This is our second trip to Cambodia – we went to Angkor Wat back in 2011, and while we have not logged as much time here as we have in Thailand, we are starting to get a good feel for the country and it’s people.

Like many countries Cambodia has a troubled past, but of particular interest to me is that one of the most tragic periods in Cambodia’s history happened in my lifetime, and it is something that we do not hear much about in the west.

Cambodia suffered a lot of ‘collateral damage’ during the US war in Vietnam and once South Vietnam fell to the NVA forces, the NVA started to support a local uprising in neighboring Cambodia by some insurgents known as the Khmer Rouge. By 1975 the local forces could no longer hold back the insurgents and April 1975, the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot assumed power in Cambodia.

Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge believed that the root of all trouble in Cambodia was from foreign influence and industrialization, and that the country could rise again to greatness by removing all these foreign influences and becoming a completely agrarian society. Upon seizing power the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh and other cities and forcibly removed ALL the people, sending them to the countryside to work in the fields. Millions of people had all of their land and personal property stripped from them and were forced to work on the farms for no pay and given only meager allotments of food on which they could barely survive.

To prevent any sort of uprising or return to the industrial ways, educated people and people with any attachment to the former government were rounded up and sent to detention centers where they were imprisoned and tortured until they confessed to crimes against the Khmer Rouge – once they had confessed they were sent to what became known as killing fields and executed in mass graves for their alleged crimes.

Over 5 years until the country was liberated, the genocide claimed the lives of over 2 million Cambodians at the hands of their own countrymen and amounted to about 30-40% of the entire population at the time.

Some of the sites where these atrocities occurred are in or near Phnom Penh, and have been preserved as a reminder of the past, and even though the subject matter is quite heartbreaking, it was important to me to visit some of these places to see first-hand what the country had been through not all that long ago. Mrs. Columbus is not thrilled about the plan for the day, but I mumble something about learning from the past and off we go.

Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.

We have arranged for a tuk-tuk driver to take us out for the day for the princely sum of $15 US. The first leg of our trip is a short journey about 15km outside of Phnom Penh to a place called Choeung Ek, more commonly referred to as the killing fields. This is only one of what is estimated to be about 300 locations like this scattered across the country. To date, they have recovered the remains of over 8800 men, women and children that were executed at this location, but they believe that thousands remain uncovered.

There is a guided listening tour that is provided, and it is more than just a little humbling to stand in some of the places and listen to the description of events that occurred here. The center of the site contains a large stupa that was erected here to house the remains of the people that have been uncovered at the site.

We spent a couple of hours at the site going through the guided tour, and looking through the museum at the artifacts of a dark period in Cambodian history, and neither of us really has much to say during the ride back to Phnom Penh.

The next stop on the tour is at the Tuol Sleng Interrogation Center. Known as S-21 for the region that it was located in, it was originally a school in the middle of Phnom Penh, but was converted to a detention center for the Khmer Rouge to hold prisoners in while they were interrogated and then most often sent off to meet their fate at Choeung Ek.

There are 4 buildings at the school, and the original classrooms were carved up into small cells about 2.5 x 6 feet where the prisoners were held. There were no beds or mats on the floor and detainees slept directly on the hard tile floors. Some classrooms were partitioned into larger places where the interrogations and torture occurred under horrible conditions.

To add to the heartbreak, even as news of the atrocities started to make their way outside of Cambodia, few nations came to their aid. After the Khmer Rouge government fell in 1979 most western nations continued to decline assistance, and in fact Pol Pot’s deposed regime was still recognized by the west as the ‘legitimate’ government of Cambodia well into the 1980s – all because the ouster of the Khmer Rouge was assisted by the Vietnamese and the Soviet Union (can’t be having that communism spread even if millions of people are suffering).

Pol Pot died in 1998 having never been arrested or tried for any of his crimes against his people – he and many of the other leaders of the Khmer Rough had been living in seclusion in the north western part of Cambodia near the Thailand border. A small handful of the leaders were arrested and have been attending trials put on by a world court for their actions during this period.

Which brings us around to the wonderful people – even after all that they have been through you might think that they would have some resentment to the foreigners that started things, or never came to help, or who left behind millions of land mines, or to other Cambodians who seem to have more then the average person here, but it is not like that at all. All of the people that we have interacted with are very friendly, helpful and hard working, just trying to get ahead, or keep their families fed. It is an incredible testament to the spirit of the Cambodian people, and once again we are humbled.

Our day trip ends with a stop at a large local market, but after all we have seen our hearts are just not in it, so we head back to our hotel to unwind and take in the day. It has been quite an education, and not the typical type of adventure that is fun to blog about, but I think even Mrs. Columbus would agree that it was valuable for us to go, and helps us to understand better Cambodia and it’s people as we travel through different parts of the country.

A few short paragraphs and some photos barely scratch the surface of the story, but for anyone who wants to learn more on the subject I can highly recommend the film The Killing Fields and the book First They Killed My Father

Back to lighter topics next, I promise….

My next post was going to be about our day at the S21 Detention Center and the Killing Fields – a somber topic to be sure – but I feel compelled to push that back a day in order to post this sidebar.

It has come to my attention that we North Americans are not reaching the peak of efficiency in terms of how we use our vehicles. Back home there are people who have motorcycles, and you can see them out riding around perhaps on a joy ride, or in some cases even going to or from work, but almost always with a single passenger or purpose. I am convinced that the people of SE Asia and other countries have figured out ways to get far more additional efficiency from their motorcycles, so I set out to do some research which I present below:

Things you can do with a motorcycle

You can of course carry people – yourself or maybe a friend..

… or 3 (notice that a true lady will always ride side-saddle!)

I believe that there must be some sort of rule that limits you to perhaps 5-6 on a bike in which case you must then ride the bus.

More significantly, you can increase the efficiency of your motorcycle by transporting goods:

Produce

Naturally you can’t store your produce or other goods without some baskets!

And you may also need some packaging materials.

Then you will need a place to store all your things, so to build that you will need some construction materials – yes the last photo is of a guy carrying a sheet of glass!!

Once you have your place constructed you will need to furnish it:

And then you will need some food and beverage!

Clearly the evidence shows that we could be far more efficient with our use of this method of transportation. In many cases I have seen more than one of these uses combined at the same time!

Naturally, one might wonder what you do if you need to move your motorcycle around – the answer is quite obvious, you use a car!

After a late change in our initial plan to go to Vietnam, we now find ourselves in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The journey is a couple of short 1 hour plane flights and other than having to collect all of our things in Bangkok to go through immigration there the trip is quite uneventful.

Phnom Penh is the capital city of Cambodia with a population of about 2 million people. The city has a lot of French influence with nice wide streets and a lot of colonial style buildings, but as with many SE Asian cities it is VERY busy! Our trip from the airport in a tuk-tuk is very entertaining as our driver weaves in an out of traffic – often facing motorbikes that are traveling the wrong direction on our side of the street, and some of the most congested traffic I have seen. It is a good thing that the streets are so wide, because some of the maneuvers that we see on the streets here would not at all be possible in the more tightly packed streets of Thai cities.

Our hotel is located not far from the bank of the Mekong river, and after getting settled in we walk out for a look around and to find some dinner. The riverbank has a nice wide sidewalk (unlike the mostly non-existent sidewalks in Thailand) and after dinner we walk along for quite a distance taking in the scenery. It is a national holiday here to celebrate on of the previous kings – King Sihanouk – so part way through our walk we are rewarded with a nice fireworks display from across the river. Along the riverside we pass by the Royal Palace that is all lit up for the evening, and because of the holiday a few of the streets are closed to traffic and there are lots of people wandering about.

Our early impression of Phnom Penh is looking quite favorable for a city of this size. We are normally not big city people, but so far we feel a little better vibe here than we would in say Bangkok.

On our way back to our hotel we stop for a foot massage, and I must give full credit to the ladies who worked us over, the massage was very good, and among the best that I have had in SE Asia – Mrs. Columbus’ masseuse was even wearing a black cocktail dress!!

We have plans for a busy day tomorrow seeing some of the sights so after the massage it is back to our room and off to bed – in a bed that is not as hard as a rock I might add, so kudos to the Silver River Hotel for having a bed that at least resembles something that people would sleep on 😉

Our last day in Cambodia finds us with another relatively early start (for people on vacation) as we have a few things left on our list to see and need to get back to the airport by 2pm for our flight back to Thailand.

As usual our guide Theoun is already waiting for us when we come out of the breakfast area, and after loading what seems like more baggage than we arrived with, it is off to our last set of temples.  Today we will go to a group of 3 temples in the Roluos group – Lolei, Bakong, and Preah Ko.  These temples were built about 50km south-east of the main Angkor complex and are much closer to the Tonle Sap (more on that later).  At some point the king realized that the area was prone to flooding and the king relocated the capital to the Angkor area and started building his new temples there.  The main Angkor complex is a tough act to follow and these temples are not nearly as big and impressive as what we have already seen (sort of like looking at the original smaller pyramids after seeing The Great Pyramid first) but given that they were built in the 800s it is still a little inspiring to see what people made by hand over 1200 years ago – some of them like Bakong are still in quite good shape, and it is hard to image that they have lasted that long.

As an aside, after seeing all of these temples I have decided that I would quite fancy having a moat – I have requested to the gardener to get started on one as soon as we get home, so that I can have some crocodiles delivered before the rainy season begins back home 🙂

The final items on our list for Cambodia before heading back to the airport is to visit the Tonlé Sap and one of the floating villages.  The Tonlé Sap is a lake that most of the year is long and narrow (a few km wide and about 100km long), but fairly shallow (around 1 meter) and flows into the Mekong River and into the Pacific Ocean.  During the rainy season though the Mekong actually has such a high water volume that it over flows backwards into the Tonlé Sap and the lake expands dramatically to about 35km wide and almost 150km long and it’s depth increases by about 10x to around 10 meters.  The lake floods out the fairly flat country side and at it’s peak covers around 16,000 square km (around 6100 square miles)!!  The flooding creates a unique farming environment and they can harvest 3 crops per year from the well fertilized soil. Additionally, the flooded area provides a great spawning area for fish, and during the high season tons of fish are caught as one of the area’s major food sources.

A unique side effect of the expansion and shrinking of the lake is the existence of the ‘floating villages’ around the lake area.  Technically they are not floating, but are actually all built on high stilts over 20 feet off the ground.  Most of the year the ground below is dry and the houses and buildings are just raised up off the ground.  There is a ‘main street’ and people walking about, gardens growing, etc. but when the lake floods the entire village is suspended above the water by the stilts and the only means of moving about is by boat.  All the items that are on the ground are either moved up into the house, or are moved out by the road before the waters get too high.  At the time of our visit the village is not yet flooded, but our guide informs us that the water is rising at a rate of about 5cm per day (about 2 inches)!

We drive in from the main road about 1/2 way to the village where we board a longtail boat to go out to where the village is and then out onto the lake itself.  The lake was impressive and has already flooded enough that we cannot see the other side, and as we are going down the river from where we started we can see areas where the forest floor is now covered in water.  On the way back in from the lake our boat stops at the main pagoda for the village and we are able to get out and walk around.  It is a bit of a surreal experience to walk down the street and have to look up at all the buildings, but aside from that it is mostly a regular village, there are homes, merchants, and we even spot a barber chair at one building.  Near and dear to Mrs Columbus’ heart is a walk by the local primary school where dozens of young children are laughing and playing – it seems that we have wandered by during recess and the children are just hanging about in their classrooms.  Our guide tells us that it is OK to go have a look inside and even takes us into a couple of the rooms.  The little Cambodian faces are all smiles and the kids are waving at us, just excited to see some foreign faces.  The experience is a little moving, and we stop to buy some notebooks for the teacher to distribute to the kids in one of the classrooms before we head back to our boat to go home.

A quick trip back to Siem Reap for lunch and then our driver takes us back to the airport to checkin for our flight back to Thailand and the next part of our journey.  I definitely think that there is much more to see in Cambodia and I hope to be able to come back in the near future to explore some other parts of the country as we have barely even scratched the surface.  The people we interacted with were incredible and we are continually reminded of how happy people can be with so little that we are leaving a little humbled inside.

Our return flight is uneventful, and we are greeted in Bangkok by a taxi driver that we have used before.  We were able to call him from Cambodia and arrange for him to take us to Kanchanaburi which is our next destination.  The trip is about 3 hours, but we hit the Bangkok traffic at the end of the work day so that adds another hour to our drive time, by the time we get to our hotel we are all ready for a quick bite to eat and then some quality sleep time.

I don’t normally like to take pictures where the main subject is people.  It is mostly in my head, but I think that trying to capture the perfect ‘image’ of a person is something I need more practice with.  I have taken some portraits that I am proud of, but it still feels like something outside of my comfort zone.

That said, it is certainly much easier to take pictures of people that are so photogenic!  I must say that I am glad that there are rules about smuggling people inside of luggage as I fear that Mrs Columbus would have taken as many of these home with her as her baggage allowance would have permitted:

Not that we are complaining, because we are actually very blessed with what we have – even if they are sometimes a little sketchy looking 😉