Cambodia

Cambodia on a shoestring
April 19th, 2007 

How come I nearly smacked the busdriver?

Like I said in my message of March 23rd, we had a pretty horrific busride from Laos to Cambodia… So what happened? Since Suus was getting on a thight schedule and we wanted to do both Cambodia and some climbing in Ton Sai, Thailand, we decided to do the luxury thing and book a VIP bus from Laos to Phnom Phen Cambodia. Well something got lost in translation there. Leaving Don Det at 8.00 a.m. we were picked by a minivan and dropped of at the border of Cambodia. Crossing the border on foot, where our next minivan was waiting. Still optimistic, we were thinking we would probably get a new van in the 1st town on the border…. Well NOP! Even though they made us change minivans in just about every other town we got to in Cambodia, they only seemed to be getting worse instead of better. Instead of airco we had no windows, cracked windows, seats with the bars sticking out and so on and so on. Towards the end of the day it started raining, so the drivers stops (to put something over our bags we were thinking – stupid, stupid!!), gets all the bags from the roof and starts loading them in the van – which was already packed with people. Suus lucked out and still had some room, I on the other hand had the honour to have one backpack between my legs and three! on my lap. Suus, of course, could not stop laughing, so instead of giving me hand, she was taking pictures of me (thanks, babe!). It took 1,5 hours and complete cramped legs for the guy next to me to finally become a gentleman and stack the backpacks in such a way that at least there was blood running through my legs.  By 21.30 pm, we were completely famished, but the driver still would not let us eat. Let’s not get into the details how we convinced him that there would be a dinner break at that point. Pissed off that we made him stop he rushed us during the whole (20 minute) dinner, only to load us back in the bus drive for 100 meters, where he made a very relaxed stop for his own dinner. This is just about the point where even Suus and I could no longer find the humour in this whole ordeal. When we’re finally on the road again, he stops again to load up a complete Cambodian family, their luggage and their motorcycle. As soon as the whole freaking brady bunch is in the van, just to make sure we won’t get any sleep at all - why would we want to? we’ve only been on the road for 15 hours - our driver treats us to our first Cambodian music at full volume. Something snapped…….. I leaped forward, grabbed someone by the shoulder and started yelling: “NO, NO MUSIC. We sleep now! Quiet!” Just to let him know I was very serious about my sleep, I added some Dutch words that don’t particularly need to be repeated in daylight This landed me loads of laughter from the Cambodians and Suus (of course), but also a couple of hours of sleep, since nobody dared to say another word after that, untill they loaded us of the van at 01.30 a.m. in the pouring rain of Phnom Phen.

Being good Samaritans, while being decadent???

Thinking we deserved a little treat after our “comfortable” VIP-ride, we rented some bikes and headed for the Seeing Hands, this is a massage by highly skilled blind therapists. Apart from the program providing jobs for blind people, they also support other projects to help the disabled from the profits they make, on top of which it’s one of the best massages I’ve ever had! All that hard work made us hungry, so we very slowly made our way to Friends. Friends is a very nice restaurant, with some of the best food I’ve had in 5 months, that trains streetkids to work in hospitality. Feeling the need to support this project we ordered just about half the menu! So you see, sometimes decadent and doing something usefull actually does go together

On a serious note… Tuol Sleng and the Killing Fields

Sunday the 25th of March we took out the day to go Tuol Sleng also known as S-21, the prison where the victims of the Red Khmer where held, interrogated and tortured. Really feeling the history of the place, it took us hours to walk through the former schoolbuildings, with lines and lines of pictures and stories of victims of this bloody regime. The cruel contradiction of this being a former schoolbuilding, made the enormous horror of this place even worse.

Already leaving Tuol Sleng with heavy hearts, we made made our way to the Killing Fields. After the victims were interrogated and tortured for months in S-21, they were transported to the Killing Fields. Blindfolded, they waited for their turn, while they could hear the cries of their fellow inmates being beaten to death, so the executors could save their ammunition. The executors had one special tree they used to smack the babies to death. After this, people where being thrown into a pit, which would be poured over with some chemical just to make sure nobody survived. The pits were barely covered, which added to our shock, because even today while a lot of the massgraves have been cleared, you’ll find yourselve walking on bonefragments and clothes sticking out of the ground.

Of 20.000 people, only 7 people actually survived Tuol Sleng, not to mention how many victims the war itself claimed. I cannot find the words to explain to you what a sad and horrified impression S-21 and the Killing Fields made on us. Burning incense in silence at the monument for the victims seems almost too small an act to pay your respect in such a place.

From the horrible recent history of Cambodia to the glorious history of centuries ago

After spending a couple more days in Phnom Phen, we went for the complete opposite of Tuol Sleng and the Killing Fields. Near Siem Raep 287 temples result in the marvels of Angkor. We took out three days to visit several temples, sticking to the most important, most beautiful or most spectacular. We watched the sunset over Ton Sap Lake, whilst watching the beautiful Angkor Wat change colours in the last rays of sun, got up at 5 a.m. to see the sun come up again on the other side of Angkor Wat, felt like Angelina Jolie under the treeroots in Tomb Raider at Tha Phrom and were scared shitless when our tuktuk driver started holding the little cart we were sitting in by hand when the bolt came of, but kept driving for another half hour to the Bantay Srei anyway. What can I say? Angkor is amazing, impressive and is definitely added to my top ten list of most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

Unfortunately, our visit to Angkor concluded our visit to Cambodia as well. It was (due to lack of time) a short, but very beautiful trip. Given the change I will definitely go back to explore this gorgeous country more.

Save & Sound
March 23rd, 2007

After a horrific busride we arrived safely in Phnom Penh last night at 1.30 p.m. in the pouring rain – which sort of fitted the rest of the day I will tell you all about it later, because I seem to have found the slowest internetcafé in Phnom Penh today!