The six hour journey, from HCMC was spent at the rear of a coach over the wheel arch. It was a tad bumpy but mainly ok. About an hour in, the conductor collected everyones passports and took the money for the cambodian visa (plus a small commission to fill in the paperwork). We didn't take in much of the scenery, Jan was reading a book and I was dozing while catching up with some podcasts. As we reached the Vietnamese border, we were herded off the coach into the immigration hall. A solitary guard was on duty and there was a couple of other coach loads of people waiting to cross the border. The area in front of the guard was like a mosh pit, a scrum shuffled left and right as people reached and over-reached for their freshly stamped passport. Jan saw hers being held aloft and she dived forward and snatched with perfect timing. Mine came into view a few minutes later and with the shout of "mine", the passport was dutifully passed back to me. Easy. As we left the coach conductor was waiting and again took our passports from us. A short drive through no man's land brought us to the Cambodian border where the omnipresent coach conductor was already waiting for us. A quick scan of our hands and a smile into a camera found us in Cambodia.
No sooner are we across the border, its time for the driver to take a break.
As the coach pulled in a group of beggars appeared. But they were not counting on what happened next. A Russian girl of 6 or 7 years old had a major tantrum out front of the rest stop. The mum, grabbed her by the arm and shoved her round the corner for a stiff reprimand. The locals had stopped in their tracks and stood rooted to the spot watching the spectacle. They were absolutely transfixed. There was a group of 10 or so people who slowly inched closer and closer to watch the mum tell the child off. And this got us thinking. In our entire time away, we hadn't seen a single child behave that way, the kids who, for the most part are among the poorest in the world, were the most respectful and well behaved, go figure.
After everything settled down, the beggars regrouped and formed a queue by the coach door and rattled their steel bowls as everyone boarded.
There was an immediate difference in the scenery, the numerous chain-link villages of Vietnam gave way to mile upon mile of paddy fields dotted with grazing water buffalo and the occasional farming community.
Even rarer, we drove through a small town. The people looked impoverished, many wore dirty, ragged clothes and were shoeless. The differences between here and Vietnam went far deeper than the landscape.
As we sat in line for a short ferry ride across a river, we watched the hawkers prepare their goods for sale. Mangos were peeled and cut to look like lotus flowers, berries were arranged so that the choicest ones were on show at the top of the pile, meat and shrimps on skewers were put into fast boiling liquid, then laid on a rack to dry off. Once aboard the boat, the hawkers did there thing, maybe two dozen or more diligently went round each vehicle with their wares. Young kids had buckets with ice cold cans of drink, the skewered meat we saw being prepared earlier and enormous platters with a range of variously cooked insects. The fried crickets looked no different to shrimps, but they had a pile of 8 centimetre long cockroaches that had been artistically arranged with all legs facing upward and drizzled in what looked like finely chopped chilli and oil. These were the best and worst of the bunch, but the lady also had spiders, black shiny beetles that at a glance could have been mistaken for olives. I think we may lose a fair bit of weight in Cambodia.
We're dropped off in the centre of town and met by a pack of tuk tuk drivers who have run down the street after the coach in order to be first to get a fare. We always hang back an let the initial melee die down, we choose our driver from those that remain and we pay a dollar to be taken about a kilometre to the hotel.
A drink, a bite to eat in the rooftop bar and we were done. A nice welcome to Phnom Penh.
About 15 minutes walk from our hotel was Tuol Sleng or S21, this was a former kindergarten that was converted into a prison by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge where over 20,000 men, women and children were imprisoned, tortured before being taken to the killing fields to be executed.
Immediately, the misery of the place is palpable. A heaviness descended on us and as we sat on a bench, reading about the history of the building, I suspect if either one of us said we didn't want to go any further, there would have been little protestation from the other.
The first 14 cells had the bed frames and a photograph of one of the final inmates of S21 to be executed. The black and white pictures were as gruesome as one would expect. These poor, poor souls were just hours away from liberation. Their identities were never established and they are buried within the complex, in a memorial garden surrounded by beautiful frangipani trees, whose fragrant white flowers drop continually onto the tombs.
We walked around the various prison blocks, these should have been classrooms, but instead, they'd been converted into tiny brick or wooden cells, some barely 3 feet wide and 6 feet long. Even with the cells empty, the air was stifling and walking through the gloomy block was extraordinarily uncomfortable, the feeling of fear and dread and pain lingers still.
The final exhibition was the hardest to bare. The photograph of every prisoner that was taken to Tuol Sleng is displayed in room after room after room. We saw photos of the elderly, of children, and the disabled. Many of the prisoners' photos revealed evidence of previous beatings, black eyes, broken jaws.
In the eyes of thousands, we saw hatred and very occasionally defiance, but mostly we saw terror.
Every single person suffered the same fate, imprisonment,torture and a horrific death.
On our way out of the genocide museum an old man sat at a book stall. His name is Chum Mey and he is one of only 7 people known to have survived imprisonment at Tuol Sleng. A lump caught in my throat, Jan stood there, torn between giving him a hug and crying for his suffering. After what seemed an eternity, he smiled, we lightly bowed to him and walked away just too emotionally scrambled to do anything worthy. We did absolutely nothing for the rest of that day.
We lost 3 days due to me being ill, a bit of bed rest and plenty of liquids (a few chip baguettes) sorted me out though.
The royal palace is a complex of various wats and reception rooms set in immaculate grounds in the heart of the city. The architecture was pretty impressive, however many of the buildings were not open to the public, which in light of the comparatively high entry price, seemed a little unfair. However what we could see was impressive, vast friezes adorned the walls and ceilings, the rugs were made to perfectly replicate the intricate pattern of the floor tiles. The grounds also host the silver pagoda so called because of the solid silver floor tiles. These are now largely covered over with rugs and carpet to protect them, however, samples of the tiles were on display to demonstrate their opulence.
Inside the pagoda there is a life size statue of Buddha which was made of solid gold and that has been encrusted with 2,086 diamonds, the largest measuring 25 carats. BER-LING!
Phnom Penh feels like a modern city, trying, but struggling to move forward. The people are delightful, they work hard and study hard, usually at the same time. We felt they want to move on from the dark past. But people come for the Black Tourism, to hear the awful stories and to see the ghosts. It keeps the wound open just that little bit longer. Onward to Kep