Hong Kong Here We Come

I was a little bit sad to Phnom Penh, the place really grew on me. I booked a tuk tuk for our trip to the airport, there is a first for everything, and bade farewell to our regular driver Pa who had been our chauffeur around the capital.

Check in was pretty easy with the usual waiting in this line then that line and after a 15 minute delay Cathay Pacific had us airborne on our was to Hong Kong, a total of 125 minutes in the air. I did my usual trick and hopped a cab from the airport. It’s a little confronting when the meter reads over $400 but when you realise it’s Hong Kong dollars you rest a little easier. We checked in to the Lanson Place Hotel and headed off to find dinner and a drink. Dinner was a little disappointing and after spending $100 real dollars on four drinks we called it a night. The view however was amazing.

The next morning we got up incredibly late and hit the pavement firstly to get some much needed laundry done, then to buy an all important Octopus Card (needed to ride the local public transport system) and ultimately to set of in search of the Che Kung Miu Temple that is considered important to many Thai people. After securing the necessary incense sticks, setting them alight and placing them in the correct place, spinning what appeared to be a fan, beating a drum three times and saying a number of prayers and our work was done.

We tried our luck at a Japanese restaurant and then pushed on to Victoria Peak, home to a funicular tram that takes you from bottom to top with spectacular views in seven minutes. The problem is that the line to get on it ran to two hours. We cheated and spent $12 on a taxi and caught the tram home, having lined up for maybe 15 minutes. There is a pathway that runs around the perimeter called Lugard Road. You avoid the 1,000’s of tourists, and I’m not exaggerating, and get a better view of the harbour and don’t have to pay for observation deck entry.

All in all a good day all round. Tomorrow we head to Lantau Island and the famed cable cars. 

The Killing Fields

Somber just doesn’t describe it. I had seen the movie and I had read the history but it just fails to impart the true horror that Cambodian people inflicted on themselves. Sure there were some Westerners who were victims, even one Aussie, but by far the greatest number of those who suffered at the hands of the Khmer Rouge were Cambodians themselves. Pretty well everyone was suspect. If you had a university degree, if you were a monk, if you had an administrative role, even if you wore glasses you were rounded up and tortured until you confessed and once you confessed you were sent off to be executed in the most cost effective manner possible. Your place of execution was the killing fields. 

There are 20,000 mass graves across Cambodia as result of the Khmer Rouge. The UN estimates that 1,386,734 victims were murdered. Total loss of life attributed to the Khmer Rouge and their policies, including starvation, is between 2 to 2.5 million. The population at the time was 8 million. The North Vietnamese invaded in 1979 effectively ending the reign of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Remember that America had only just lost the Vietnam War, no one wanted to see the North Vietnamese as the liberating heros so the exiled government of Pol Pot was still recognised as legitimate for many years after. 

Cambodia has had a terrible time of it. They were effectively a French colony from 1863 to 1953 with three years of Japanese rule thrown into the mix during WWII. They then had independence from 1953 until 1970 but the government and the United States dragged them into the Vietnam conflict and because some of the Ho Chi Minh trail ran through Cambodia they were bombed by an extraordinary amount of ordinance. In fact there were more than 2,700,000 tons of bombs dropped on Cambodia, about 1,000,000 more than Japan received in WWII.

Anyway, back to the Killing Fields. The Choeung Ek killing field is 17 kilometres out of Phnom Penh. We jumped a tuk tuk and headed through the horrendous traffic, the rotting sewers and the incredible industry that surrounds you in Cambodia, with factories backing on to rice fields. You alight at a quite inauspicious site and pay your $6US and receive an audio guide in your chosen language and set off on a hour of horror as the banal story unfolds and you walk around a site where 20,000 people were murdered. 

You see the bone and clothing fragments pushing up through the ditches, once five metres deep, from where the bodies were disinterred. There is a tree were they smashed babies heads to kill them. The weapons used to carry out the killing are also on display. Bullets weren’t used as they were too expensive so poison, spades or sharpened bamboo sticks. Inside the Buddhist Memorial Stupa at Choeung Ek, there is evidence of bayonets, knives, wooden clubs, hoes for farming and curved scythe all used as implements of genocide. Humanity at its very worst, showcased in what was an old orchard and Buddhist burial ground. 

There is a Buddhist Stupa, what the catholics would call a reliquary, containing the bones of many of the victims. It is adorned with the traditional symbols of the Napa and the Garuda, these are normally mortal enemies, when they are shown together they are a symbol of peace. 

Just to make sure we were thoroughly depressed we went from there to S - 21 the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. It was a former High School that was re purposed as a torture centre, one of 196 that were scattered around the country. About 20,000 people passed through it. The unmarked graves of the last 14 victims are here, the implements of torture are here, the cells are here and the photos are here, thousands of photos, many of them unidentified, the carefully recorded but now anonymous victims of this one torture centre.

Quite frankly it was all a little too much. We headed back to hotel and tried to wash off the sickening feeling in the pit of our stomachs from viewing such horror. Oui jumped into the shower, I had took to the pool, neither of us really felt like lunch. I headed out to check out the Royal Palace, it was incredibly impressive but it was hard to forget the horror of the morning and quite frankly I shouldn’t.

Tomorrow we fly out to Hong Kong.

Phnom Penh

What can I say but this place is hot. Our car journey ended up taking 5 hours, maybe the plane would have been a better option. That being said we got to experience the graft and corruption that makes this place tick. To leave Siem Reap our driver had to give a $7.00US bribe to persons who shall remain nameless because he was acting as a taxi service. This was not the first time I had seen money change hands. I myself got hit up by the local constabulary who took a few photos of Oui and I in one of the temples. He and his offsider security guard fleeced me of $4US, I even have a selfie with the culprits.

Driving in Cambodia is not like anything you would experience at home. The lanes are fluid, even if they are painted on the road and two lanes is regularly converted to three as motorbikes, push bikes, tuk tuks, cars and trucks all vie for their part of the pavement and the footpath is fair game as well. If they’re is no median strip (and there frequently isn’t) both sides of the road are perfectly acceptable options should the need arise. Our driver would have had to hand in his license if he didn’t have a horn, it was constantly in use as we surged from 40kmh to 100kmh at totally random intervals dictated by the whims of the traffic.

We stopped for lunch about an hour out of Phnom Penh and the Chinese influence here is really noticeable. This is a poor country and the Chinese are building hotels, creating resorts, bringing in package tours and donating to the government. The American influence is on the wane and the Chinese are in the ascendancy. There is even talk of the US dollar being replaced by the Chinese RMB.

We arrived safely as advertised at our hotel, owned and operated by an Australian. It’s a pretty funky place and perfectly delightful. They even have AFL on the TV, not that I actually care. Dinner was on a rooftop restaurant two doors up. You have to take a lift to get there. That may not sound all that eventful but when the power goes out with the regularity that it does here and therefore the possibility that you could be stuck in an Cambodian lift for a few hours while the power comes back to life is not a pleasant one. We kicked on to a Japanese restaurant cum nightclub for some live music that was a little questionable. We called it a night soon after. 

Tomorrow will be our only full day in the city so we want to get to the Killing Fields, S21 (the re education centre and by that I mean torture), the national museum and royal palace before we fly out to Hong Kong. I’ll let you know why we’re are not going to Vietnam soon. 

Land Mines

One of the most sobering things I saw my first full day in Siem Reap was a sign. I nearly missed it as our guide was just getting started on his spiel. This sign was accompanied by a “Do Not Enter” message. What I had heard discussed, watched Lady Di speak about and also read about became startling real. Here was a place that still had unexploded land mines. As I was to discover later that night the very human toll taken by these weapons is still confrontingly evident.

There are still somewhere between 3,000,000 to 5,000,000 unexploded land mines and other pieces of ordinance scattered about Cambodia, mainly near the borders and most of them were laid by the Khmer Rouge. It was done to protect their borders, not only from outsiders getting in but citizens getting out. There are still farmers being maimed by these weapons as they till their soil, kids are losing eyes and limbs as they play in water courses. Walk down any busy street and there will be men of a certain age either on crutches or with an artificial leg, many of them begging, those still with their dignity left will be plying their wares in attempt to make ends meet. It drives home the evil of these weapons. It also illustrates perfectly the price paid by the innocent when the United States and the imperial powers were playing chess using the nations of South East Asian as the pieces in their game of stop the communist.

We balanced our day by finishing with a quick tour of two of the less visited temples and trying some of the local produce. Let’s see if you can spot the petrol station.

Tomorrow we have a driver and car to take us to Phnom Penh. It’s only a 50 minute flight and the cost is about $100 AUD per head however for $100 US they will take you door to door in an air conditioned car and hopefully see more of the countryside. Let’s hope we don’t get kidnapped.

Angkor Wat

So it was the big one today, two massive well known temples.

We entered through a very impressive gate and after a brief drive we encountered a car park chocked to the brim with tourist buses. It did not bode well. The heat was oppressive and I was sweating like they’d turned up the heat in hell and that was before i’d left the comfort of my air conditioned car.

First stop was Angkor Thom and it just mind blowing the scale of the place and this was one of approximately 150 temples in the Angkor Wat region and the more than 2,000 in Cambodia. The Khmer empire at one point included Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and of course Cambodia. This was the last and most enduring capital city of the Khmer empire. It was established in the late twelfth century by King Jayavarman VII. It covers an area of 9 km², there are several monuments located here from earlier eras as well as those established by Jayavarman and his successors. At the centre of the city is Jayavarman's state temple, the Bayon, with the other major sites clustered around the Victory Square immediately to the north. Again pictures speak louder than words.

Now it is the dry season here at the moment so when we got caught in a torrential downpour we were somewhat under prepared. At the risk of sounding a little trite our spirits were not dampened, we got thoroughly drenched and with a stiff upper lip carried on. After drying out over lunch it was time to tackle the biggie, Angkor Wat. Now this place takes no prisoners. It is massive, surrounded by a huge moats that should have had crocodiles for effect (apparently at one point it did), there are the obligatory temple monkeys and of course the oh so impressive temple itself. There is a peasant’s entrance, priest’s entrance and a royal entrance. Originally it had nine towers now only five really remain with the front view of the main towers featuring on everything Cambodian from the flag to the beer to any other branding opportunity. Sadly my words are just a pittance compared the might, awe and quite frankly ego of this place. Just look at the pics.

Tomorrow will be a little more somber with a trip planned the land mine museum ands maybe a couple of the more obscure temples then its on to Phnom Phen as the Asian odyssey continues.