Cambodia has been both amazing and difficult. It's really, really dirty here. Like gross dirty all over the place. Trash everywhere. And the homeless/begging/maimed kids/adults situation is just soul-crushing. This country is just completely f*cked up in way that neither Thailand or Laos was. Thailand was fine, really, despite the insanity of Bangkok and the coup. The social fabric there is whole and complete. There's very little homelessness 'cause everyone has their whole family living all right around them (in a tiny little house or apartment or whatever). Like Cambodia, Laos got hurt by the Vietnam war, but nothing like the Khmer Rouge happened there.
Pol Pot and his comrades were evil. There's no other way to look at it. We went to the Touleng San prison yesterday, and then after that Choeung Ek (the Killing Fields) and it was just horrifying. All I could keep saying was "what the f*ck is wrong with people?" They killed 2 million people in this country. They emptied the city of Phnom Penh (the city we are in right now) for 3+ years. They abolished currency, private property, freedom to move around, families, love, everything. All in an effort to create the perfect Communist society where work and the country and the leader are the only things that matter. And in the end, the evilness of their intentions turned inward and divisive. They imprisoned, tortured and killed their one-time comrades out of suspicion and fear.
By the end of yesterday, I hated this place. I hated it. I wanted to go back to Laos or Thailand, or get the hell out and head to Vietnam. Whatever it was to get away from the heart-wrenching homeless kids, the garbage, the burned out buildings still haunting the edges of neighborhoods, I just needed out. We sat on the river's edge as the boat-teams practiced and I just couldn't even think after what we had seen yesterday. After the prison and the Killing Fields, we went to the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda. I couldn't handle it. The floor of the Silver Pagoda is loads of pure silver. There's a Buddha statue in there that's life-sized and pure gold. There are countless priceless objects within the the compounds of the Royal Palace and yet just outside the walls is utter poverty. I'm not sure the Buddha would have wanted his likeness recreated in pure gold. That just doesn't seem his style to me. Priceless objects, destitute children, the pure evilness of the Khmer Rouge and trash trash trash everywhere as we sat by the river as the evening gathered and all the people of Phnom Penh motobiked and pedicabbed in towards the banks for their evening stroll and chill and meal, I just felt crushed by the day and the clamor around me. "I just need to get the f*ck out of here," I said to Lu. I meant there and the city and the country and everything. I felt like we were dancing on graves. That we were paying money to a guesthouse to party down in Phnom Pehn while around us the actual world was in tatters.
The social fabric is torn asunder here. Families have been destroyed on vast scale. The government is either overwhelmed or uncaring but probably a little bit of both, and the results are just awful. I was really ready to leave the very next day (today). But we sat up there with a beer and we talked about what we had seen and how it made us feel and I was just so mad and so sad and so empty, I just had to talk it out and just cry a little bit. Then we moved over to the wide, high railing overlooking the street and river, and we watched an insane flow of families on motorbikes ride by. Lu witnessed the elusive six-on-a-motobike and I'm pissed I didn't see it. We watched the teams out in the boats paddle hard in practice for the big days coming up. We talked to the guy running the cafe and guesthouse and he said the Water Festival was going to be big. We'd heard that 2 million people come to Phnom Penh for the coming 3 days of boat races and festival, but the scope of it still hadn't sunk in. Watching the massive torrent of humanity flow beneath us, right beside the river's bank, we realized what was actually about to happen. Just moments before I was ready to skip town asap and then the next I was suggesting that we should stay for another 2.
"We can't leave without seeing the boat-races," Lu insisted even though I had already agreed (proposed, really) the idea.
"Exactly,"I agreed
"And that means we can go to the orphanage," Lu continued.
"Ummm, ahhh, well..."I replied uncertainly. After what I had seen and the way I was feeling about Cambodia, I wasn't sure an orphanage was exactly what I needed.
But it was, of course. We were staying another 2 days, we were going to see the boat races, going to visit some kids at an orphanage and we were getting a new Vietnam visa and some boat tickets for Sunday for when it was time to move on. Our old Vietnam visa we got in Bangkok ages ago before we changed everything about our trip, again. And that expires tomorrow. We also changed rooms. Went ahead and splurged an extra $4 per night for the $10 room with AC and a TV and a lot more space.
The orphanage was amazing. It felt wonderful to bring 6 bags of rice to them, but it was a little tough to withstand the repeated requests for more, more, more. 2 more bags of rice. 2 punching bags for the boxing team. $5 for a new light fixture. Money for medicine, for teachers, for extra english classes. I don't blame them! They see 2 Americans that roll up with 6 bags of rice and obviously they think we're loaded. And compared to them I guess we are. But you can only do so much, and we really felt like we did exactly what we could. The tuk-tuk driver that works at this guest house and brought us there helps out at the orphanage. He told us to buy rice and not to just hand over cash because the rice will definitely go to help the kids, and cash might not make it all the way to their bellies or benefit.
After picking up our visas and getting lunch we took a motobike to the docks and took an hour sunset cruise on the Tonle Sap and the Mekong River. Tomorrow those waters will be filled with long, skinny boats and many, many people paddling hard to win the races. Each boat has at least 40 paddlers, if not more. Over 3 hundred teams from all over the Cambodian countryside are entered and the electricity in the city is palpable. Everyone is gearing up for the fun. Today, after the boat cruise we walked along the riverbank playing carnival games and fending off the begging children and one person that we talked to said the next three days were the biggest party in Cambodia. How could we not stay!?
I'm still conflicted about this country, though. It's really, really tough to walk around these streets, and the streets of Siem Reap. The cracks are huge in this society, because of Khmer Rouge, and generations have fallen through, landing hard on these dirty, pot-holed streets. Angkor was stunning. Powerful and beautiful and eerie and fun. The people here are really nice. But the karaoke bus rides with incessant beeping are deeply annoying. The children are adorable, but you have to tell them seven times, No, thank you. It also doesn't help that I had a meal in Siem Reap that ripped my insides out. And I got a headcold the very same night. Being sick in Cambodia is no fun at all. (more on that another time:-) We brought antibiotics with us, so I jumped on them fast, but the food poisoning or whatever it was, did cause me to miss a whole day of temples while in Siem Reap. I'm healed now, though, and the headcold is going away fast, and tomorrow morning we are getting up and out to eat breakfast on a riverside balcony and stake out our spots for the madness of Bon Om Tuk (the Water Festival) that will unfold, all day, before us. It feels strange to party in this city full of ghosts and sadness. But I suppose by celebrating life and water and renewal and fun it is one way to appease those lost, tortured souls and give the beautiful little beggar-kids a day to shout and leap and run and laugh. We're sticking around for the races, but I'll never forget the utter horror of the day we spent inside S-21 and the cold, hollow pits of graves unearthed.
Tomorrow we watch the boatraces, then on Sunday we get up early to take a slow boat to Vietnam. We've followed the Mekong so far we simply have to see it to the end, where it spreads into a delta and then flows into the South China Sea.
We should have been coming home tomorrow. Instead we're forging on, and we cannot wait to see what's next. It's truly hard to believe all the things we have seen, and all the places we have been.
Pol Pot and his comrades were evil. There's no other way to look at it. We went to the Touleng San prison yesterday, and then after that Choeung Ek (the Killing Fields) and it was just horrifying. All I could keep saying was "what the f*ck is wrong with people?" They killed 2 million people in this country. They emptied the city of Phnom Penh (the city we are in right now) for 3+ years. They abolished currency, private property, freedom to move around, families, love, everything. All in an effort to create the perfect Communist society where work and the country and the leader are the only things that matter. And in the end, the evilness of their intentions turned inward and divisive. They imprisoned, tortured and killed their one-time comrades out of suspicion and fear.
By the end of yesterday, I hated this place. I hated it. I wanted to go back to Laos or Thailand, or get the hell out and head to Vietnam. Whatever it was to get away from the heart-wrenching homeless kids, the garbage, the burned out buildings still haunting the edges of neighborhoods, I just needed out. We sat on the river's edge as the boat-teams practiced and I just couldn't even think after what we had seen yesterday. After the prison and the Killing Fields, we went to the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda. I couldn't handle it. The floor of the Silver Pagoda is loads of pure silver. There's a Buddha statue in there that's life-sized and pure gold. There are countless priceless objects within the the compounds of the Royal Palace and yet just outside the walls is utter poverty. I'm not sure the Buddha would have wanted his likeness recreated in pure gold. That just doesn't seem his style to me. Priceless objects, destitute children, the pure evilness of the Khmer Rouge and trash trash trash everywhere as we sat by the river as the evening gathered and all the people of Phnom Penh motobiked and pedicabbed in towards the banks for their evening stroll and chill and meal, I just felt crushed by the day and the clamor around me. "I just need to get the f*ck out of here," I said to Lu. I meant there and the city and the country and everything. I felt like we were dancing on graves. That we were paying money to a guesthouse to party down in Phnom Pehn while around us the actual world was in tatters.
The social fabric is torn asunder here. Families have been destroyed on vast scale. The government is either overwhelmed or uncaring but probably a little bit of both, and the results are just awful. I was really ready to leave the very next day (today). But we sat up there with a beer and we talked about what we had seen and how it made us feel and I was just so mad and so sad and so empty, I just had to talk it out and just cry a little bit. Then we moved over to the wide, high railing overlooking the street and river, and we watched an insane flow of families on motorbikes ride by. Lu witnessed the elusive six-on-a-motobike and I'm pissed I didn't see it. We watched the teams out in the boats paddle hard in practice for the big days coming up. We talked to the guy running the cafe and guesthouse and he said the Water Festival was going to be big. We'd heard that 2 million people come to Phnom Penh for the coming 3 days of boat races and festival, but the scope of it still hadn't sunk in. Watching the massive torrent of humanity flow beneath us, right beside the river's bank, we realized what was actually about to happen. Just moments before I was ready to skip town asap and then the next I was suggesting that we should stay for another 2.
"We can't leave without seeing the boat-races," Lu insisted even though I had already agreed (proposed, really) the idea.
"Exactly,"I agreed
"And that means we can go to the orphanage," Lu continued.
"Ummm, ahhh, well..."I replied uncertainly. After what I had seen and the way I was feeling about Cambodia, I wasn't sure an orphanage was exactly what I needed.
But it was, of course. We were staying another 2 days, we were going to see the boat races, going to visit some kids at an orphanage and we were getting a new Vietnam visa and some boat tickets for Sunday for when it was time to move on. Our old Vietnam visa we got in Bangkok ages ago before we changed everything about our trip, again. And that expires tomorrow. We also changed rooms. Went ahead and splurged an extra $4 per night for the $10 room with AC and a TV and a lot more space.
The orphanage was amazing. It felt wonderful to bring 6 bags of rice to them, but it was a little tough to withstand the repeated requests for more, more, more. 2 more bags of rice. 2 punching bags for the boxing team. $5 for a new light fixture. Money for medicine, for teachers, for extra english classes. I don't blame them! They see 2 Americans that roll up with 6 bags of rice and obviously they think we're loaded. And compared to them I guess we are. But you can only do so much, and we really felt like we did exactly what we could. The tuk-tuk driver that works at this guest house and brought us there helps out at the orphanage. He told us to buy rice and not to just hand over cash because the rice will definitely go to help the kids, and cash might not make it all the way to their bellies or benefit.
After picking up our visas and getting lunch we took a motobike to the docks and took an hour sunset cruise on the Tonle Sap and the Mekong River. Tomorrow those waters will be filled with long, skinny boats and many, many people paddling hard to win the races. Each boat has at least 40 paddlers, if not more. Over 3 hundred teams from all over the Cambodian countryside are entered and the electricity in the city is palpable. Everyone is gearing up for the fun. Today, after the boat cruise we walked along the riverbank playing carnival games and fending off the begging children and one person that we talked to said the next three days were the biggest party in Cambodia. How could we not stay!?
I'm still conflicted about this country, though. It's really, really tough to walk around these streets, and the streets of Siem Reap. The cracks are huge in this society, because of Khmer Rouge, and generations have fallen through, landing hard on these dirty, pot-holed streets. Angkor was stunning. Powerful and beautiful and eerie and fun. The people here are really nice. But the karaoke bus rides with incessant beeping are deeply annoying. The children are adorable, but you have to tell them seven times, No, thank you. It also doesn't help that I had a meal in Siem Reap that ripped my insides out. And I got a headcold the very same night. Being sick in Cambodia is no fun at all. (more on that another time:-) We brought antibiotics with us, so I jumped on them fast, but the food poisoning or whatever it was, did cause me to miss a whole day of temples while in Siem Reap. I'm healed now, though, and the headcold is going away fast, and tomorrow morning we are getting up and out to eat breakfast on a riverside balcony and stake out our spots for the madness of Bon Om Tuk (the Water Festival) that will unfold, all day, before us. It feels strange to party in this city full of ghosts and sadness. But I suppose by celebrating life and water and renewal and fun it is one way to appease those lost, tortured souls and give the beautiful little beggar-kids a day to shout and leap and run and laugh. We're sticking around for the races, but I'll never forget the utter horror of the day we spent inside S-21 and the cold, hollow pits of graves unearthed.
Tomorrow we watch the boatraces, then on Sunday we get up early to take a slow boat to Vietnam. We've followed the Mekong so far we simply have to see it to the end, where it spreads into a delta and then flows into the South China Sea.
We should have been coming home tomorrow. Instead we're forging on, and we cannot wait to see what's next. It's truly hard to believe all the things we have seen, and all the places we have been.
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