Cambodia – Phnom Penh

• 2010 January —–

The journey into Cambodia was like every other bus ride and border crossing – pay an exit fee, pay to get a health card (at least now we know FOR SURE that we are healthy – they took our temperature…), pay for visa, pay for toilet, wait 2 hours after the driver says we leave in 10 minutes – same, same…. Bear in mind that this paying thing is merely a few dollars, and went extremely smoothly.

We had about a 20 minute break at one bus stop where there were the usual vendors.  But one had bugs for sale on her table, crickets and spiders.  Now Irene has long wanted to try bugs as she used to be deathly afraid of spiders and figured this was her way of exacting revenge on the buggers.  “You think you scare me?!  HA!  I’ll eat you up!!”  The lady was kind enough to let her try a cricket, which was crunchy like a potato chip, but a bit greasy; and a spider leg (the whole spider was the size of a tarantula) which had a BBQ taste and kind messy like Buffalo wings, but VERY good tasting.  Ed tried the cricket, was not so enamored and declined the spider leg.

We got to Phnom Penh about 8:00 pm and stayed at the Sunday Guest House.  The service and friendliness of this Guest House surpasses any we have stayed at yet. We got to the door and as soon as it was confirmed that we had a reservation, they sat us down for some supper while they finished checking in another group who arrived just before us. When we were finishing eating, we filled in the guest card, they arranged a bus to Siam Reap for us the next day, as well as arranged for a tuktuk to take us to The Killing Fields and S-21 (genocide museum) since we had time prior to our bus departure and they scurried our bags up the stairs to our room.  This was all done with such a genuine desire to help the guest, and without any pressure from them, it was indeed a pleasure to do business with them.

Just a note on the room:  We had to take a picture of Ed standing next to the door to confirm that we really are in the land of Lilliput, at the door did not come up to his forehead and the ceiling was only about 6 foot 6 inches.  But the bed was the most comfortable we’ve encountered on this journey.  We slept like babies….

The next morning we arose early, as the museum opened at 8:00 am and our bus left at noon; we had no time to waste.  The tuktuk drove us 15 Km out of the city to the Killing Fields, where from 1975-79 Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge systematically slaughtered 20-25% of the Cambodian population, targeting intellectuals (and their families so there were none left to retaliate) , who were a threat in that those who have education usually have more complaints against the government and more likely to revolt, therefore he enlisted and brainwashed mostly young teenage boys to brutally torture and slaughter those sent to the Killing Fields.  There is still evidence of mass graves, with bones still visible as well at a 13 meter high monument that houses the bones of some 8000+ victims.  The skulls cover 7 of the 17 levels in this glass monument.  It was indeed a sobering, and horrifying to listen to the guide talk of the stories his own mother and father had witnessed and the physical and emotional scars they still carry.  This entire letter could be spent describing what we saw and trying to also describe our emotions, but no amount of words can do any of it justice.

From there we went to S-21, the former school house that was converted into a prison to extract ‘confessions’, by interrogation and torture, from the prisoners prior to being sent to the Killing Fields.  One building is left as they found it, complete with metal beds and leg irons.  Another building has the classrooms divided even further with brick walls forming small cells, about 2 meters by 80 cm. One building is entirely pictures of all the victims that were processed there.  It makes one shudder to realize that there are probably many Cambodian people that have come here to try to find relatives, and thus confirming their fate.