Day 17 – The Hidden Horrors
I got up today at 9:30, with a tuk-tuk arranged to whisk me
away from the Mad Monkey at 10. Phnom Penh has quite a few things to see, and
if you are enterprising, you can get them done in one day. Well, I decided to
try my hand at being enterprising. The types of sites were split into two categories.
The first were the two sites built and opened to tell that horrible tale of the
Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot, between 1975-1979. The other two were set up to
pretend that era didn’t happen, and tell the story of how beautiful the Khmer
region was before the ‘Rouge’ part. Both parts are worth visiting, but it is
the former, the part that uncovers a genocide that while the size of the
Holocaust or even some of the African genocides, was arguably more cruel and
brutal. That’s the part I’ll take away from Phnom Penh, no matter how nice the
sites that turned a blind eye to this period were.
The first stop was Cheoung Ek, or what it is known in
English, ‘The Killing Fields’. Located about 15 km outside the city, it takes
about 30 minutes to get there, but is well worth that time. Essentially, it is
an open field, with one moderately large monument in the middle. The field was
where the Khmer Rouge (or the Angkar, or the leaders of the Democratic
Kuchemera) took their prisoners to be executed, and they were buried at the
field afterwards. After the Khmer fled Cambodia when they were overthrown,
large mass graves (some with over 100 bodies) were uncovered. The most famous
part of the site is the large monument in the middle, which houses bones of the
victims that are very visible and easy to see. At eye level sit rows and rows
of skulls, with the cracks and holes (the evidence of the cause of death) very,
very visible. It is unsettling, and there has been controversy locally over
showing this, but in something that goes past what Europe does with
Concentration and Death camps, the Cambodian Government wants people to know
the dark past of the old regime.
The site of some of the worst events imaginable.
The highlight of the ‘Killing Fields’ is a walking audio
tour that comes with my $5 entrance fee. This is really necessary because there
are many areas in the Field that were once buildings of terror, but were torn
down after the flee. The most interesting part of the visit is how hauntingly
quiet it is. No one is talking, just listening to the horror stories of what
this place once was. As I said, the Khmer Rouge weren’t the Nazis in that they
didn’t kill 7 million, but they were, it seems, more brutal. They killed about
30,000 in that ‘Killing Field’ alone (estimates are about 1 million murdered,
an additional million from starvation), and none were shot. All were brutally
beaten, with axes, railroad spikes, clubs. They even took babies and kids by
the legs and swung their heads into trees. To obfuscate the screams, they
played loud music to drown them out. These people were evil, killing people
that they charged with being ‘traitors’ and working with the CIA or KGB (the
prisoners most certainly weren’t), and torturing them into confessions. The
mass graves were chilling. They are empty now, but you can just picture the
piles of bones and skulls lying in the ground, covered with DDT to take away
the smell of rotting flesh. Apparently during rainy season bone fragments still
rise up from the mud, which speaks to how recent this actually was. The
monument really is chilling. The first set of skulls from the main entrance or
girls ages 10-20. When you go around you get kids, matures (60+), older men and
women (21-40), and almost all of them have serious cracks in their skulls or
holes. There were at least a dozen people crying, some of them white, with
probably no personal connection to what happened. It really was a haunting, but
touching, memorial to a genocide that was far worse than I knew coming in.
I wanted a respite from this education in the atrocity of
man, but the next stop on our trip was the Toung Sal, or S-21 Genocide Museum.
This was the site of the prison where they kept, tortured and interrogated
prisoners before sending them to a Killing Field. This one is more intact, so
while it wasn’;t the site of thousands upon thousands of deaths, it was even
more impacting. Some of the rooms were hauntingly empty, with just one steel
bed and a few shackles, but many of those rooms had black-and-white photos of
how the rooms were found after the Khmer fled Phnom Penh, and almost all the
pictures had a dead or near-dead person tied to the bed, with pools of blood on
the ground. None of the pictures were clear enough to see anything exact, but
it was pretty easy to get the picture. Another building housed the individual
smaller cells, tiny little compartments separated by stone on one floor and
wood on the other. Another building was cleared out as a museum, with walls of
pictures of the prisoners that lost their life in S-21. Another building had
diary excerpts from some of the 12 survivors of the camp. All of the survivors
had one thing in common: they had some valuable skill, mainly arts, that the
Khmer Rouge found useful. More surprisingly, many of the survivors claimed that
after they were found out as having some skill (painting, drawing) they were
actually treated decently, allowed to sleep and eat with the Khmer Rouge
officers. The overall museum was incredibly chilling, and it being right in the
heart of the city made it more amazing. It is hard to imagine that not even 40
years ago, such horrors were taking place right here.
It took a while to get over what I had just seen. A large
part of how impactful it was came from just not being knowledgeable about the
Khmer Rouge and just how evil they were. If you have learned about the
atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, or read up about them, or have been just more
worldly, it probably wouldn’t have the same impact. Anyway, after that I went
back to the hotel to change (it was really, really hot) for the second set of
places. They were les memorable because they were less impactful, but they did
reveal Phnom Penh, and the Khmer history outside of one four year window of
unseakable, unthinkable violence.
The next stop was the National Museum, located right off of
the main open area of town, an area with parades of green grass, beautiful
monuments to Cambodia’s independence, and not a person in sight (probably
because it was really hot). This part of Phnom Penh is truly gorgeous. The
National Museum is housed in a traditional Khmer-style house, though the house
is mainly open, with windows and open walls leading to outside exhibits. The
museum housed a ton of artwork, mainly sculpture, that dates from extremely
early in Khmer history (the 6th Century) to extremely recent before
the Khmer kingdom was taken over by the Khmer Rouge (1950’s). The old stuff is
more worthwhile, as it is quite amazing how well carved these pieces were for
being 1500-1200 years old. Most of them were different Hindu Gods – by the end,
I got pretty good at identifying which ones were Shiva and which were Vishnu.
The more recent pieces weren’t as impressive, apart from some Gold work from
the early 1900’s. Overall, the National Museum wasn’t great, but was a good
look into Cambodia’s real history.
Right next to the National Museum is the Royal Palace
grounds, which doesn’t really have an active palace. It really is a collection
of Temples, constructed in a traditional Cambodian style that seemed
effortlessly ornate. Some of these temples housed some stunning pieces, like a
giant statue of Vishnu made up of Gold and Diamonds, but no one can get close
to the pieces. The buildings are very spread out, and there are large swaths of
greenery in between them. If it wasn’t as hot as it was, it would have been far
more relaxing to stroll around the courtyard. To one side is what is known as
the ‘Silver Pagoda’, a White-Stone temple (with Silver and Gold roof) that
houses a Vishnu statue made completely out of Silver. Again, I couldn’t get too
close, but it was magnificent. Of course, being as it is a statue of a God,
photographs aren’t allowed, and I saw at least three elderly white people being
reprimanded for taking photos, so I, a brash, young Indian, wasn’t going to
take that chance. The whole Royal Palace grounds are a great oasis in the
middle of this crowded city. It is hard to believe that just outside the walls,
there is the palpable maw of a bustling, but still quite poor, major city. It
is even harder to believe that just one km away, 35 years ago, people were being
slaughtered and tortured beyond belief.
That was the end of my tour around Phnom Penh, although
there were a few more sites left to see. I usually like to leave one or two
things out, just in case I come back, and while there isn’t anything major
still not seen, there are a few. I reached the Mad Monkey around 4 PM, dripping
of sweat, tired and dirty (hours in an open Tuk-Tuk is not a good way to avoid
dust), so I did what any self-respecting backpacker would do: got a beer (or
two). Anyway, I chatted with a few of the other residents that I met the night
before. They told me about their plans tonight. I told them sadly that I could
join them for dinner, but little else because of my flight out tomorrow. They
said that one night of little sleep is no issue. I told them I agreed, but
meeting my mom for the first time in a month sleep deprived and possibly
hungover certainly is an issue. In
the end, I decided to join them at Romdeng for dinner, a place that was on my
list anyway.
We arrived at Romdeng, which like so many other restaurants
in Vietnam/Cambodia, was open air. Situated inside and outside of a old
colonial house, with tables through the gardens, it is a beautiful little
setting. Romdeng is an interesting restaurant for a few reasons. First, their cooks
are mostly young kids who used to live in poverty, taken in and trained by the
Romdeng staff to cook. Secondly, and more importantly, they serve crispy, fried
Tarantula. As in the spider. As in the heavily poisonous spider. I thought I
was leaving my exotic meats behind in Africa, but apparently not. The rest of
the group was feeling inspired, so we ordered three appetizers, two of which
were the fried tarantula. The tarantula came and I was a little disappointed
because they were smaller than I was expecting. More importantly, though, I was
not disappointed by the taste, as Tarantula was crunchy and quite tasty. I
believe that this is the third time I’ve eaten something that could kill me (I
guess a deer could kill me as well, but that’s not in its nature). The first
was shark, then crocodile, and now tarantula. Tarantula isn’t as tasty as
crocodile (few things have ever been), but it is better than shark, and a
perfectly suitable alternative to calamari for an appetizer.
For my entrée I ordered Khmer Muslim Beef Curry with Peanut.
It sounded complicated, and included an ingredient that I love in curries
(peanut), and while I hadn’t seen any Muslims or Muslim influence in Cambodia,
the combination of Muslim and Khmer made it a no-brainer. Despite it’s name,
the dish wasn’t flashy or exotic. It was very traditional, very basic, and
very, very tasty. I don’t know if this is what they think the ‘Muslim’
influence is, but it was basically a combination of a peanut-based Thai dish,
and a Coconut-based (Massaman) Thai Dish. It wasn’t as spicy as either, but it
was still excellent. It was presented in a deep bowl almost like a soup, and to
further the soup comparisons it came with a piece of bread to dip in it. It
also had five large, but tender, pieces of beef that reminded me a lot of the
beef in the Beef Rendang at my favorite Malaysian restaurant in NYC. I’m headed
to Thailand tomorrow and then Malaysia, so homes of two of the best cuisines in
the world, but this dish, while serving as a nice bridge to that type of food,
is another reminder that the Khmer cuisine is quite good. I would definitely
suggest Khmer food to anyone who looks the flavors of Thai cooking, but not the
high level of spice.
After the meal I said goodbye to my
Colombian/Canadian/British friends, and made my way to the waterfront, for a
couple last beers by the Sisowath Quay. Despite the fact that I know I can go
out for a beer or two most nights and my Mom won’t join along, this feels like
the end of a particular era of my trip. I’m not sure how my Mom got attached to
such a large portion of this trip. I’m not upset. She is good company (anyone
is, after traveling alone for this long), and with her along I can stay at a
higher caliber of hotel and not have to pay for all my meals, but still my solo
adventure continents and hours of flying time away is coming to an end.
Looking back, I would have loved to reverse the order of how
I did this part of the trip, doing Cape Town last (I’m a huge proponent of
saving the best for last) but that made no sense. This itinerary did, and
outside of the two days where I was sick and unable to enjoy Ho Chi Minh City,
I’ve enjoyed each place I went to. The only place I wouldn’t go to again if
given the choice in HCMC, and that is more because of being sick there clouding
my opinion. Looking back, Dalat is better than I gave it credit for (the
sickness lingered into the Dalat stage). Siem Reap doesn’t have much to do
outside of the Angkor complex and partying, but that is enough for 3-5 days
easy. Phnom Penh is far better than I expected, with large open areas, quite a
bit to see, a great food scene, and enough decent nightlife (though apparently
a glut of not-so-decent as well). None of them match up to Cape Town, but then
again I went to Cape Town at the best time weather wise, and apart from the
loons who go to Vietnam and Cambodia during their rainy season, I went to the
Southeast Asia countries at the worst time. That all said, I had a good time
learning a bunch about the culture, riding a motorcycle and riding a
rollercoaster (not something I expected to do on this trip), and being haunted
and changed by viewing the ills of some type of man. Oh yeah, it was also a
hoot to be 17 hours by plane to the US and still draw US money. For once, I
didn’t have to worry about trying to use as much of the local currency before I
left. To me, any currency not used in Cambodia is money towards a sweet, sweet
Caramel Frappuchino when I get back.
