Cambodia Report Day Two

As I mentioned before, I had a really hard time interpreting some things that were happening around me in Cambodia. Who is wealthy? Who is poor? Who is in the desperate struggle to move up the food chain? Who is satisfied with where he or she is? Who needs help? Who doesn’t? Why are the streets in such bad shape? Why is there little to no sanitation? Why, with constant construction all around us, does the progress seem so slow? What is a reasonable amount of progress? All of these questions were constantly racing around my head during my time in Cambodia, but particularly for the first two days in Phnom Penh.

I had originally planned to skip out on the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng Museum. I have a hard time at places like that, and I don’t feel I need any further sensitivity to the horrors that occur in the world. But by the evening of our first night in Phnom Penh, I was starting to think that seeing these places might help me get some answers to those questions listed above.

Brian, Sara, and Haruka had already planned to go to the Killing Fields on our second day in town, so we arranged for the crazy Khmer with the Australian accent to pick us up in his tuk-tuk and take us south to the Killing Fields in the morning. We set out at 9:30AM. It was so nice to ride in the tuk-tuk. We had walked the whole day before, and it was a great way to see everything, but it was also nice to move fast enough to create a breeze.



The Killing Fields at Choeung Ek. It really is a…field. There is a very tall tower, maybe 3 or 4 stories high, erected near the front entrance to the memorial in commemoration. The corners of the structure are concrete, but the walls are glass. Inside the tower, all of the skulls of the people who were murdered and buried at the fields have been lined up on…shelves…spanning the width and breadth of the tower enclosing. All the way up. There’s maybe a foot and a half of space between each shelf. Rows and rows of skulls. There are some labels to indicate the age and sex of the people who belonged to those skulls when they were killed.

I've heard those skulls and other bones were originally left exposed in the exhumed mass graves. That was how they were exhibited. I can understand why someone was urged to construct a more dignified memorial. Beyond the tower, were the open pits where the bodies had been piled and buried. I overheard a guide saying that the mass graves were excavated after the ground literally burst open from the gases of the decaying bodies. The graves had been very shallow. Inside the pits, now overgrown with grass and bushes, you can still see cloth protruding from the ground. I can only assume those were the clothes of the victims.

I know it’s petty to comment on how someone else experiences a place, especially a place so emotionally charged. But I was irritated. There is a great big tree near the graves that was used to hang giant speakers, through which loud music was played to drown out the sounds of the people being tortured and murdered. There is a big sign next to the tree saying as much. As I was reading the sign, a mother and daughter walked over to it. The daughter posed, arm on the sign, gave her best tourist smile and her mom snapped another picture for the photo album. They continued to prattle on as they walked away. It completely eludes me how people can go to a place with obvious signs of unimaginable suffering and be completely unaffected. There were bones sticking out of the ground! Bones of people! Is it a lack of imagination? Am I unbalanced?

Next we headed to the Tuol Sleng Prison Museum in the city proper. The prison was originally a high school, but was set up to function as a prison by the Khmer Rouge. There are 4 main buildings, each with 3 floors, with maybe 6 to 8 classrooms on each floor. You can walk into all the individual rooms, each quite small for a classroom I thought. On the first floor of the first building, there is a metal bed frame in each room with a few other objects scattered on the tile floor. Some arm chains, ammo boxes…I still don’t know what those were for…and on the wall an old blown-up sepia photograph of a beaten and tortured prisoner, mostly naked, lying presumably in that room, with blood pooling around the body. I almost lost my breakfast. I don't know if those are photo records taken by the Khmer Rouge (which were meticulous) or if those were the photos snapped by the people who found the prison. Anyway, they were horrific and graphic.

In the second building, the prison photos of each inmate are posted on display boards. There are thousands. There are also some paintings depicting the methods of torture used in the prison, and the instruments themselves are displayed in another room. The next building is still curtained with razor wire, as it was when it served as a prison. Each of the classrooms is divided into much smaller cells, maybe 6ft2. The last building exhibits artwork and photographs of former workers and victims.

Wikipedia moment: Of nearly 17000 people imprisoned at Tuol Sleng, 7 survived. The rest were murdered at the killing fields, usually with their families, or died from the torture or horrible conditions at the prison. This ended in 1979.

As a point of reference: The UN counts at least 450000 dead in the Darfur conflict.

Moving on. After all of this, we went…shopping!!! Ugh. I really wanted to go to the Russian Market, which is on the south side of the city near Tuol Sleng. I had read that this market has the best selection of silks in the country. And we went, and I’m glad, and I was happy to do something a little more light-hearted, but it felt awfully shallow to go shopping. I guess the feeling didn’t last too long though. I dropped a relatively hefty sum on silk scarves, shawls and pillowcases at the market. And I really enjoyed the bargaining process. I’m sure I was ripped-off a few times, but I think I got some really great prices a few other times, so it all came out in the wash.

I really love the way that bargaining happens in Cambodia. Everyone, for the most part, is friendly. Everyone is trying to get the best price, but ends the trade cheerfully almost as friends. It’s like a game that the whole country loves to play. Bargaining was a completely different endeavor in Thailand. But that all comes later.

After shopping we headed back to the hotel. Brian had eaten at the food stalls in the market, but Sara, Haruka and I were starving, so we decided to try the hotel restaurant. The food was good, and we finally met one of the sisters who runs the place. She also kindly booked our bus tickets to Siem Reap for the next day…for a markup of 2US per person. I really can’t blame her. It would have been very easy for us to book for ourselves, and it’s how she makes a living. It was a little annoying, but for some reason, I just didn’t feel too put out. More of a “well played…well played.”









Everyone rested for a bit, then Sara and I went for a quick stroll to the fruit market around the corner that I had noticed on our way back the day before. When we got there I unknowingly purchased 1KG of mangosteens for one dollar. I mean, I knew, but I didn’t mean too. I nodded at some point and was handed a bag of fruit. Oh well. It was one dollar. They’re crazy expensive in the U.S. and even in Japan. We kept walking and discovered that it was not just a fruit market, but a full market with meat, fish, and vegetables. This market seemed far more sanitary. Most of the foods were placed on boxes and tarps off the ground. There was a bit more ice mingling with fish, fewer flies, and no toxic smell of impending doom like the day before. We walked through and got a lot of smiles from the women running the market. I was pleasantly surprised, and this was true everywhere in Cambodia, to find that we were not an unwanted nuisance. At least, we were never made to feel that way.

We swung around back to the hotel to pick up Brian and Haruka, then headed west towards the Central Market and beyond for ICE CREAM! I had read about these places that sell ice cream in all the fun and fruity local flavors, and two places that serve the ice cream in a coconut with coconut milk on the side. That quickly became the most important destination on my list in Phnom Penh. I’m only half kidding. It took a bit of a search, but Sara spotted it and we headed into the restaurant. The whole place was white tile with plastic tables and chairs. They were making sandwiches from a movable cart at the front of the store with baguettes baked in an oven near the front door. It didn’t exactly feel like an ice cream parlor. But it was fun! It reminded me of the place I went to get Pho in Seattle with Ashley. The décor in that place seemed so stark to me, but I can see that that’s probably the norm in this part of the world. Anyway! The ice cream was great. There was actual ice mixed in with possibly three different flavors of ice cream and bits of dried fruits. All unidentifiable. Except for the durian flavor…as Brian said, “Something in here tastes like…the city.” True. The coconut milk was nasty! None of us drank it. But the ice cream was great.

Back to the hotel, where we purchased a few beers from the restaurant and drank them on our balcony overlooking the city. Then out for dinner at the Hope & Anchor. Good food. Not very busy, but it’s not the high season. We were in bed again around 10PM this time. Maybe later? I can’t remember.