04.27.10 – Preface: this entry and indeed the entire blog is my means of communicating with my friends and family. If you are looking for an accurate representation of what Phnom Penh is like or searching out wise & philosophical ponderings on the lessons of travel, please look elsewhere.
Phnom Penh. In a word, “‘YUCK.” In two – ”absolutely putrid.” You want three? “Full-volume chaos.” I think Phnom Penh ranks right up there for worst trip experiences. I think I almost would rather have been back on the slow boat.
I am not a fan of cities. Especially cities where people have been consumed by desperation and can no longer have the priviledge of being “‘people.” The reining era of the Khmer Rouge ripped Cambodia apart beginning in the late seventies and continued for twenty years. Background for those who need it: the Khmer Rouge was an extremist communist party who sought to aggressively exterminate all the down-sides of capitalism by flipping the country completely on end. Anyone who had moved above the very bottom ranks of society was considered a threat to the communist ideal. Shop owners, university students, professors, anyone who wore spectacles – essentially all of the middle and upper class citizens – went onto the list of seek and destroy missions. Illiterate and uneducated peasants from the countryside were installed to fill societal needs that education necessitates – like medicine. People were exterminated out of pure suspicions. Pol Pot, the major Khmer Rouge leader was fond of saying, ”It is better to kill twenty innocent men than to let one guilty man go free.”
After my interest in meeting the local people and learning lessons that travel alone offers, Angkor Wat and the Khmer Rouge history are what drew me to Cambodia. If it weren’t for Tuol Sleng (a major prision of the KR) and the killing fields (mass graves outside of the city), Phnnom Penh never would have been on my list. Conventional wisdom has it that Cambodia ”is crippled by a short-term outlook that encourages people to live for today rather than thinking about tomorrow, because a short while ago there was no tomorrow.” Which brings me back around to the misery that is Phnom Penh. People are not poorer in Cambodia than in surrounding SE Asian countries, so I have to wonder if the vulture mentality that has evolved here (and not elsewhere) is a product of Cambodia’s recent injustices at the hands of the Khmer Rouge.
My eighteen hours in the city were barely tolerable. I arrived and was accosted and hunted by moto drivers everytime I even looked at the street. In the morning, since the earliest sight-seeing open was the Royal Palace, I rented a bike and headed straight there, determined to make the 2:30 p.m. bus OUT of the city. I didn’t eat breakfast. A big, big mistake for anyone who knows me well. Big. Mistake. I ended up having to eat a bag of some weird cross between a cheeto-porkskin-chip thing as a ”breakfast replacement.”
The grounds were beautiful, the gardens and buildings were amazing, but I was full-to-bursting with its history after only 90 minutes. I was then faced with a dilema. I had four hours thirty minutes remaining. More than the killing fields, I really wanted to see the Tuol Sleng prison museum. If I went to the fields first, I would have to rush through the museum or not go at all. If I went to the museum first, I couldn’t chance leaving town for the fields afterwards and having traffic keep me from my bus (for which I had already purchased a ticket). There was no way I was staying in Phnom Penh, so Tuol Sleng it was.
The photos and mug shots of the prisoners were haunting. The “rules” of the prision were some of the most disgusting abuses of power I have ever seen. The barbed wire still covering the building was awful. The only uplifting thing in the whole place was a display about the national effort to expose the Khmer Rouge’s wrong doings completely to Cambodia’s people. A campaign to have all citizens visit the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng is giving people pieces of their history back and helping to fill in the blanks created by Khmer Rouge. One woman discovered her long-lost brother in a photograph of Tuol Sleng prisoners.
I left the Tuol Sleng prison in a somber mood and raced back to check out of my hostel. My two hours remaining before the bus were just enough to be dangerous, and so I decided against visiting the Killing Fields. I didn’t want to forever impress my negative mood about the city on the history of my foray here, so I passed the time trying desperately not to be hounded, eating lunch, checking email, eating ice cream for comfort, and trying to visit a nearby market that was in a parking garage. It was terribly depressing, and I immediately left to sit at the bus station and wait for the bus.
Finally I was seated in an air-conditioned space and no one was hassling me to buy anything I didn’t want to buy, go anywhere I didn’t want to go, or do anything I didn’t want to do. I was so relieved to be leaving Phnom Penh that I didn’t really mind too much when the three cell phones (yes three) of the young man I was assigned next to went off constantly for nearly the whole trip. We had a passive-aggressive space battle, as both of us are the type that insist on bringing our bags on the bus with us. I was annoyed with his willingness to sprawl into my area (I have a thing about areas). But overall we managed pretty well. We stopped half way and everyone got off the bus. In these situations it’s always hard to tell if it’s a bus stop or a break. After the bus was empty but for myself and three passengers, I decided on break. In Brazil, often the bus stops at a restaurant en route. Many times a meal at said restaurant is included in the ticket price. After watching other passengers go in several directions – to the cheaper food vendors and to the restaurant – I decided it wasn’t included. I wasn’t all that hungry, so I roamed about and stretched until it was time to roll on.
When we arrived at Sihanoukville, my seat partner spoke to me for the first time announcing the name of the town and gesturing out the window. That started a small conversation about where the bus stopped in town. He was a supervisor for a cell phone company (which explained his three phones ringing non-stop). I asked him the appropriate price of a moto taxi when we pulled into the bus station and grinned at him in amusement and disbelief at the moto-party greeting the bus. The drivers all come running along-side the bus as it pulls in, leaping three feet in the air and smiling and waving frantically at the arriving passengers, desperate to establish a connection and gain a fare. It’s nuts. You would think we were their long lost brothers and sisters finally coming home after twenty years. Vichetr (like Richard), my seat buddy, told me his staff was coming to pick him up and that I should go with him. I was much obliged and gathered my things to follow him off the bus. He was one or two people ahead of me. By the time I had descended the stairs, I lots him in the mob who were all shouting at him. I searched the crowd with no luck, and suddenly Vichetr surged up the middle of all the moto drivers and whisked me off to the parking lot. Thank you!
He had his driver take me past all the possible hospitality strips so I could decide where I wanted to stay. Finally they dropped me near the “Monkey Republic” and I ended up at ”Mick and Craig’s” where I got a very nice room for only $6. After the most delicious goat chesse and bean burritos, I arranged an island, beach, and snorkelling tour for the morning and retired. What a day. Vichetr’s kindness was the bright spot in my otherwise dark days in Cambodia. Thank you!
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