Cambodia Log

Today is Sunday. I read that a local tourist company offers flights with hangliders or something like an ultra light airplane. I though this would be a nice way of exploring the city with a bird’s eye and so I initially planned to do so today. However, I called these folks and they told me it would not be possible today. But next weekend. So I decided to see the notorious ‘killing fields’, which are located about 15 kilometers outside Phnom Penh.

I decided to take the moto. After only about 2 kilometers the very urban surrounding of the center (where I life) faded. The rather small urban area appears to be surrounded be a (slim) belt of industrial plants and a likewise slim belt of urban slums. The landscape outside this very restricted urban (metropolitan?) region has a very rural touch to it and appears to be dominated by rice fields. I saw a few people, particularly women, laboring hard in the heat of the noon with very simple tools and instruments. Some children follow their cows along the street. Many children where playing under the roofs of simple shacks. Others where lying sluggishly in hammocks. Much of what happens in the private sphere back home happens here on the street and it is fascinating to observe the rather laid back activity of these rural folks.

The quality of the road and the bad shape of the shock absorbers made me feel the difference between urban and rural very direct. Whereas the urban area has a number of modern streets (used in a rather chaotic and seemingly inefficient way, I may be wrong), the part of the countryside I was passing does not. It is a very dusty type of an unpaved road with deep holes in it. It has not been raining the last three days and I wonder how this ‘road’ looks like after a heavy shiver of monsoon-like rain.

Despite their name, the killing fields appear to be a very peace- and beautiful place not only at the first glance.

A tall tower with a colorful roof is located in the middle of a generous area covered with fertile vegetation and surrounded by rice fields. Some dogs sleep in the shadow of some bushes and some chickens scrape in the ground and cows graze close by. There are some holes in the grounds and signs tell that this hole and that hole is a mass grave. However, it is covered with grass and does not look too horrible.

There are many kids around who ask for money in a rather aggressive way. I gave some of them a reasonable amount, but constantly new kids emerged on the scene. Some of them, not older than 8, told me they would go only after I gave them 2 dollar. I felt very blackmailed and refused.

The group of children on the following photo was less militant. Maybe because the girls dominated this group. They asked for 100 Riel and I gave them 500, because they were five. However, they tried to persuade me that they are eight. But I insisted that they are five. I did not manage to convince the girl to the right, who is still doing calculations.

The content of this aesthetic tower offers a strong contrast to the surrounding peaceful scenery: carefully sorted along the age of the victims, thousands of sculls are presented in a monstrous cupboard which rises up to the roof of the building.

Tour guides stressed that these people where killed mostly with axes, sticks and swords, because the murders did not want to waste bullets.

Although it was Sunday, the place really was not very busy. I thought this is really horrible and it would be a good act to bury this stuff to symbol some reconciliation with this bloody past.

I spent about two hours and left again with the moto. I wanted to the Olympic Stadium, but surprisingly it was closed. So I went home and had some lunch at a restaurant in my street, which is run by Tamils from Sri Lanka. We engaged in a interesting discussion. One of them was has a French citizenship and his family lives in Germany. He was the first guy I met in this country who spoke fluently German. A Tamil from Sri Lanka who lives in Paris.

It was five when I left and I decided to read some literature, write some emails and these lines.
Continue reading The Killing Fields

Today is Saturday and decided to spend a touristy day. First of all, I slept until 10 am. Then, I went to a small restaurant in my street and had an extensive breakfast, while reading the newspaper.

Later, I went to the Tuol-Sleng-Museum. This really is a monument of Cambodia’s traumatic past.

Under Pol Pot, a former school was turned into a concentration camp in which 20.000 children, women and man were imprisoned, tortured and executed dreadfully here between 1975 and 1979. There are about four buildings on the compound, each with numerous and unbelievably small cells.

Prisoners were precisely registered and today one can look at countless photos of prisoners with the expression of horror in their eyes. Many of them children and women. The exhibition includes many of the original torture instruments and furnishings.

For me, this place was particularly touching because it seems to parallel German history.

I went back to my hotel and decided to visit the national museum, too. This time, I did not take the ‘moto’, but a ‘cyclo’. This is a really cool means of transportation. Provided one has enough time. Like a bicycle taxi. It is slow, but a good way of cruising the city, observing social interaction in the street and taking pictures.

A very attractive traditional building provides the space for the national museum. The base of the museum is quadrangular and encloses a beautiful inner courtyard. Exhibits are presented inside and outside the venerable high halls of the museum.

Many of the pieces date back to 400 BC and indicate extremely high levels of technical and craftsmanly sophistication. However, the number of motives is sort of limited. Every other exhibit is some kind of Buddha. After having seen the Tuol-Sleng-Museum before, I found it particularly strange how a people able of such high and complex civilization could fall into the kind of barbarism reflected in the exhibits of the Tuol-Sleng-Museum. Again, German history came to my mind. Although to my knowledge there was not much complexity or sophistication around 400 BC in Germany.

I met a young monk in the museum and we had a short conversation. His English was broken, but he kept smiling and I found him very sympathetic. Later, I sat down in the inner courtyard and had a cigarette. A guy from Japan was sitting there as well and we started a conversation. He was here to volunteer in an organization devoted to feed and teach children of poor families in Siam Reap. Later, the monk came to sit down as well and we managed to get a really cool multicultural dialogue (trialogue?) going. Also the Japanese guy’s English was kind of poor, but surprisingly (in the case of the monk, not the Japanese) both of them spoke Japanese. And the Japanese guy spoke some Khmer. Whenever we were not able to understand each other in English they were able to solve the problem in Japanese or Khmer. I found this to be a really interesting encounter and I am sure I will keep that in my mind for quite some time. And I am really thankful that I managed to take the following picture.

I went back to my guesthouse and had some rest. Later, I went with one of the employees to a cell phone shop to buy a … yes, a cell phone. Shelley advised me to do so because I won’t be accessible without it. Since there is no phone in the guesthouse and because I can access my email only on occasion. Cell phones are really popular around here and together with watches and motos the most important status symbols. Incidentally I hope this acquisition will enhance my social prestige significantly. Despite the fact that it is a second hand one.
Continue reading Tuol-Sleng and the National Museum