Cambodia!

We had read in some guidebooks that the Phnom Penh International Airport tourist information center was a must see: it was. There was a huge desk with apbsoultuely nothing on our behind it, and an old man sleeping at the desk. When I started to take a picture, there was quite a commotion and he woke up with a start, and I snapped the picture with all the locals laughing in the backgournd. We got our $20 visas by jumping through some bureaucratic hoops (not sure why it took so long, there were just 10 people arriving who needed visas!) – the red tape was so bad that even the officials were laughing and gesturing that they did nothing. So far, so good!

We changed $100 traveller’s cheques for a truckload of Riel ($1USD=3000 Riel), though you could use dollars just about anywehere you went. The Riel was bacially the coin for the more valuable US bills – we often paid first in dollars, then Riel for the small amounts under a dollar. Riel was mostly used to tip, pay for motos or to buy a small souvenir or drink from a child.

Did I mention the people? The Khmer people were by far the friendliest and most generous people I had ever met. Rarely did you get an unearned smile, but when you cracked the fainest of smiles to show them that you had come in peace, they returned the largest grins you would ever see. Even teenagers at the “cool” stage tried not to smile, but when we tried hard enough, they’d burst out laughing and have a big smile painted on their faces. You’d think they’d have nothing to smile about – they’ve had a brutal recent history, but yet they seem happy and content beyond any level you’d expect of people wallowing in such poverty and low standard of living. When I first saw the flag of Cambodia, with its outline of the famed temple of Angkor Wat, I thought it was a bit cheesy, but I learned it was not: It was their past, their present and the symbol that represents their chance for a peaceful, prosperous future.

When we came out of the aiport, we were literally attacked by mobs of taxi drivers with nothing to do. How bummed were they when they saw just the four of us coming out of the airport (us and two French guys), realizing we would only require one of their services on that day. We worked our way throught the throng of thirty or so drivers like movie stars surrounded by paprarazzi, and settled on a fare of $10 per person. One of the French guys was complaining that he thought it should have been about 75 cents each! I was ashamed for him, and quite a bit embarrassed. I knew when you were traveling on a shoestring that you needed to watch your money and make sure you didn’t get screwed, but some people took it way too far… it became a vicious game to them – how low could I make this guy perform this service for me, how cheap could I get that wood carving for. Beth and I didn’t bargain for things like accommodation and transportation in Cambodia, because for one thing, it wasn’t traditionally done there, and it was usually a fair, no, a very fair price for what you got.

We wanted to go to “Bert’s Bookstore” as it sounded ok, but the driver informed us that it was closed – “sure” we thought to ourselves, we’d heard that one before. But, sure enough, 2 minutes later we were driving by a boarded up “Bert’s Bookstore” – I guess Bert cut out for a few months’ vacation, probably due to the complete lack of tourists. We were beginning to feel that things were going to be a little different in Cambodia – we gradually started to let our guard down a bit and trust the Khmer people we met along the way.

We next drove to No. 10 Guesthouse (original name!) and after Beth checked it out, she fell in love with “Don”, one of the skinny local guys working there – “please, please, stay here. $3.00 for you… ok… $2.00”. We were sold – we were suckers for genuinely friendly (and financially destitute) people. The French guys went to a different place in town, thank god.

No. 10 Guesthouse was built on the Boeung Kak Lake in the northern part of Phnom Penh, and the view was simply amazing – great silhouette views of solitary fishermen on a pruple sunset background. The place itself turned out to be a place for “long term visitors” – a polite term for idiots who spent their time smoking up, drinking cheap Khmer whiskey and boosting their ego’s with “taxi girls”. Taxi girls (ie hookers) were everywhere, especially at night. Why they were called taxi girls wasn’t clear, but apparently a lot of them were illegals from Vietnam.

There was a lot to do that first day, a Monday, in Phenom Penh, and after we got settled in, we hired Don and his car for the rest of the day (11-5) for $12. Don said he could do our Vietnam We chose to do it ourselves because we didn’t want to get locked into staying at No. 10 any more than the one night. We dropped by the embassy and paid our $50, registered at the Canadian/Australian consulate as a safety precaution (our parents didn’t know we had decided to go to Cambodia – which was for the best), went to the Royal Khmer Airlines office and got return tickets to Siem Reap ($110), dropped by the tourist information office (sparse! Like the TIC at the aiport), and had some time left over so we decided to go to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. visas for $50 and it would take five days.

When Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Penh in the mid 70’s, he converted a high school, Chao Ponhea Yat High School, locating in the heart of the city, into a huge prison and torture facility called security prison 21. The place was horrific – entrance was free but they asked for a $2 donation – we obliged of course. We were the only visitors in the p lace, and that made the impact of the horrors that had taken place there that much greater. Posted outside one of the buildings were the place’s “10 Security Regulations”:

1. You must answer according to my questions - don't turn them away.
2. Don't try to hide the facts by making pretext this or that. You are strictly prohibited to contest me.
3. Don't be a fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.
4. You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
5. Don't tell me about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution.
6. While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.
7. Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protest.
8. Don't make protests about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your jaw of traitor.
9. If you don't follow the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire.
10. If you disobey any point of my regulations, you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.

It was an eerie thing to say the least, and we were left astounded by the fact that this all took place just twenty years prior: The buildings had been left completely untouched and you could still see blood stains beneath the steel cots, with pictures above depicting what form of torture was used in that room (the Vietnamese discovered the few remaining vicitims when they forced out the Khmer Rouge in 1979.

In three years at the prison, 17,000 peiople were tortured and killed – mainly intellectuals and people who were found to have books in their homes. The majority of the victims were dumped 16km south o fthe city at what is now known as “the killing fields”. There were reportedly only twelve people who survived. The people we talked to later often commented that they wouldn’t have been able to stomack going to a place like that, and one Australian girl even said “I don’t go to places like that. It’s my vacation and I don’t want to see depressing things” – give your head a fucking shake, I wanted to say – go to the beach if that’s your attitude. After seeing something like Tuol Sleng, we really appreciated the struggle of the Khmer people, and we enjoyed our stay so much more.

The rooms at No. 10 were pretty bad, and we normally wouldn’t have stayed there if it wasn’t for the human connection we’d made with “Don”. You could literally look down through the slats of the floor into the green waters of the lake beneath. For whatever stupid reason (ok, I had a few beers), I ended up not using my sleeping sheet that first night – what a mistake. I woke up with a train track trail of 25 bed bug bits on my right arm. Beth was fine, of course, because she wasn’t lazy and used her bed sheet. The bed bugs and the endless noise from the “long term visitors” convinced us to only stay there one night.