dusk and take to the skies like a giant cloud of locusts. Thank god I had already made reservations for the boat to Siem Reap.

Sick of buses, I decided to take a boat ride, which, in the dry season, isn't probably the best idea--the water is very shallow, and the boat is forced to go slow--the trip took 8 hours start to finish in a small boat no bigger or wider than three suburbans lined up trunk to bumper. Yes, there was a bathroom on board, but you probably didn't want to use it. It was roofed, however, which meant that we weren't blasted by the sun.

It was actually quite fun--the 15 people were mostly tourists, and I spent most of the time talking to a fellow American (and a native Israeli 2001 JJ Pearce grad who now lives in Anchorage) and a german nurse. It was also pretty scenic--you got to see the various riverside communities and houses built on stilts, and fishermen at work. Granted, it did get a little tiresome after the first three hours when every little village starts to look the same, but you could still see some random sites of interest--like a riverside christian church, or a bamboo shack with a satellite tv dish on top of it. I also got to cross SE Asia's largest lake, the Tonle Sap, home to thousands of birds, and some of the world's largest freshwater fish, like the Mekong giant catfish and the Mekong giant stingray (look 'em up on wikipedia). The river into Siem Reap was extremely shallow in the narrow navigable parts--no more than knee or ankle deep in some parts, which made for an interesting final hour as you have to wait for some larger tourist boats to pass you in one direction--in some cases, boats heading opposite ways were no more than six inches apart.

Now, back to Phnom Penh.
I did the typical tourist route--I went to the royal palace--neat and fancy, but an interesting contrast to the khmers living just outside the palace gate in extreme poverty. I also got there on the king's birthday, which meant that the place was all lit up, and there were lots of concerts at night, and people celebrating.

I explored some of the wide, DC national mall style boulevards surrounding the palace and the river, where there were several memorials and monuments, as well as a giant casino (the only legal one in Cambodia) known as "nagaworld"--naga is a mythological creature from buddhism--think supersized, magical snake--and sculptures and depictions of them are all over the angkor temples. Phnom Penh is located where the tonle sap river and the Mekong intersect, so I was also to take lots of pictures of one of the world's most famous rivers. The place also has a nice riverside walk, lined with cafes, shops, and restaurants--a generally safe area for tourists, though I was continually offered marijuana, cocaine, and girls from the various tuk tuk drivers.

Stopped by the Foreign Correspondents Club of Cambodia for a mid afternoon snack--the place is pretty famous--its been on the Amazing race, and is considered a must go. I wasn't all that impressed--American style if not more expensive prices, and the place was also crawling with ants. As far as I am concerned, if you want to have a drink and watch the river, there are plenty of other better options in Phnom Penh to go--most only just steps away from the FCCC.

The National Museum is a nice, red building, but the building itself is more impressive than its collection--at least the museum is nice and tidy, and presents the collection well, unlike another famous museum with a red facade (Egyptian museum in Cairo) where you are literally tripping over artifacts, while also trying your best not to touch anything because the place seems to haven't employed a janitor since the Nasser era--king tut area is immaculate, though.

For whatever reason, walked up to Wat Phnom, the highest point in the city, which really did have the greatest views, but did tire me out in the heat--again, that's a place worth skipping if you don't have much time. Also went to the "lake" to watch the sunset--again, an overrated experience, since it isn't much of a lake, and the area around it is pretty dirty and grungy.

If you don't like history or learning about tragedy stop reading now, because aside from the sex trade, Cambodia has another darker side to it--the era of the Pol Pot led Khmer Rouge and the civil war that resulted in the deaths of millions of Cambodians--some of which were killed in the crossfire, some of which were murdered or exterminated (after first having been tortured) by the ruthless Khmer Rouge.

I was told by people who had been to Phnom Penh that the two places that you simply cannot miss are the killing fields and the Tuol Sleng Museum. Having been to both, I can now vouch for that, and entirely agree. If you have any ounce of compassion or sympathy in your body, you will be horrified by what took place and be in a state of shock.

The killing fields are located about 14 kms outside of Phnom Penh, past the airport, and located at a former orchard that is now being transformed into a suburb. Being sent there was a death sentence--there was no escape--and you were either promptly shot, or, to save bullets, bludgeoned to death by the butt of a rifle. The place is hauntingly pretty in the fading afternoon light, surrounded on two sides by ricefields--there is a white temple that serves as the ossuary that preserves the bones of some of those found there. As you wander around, you start to notice some various depressions in the ground that looked as if they were craters from shell explosions. They aren't. They were the mass grave sites were the victims were tossed after they were killed. They have also preserved a small bit of land where bone fragments are still present in the ground.

There was only one thing that detracted from my experience. As I wandered around on the trail next to the fence, several children appeared on the other side and started begging and pestering me. I had a can of pringles visible, and they wanted my "yum-yums." This continued for a good 15-20 minutes. I'm sorry, and I realize and am well aware that Cambodia is desperately poor, but this place is a sacred site--a place of mass murder (over 20,000 killed at this one place)--and deserves to be treated as such. That means visitors wishing to learn or pay their respects shouldn't have to be solicited by beggars. I know this is a selfish thing to say, and it wasn't wise for me to have the can of pringles visible, but if you would be offended by being pestered at a concentration camp or a gulag site while inside the property fence, then you would be offended by being asked for food at this site. Again, this is just my opinion--you can disagree with me if you want, calling me insensitive, selfish and a whole other list of descriptions, but it is what I thought at the time and still think.

Rode back to Phnom Penh in the fading afternoon light, and had some spectacular views of the setting sun in the ricefields and various stilted villages.

Next morning, I went to the tuol sleng museum (s21)--a former high school that was transformed by the Khmer Rouge into a prison and a torture chamber in the heart of Phnom Penh. After they passed through s21, prisoners were taken to the killing fields. Only seven people, out of the thousands that passed through, survived. It wasn't just males they were after--they killed anybody they suspected of being an enemy of the state, or not agreeing with the decrees of Pol Pot--whether you were a man, woman, or child. They even sometimes turned inward, killing their own who they thought were disloyal or traitors. The only people who were ever truly safe were the people at the very top I thought the place was more haunting than the killing fields because there was more information available, and rows upon rows of photographs that the khmer rouge took of their prisoners when they entered the place, some of these people no more than 2 years old.

They've preserved the old beds and instruments used to torture, and as a whole, they did a great job of presenting the site. Its hard to describe a place of so much notoriety as a highlight, but it really cannot be missed.

The torture isn't the only thing that will disgust you when you visit the site. Some of the information you learn will as well. I mentioned earlier that the U.N. should hire cambodian kids as translators--that's because they owe Cambodia, big time. The Khmer Rouge lost full control in 1979 (after ruling for four years) when a Vietnam backed group took back the country and forced the KR into fighting a guerilla war. The U.N. didn't see it that way, and fully earned their New York Post moniker of "the thugs club" by continuing to recognize the Khmer Rouge and having them occupy Cambodia's seat at the U.N. until 1991. Please remove the plastic bag from the seatback in front of you, and commence vomiting. Yes, Pol Pot was actually recognized as the rightful ruler of the country, even though he had just been responsible both directly and indirectly for the death of millions of his countrymen.

Unfortunately, the U.S. isn't exactly innocent either. Because of the nature of cold war geopolitics, where the enemy of my enemy was always my friend, even if that friend was a dictator, mass murderer, or both, the U.S. actually supported the Khmer Rouge for a short while since the bitter aftertaste of the Vietnam War still lingered.

The other interesting exhibit at the museum, other than that of the victims, is of the conflicted issues surrounding the conflict that are still present in Cambodia to this day. While those at the top were certainly guilty, there were lots of Khmer Rouge members who were forced to join the group at the barrel of a gun--meaning they and their families would have been killed if they didn't join and participate in some of the atrocities. Its a complicated moral and ethical issue, to say the least, something that the country is still trying to deal with.

Only now, 30 years after the reign of the Khmer Rouge, are those responsible for the group's various crimes against humanity actually being tried by courts and tribunals. Side note--at the royal palace, I actually met a pretty, newly minted law graduate from Australia who is actually working for the prosecution on one of these trials--she was at the palace because her parents were visiting her for the weekend.

Some, unfortunately, will never be formally tried or judged because they have already died. Pol Pot, the mastermind of the whole operation, died in 1998, never having been held accountable for the deaths of his countrymen.

I don't have a phd in comparative genocidal studies, nor in german or cambodian history, and only know what I've picked up from reading various books and informational displays, so I am in no position to make any sort of comparison between the Khmer Rouge and the Nazi Party or the Soviet Union under Stalin. I will leave that to those qualified to undertake such a task.

I have, however, visited the Buchenwald concentration camp, and so I am in a position to contrast what I felt and thought at Buchenwald versus Tuol Sleng/Killing Fields. Again, these were purely my emotions, nothing more, nothing else. The feeling at both sites were identical--and, if anything, I actually felt slightly worse leaving Tuol Sleng than Buchenwald. Yes, I'm proud to be Jewish, but I'm also proud to be an American. In World War II, Jews were being exterminated, but at least my country was one of the good guys. In Cambodia, the U.S. wasn't one of the good guys. Even if we didn't obviously support the Khmer Rouge, we certainly looked the other way and refused to denounce them. And that is why I felt slightly worse--because in this case, the U.S. wasn't the knight in shining armor, and so, as an American, I felt a tinge of guilt and shame for what my country did and didn't do.