[p]
[s]
pos: 11 29.063n 104 54.119e
d: 17/06/17 18:00 GMT+0700
June 17th, The Killing Fields, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Mersoleil is tucked safely into Straits Quay Marina while we visit Cambodia
and Vietnam. Well, while we visit Cambodia, anyway, but more anon on that
subject.
Four nights in Phnom Penh have given us a remarkable opportunity to
appreciate the gentle resiliency of the Cambodian people. I?d heard about
the Khmer Rouge, (they say ?k?mai ROO?) and I knew that atrocities had been
committed in Cambodia during the days of the Vietnam War, but the scale and
the horror of these events had completely escaped my grasp, as had the fact
that they had nothing at all to do with the war. In fact, they were
inflicted by Cambodians upon their fellow countrymen in the name of
creating a national utopia.
During the latter half of the 1970s, at least 2 million Cambodians were
imprisoned, tortured, then systematically murdered by a gang of Communist
thugs who had the idea that only laborers and farmers should be allowed to
live in the perfect Cambodian society ? and everyone else should be
eliminated. Educated people, those who lived in cities, the affluent,
intellectuals, people who wore eyeglasses, dressed stylishly, or had soft
hands, children, and those of any celebrity at all were forced into prisons
across the country, trucked to the ?killing fields? that we?ve all heard
about, then beaten, stabbed or hacked to death with any tool at hand,
bullets being too expensive, at the very edges of mass graves where they
could conveniently topple in. By the millions.
The Killing Fields near Phnom Penh and the associated Choeung Ek Genocidal
Center museum provide sobering testament to the horrors committed in this
country from 1975 to 1979, and our visit, afterwards, to just one of the
prisons, S-21, a former Phnom Penh high school, was unbearably moving.
Exhibits at S-21 were so dreadfully explicit that I could not even bring
myself to view them. I completely avoided the interrogation rooms where
torture equipment remains in place, accompanied by instructive descriptions
and photos of innocent, emaciated, dead Cambodians.
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[s]
pos: 11 33.835n 104 55.875e
d: 18/06/17 18:00 GMT+0700
June 18th, Royal Palace and Silver Temple, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Today Miki, Rowland, Robbie and I strolled the boulevards of Phnom Penh
enjoying the happier sights of this bustling city. Signs all over town
celebrate the 83rd birthday of the Queen Mum, who waves gaily from
billboard sized portraits. For a small fee one can tour the walled grounds
of the Royal Palace in the company of a knowledgeable guide explaining
which buildings house the government offices, where the royal elephants
were stabled and how high one must climb to achieve the saddle for a parade
through the city, where the king actually lives, the waving blue flag
indicating that he is in residence today, and whose royal cremains are
interred in which royal stupa.
Unforgettable, for me, was a comment made by ?Rith, the nice gentleman who
guided us through the grounds of the Royal Palace this morning. He was
seven years old at the time of the Khmer Rouge and, forced to work in the
rice fields, nearly died of starvation before a transfer to labor in the
potato fields saved his life. There he could steal yams to eat. I had asked
?Rith if his home was still standing in 1979 when he and other surviving
members of his family returned to Phnom Penh.
?Oh,? he said, ?I don?t know. We could live anywhere, pick any house we
wanted. The city was empty. Everyone was dead.?
Today ?Rith proudly ushers tourists through the Royal Palace grounds and
its stunning Silver Temple, where his king worships before a golden Buddha,
one of hundreds of artistic masterpieces enshrined there. This life sized
gold Maitreya Buddha is decorated with more than 9,000 diamonds, with one
at the center of Buddha?s crown weighing in at greater than 25 carats.
?Rith loves his country, says things are better now, though the government
is still corrupt if no longer murderous, and is grateful that the Khmer
Rouge did not destroy the Royal Palace compound. They preserved it for
diplomatic purposes, even the temples, to demonstrate to the world their
benign stewardship of the country, while secretly, at the killing fields,
they ?smashed? her people by the hundreds every day for four years.
After fleeing Cambodia in 1979, Pol Pot and his small band of Communists
continued in exile to rule Cambodia for nearly twenty years, officially
recognized by the West, even belonging to the UN, until the late 90s. It is
beyond my comprehension how the United States, so quick to intrude in the
affairs of other countries, could have turned a blind eye to the atrocious
crimes of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia.
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pos: 11 34.296n 104 55.797e
d: 19/06/17 18:00 GMT+0700
June 19th, Preah Sisowath Quay, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Along the Phnom Penh riverside, at the Tonle Sap River just before it joins
the Mekong, there?s a bustling neighborhood of restaurants, bars, shops and
tourist attractions lining the water?s edge promenade. We took a sunset
walk up Preah Sisowath Quay, pausing to watch a happy group of locals
engaged in their Sunday evening zumba class, stopped for a cold beer, then
resumed our stroll in search of amusement and the Punjabi restaurant where
we planned to dine.
A couple of curious little boys at the landscaped edge of the promenade
were engaged in serious scrutiny of an irrigation sprinkler head, when one
of them made the mistake of pulling it off its PVC pipe. He leapt back and
squealed in guilty amazement as a geyser suddenly shot twenty feet in the
air, looked around to see that most of the fifty bystanders had noticed his
sin, made a quick instinctive move to run for it, then realized that wasn?t
going to work, and concluded he really needed to try to put the thing back
together. At about the same time, the culprit?s mom instructed him to
reinsert the sprinkler head, which proved more difficult than expected, he
got totally drenched, she made him strip off his little britches (not sure
why, they were already soaked), she came reluctantly to his aid and got
drenched as well, and between them they were having a dickens of a time
getting the city water supply back under control. We laughed till tears
nearly filled our eyes, so did everybody around, as the poor little kid
tried earnestly, repeatedly, but in vain, to remedy his mistake. After a
dozen photos and a good long laugh we turned and continued our walk, unsure
to this day if the valiant repair efforts ever met with success.
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[s]
pos: 13 24.750n 103 51.942e
d: 21/06/17 18:00 GMT+0700
June 21, Angkor Wat, Siem Reap Province, Cambodia.
After an eventful six hour drive through the Cambodian countryside in a
Lexus SUV swarming with famished mosquitoes, (?I?m so sorry,? said the
driver, ?I took it to the farm last night.?) we arrived last evening in
Siem Reap, tourism base camp for visitors to the nearby temple complex of
Angkor Wat.
Siem Reap resident, Kamsan Sreng, collected us early this morning,
indoctrinating us as we drove along, to the history of the Khmer people,
the empire and its kings, four in particular, who built more than 2,000
wats, temples, here between the 6th snd 12th centuries. Our tour began at
Angkor Wat itself, the largest temple in the world.
Ankor Wat is surrounded by a moat as wide as most rivers. Originally there
was only one causeway leading to the walled temple city from the west. A
second causeway now exists on the east side of Angkor Wat, courtesy of the
Japanese occupation during WWII, and Kamsan thoughtfully approached from
the East, the better to take photos of Angkor Wat with the morning sun over
our shoulders. The temple is so huge it?s measured in kilometers, not
meters or feet (1.5km x 1.3km), and the religious history of the Khmer
people is imprinted throughout together with intricate bas relief carvings
of the stories of Hindu gods, superimposed with smiling faces of the
Buddha, which we later defaced in a resurgence of Hinduism.
Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Angkor Wat has been lost for millennia at
a time, rediscovered, then lost again and recently wrestled back from the
tropically jungle and substantially restored. Almost all the temples in
this area are carved from sandstone, easy to sculpt, but susceptible to the
elements. There?s little to no earthquake activity here, but the invasive
roots of trees like the banyan tree, Ficus watkinsiana, have forced the
stones apart and toppled most of the temple structures. These photos show
what ?fully restored? looks like. Even so, millions of blocks and carvings
still lie strewn about on the ground with handwritten identification
numbers indicating where they?re fully described in archaeological
catalogs, the tools of all the kings horses and all the kings men, who are
still putting Angkor Wat together again.
The religious structures here reflect the priorities of the various kings
who commanded their construction. Suryavarman II in the 12th century sought
grandeur, constructing Hindu temples of the greatest magnitude including
Angkor Wat. Built during the reign of King Rajendravarman in the 10th
century, the fine and intricate detail of tiny Banteay Srei has earned it
the reputation of Jewel of Angkor Wat. King Jayavarman II, a fervent
Buddhist, embarked on an ambitious but slapdash construction program in the
late 12th century, adding more than 200 structures throughout the area, in
a last major wave of Angkorian expansion.
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pos: 13 28.536n 104 13.727e
d: 22/06/17 18:00 GMT+0700
June 22nd, Prasat Beng Mealea, Svay Leu, Siem Reap Province, Cambodia.
Kamsan arrived quite early this morning, insisting that departure at 07:00
was important, as it would enable us to enjoy his favorite temple before
the arrival of the first tour buses full of noisy groups. Prasat Beng
Mealea and Koh Ker temple, despite their location some 85km from the Angkor
Wat complex, are popular with visitors, breathtaking despite the fact that
they are completely unrestored. The only way to see these temples, Beng
Mealea, in particular, is to clamber over the toppled stones covered with
moss and gripped relentlessly by roots of the strangler figs holding the
walls and towers together today. One day the jungle will toss these last
walls and towers onto the piles of rubble, but for now Indiana Jones?
Temple of Doom stands as you remember it from the movie, filmed not here
but on a set built from photos of the real thing.
Awed by the morning stillness, the luxuriant green of mossy stones whose
carved surfaces hide behind cloaks of root and lichen, and the rich earthy
fragrance of the jungle, we followed Kamsan through the labyrinth of Beng
Mealea, taking his hand for assistance over the difficult or slippery bits,
feeling what the first European explorers must have experienced when they
came upon these temples in the 1860s. There are no plans to restore most of
the Angkorian temples in Cambodia. They won?t be here for us forever. To
experience them now, deep in the jungle, is to glimpse the past and to feel
somehow a part of it. It is deeply moving, every bit as moving as standing
alongside the mass grave of ?166 victims without heads?. How can our human
race produce both, such beauty, such horror?
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[s]
pos: 11 25.656n 105 12.428e
d: 24/06/17 18:00 GMT+0700
June 24th, at the end of a very short boat ride, in the middle of nowhere.
We left Cambodia today by boat down the Mekong River bound for Ho Chi Minh
City. Only thirty minutes into our journey, in one of those amusing twists
of fate that make the simplest thing into an adventure and typify the
cruising life, Robbie and I were put off the boat at a muddy river bank
near a tiny village and handed our bags as we stood on the shore.
Our visas were among the first eVisas issued online by the government of
Vietnam and the boat company didn?t like the fact that they bore no rubber
stamp or wet signature. We?d finally convinced the guy that they were
indeed issued by the Vietnamese government, that we had paid money for them
and that in an email the nice government people had instructed us to print
two copies, one for entry to Vietnam and another for departure and to fold
them up and carry them in our passports.
Unfortunately, among many other details we?d had to declare our points of
entry to Vietnam, Port of Ho Chi Minh City, and departure, Hanoi Airport,
at the time of application and we learned just yesterday of a small
logistical error in our trip plan. The Mekong River boat ride does not go
to Ho Chi Minh City, it goes only as far as the border at Chau Doc, about 5
hours by fast boat from Phnom Penh. Boat guy called the Vietnamese border
police at Chau Doc who begrudgingly agreed that they?d had wind of some
sort of online visa, but they were going to deny the Collinses entry to
Vietnam based upon the declaration on the visa of the wrong point of entry.
We were offered the choice of getting off the boat here and now, in the
middle of nowhere, but not terribly far from Phnom Penh, or being denied
entry to Vietnam in the dark five hours from now, also in the middle of
nowhere, but a long way from Phnom Penh, and having to figure out a way
back to Phnom Penh from there by dark of night. We chose the here-and-now
daylight option and were unceremoniously dumped off the bow as the little
ferry motored slowly into the muddy river bank and our luggage was handed
down to us as the boat backed away with Miki and Rowland still on board,
proceeding merrily on the way to Vietnam.
It?s a good damn thing we know how to jump off a boat, I thought.
The local villagers who had gathered around to enjoy the unusual sight of a
ferry boat landing at their shore now turned their fascinated gaze upon
these two elderly white people arriving with rolling bags and hauling them
up toward the dirt road. They?re probably still talking about it today.
We managed to negotiate a ride with a (the only) local tuk tuk driver who
probably rarely sees the capital, stopped at his house so he could pick up
his helmet (prudent on his part, but somewhat less than reassuring from our
vantage point) and away we went, turning a few moments later onto the
highway to Phnom Penh and learning, as we had suspected, that everyone in
Cambodian honks their horns at slow tuk tuks on the highways as they shoot
past, blasting the tuk tuk, its driver and its passengers with clouds of
dirt and diesel exhaust.
If you are ever in this situation (don?t laugh, you never know), do
remember that it?s wise to start out sitting on the narrow seat at the
front of the tuk tuk with your back to the direction of travel, and your
baggage on the larger softer seat opposite. That way, you won?t have to
rise and trade places with your luggage, as the tuk tuk bounces over ruts
and bumps, when you finally realize why the driver?s helmet has a full face
guard, that you have none at all, and that you?ll have an abundance of
dirty grit in your teeth and your eyes long before you reach Phnom Penh. It
helps to keep your feet up on the bags, too, reducing the likelihood that
they will bounce out onto the highway.
OK, so that was fun. We couldn?t help but laugh at this completely
unexpected experience, and we arrived back at the Monsoon Bessac Hotel to
the (unnecessary) chants of staff, ?What are you doing here ? you just
left!?
So that's how our day ended. The Stantons were supposed to arrive at the
Vietnamese border station, without visas, around four hours after we were
made to walk the plank. South Africans can apparently just present
themselves at the border and beg admittance, not so Americans. They'll
presumably find a hotel in that border town and make their way to Ho Chi
Minh City tomorrow to the accommodations there that are lying empty tonight
wondering where we all are.
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[s]
pos: 11 33.240n 104 54.832e
d: 25/06/17 14:00 GMT+0700
June 25, Monsoon Bassac Hotel, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Disappointed to realize it was Sunday and that there was no possibility of
pleading for corrected visas at the Vietnamese embassy, we were even more
sorry to learn it was in fact Saturday and nothing could be done about
getting to HCMC until at least Monday morning. We checked back into the
hotel, showered and went out for a fantastic dinner at a nearby French
bistro.
Now perhaps you understand why I have time to post these entries describing
our adventures of the past two weeks. Read on for how we have ended up
Cambodian refugees?.
[END]