Cambodia

Phnom Penh

Cambodia evokes a strage mix of feelings. Sometimes horrifying, sometimes awe inspiring, and, sometimes wet.

We flew into the capital Phnom Penh from Bangkok at around 4pm, in brilliant sunshine and were relieved of our entry visa fee with a smile by the local immigration police.

We had prebooked a hotel room for our time in Phnom Penh, and arranged an airport pickup. This was fortunate as the moment we exitted the airport the heavens opened.

When it rains in Phnom Penh it rains. By the time we had crossed town to our hotel, the water level in the streets was over a foot deep, and still rising. Children had come out of the houses and shops and were swimming and splashing in the shallows. Bicycles, motos and tuk-tuks were skirting the sides of the roads, and only the jeeps and other 4 wheel drive vehicles were really able to navigate the roads properly.

After spending our first night in Phnom Penh we moved hotel to be closer to the center of the city. Unfortunately a couple of hours after check in at the new place, the heavens opened again, and we discovered that the cross roads on which the hotel was situated had a tendency to flood.

Phnom Penh was a strange mix of new and old. Between 1975 and 1979 the Khmer Rouge, with the help of the Vietnameese ousted the ruling government of the time, and installed itself as the ruling body. This time saw the establishment of S-21 and the killing fields - two of the main 'tourist highlights' of Phnom Penh.

S-21 detention centre

S-21 was originally a secondary school in central Phnom Penh. Pol Pot's regime erected double barriers of corrugated iron, and barbed wirearound it and turned a former center of learning into a center for detention and torture.

During the Khmer Rouge's rule, thousands of 'insurgents' were detained and questionedhere. A walk around the various buildings, including the main torture wing - established due to the large number of female detainees being raped in the buildings surrounding S-21 which were previously used - was a chilling experience.

Cells in building A displayed photographs of the final 14 victims of the regime - killed before the Khmer Rouge fled Phnom Penh and into the jungle bordering Thailand. Some of the cells also contained the iron beds to which the victims had been attached, and some of the other artifacts from their cells.

The remaining buildings contained photographic records of the detainees who could have been arrested for something as trivial as having the wrong hairstyle or simply being educated. The first against the wall during the revolution were educated people, such as teachers, doctors, and lawyers. The photos contained in the buildings sometimes showed detainees at their time of arrest, and then after they had died.

The buildings also contained individual and group cells. Individual cells were approximately 6ftx4ft, their partitions constructed from either wood or brick. Group cells held up to 30 prisoners all attached to a single iron bar.

Prisoners were forced to ask guards permission before defecating or urinating. Failure to comply led to guards forcing prisoners to clean up their ablusions with their tongue, and extreme beatings.

The Killing Fields

The killing fields at Choeung Ek is another of Phnom Penh's tourist sites. It's estimated that between 800,000 and 3 million people were killed during the reign of the Khmer Rouge. The killing fields at Choeung Ek are just one of the many sites scattered around the country. Approximately 80 of the mass graves at Choeung Ek have been exhumed, and a 17 storey monument filled with the skulls of the exhumed body stands to commemorate the war crimes perpertrated during the Khmer Rouge's regime.

Our guide explained that the Khmer Rouge did not want to waste ammunition, and went on to show us how to tell if someone had been beaten to death with a bamboo club, had their skull pierced with a bayonette, or simply been hit with a farming tool such as a pick axe. He also explained how as a sport the 'executioners', many of whom were in their early teens would throw babies into the air, and skewer them with their bayonettes as they came down.

The penalty for disobedience of the regime was also apparent. One of the mass graves contained over 100 bodies in military uniform. None of the corpses had heads. They had all, it seems, been decapitated using sharpened palm tree leaves.

Not all of the sights in Phnom Penh were horrific. One day we went to explore the Grand Palace. Similar to the Grand Palace in Thailand, but far less crowded, it also contains "The Silver Pagoda" - a temple with a floor composed of 5000 silver tiles weighing 1kg each. This temple houses one of the most impressive Buddha images I've ever seen. It is 90kg of gold, and is encrusted with 9584 diamonds, the largest of which - according the the Lonely Planet guide is 25 carats!

As we left the pagoda to check out some of the other parts of the Grand Palace, the heavens opened again. It rained for an hour or so, and we ended up getting a tuktuk from the end of our street to the hotel. As the water level lapped around our feet, we hoped that the tuktuk wouldn't stall leaving us to wade through the murky looking water. Fortunately we made it back safely.

Cambodia Part 2