Pnohm Penh

Cambodia was initially colonized by the French from the 1850's onward. (along with Laos and Vietnam to make French Indochina.) This is reflected in the buildings and architecture that you see around you in the large towns of Cambodia.In particular, the Pnohm Penh the capital, has some very good examples of French Colonial Architecture, as well as the buildings themselves, there are wide open boulevards, and large green spaces dotted around the city. They are very French in style, however the illusion is destroyed quickly as there is then usually some monument built out of concrete slap bang in the middle of it. I really enjoyed just wandering around town in Pnohm Penh as the combination of old and new as well as large amounts of building work going on really interested me.

Our main sights on this part of our trip related to the Khmer Rouge period and subsequent civil war in Cambodia. Like most people, I had heard of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot over the years, but had no idea exactly what had happened that made him hated around the world and feared in Cambodia.However after spending 3 days in Pnohm Penh, I was soon very clued up on Cambodian history and some of the atrocities that took place. (If you have any interest in history or politics, the last 75 years or so in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam are really fascinating. )

We used the first day to go see some of the main sights around town, the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda were quite interesting, but very similar to the Grand Palace in Bangkok and probably overpriced for what there is to see. Although there is one very odd sight in the compound which really stood out for me, which is an iron house which was given to the king as a present from Napoleon. It's a slightly incongruous sight in amongst all the pomp and circumstance around it.

On the second day, I had decided to go to the Killing Fields museum, and the S21 museum, both of which document the history and activities of the Khmer Rouge. However, due to the nature of the museums and some of what we had heard about them, Emma decided to give this a miss and chose to go to a beauty salon for the afternoon for a bit of pampering. It was a good choice as I can categorically say, it is one of the most depressing ways to spend an afternoon. I was really moved when I was at these sites, just walking around them makes you shake your head at how mad it all was.

To give you an idea of the basic background and history, the Khmer Rouge were formed initially as a communist minded independence party, that then developed into a guerilla army against the current French rulers and then eventually ousted them. On Jan 12th 1975, the Khmer Rouge army marched into Pnohm Penh and declared it free. What then happened directly started 3 miserable and catastrophic years for Cambodia and many more afterwards. The ideology of the Khmer Rouge leader was based in Marxist theory, where he believed that the best way to run the country was as an agricultural based peasant economy. As a result, most of the occupants of Pnohm Penh were forcibly evacuated from the city and sent to work in the fields.Anyone who belonged to the intelligentsia or middle classes were declared enemies of the state, rounded up and sentenced to death. Even wearing glasses was considered a crime and you could be picked up instantly for carry books or looking like a student. (I found this really interesting as the same thought process was used by police in England in the 70s when operating their stop and search and internment policies in London; as they believed that the educated Irish in London were supporting and helping the IRA)

However, as Pol Pot was quite clearly bonkers, this soon wasn't enough for him and the reasonsfor people being enemies of the state gradually became more desperate . He even began to destroy his own party as he became more paranoid. This constant purging left the Khmer government weak and divided and after 3 years, the Vietnamese army attacked and liberated Cambodia. (They then took it over themselves for a few years, but at least they were a proper government)

The S21 museum, or Section 21 as it was known, is an old school that was taken over by the government and used as a jail and torture compound. Like the Nazi's before them, the Khmer's kept meticulous records of every person that passed through the compound, even to the extent of photographing everyone on arrival. These simple black and white pictures are collected together and row after row of them are displayed at the museum. They make for a powerful and disturbing collection of images when you see them all together. You are also able to walk through the building which has been preserved as it was found by the Vietnamese. You can walk through rooms, which were built as classrooms and had been divided into small cells. Even now, they feel horribly claustrophobic and there is a bad feeling/vibe inside the buildings that just makes you feel very uncomfortable. I got a definite chill walking around here, some of the rooms I just stood in the doorway and looked in as they were just too freaky. Practically everyone who entered this compound was killed. They were then transported to one of a number of mass graves….or killing fields.

One of the largest of the killing fields is on the outskirts of PnohmPenh and has been preserved as close as possible to how it was found.On this site alone, there are 100 mass graves, only 45 of them have been exposed and investigated and there were over 8'000 bodies recovered. The sheer scale is shocking and its made even more real as you walk around the site. At the heart of it, it a memorial to the dead which contains a glass tower with shelves, each shelf is littered with skulls recovered from the site and divided into sex and age as that is all the information they know about them. Its quite impressive when you see it, but in a very morbid way. There is a silence over the whole compound as people walk around deep in their own thoughts. As you walk around the site, you can see where the graves were and some are annotated explaining how many were in each. Even now, most graves haven't been investigated and have been left as they were. All along the pathways, you can see bits of clothing that had been buried coming to the surface in bits and pieces. Its quite disturbing normally but I had my worst moment here. In one corner of the field is a mass grave that held 120 women and children, beside it is a large tree that the guards used to kill the children by smashing them against it. As I was stood there, contemplating just how someone would bring themselves to do it, I heard the sound of children giggling carrying across the air from the nearby school. It really put the hairs on the back of my neck on end. As bad as this whole site is, it is simply a field less than 2 acres and in a peaceful rural setting. The whole experience is quite unsettling. I am glad I did it, as it really brought home to me the scale of what went on…but also the blithe acceptance from western countries who just dismissed/ignored it at the time and continue to do so in countries like Sudan and Zimbabwe (though to a lesser extent)

Anyway, in order to help cheer myself up after such a strange afternoon, I decided to go for dinner. - food always cheers me up J - We chose a restaurant called Friends, which is run by a charity that helps street children in Cambodia. It's a great little setup that trains children in a number of hospitality industries (all our waiters were former street kids) as well as practical skills such as welding, hairdressing and carpentry so that they can lead fulfilled lives moving forward. A very worthy cause, but also a great restaurant that specializes in Tapas. We had a great meal there, and as we had been staying away from western restaurants and eating locally most of the time, we then proceeded to clock up our largest food bill of the trip…all of $30 (£15) It was definitely worth it though. J

The next day, it was time for another 6 hour bus ride and our next stop….Vietnam.