Cambodia: Temples and Terror

After arriving into the Bangkok airport from Japan my first task was to find my missing sister, Lauren, and then find a way to make it to Cambodia. Due to the mishap that is called Malaysia Airlines, I was 12 hours later than expected. Luckily I have a track record for missing flights and being late, so Lauren didn’t worry as she spent the day waiting for me at Bangkok International.

All of my research on entering Cambodia stressed that it was much easier to fly from Bangkok. Complaints about cheating bus companies and shady border officials are supposed to deter travelers. I thought that made it sound exciting. So Lauren and I set off on a train from Bangkok to the Thai-Cambodian border. After being stamped to leave Thailand, we crossed through No Man’s Land and lined up at the Cambodian Visa booth. The sign over the booth read “Cambodian Visa: $25.” When I handed my passport and $25 to the visa agent he said “No, it’s $35.” Hmmm. I explained to him that the massive sign hanging outside of his office said $25. He threw my passport at me, slammed the window, and went back to playing cards with his 4 other uniformed friends. I asked someone next to me where I could find the police. Pity, it turns out that the men charging $10 extra for visas were the police. All of the other pushover Americans ahead of us had paid the extra money and so I wasn’t left with much bargaining power (I wanted to start a strike) and so I threw a tantrum until he eventually lowered the price to $30.

As far as first impressions go, Cambodia wasn’t doing so well.

After we eventually made it into Cambodia we stood at the border with 30 other foreigners who had been ditched by their unscrupulous bus company and were ride-less. Luckily, we had heard about that scam and had opted instead for the train and finding our own transport once inside Cambodia. A number of shady men who had been “helping” us with the visa process were now trying to “help” us on to “tourist busses.” I tracked down a few taxis but everyone that agreed to take me was then subject to harassment from the man “helping” us to find a bus. The entire racket was so frustrating that we finally hiked down the road with our backpacks, found an independent taxi that was using us as a cover to smuggle shoes through a checkpoint (he had over 50 pairs of shoes hidden under our backpacks in the trunk and under the mats in the car by our feet), and offered him a reasonable price to take us to Siem Reap.

Upon entering Cambodia, its most notable characteristic is schizophrenia. It accepts three currencies: the Thai Baht, the Cambodian Real, and the American Dollar. Dollars come out of the ATM machines, change is given in Real, and Baht are worth 30% less than in Thailand. They drive on the right side of the road. Or the left. It kind of depends on what is in front of you. Normally, you can try to determine which side of the road to drive on based on which side of the car is the driver’s side. However, in Cambodia, some cars had the driver’s side on the left, and some had it on the right. Our first stop within this befuddled country was Siem Reap.

Siem Reap’s fame comes from its proximity to the Angkor Wat ruins. It’s got a few streets full of trendy, touristy restaurants and bars (such as the clever “Angkor What?” bar) but right outside of that center is a pretty typical Cambodian town: Motorbikes, dust, street markets, and burning garbage. Lonely Planet and other guide books suggested spending anywhere from 3 to 7 days perusing the nearby Angkor Wat ruins. Lauren and I penciled in a day and were done by 1pm. The numerous ruins were laid out over several square miles and we had to hire a tuk-tuk (motorbike with a cart attached to the back) to take us from ruin to ruin. The crown jewel of the ruins, THE Angkor Wat temple, was where we went at 5am to watch the sunrise. After that we visited some other famous spots including Tha Prohm, left a ruin for so long that massive trees were growing out of it; Ta Keo which we were able to climb up for some great views; and Preah Kahn which had phallic symbols on everything including a little water spout shaped like a penis. At this point, Cambodia started to redeem itself.

After the world’s fastest tour of the Angkor Wat ruins, Lauren and I packed up our backpacks and climbed (backpacks and all) onto the back of a set of motor bikes and jetted off to the bus station. Holding a 40 pound backpack on your back while judging how tightly you should be hugging the little Cambodian man driving the motorcycle is always challenging. My case was especially challenging because I was also screaming at him to turn around as I had forgotten my sunglasses at the hostal. Once I finally communicated this message, which was unfortunately once we were already at the bus station, we turned around and returned to the hostal to search for my sunglasses. I guess hostals don’t really expect you to come back once you’ve checked out. If they did, they would probably go to more of an effort to make it at least look like they’ve changed the sheets and towels. How pleasant. Even more unfortunate was that my sunglasses weren’t even there and that I had left Lauren to stall the bus for me. After enduring 30 minutes of glaring stares from fellow passengers, Lauren was very happy to see me return with my sunglasses. Which had actually been in my purse the whole time. Oops.

The ride from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh allowed us to sample the culinary cuisine at each road side rest stop. Some people may think this is why I contract regular food-borne illnesses while traveling. I think there is no other way to really experience the country. On this trip I sampled boiled eggs, fresh corn on cob, and bananas stuffed with sweet rice, all without hazard. But occasionally, you do get burned. Lauren and I had opted to play it safe and skip the fried grasshoppers in favor of some packaged crackers. Perhaps a bit less protein, but what could be safer than packaged crackers? After holding them in her purse, on her lap, for at least 2 hours, Lauren opened the crackers and 3 little cockroaches crawled out. Playing it cool, Lauren started screaming at the top of her lungs and jumped up onto the seat while throwing the crackers halfway across the bus. I took my flip flop and frantically started squashing cockroaches. We had not made many friends by holding up the bus for 30 minutes. We lost our remaining allies with this little display. I suppose it is one thing to waste 30 minutes of your life, but another thing entirely to miss part of one of the most romantic Cambodian love song videos of all times, which just happened to be playing on the bus at that moment.

The bus ride led us into the pulsing heart of Phnom Penh. After the green rice paddies and wooden stilt houses of the country side, the tall dirty-white buildings and streets bustling with motorbikes was a change. Phnom Penh does have a very nice area full of restaurants and bars along the Mekong River and a Royal Palace to attract tourists. Unfortunately for Cambodia, the other main attractions are The Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng Prison.

For a quick history lesson on Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge came to power sometime after the French lost control. Their main goal was to create equality in society by returning Cambodia to its agrarian roots (sometimes called communism). To the Khmer Rouge, this meant exterminating and relocating anyone in society who qualified as educated, elite, or urban. This included everyone from teachers and doctors to people who wore glasses to people who had recently moved to cities from the countryside. They relocated thousands of people back into rural areas where they were forced to work side by side with, and hold a lower status than, their rural countrymen. Many people were forced into Tuol Sleng Prison and other “jails.” The jails and countryside became feeders for the mass extermination graves now referred to as The Killing Fields. It is estimated that anywhere from 1-3 million people were killed between the years of 1975-1979. Cambodia’s population was only about 7 million at the time.

Toul Sleng prison was a former high school whose rooms had been turned into mass holding cells where people were chained together by their feet. Other rooms had rudimentary wooden walls set up to create solitary confinement cells. Today it is a simple museum with metal bed frames and torture tools left in the cells, hundreds of prisoner mugshots posted on the walls, and pictures of mutilated bodies haunting the rooms. Almost 30 years since the prison has been used, there are still blood stains on the floor. A list of rules is posted outside of the prison and includes things such as “Don’t be a fool for you are the chap to thwart the revolution” and “While getting lashes or electrocution you must not cry at all”. Eerie, would be an understatement. I could feel ghosts there.

Prisoners held at Toul Sleng were transported to the nearby Killing Fields. Today, besides a tall, narrow monument, all you will find on first inspection is a grassy field with pockmarks the size of kiddy pools. The monument is full of skulls, clothing, and other personal effects of the people who were found nearby. The pockmarks in the field are 30 year-old, partially sunken graves. Upon closer inspection, and especially after a good rain, you can see the clothing being burped up from the ground, tattered and bleached by time. Some of the graves are even labeled based on who or what was buried there: Headless bodies, women and children... Shockingly, this genocide, where upwards of 2 million people were systematically murdered, is very rarely discussed. Have you heard of it?

All right, so that’s kind of a big downer to end on. I’ll go on to say that after a day in Phnom Penh Lauren and I took off to Sihanoukville, a beach town about 5 hours from the capital. There we rented a bungalow overlooking the ocean for $12 a night (total) and feasted on fresh fish, octopus on a stick, and beer. After two days of down time at the beach, we returned to Phnom Penh to catch a boat down the Mekong River into Vietnam. We passed from the main river channel into smaller tributaries that make up the Mekong Delta. The smaller rivers were flanked by houses on stilts, farmers wearing conical hats, rice paddy fields, water buffalo, and bathing children. It was so idyllic and serene, it almost made you want to move to Vietnam. Almost.