WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SOME GRAPHIC PICTURES AND DESCRIPTIONS OF THE HORRORS COMMITTED BY THE KHMER ROUGE REGIME.
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| Angkor Wat,Cambodia's national symbol |
Trip date: October 2008
We visited Cambodia in 2008, three years before I started blogging. But it was a fascinating trip, so I decided to write it up anyway. As my husband says, in Cambodia we have seen the best and worst mankind has to offer. Please be aware, there are some quite graphic pictures and descriptions in the first section of this post (day 2), which describes some of the horrors committed by the Khmer Rouge regime. In contrast, the sites described in the remainder of the post are absolutely magnificent.
Day 1:
We arrive from Thailand. Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital, doesn't make a great first impression, it looks like a place where life is difficult. But then again, we are not here to see prettiness, we are here to see history.
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| Phnom Penh from our hotel window |
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| A Phnom Pehn street |
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| Rice fields around Phnom Pehn |
Day 2:
Our 5 year old daughter always travels with us and, so far, we have taken her along on all of our sightseeing. But what we are planning to see this morning is definitely not for a small child. For the first time ever, we leave her in the hotel with a baby sitter, while we set out to see the reminders of the horrors inflicted by the Khmer Rouge.
The bloody regime of the Khmer Rouge started in 1975, and in less then 4 years claimed some 1.7 million lives. Their leader, Pol Pot, imagined an agrarian utopia, with no place for educated and city people. The more lucky ones were forced into labor on the fields, where they were likely to die from starvation or be simply worked to death. The less lucky ones were tortured and executed. It is such a horrific period of recent human history, and we are in Phnom Penh to learn more about it.
We hire a driver/guide, who first takes us out to the edge of town, to the infamous Killing Fields. When visiting such horrific places, it always strikes me as odd how ordinary, sometimes even pretty they look. The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek are no exception. A lovely grassy area, with shady trees, on the edge of town. Yet almost 17,000 people lost their lives here.
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| Entrance to the Killing Fields |
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| How can such a lovely place be the sight of so much horror? |
The most famous structure on the Killing Fields is of course the glass stupa filled with 8,000 skulls of victims, and their clothes. It is shocking, and there is worse to come.
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| A beautiful stupa filled with... |
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| ...skulls... |
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| ...and clothes of the victims |
The horrors of the executions are described on signs placed around the fields. Everything is explained and everything is documented. It is obvious that the Cambodian people want the world to know what happened, and they want the world to remember. (Note: When I quote the signs, I do so including any grammatical or spelling errors they might contain).
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| The sign says: "Please don't walk through the mass grave!" |
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| The sign says: "Magic Tree - the tree was used as a tool to hang a loudspeaker which make sound louder to avoid the moan of victims while they were being executed" |
Our guide points out the Killing Tree. He explains that the Khmer Rouge would not waste bullets or too much energy on killing infants. They would be simply picked up by their feet, and have their heads smashed on this tree. I feel sick.
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| The sign says: "Killing Tree against which executioners beat children" |
There are many more signs: "Mass grave of 166 victims with out heads", "Mass grave of more than 100 victims children and women whose majority were naked". A sign explaining that there was electricity at the site, so that executions could be carried out at night. A sign explaining that at times the number of executions per day was over 300. We leave this place in a very gloomy mood.
And there is more horror to come, as our next stop is the infamous S-21 prison, now the Tuol Sleng Museum, from where prisoners were trucked to the Killing Fields for execution. It is a former high school, transformed into a place of so much torture and suffering. Of the 17,000 prisoners, only about a dozen survived.
From the outside the prison does look like a rundown school building, and it strikes me that it is located in, what seems like, an ordinary residential district.
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| Entrance to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum |
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| The former high school turned prison turned museum |
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| On the outside of the barbed wire fence it seems to be a lovely residential neighborhood |
We learn the stories of the last victims first. In the courtyard there are 14 graves. The people buried here were murdered by their captors fleeing the prison, as the liberating Vietnamese army was approaching.
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| Graves of the last 14 victims |
There is a cell, in block A, where one of these last victims was found. The bed frame is still there, as are the blood stains which penetrated the tile floor. On the wall there is a picture taken by the Vietnamese army on their arrival. A picture of this same room, the same stained floor, the same bed, but with a mutilated body lying on it. It feels so heavy being in this place.
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| One of the last 14 victims was found in this cell |
Outside, in the courtyard, we pass the translated prison rules. While some of the meaning seems to be lost in translation, it is quite a powerful testament to the horrors the prisoners had to endure.
The rules are:
1. You must answer accordingly to my questions-Don't turn them away.
2. Don't try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that. You are strictly prohibited to contest me.
3. Don't be fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.
4. You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
5. Don't tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution.
6. While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.
7. Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting.
8. Don't make pretext about Kampuchea Kromin order to hide your secret or traitor.
9. If you don't follow all the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire.
10. If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.
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| The prison rules |
Next to the rules is a wooden structure, originally built for high school students as an exercise aid. At the hands of the Khmer Rouge it became an instrument of torture, where prisoners would be suspended upside down. When they lost consciousness, their heads would be dipped into filthy water in the large jars below.
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| Originally gym equipment, used as instrument of torture |
We enter block B, with rows and rows of photographs of the prisoners. The Khmer Rouge were very organized, they took photographs of all prisoners on arrival to the prison, and then, in later stages of their "interrogation" as well. The pictures are haunting. Man, women and children. On some pictures the fear is tangible. They knew very well what was going to happen to them. I can't bear looking at the pictures of the small children. How will I ever be able to get these faces out of my mind?
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| The people pictured here (including small children) had no chance of surviving |
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| A tourist overcome by emotion, on the hallway of S-21 |
In block C we view the cells in which the prisoners were kept. Large rooms divided into tiny little spaces by makeshift brick walls. All openings on this building were covered by netting, apparently to prevent suicides when being led to interrogation. How cruel.
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| Block C |
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| The tiny cells on the ground floor of block C |
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| A sign asking visitors not to laugh. Who would? |
We view some of the torture instruments and there are more skulls, but we are too numb to feel anything at this point.
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| Some of the torture instruments and illustrations of methods of torture are also on display |
Leaving the prison I am not only sad, I am also angry. The international community had been so slow to prosecute those perpetrating these heinous crimes. Pol Pot himself was never prosecuted, and being dead now, he never will be. The head of the S-21 prison, Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, was not prosecuted at the time of our visit in 2008 either. (finally, in 2010, 30 years (!) after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime, he was sentenced to 35 years in prison by a UN-backed war crimes tribunal, and he asked for forgiveness. Too little too late?)
It's back to the hotel. How wonderful to hug our daughter. How grateful we are that we were born to a different time and place than those poor souls looking at us from the prison photographs.
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| The pagoda grounds |
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| Stupa of Princess Kantha Bopha |
The grounds also have a model of Angkor Wat, the amazing temple complex we will be visiting in a couple of days. It's nice to get a bird's eye view of it this way, as the real thing is so vast that we will be probably lost in the details when we actually visit it.
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| Model of Angkor Wat |
There are a couple of museum exhibits, displaying, among other things elaborate royal procession artefacts. Exhausted it's back to the hotel for a delightful dinner (complete with ice sculpture), but not before passing by the lovely and airy waterfront
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| One of the many Buddha statues on the Palace grounds |
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| Exhibits on the Palace grounds |
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| Phnom Penh waterfront |
Day 3:
Today we are traveling to the North of the country, to Siem Reap. We were planning to fly, but find out that by car it only takes 4-5 hours, so we hire a car with a driver instead. It turns out to be an excellent decision. In Cambodia, like in so many less developed countries, taking a road trip gives a wonderful glimpse into local life. It is not at all like traveling on the New Jersey Turnpike, with nothing to see but exit signs. In Cambodia life is happening alongside the road. People live here, eat here, sell thing here. They walk along the road to work and school. It's a wonderful experience, and it also gives us some time to decompress from the horrific things we saw in Phnom Penh.
We stop at the end of a village to take some pictures, and soon a small crowd gathers around our car. I don't understand what they are saying, but from their excited voices and gestures I guess that it is something like this "Come, come, look at this, you have never seen anything like this, come, you must see this!". Or something along those lines. All that while pointing at our 5 year-old daughter, who is patiently waiting for us in the back of the car. By now we are used to the fact that in many Asian countries she gets noticed. Her curly hair, big blue eyes and (from the extreme heat) pink cheeks make her look very different from local children. But she never drew such a crowd. It does dawn on me that the villagers have probably never seen a foreign child. We haven't seen any other tourists on the way, only a couple of tour buses, and I doubt that they carry many small children. The whole scene is very amusing.
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| On the road from Phnom Penh to Siem Riep |
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| On the road from Phnom Penh to Siem Riep |
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| On the road from Phnom Penh to Siem Riep |
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| On the road from Phnom Penh to Siem Riep |
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| On the road from Phnom Penh to Siem Riep |
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| On the road from Phnom Penh to Siem Riep
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| On the road from Phnom Penh to Siem Riep |
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| On the road from Phnom Penh to Siem Riep |
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| On the road from Phnom Penh to Siem Riep
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The arrival to the hotel is quite a shock. Siem Reap is the most touristy place in Cambodia, with hordes of tourists. So, after spending the last couple of hours seeing the "real Cambodia", the fancy modern avenue of fancy modern hotels seems so unbelievably out of place. We might as well be in Disneyland. And no sight of the temple complex from here. I am worried that I will not like it here, that it will all feel fake. We shall see tomorrow.
Right now it is time for a walk in the beautiful hotel garden, then a dinner with a folk dance show. Yes, I know, sounds exactly like Disneyland. But the show is actually very nice.
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| Cambodian folk dance show |
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| Cambodian folk dance show
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Day 4:
Today we are visiting Angkor Thom ("the great city" in Khmer), the amazing 12th century royal city. It is very famous, yet I am not really sure what to expect. The place seduces me at first sight. We enter via an amazing bridge decorated with scores of statues, through the magnificent South Gate.
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| Angkor Thom - the South Gate |
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| Angkor Thom - bridge leading to the South Gate |
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| Angkor Thom - one of the statues on the bridge leading to the South Gate |
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| Angkor Thom - the South Gate |
Within the 8-meter (26 feet) tall walls there is so much beauty to see. The Bayon Temple, which was the King's temple, rises in the center of Angkor Thom. Of it's 49 towers 37 are still standing today.
There is also the Terrace of Elephants, with warriors riding on marching royal war elephants. This terrace was originally used for royal receptions and as a viewing platform for performances. Then there is the Terrace of the Leper King, the royal cremation site. And so much more.
The place is crawling with tourists, but strangely enough that does not destroy the experience. Even with the crowds, the amazing atmosphere of the place shines though. One thing I find strange is that there is almost no restriction on where we can go, what we can touch. While that makes our visit even more enjoyable, I do have to wonder about the damage we are all doing to this historic place. This just does not seem like the right preservation approach and I wonder how long before some stricter rules are put in place.
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| Angkor Thom - The Bayon Temple |
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| Angkor Thom - Apsaras |
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| Angkor Thom |
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| Angkor Thom peekaboo |
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| Angkor Thom - Terrace of Elephants |
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| Angkor Thom - Terrace of Elephants |
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| Angkor Thom - Terrace of Elephants |
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| Angkor Thom |
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| Angkor Thom |
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| Angkor Thom - Terrace of Leper King |
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| Angkor Thom |
Our next stop is the Ta Prohm jungle temple, whose most recent claim to fame is that scenes of Tomb Raider were filmed here. But even without (or despite?) the celebrity of Angelina Jolie, this is a magnificent place. Built in the 12th century by King Jayavarman VII, it is said to have once housed great treasures. Today it lies in ruin and it's other-worldly beauty comes from the way the jungle reclaimed this place. Huge tree trunks and roots rise from the walls, as if by design. The temple is breathtaking and has a mystical air about it.
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| Ta Prohm Temple |
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| Ta Prohm Temple |
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| Ta Prohm Temple |
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| Ta Prohm Temple |
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| Ta Prohm Temple |
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| A local man crossing the fields outside Ta Prohm Temple |
Day 5:
After what we have seen yesterday, I can't wait to visit Angkor Wat, the Khmer national symbol, the centerpiece of their civilization. Enclosed by a wall and wide moat, the temple complex was built in the 12th century by King Suryavarman II as his state temple and capital city. It's five central towers, representing the heavenly peaks of Mount Meru, are definitely the most recognizable symbols of Cambodia. It is an amazing site.
We spend the entire day here, wondering around in awe. Just like in Angkor Tom, it amazes me how freely we can walk on things, touch things. There are huge crowds, yet we manage to find quiet, deserted spots just for ourselves. It's wonderful.
With all this beauty, for our 5 year old the main attraction is Chicken Eggs. Yes, Chicken Eggs, an off-white horse there to provide a photo opportunity for the tourists. Our daughter (a horse fanatic) must sit on the horse of course, and the friendly owner even sticks a not-too-clean cowboy hat on her head. The child is thrilled. I am not.
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| Entering Angkor Wat |
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| Angkor Wat |
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| Angkor Wat through a window |
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| Angkor Wat |
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| Angkor Wat |
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| Angkor Wat |
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| Apsara at Angkor Wat |
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| Angkor Wat |
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| Buddhist monks at Angkor Wat |
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| Apsaras at Angkor Wat |
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| Angkor Wat hallway |
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| The grounds of Angkor Wat |
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| The grounds of Angkor Wat |
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| Angkor Wat |
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| Tourists posing with an entertainer at Angkor Wat |
For sunset we head to 9th century Phnom Bakheng, a 65 meter (213 foot) high pyramid, as I read in the guidebook that it is the best place to view the sun set over Angkot Wat. Everyone else must have read the same book, as the crowds are huge. Masses of people are walking up the hill, toward the pyramid.
The climb of the pyramid doesn't seem too bad at first. But by the time we reach midway I am starting to get worried. Under normal circumstances this might be a fine climb for a 5 year old, but with the crowds, with all the pushing and showing, with elbows and knees passing dangerously close to our faces, it's becoming worrisome. I feel a bit panicky, luckily my husband is there to get our daughter safely to the top. I hope at least the view will be worth it!
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| Tourists climbing Phnom Bakheng |
It's not. Maybe I am just too tired, but so many people in a relatively small space make this seem like a busy train station, rather than a place where one could enjoy a lovely sunset in peace. Also, Angkor Wat is quite far in the distance and the only thing cheering me up for a while is the appearance of a lovely rainbow.
I am getting tense thinking about the climb down. If all these people start leaving at once, in the dark, how are we going get our daughter down safely? Rational thinking prevails and we decide to leave before the sun sets. To make up for all this wasted time, we try to hire an elephant for the ride down the hill. Turns out they had to be reserved in advance.
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| View from Phnom Bakheng, with Angkor Wat peeking out from behind the trees |
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| Rainbow over Phnom Bakheng |
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| Crowds gathering to view the sunset from Phnom Bakheng |
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| Phnom Bakheng |
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| Elephant "parked" by Phnom Bakheng |
The slight disappointment of the last sight is not going to hamper my enthusiasm about this trip. And what a trip it was! After all the horrors of the Killing Fields, the glorious beauty of the Angkor Temples. Both examples of what we humans can achieve if we just put our mind to it. We can be efficient, soulless killing machines, but also incredible artists and engineers. The latter fills me with joy, pride and admiration. The other? Well, let's just hope we can learn from it.
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