Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville

I got up early to catch a ride to the boat dock in Siem Reap. The drive out to the "dock" was an adventure in itself and provides good reason to take the boat. The boat is just run up on shore with a gangplank, so there's not really a dock. Siem Reap sits on the edge of a large lake called Tonlé Sap. There are many fishing towns around the lake and the dock sits in the middle of one. There is a sort of causeway that goes a kilometer or two out into the lake with people living along it's edges. The homes are either built on stilts beside the road or are actually floating on the lake. The water level changes quite dramatically with the season, so the stilts are necessary. Many of the homes don't even qualify as shacks - they are mostly built from bamboo and many of them only have a floor with a tarp draped over poles as a roof. Many are as small as about 6'by 6' and the largest aren't much bigger than that. They all house at least one family, and sometimes an extended family. It appears that cooking is usually done outside although I did see a fire in a concrete bucket inside one. There is vitually no space between these houses. An NGO has positioned a few pumps along the road to provide "fresh" water to the villagers. It is just a seething mass of people, animals, sewage, garbage and filth. At times our car couldn't get past because the village had spilled into the road, but this always managed to sort itself out. I have never seen anything like it and it was very disturbing.

The boat ride itself was in fact quite comfortable. I was sitting with a group of 5 hungover British lads who were very personable and provided some good conversation over the course of the journey. My arrival in Phnom Penh and subsequent journey to my hotel were uneventful, except for the fact that I got my skirt caught in backpack as I put it on, so was wandering around the very busy pier with my butt exposed for about 5 minutes before I noticed the draft and fixed it. I tell you, the Cambodian public has seen more of my backside over the last few days...

As hoped, my room was fairly high up in the hotel. I saw the room number, 308, and was pleased that I'd be a couple of storeys above the street. As it turns out, the ground floor was reception and restaurant, the next floor was "0" (e.g rooms 01, 02, etc.) the next floor was "1" (e.g. rooms 101, 102 etc.) so I was actually on the 5th floor above the street. Unfortunately, this didn't ensure a good sleep, as the noise from the city generally got up to fever pitch by about 6 AM and and given that nothing is insolated here, you could be on the 20th floor and still not be able to sleep through it.

Phnom Penh is a fairly small city (1.2 million)and while much bigger than Vientiane is nothing like the much more cosmopolitan Bangkok. It is quite ugly, run-down, filthy and stinky. There is a section along the riverfront near the royal palace which is quite lovely with a relatively clean park area and new buildings. The rest of the place is a dump. The streets are filled with garbage and smell like urine or worse. The city is much worse for beggars and touts than Siem Reap, although a smaller percentage of them have missing limbs. It's very annoying to be sitting in a restaurant eating a meal and being constantly pestered by small childrent to buy something from them or to dole out some money. As for the tuk-tuk drivers, I just don't understand their way of thinking. There will be 10 of them in a row on the street and every one of them will ask you if you want a ride. They have all watched you turn down the previous 5 offers, but they still insist on giving it a try. Do they really think that I really do want a drive but having been waiting for just the right tuk-tuk? Then just as get to the end of your rope and are about to scream at the next person who asks you for money or to buy services, some kid will call out hello and wave with no demand for anything other than a smile, and you just can't help but wave back and give them that smile. Cambodia is about as different from Laos as you can get, and it's like all your senses are getting a blast from a cattle prod.

PP has a large expat community who are all here trying to help the country get on its feet. Christmas is therefore in evidence here, with trees and Santas in store windows and hotel lobbies. I also was wakened to a muslim call to prayer on my first morning and thought I must be dreaming. It's a bit strange to have all this exposure to other religions after having been immersed only in Buddhism for the last 3 months.

My first afternoon in PP was spent wandering around acquainting myself with the city. On the second day I visited the national museum and the royal palace. The museum doesn't have much in it other than stone carvings and statuary from pre-Angkor and Angkor periods. It's interesting but somewhat repetitive and I didn't spend much time there. The royal palace is very impressive. The public is allowed into several of the buildings, which were beautiful, but even the grounds and compound itself is lovely. The Khmers are pretty extravagent with their gold and gems, and as the guidebook says, the gifts from other countries pale in comparison to the riches that come from Cambodia itself. On the grounds is what is known as the silver pagoda, as the entire floor inside is tiled in silver. Amongst some of the treasures housed here is an Emerald Buddha said to be made from Baccarat crystal (it stands about 2 feet high) as well as a life-size gold Buddha decorated with 9584 diamonds, the two largest of which weigh 25 carats each. It weighs in at 90 Kg. It's really spectacular.

My final day was an emotional roller coaster. I started by visiting the killing fields outside of the city. There is not really a lot to see here, other than the pits left from the mass graves as well as a memorial shrine filled with 8000 skulls of the victims. I was surprised at the size of the property which is only about one hectare (not sure exactly but very small). There are 129 mass graves on this site, 86 of which have been excavated and 8,985 bodies exhumed. It is a very sad place.

Following this, I went to the genocide museum at Tuol Sleng. This is a former school which was turned into a prison by the Khmer Rouge. Most of the bodies in the killing fields came from this prison. The museum is very well done - they have left many of the cells intact so that you can actually see what the conditions were like. They also have various instuments of torture on display. There are a couple of photography and art exhibits on the subject which are very moving, and in some cases absolutely gut-wrenching. Perhaps the toughest part of all is the display of all the intake photos which fill many of the rooms in one of the buildings. You see so many emotions in the eyes of these people: defiance, defeat, terror.

There are various estimates of the number of people held in the this prison. The records show a total of 10,500 with an additional 2,000 children, however other estimates put the number more realistically at about 20,000. Seven survived. No, that's not a typo and I didn't leave out a "hundred" or "thousand".

It was an absolutely draining day and my head was pounding by the time I got through it all.

Later that afternoon, I met up with a New Zealander named Warren. He is a friend of Nic and Jud's who I had met in Laos, and he teaches in PP. He picked me up at my hotel and we went back to his flat for a drink. I was a bit put off that he wanted to go back to his place as I was keen to see the city and to see where the expats go to socialize. We got out of the tuk tuk and I followed him down this dingy, dirty alley to a small cement staircase in the wall. I wasn't worried for my safety at this point as he had been referred to me by someone that I trusted, but I was wondering why he would choose to take me to the dump where he lived. After climbing the staircase he opened on the door onto what is probably the nicest flat in PP - it's absolutely massive and fabulously decorated. The whole front wall is glass overlooking the river and this opens up onto a beautiful balcony where we sat and had our drinks. As we looked down on the street some tourists took our picture - I'm not sure if they thought we were royalty or something, but I sure felt like it in those surroundings. I quickly came to understand why he prefers to have a drink at home to the noisy, beggar-infested bars of PP.

Later he took me to a party thrown by one of his colleagues from the International School. Many of the expats there were Canadian, and it was a Christmas party just like any that would be thrown at home. It was a bit strange to be listening to Christmas music and drinking wine in somebody's home. It was also weird to watch them all trying to recapture their experience of home at this time of year, when for the last few months I've been trying to do pretty much the opposite. It was a day full of conflicting emotions and one that I don't think I'll forget anytime soon.

The next morning, I left fairly early by bus to Sihanoukville. This a town on the coast of Cambodia which has lovely beaches. The woman sitting next to me on the bus was a Swiss woman named Katharina. We found out through the course of our conversation that we share a last name. I have to say, it was a very weird experience to run into another Honegger on a bus in Cambodia. She comes from a town which is only 2 kms from my grandfather's home town in Switzerland, so I suppose we may even be related. I've been referring to her as my long-lost sister :-).

I spent the afternoon on the beach which was another true Cambodian experience. The beach is swarming with kids and women selling fresh fruit, massages, mani- and pedicures, and trinkets of all shapes and sizes. In addtion, there are some incredibly badly maimed people who troll the beaches looking for handouts. Despite all that, it is actually possible to relax to a certain degree and that was lovely. The sea is beautiful, but so warm as to almost not be refreshing.

I had drinks and dinner on the beach with Katharina and a German fellow that she had met a few days earlier named Jens (sp?). We got to watch a beautiful sunset and had a really nice time.

This morning I finally got to catch up on my sleep. As usual I was wakened just before 6 AM, this time by a pupply that was tied up just outside my bungalow. He cried for over an hour which kept me awake, so I finally turned on my TV to drown him out. I was able to sleep with the TV on for a few more hours. It feels great to be rested. I spent a couple of hours this morning on the internet and then hit the beach for a few hours. I'm now having a beer and finishing up this blog. I'm also working on another post of impressions I've had, so stay tuned.