Cambodia was a relatively short trip for me. I wish I had spent a few more days there, but I think I hit the main points in the city. I crossed in from Laos at Dong Crawlow, Cambodia and continued on to Stung Treng. After lunch and a lot of haggling, I got in a cab and went to Ban Lung... this was 4 hours in the back of a camry with 3 other people on a dirt road... the bumpiest, and most uncomfortable ride yet... at least on the boat from Huay Xai, I could get up and walk around. After spending a day at Ban Lung, I went to the capital city on Phnom Penh and a few days later went on to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat. I experienced different things in all three cities and they all deserve a mention.
Ban Lung
This whole part of Cambodia doesn't have any paved roads. Everything is red dirt and I can just imagine the mess that it becomes in the rainy seasons (yes, there are two). In the morning, we rented some dirt bikes and went to the crater lake... it was massive.. and clean.. and virtually people-free. It was like having a giant swimming pool all to myself... and the 3 other guys I went with ... The afternoon was less enjoyable as we biked around looking for waterfalls... we saw a few, but in the dry season, they aren't nearly as impressive as the books would make you believe. The worst part about it was that we had to bike in the dirt all day long. While this was fun in the beginning, getting dirty and covered in dirt after every stop was a bit annoying.
Phnom Penh
My first day here was very pleasant. I went around the city and among other things saw the National Museum and the Royal Palace with the Silver Pagoda... the Silver Pagoda is a room with 5000 tiles, each made from 1KG of silver... so that's 5 tons of silver... This was a truly breath-taking site.
My second day there was the most shocking day of the whole trip thus far. In the morning I went to Toul Sleng Museum which was one of the hundreds of places used by the Khmer Rouge to torture people (They called is s21). One of the most disturbing things is that the S21 used to be a school... and now it had turned into a place where intellectuals (among others) were tortured because they weren't peasants...
History Lesson / List of alarming facts (Disclaimer: this is based on my understanding of the events, so if I'm wrong, kindly point it out to me)
- Pol Pot, or leader number 1 as was called was the leader of the Khmer Rouge which ruled Cambodia from 1975-1979.
- Pol Pot was a follower of Mao and was supported at various times by the Chinese, Thais, Americans and others...
- Khmer Rouge wished to create a peasant based economy where everyone was just working the farms... no need for intellectuals such as doctors, artists, scientists, engineers etc... either you were in the army or you were farming.. farming 15-16 hours a day...
- They eliminated currency along with everyone who had the potential of refusing him... the whole country was isolated from the world and there was only one weekly flight to Beijing.
- Most of the soldiers in the army were young boys under 15 as it was easy to mind-wash them
- Between 1-3 million people were killed in 4 years
- Vietnamese came to the rescue and "removed" the Khmer Rouge from power
- Pol Pot was still alive until 1998 and died of natural causes... obviously the Khmers (same as Cambodians) are pissed that he was not brought to justice
- No one has been prosecuted for these atrocious crimes... and sadly no one in the global community seems to care
In the afternoon, I went to the Killing Fields, which is where thousands of people were killed and buried after they were tortured at S21. They estimate about 20,000 men, women and children have been buried there. They have dug up about 8000 bodies and displayed their skulls. You can clearly see how some of them were just hit on the back of the head / neck so as not to waste any bullets... I was planning on spending the whole afternoon here, but after about 40 minutes, I just HAD to leave... I went back to my guest house and just sat in my room fr 5 hours. Overall, a very sad day :(
Siem Reap / Angkor
This is where its gets a bit confusing... Angkor is the name of the famous temple (Angkor Wat) and the name of the city, Angkor Tham... and the name of the general area around the walls of the city where all the old temples are...
Angkor Wat is the largest religious building in the world. It was built at the height of the Khmer regime (800 years ago) and still stands today! It was an awesome thing to see! There are carvings around all the walls that depict the Mahabharata, Ramayana and some other stuff... they still exist today! This really made me think about the security and precaution that is taken by museums to save paintings and artifacts... the work at Angkor was left out in the open... open to rain and the sun and for the jungle to develop so thick that it actually took exploration to find it... and a lot of the art is still breath taking to look at! Also, a cool thing about Angkor Wat is that is has a moat... not just a regular old moat... but a huge one! It is speculated that it once held the water supply for a city of over 1 million people!! (also, it took maybe 10 minutes to cross it and enter the actual temple)
okay, internet cafe closing... will write more later... in the mean time, look at all the pictures
1 comment:
You saw those old trees in Angkor Wat, with holes on them. It was said that you can tell all the secrets to those holes when you can tell nobody. They keep them for you, and you can move on.
Keep writing, I would like to read, and maybe, maybe oneday, I would do the same thing
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