Cambodia Chronicles: A Self-Imposed Depressing Day 2

I exit the fields and wander around till I find Skeevy. He’s sleeping in the tuk-tuk and refuses to wake. Another tuk-tuk driver has to come over and slap his stomach before he wakes up. We head to our second and last stop of the day.

Tuol Sleng, better known by the name S-21, was once a high school. As I walk into the school I can see this, it looks a lot like other schools. A 3 story building, titled ‘A’, is on my left. In front of me are the stone grave markers of the last victims of S-21, whose bodies were discovered when the United Front for the National Salvation of Kampuchea ‘liberated’ S-21. By the time they got there everyone but the 14 decomposing bodies were gone. The bodies were buried immediately in the courtyard.

I walk into building A’s first floor. I walk into the first room. A steel bed frame lies in the middle of the room. Iron cuffs lay toward the end of the bed. On the wall is a photo of the last victim of this room who now lies in the courtyard. There is blood hardened to the floor in the photo and the face of the man is eaten away up to his skull. Every room on this floor is the same: small classrooms with bed frames. Sometimes there are old weapons on the frame or empty boxes of bullets. In every room is a large picture of the victim found there in horrific grotesque. The third and second floors are larger classrooms but remain bare. The hallways of the building are laid with yellow and white alternating tile. Once cheerful school colors now sinister and creepy. The tiles in the first floor rooms now resemble a darker, dusty brown color. My mind starts to play tricks on me: the rust in the corner becomes blood forgotten by clean up crews, the wind running through the open windows makes me think the room is moaning at me.

I walk outside of building A and head towards the next building. I pass by a simple wood structure with large water jugs beneath it. Here, prisoners had their arms tied behind their back, were hoisted up by those arms and beaten. When they lost consciousness they were dunked in the water jugs till properly revived.

The building next to A has room after room on the bottom floor filled with photos of the prisoners taken at the time of their arrest or death. Everyone who suffered in this place has a face here. Women, men, teenagers clinging to babies, people beaten to death or starved to death. The upper floor contains literature on the leaders of The Khmer Rouge regime, Pol Pot included, and their trails and deaths. 

I exit and keep walking left, passed the ruined cafeteria and building C sort of pops out at me. I’m unable to move or maybe I don’t want to. The whole front of the building is covered in barbed wire, to keep the prisoners from killing themselves. I thinking about skipping this building but I can’t. It’s horror is a twisted fascination to the eyes I don’t find myself wanting to escape. The classrooms are a bit larger than the ones of building A’s ground floor. Tiny, open cells have been constructed out of brick. The cells aren’t long enough for someone to lay down in. I count 10 cells to each wall. There is a section of the wall smashed through to link all the classrooms on this floor. It’s the same story in every room. I stand in silence in one of the smaller cells, red brick embracing me and iron shackles on the floor next to rust stains from the toilet bucket.

As soon as I finish climbing the stairs to the second floor I know this is going to be worse. Brick is replaced with wood cells with a wooden door that latches from the outside. It’s complete with a small viewing window for the guards to look through. Row after row. I don’t want to go inside. The doors are actually moving in the breeze and for once I’m glad an ATG comes up behind me, though they leave very, very quickly.

The third floor is a large room where 40-50 prisoners were sent to sleep. I can’t stop staring at the tiles on the floor.

The building next to C has more horrific photos, devices of torture on display, weapons and artwork made to give the viewer the full mental picture of what happened here. The last room has more bones and a shrine.

As I walk back to A and the exit there is a table set up by one of the rare survivors of S-21. He is talking to people but I don’t have it in my to go over and hear.  

Skeevy takes me back to the hostel where I write everything down before driving me to the airport. When he drops me off I give him all the money I have left. I'm sad to be leaving Cambodia but also feel like I'm not leaving soon enough. I smoke outside the airport, trying to put my finger on what it is about this country that has gotten under my skin, that made me love it in just three days. 

*Thanks, again, to Joe Moore for the photos.

Cambodia Chronicles: A Self-Imposed Depressing Day

I get up early the next day to visit two sites in PP before my flight back to Bangkok. I had booked a motorbike guide through Tony Montana the day before but neither Tony nor the guide were around at 8 am. Skeevy tuk-tuk guy happens to be waiting outside the door and is waving violently at me. We agreed on the same price I was going to pay the motorbike driver and head off to Choeung Ek Genocidal Center, also known as The Killing Fields. The road to the fields is dusty and dirty. It reminded me a lot of the road I live on in Thailand. My mind is on the hundreds of people who took a similar path to these same fields. Two dollars gets me into the field. Staring me in the face is a massive stupa, white with golden trim. I think it’s beautiful. The whole area looks like a pleasant garden. I walk to the right towards the small museum building. There are 3 rooms in the building, one showing a short movie, one housing an ever changing exhibit, and the last one home to a permanent display. In the changing exhibit room, there are photos of Duch, the mastermind of S-21 (more on that later.) The photos date back to his high school years all the way up to his trail. The exhibit tells me he was sentenced to 35 years in prison for war crimes. I don't feel like waiting for the next screening of whatever movie is showing so I go into the next room.

The permanent exhibit shows images of the excavation of the fields. Weapons are on display in foggy glass cases, along with jaw bones and skulls that show the damage done by killing blows to the head. The room is full of visitors and is silent. After reading and looking at scraps of clothes I leave the building and walk down a dirt path towards the fields. Next door, beyond the simple wire fence, is a school of children playing at recess. The only sounds besides tour guides and whispers of visitors is their laughter. The path leads you towards a few areas of the fields that are marked off, usually in a perfect square. I had expected them to be bigger. The first area is a mud pit sunken into the ground with a bamboo roof over it, failing to protect the grave from the elements. A sign says that 400 bodies had been excavated here, in this one pit.

A few feet away an area is roped off with a sign that says bones, teeth and clothing keep rising to the surface when it rains. I can see what looks like bits of bone popping up from the wet ground.

The next grave is a pit like the last, where 166 headless bodies were found.

A few feet to the left of this grave is yet another marked off pit, shaded by a large tree. A sign next to the tree says this tree was used as a place where Khmer Rouge soldiers bashed in the heads of children. The Khmer didn’t believe in “wasting bullets” on what they deemed to be “New People” so they usually slit their throats or beat them to death. 

Across from the pit is a huge, knobby tree they call The Magic Tree. The Khmer use to hang a loud speaker from the tree to play music loud enough to drone out the screams and moans. 

 

Walking along the dirt path I feel like I’m walking on a hill. To my left and right are grassy pits that have been excavated. I walk along the small dam built to protect the grave site from the encroaching river. The path encircles a pleasant lagoon, with lily pads and fish flopping up to eat bugs. It’s a need walk to try and get myself together.  The path leads me back to the graves and I pass another sign:

I end at the beautiful, large stupa. It’s made of panels of glass. I remove my shoes and go up for a closer look. Inside the stupa are human skulls. Tier upon tier all the way up to the top. Hundreds, at least, on every tier. The victims of this field. Plaques tell me they’re grouped by gender and age. I stand and stare at the skulls and I can still hear the playing children laughing at recess. I’m angry at the sound. I’ve been angry ever since I got here. I’m angry at the laughter because it floats over this field like a worn scar on an old wound; it sounds like healing and I can’t understand healing at this magnitude. 

*Thanks to Joe Moore for the photos.

Cambodia Chronicles: Phnom Penh

River Walk Area via rooftop bar

I am sad to board the 7 hour bus to Phnom Penh from Siem Reap. I didn’t have much time to be sad, as the Cambodian man sitting next to me wanted to practice his English. He tells me about all the different places he loves in Cambodia and helps me with my spelling when I write them down. Another example of how friendly the Cambodian people are, I think. Yet, upon arrival in PP I am thoroughly unimpressed. Driving to the hostel from the bus station I can’t discern anything charming about the filthy place. I’d been hearing about the charm of PP for a while but I find it filthy, dusty and very busy (though I think that was mostly due to the fact that there are no stop signs or stop lights so everyone is just go go go.) I think maybe that is the charm and one just has to get use to it. We arrive at the hostel and my skivvy driver is hounding me about my plans for tomorrow. He’s looking as desperate and miserable as the children of Angkor. I tell him I haven’t decided what to do and walk into the spotless hostel. It’s quite different from the where I stayed at in Siem Reap. It’s newer, a bit colder and only one staff member on the clock, a man who calls himself Tony Montana. Tony Montana is very hung over. After checking in I grab a map and head out into the trash filled streets. I walk a little ways and appear to head into the tourist/financial district, a million times different from the rest of PP. I’ve only been walking around for half an hour and I can already tell two things: 1) it’s very apparent how badly war has ravaged the people of this country and 2) someone is putting some serious money into this capital.

Bora

I walk to the central market and buy a shirt for my brother. The market was horrible and had nothing of interest and I left confused and overwhelmed by all the people desperate to sell me something. I pay a tuk-tuk driver to take me to the museum next to the royal palace, as I’m having a hard time orienting myself. He drops me off and it turns out both the palace and museum are closed already.

I begin walking past the royal palace to try and get a view of it through the closed gates. Next thing I know a cute Cambodian a little older than me pulls his tuk tuk over next to me. His smile makes me think of my brother. His name is Bora and after chatting with him for a bit I agree to pay him 5 dollars to drive me around for an hour. He takes me to some statues and, after telling him a few times that I don’t want to go see boxing, I ask him to bring me to his favorite spot in PP. He takes me to Diamond Island. It looks a lot like a deserted helipad between the Tonle Sap River and the Mekong River. We make it just in time for sundown. It’s a hangout for Cambodian teens to play football over the concrete landing pads. Families are picnicking and watching their kids play in the sand. I am the only white person there so I attract a bit of a crowd. People come up to say hello then turn around and leave without another word. Kids come up to stand next to me, though none of them speak. I say hello to one little girl who is barely walking she’s so young. When I wave at her she laughs and waddles quickly back to her older sister. As we leave Bora stops to check his phone, only to have a text message from the Belgium girl he spent last night dancing with at the disco. He has me read the English to him then type a reply, “Yes I would love to have dinner.”

Diamond Island look at the Mekong

Later, her grills me for tips as he confesses “I’ve never had dinner with a girl before.” Although I think this is a lie, seeing as he tells me he’s actually engaged to a girl in the Czech he plans to wed soon, after he goes to work in Korea for a year…

He then takes me to a bridge where 300 people were trampled to death last year.

“You want to take a picture?”

“No,” I tell him. “Not really.”

Afterwards I treat him to ice cream. He asks me some more questions about what to talk about at dinner but I don’t think I was much help.

From the view in his tuk-tuk I begin to like PP a bit. Crowds of people gather in the numerous parks to play, eat and do the aerobics classes set up every ten feet. The “begging” children are just as clever, funny and willing to chat as the kids in Siem Reap, though they are infinitely more sassy. My bartender that night actually sits with me for my two glasses of wine and tells me his life story. I’m warming up to the place. 

Wat Phnom

National Museum

Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship Memorial, which Bora says "is a lie."

Diamond Island's lovers lane

Bora was actually going to let me drive...

Cambodia Chronicles: The Temples Part 2

Preah Khan

Preah Khan catches me by surprise because of how much I enjoy it. It is getting to be late morning by the time my driver and I reached this temple. To get there, we had to travel through the roads that go through Angkor City. I was told there were large bridges on all four corners leading in/out of the city but I miss the one we cross the first time because they are so large and I’m looking for something smaller. As we leave the city we cross another bridge and I have my driver stop so I can look and get a picture. The bridges look like the large stone walkway I had wandered on earlier to get into Angkor Wat. This time the rails of the bridge were carved in the shape of a giant snake. At the beginning of the bridge I see a massive figure holding the snake's head, almost like they are wrestling. Every few feet there is another figure holding the snake. When I reach Preah Khan I realize this is how most of the bridges are fashioned, as Preah has a few just like it. ATGs were everywhere and I set off, again, to find a quiet part of the temple to enjoy. I’m surprised by how large Khan is, larger than Ta Prohm I think. By now I’ve been reading the signs telling some of the history of the temples and I know that in the height of their glory all the temples were constructed with an opulent eastern gate, as that is where most people approached from. Due to the way the park is set up I’m almost always dropped off at the west or south gate. In this case, I’m dropped off at the north gate so it’s an easy walk to the east gate. I walk for perhaps a minute and again I’m alone, the ATGs left taking photos (by my calculations, peace-signs and chin poses beat out the back-turned-to-the-camera-far-away-gaze-through-a-ruined-window pose in popularity) and screaming each others names to come look at something. 

East gate

The eastern gate is not as reinforced as the other area and there are signs everywhere to be careful, which I ignore to a certain point. Here the jungle is more dense and the stones are covered in moss. There are two stone carved guards still standing at attention; both have lost their heads though one has managed to hang on to his sword. I like how ruined the temple really is in this area. Piles of rocks lay untouched; sections marked off with a piece of rotten wood. I wander around to the south entrance and am forced to stop when I see the giant tree coming out of the wall, shading the once large courtyard of stone.  Something about this temple really strikes me. I make a complete loop around before heading back to the driver. He takes me to “his brothers” food stand for some excellent noodles and bananas and I sit and write for an hour. When my hand aches I ask him to take me to our final stop Angkor City, specifically Bayon Temple.

Back of the east gate

Bayon

When he drops me off I get nervous because I see black clouds on the horizon ahead of me. Then I stop and swear, because the black horizon happens to be the ruins of the largest temple I’ve ever seen. As I stare at it I notice it’s staring back at me. Hundreds of faces staring out in all directions from ever spire. It’s creepy and I love it. At this hour of the day the place is swarming with all kinds of tourists so I dig into my bag and put on my head phones to try and block everyone out. I find walking through the temple exhilarating. I feel like the kid who wanted to be an exploring all over again, only instead of the ravine in Memorial Park I’m actually climbing up steps of centuries-old spires, hallways and courtyards. The temple is massive. I spend an hour walking around, in and out of the rooms and hallways. No surface of the walls is smooth. Intricate carvings of all sorts of things are everywhere. I’m followed everywhere by the eyes of Buddha carved into every wall. The excitement from climbing around the temple stays with me as I set off into the lawns to find the mostly destroyed ruins of the royal palace and other random buildings inside Angkor City. I’ve never been more exhilarated by anything in all my travels this past year then I was from Bayon. 

After another hour of walking through Angkor City I’m positive I have seen everything except the terraces where I left my driver. There are two terraces that the kings of the Khmer would have stood on to look out at their citizens: The Terrace of the Elephants and the Terrace of the Leper King. There is a stone walkway connecting both of them and I hop from one to the other. There are stairs leading down to the ground level of the Terrace of the Leper King. When I follow them down instead of being let out onto the lawn I’m on a path that goes between the wall of the Terrace and an erected cardboard wall, most likely positioned to protect the beautiful carvings on the wall from the elements. It takes almost 5 minutes to walk along this path because the carvings are so intricate and breathtaking. When my camera battery dies I walk back to my driver, stopping first to get an Angkor beer and we begin the short trip back to Siem Reap. I leave Angkor Park knowing I will most likely never see it’s equal anywhere else. I expect to be saddened by this realization; instead I’m only exhilarated in a stupid-loving-everything-hippie-ish way, marveling at just how fucking awesome the world is. 

Walkway to Baphuon, which was closed

Elephant Terrace

Walkway beneath the Terrace of the Leper King

Cambodia Chronicles: The Temples

My tuk-tuk driver meets me at 4:30 am the following morning. We drive into the park in complete darkness. A large moat surrounds the area Angkor Wat is planted on. Thick trees obscure my view but in the dark you can easily feel like these trees are hiding a secret from you. We follow the moat, rounding a corner and then you see a great stone bridge that leads into the Angkor Wat temple. I can’t see the temple spires yet but I know they’re there. My driver dropped me off at the moat just when a little light was coming through the sky. I stood on the bridge eating my muffin and watching tour bus after tour bus drop off the scourge of all parks: Asian Tour Groups, also known as ATG. When it gets just a little lighter I walk across the moat and through the gates of the Wat, an interesting few steps in the pitch black of the gate. When I come out the other end there is a stone pathway leading the way to the great three spires of Angkor Wat. 

Instead of following the tourists down the pathway and to the little lake where chairs have been set up for them, I move to the left of the gate and sit with an un-obscured view of the sunrise. The sky turned the faintest color red for maybe ten minutes right over the spires. The real delight was watching them lighten in tone, black to grey, along with the sky. When the day really begin I walked down the left pathway and onto the lawn to snap photos of the Wat and the gateway. I walked in the grass to the small lake where all the tourists had indeed been congregating. I take this opportunity to start my tour of the Wat itself. How peaceful to walk amongst the place almost completely deserted. Walking into it the first sensation was the smell. Wet, musty, old. With your nose, eyes and fingers you can feel the age of the place. I walk further into the temple and find two large stone pits on either side of my walkway. Walk past them and through another door with tunnels leading to both sides and I enter the courtyard where the Angkor temples lie, a national symbol for Cambodia and stunning in their expanse. They tower high up, with ledges and what looks to be balconies between them. One of the pagodas is still an active site of worship, though today happens to be the one day it is closed for cleaning. I watch a monkey climb its way up the steps. Perhaps he was going to tease the monks as they clean. I sit on one of the steps across from the pagodas, listening and watching and trying to take it all in. It feels too much for my eyes and mind to take in. For a few minutes I don’t feel like I’m really there. I walk around for a bit, in a circle to ground myself and make sure I didn’t miss anything. Then I make my exit as the temple becomes inundated with ATG.

When I get out to the street my driver is waiting for me. He offers to take me somewhere to eat breakfast but I decline, directing him to the other side of the Angkor park to Ta Prohm. 

The steps where I watched the sunrise

Entering Angkor Wat

 

 

 

The Western Gate

Ta Prohm

Here I have my first run in with the almost rabid children that prowl the temples of Angkor (more on them later.) This little guy wanted $1 for 10 postcards. Not a bad deal. He lays them out for me and started counting them. I take pictures of the ruined stoned gate of Ta Prohm and help him out when he got stuck at 6. He escorts me down the path, looking more and more miserable with every step I take, till I reach Prohm. The first thing I notice is a small camera crew filming in the early morning. Other than them I have the place to myself. The front of the temple has an old, raised brick pathway leading to the door of the temple, which is sectioned off. In fact, nearly every temple I visit is partly under restoration. I have to try my best to ignore the bright, ugly green tarps covering portions of the temples. Yet, Ta Prohm is still powerful. It hasn’t had nearly as much work done to it as others. They have left it in a slightly collapsed sort of state, which is why it’s so popular. Since the camera crew was filming on the large stone path leading to the front door I walk around to the right side of the temple. As I come around the corner I see the view everyone photographs and comes to see: The tree sitting atop the crumbled green conglomerate of stones. The image is vivid and majestic. It seems as if the temple wasa made to be abandoned, ruined and swallowed by the jungle. It’s so unbelievable that it becomes so fitting. It is a perfect sight in every way; I am alone, the light is still soft and what little jungle there is around the temple is humming. After I take a billion photos I stand and stare at the tree. I touch it’s smooth knobs and roots. When a family of four come on the scene I continue walking left around more of the temple. Every part of the ruins are still wet with dew and the jungle sounds starteto take on the formula of real music, with a chorus line and aria. I make a loop outside the temple before going in, though a significant portion of the temple is still unreinforced. I stand in a hallway for a few minutes, watching the sunlight come through the windows and holes in the ceiling. I can almost feel timelessness.

Walking back to the gate I smile as an ATG 60+ tramples towards Ta Prohm.

 

Hard days work

Banteay Kdei

Banteay Kdei is next door to Ta Prohm but doesn’t attract the same crowds. There isn’t too much of Kdei left standing but open hallways and open rooms. My driver drops me off at the West gate where I’m greeted by a 9 year old boy who really wants to sell me a flute. Like all the others he’s dirty and looks miserable. I had made a promise to myself before coming to Cambodia that I would, under no circumstances, give any money to the children. This is an almost impossible task. My first night in Siem Reap I was walking home from dinner when I little boy ran out from behind a car right as I was passing by and grabbed my arm (really grabbing it), moaning something incoherently. He scared the shit out of me and as I took my arm out of his grasp he ran away before I could offer to buy him food. My second day in Siem Reap I was walking to the market when a boy who couldn’t have been older than 6, wearing tattered dirty clothes and holding an infant, just pointed at my water bottle.

My current escort is practically begging me as though it was a life or death deal we were making. But I was convinced that encouraging the children to be peddling foreigners instead of going to school was not good. In the absences of being able to shower them with money I tried to talk to them. My 9 year old friend walks me to about half way to Kdei then passs me off to a girl who really wants to sell me some bracelets.

“No, thank you. But they’re beautiful.”

“Please, 10 for 2 dollar.”

“You’re buddy was going to sell me 10 for 1 dollar!” I tell her.

“Okay, okay,” she says.

I laugh. “No, thank you.”

“Please. You buy them for friends.”

“I don’t have any friends,” I tell her.

She is silent for a moment as we walk towards Kdei. Then she looks at me, with the most miserable face she can muster and says, “you buy for you mother?”

I laugh and she joins me. She has a beautiful smile.

“You’re clever,” I tell her.

“Thank you.”

“How old are you?”

“13.”

“Are you from Siem Reap?”

“No, Phenom Pehn,” she says. Instantly she gasps, stops and covers her mouth with her hands and looks startled, like she has said something wrong.

She looks at me but I’m smiling back at her, as I can’t think why being from Phenom Pehn is a bad thing. I ask her what her name is.

“Nome.”

She tells me she likes Siem Reap and that she doesn’t have a boyfriend. She asks me questions about America and my family. I tell her that her English is great and she says she likes to talk to people. When we reach Kdei she leaves me without a fuss and I watch her put a sad face back into place for the couple coming up the path behind me.

I walk around the open rooms and hallways of Kdei but admire the view more from the lawn in the back of the temple. To get there, I walk through the main hallway. As I reach the end there is a Buddhist shrine set up, and a bald, white robed nun with a mischievous look tells me to take off my shoes and pray with her. As I kneel before the shrine she hands me a lit incense stick. I’m not sure what to do really so I close my eyes, say ‘what up’ to Buddha and place the incense in the sand laid out before him with all the others. The nun takes me left hand and rubs my wrist twice with a piece of red string before tying it in a knot.

“Long life and good luck,” she tells me.

As I walk back to my tuk-tuk I stop and wave at Nome, wishing her good luck. She smiles and waves back. I’ve picked up my 9-year-old again and when I get back to the tuk-tuk I give him all the food I brought with me, which he accepted instead of money.