So, on Monday 11th November, the guys on the truck had another 6.00 am start, whilst Sue, Sarah, Jon and I had a leisurely breakfast and then headed off to the tiny airport at Vientiane and got onto a packed twin-propellor plane, first to Pakse (a small city in the far south of Laos) and then on to Siem Reap. Most disconcertingly, as we sat waiting to taxi out, we read that on 16th October a similar plane on this very route had crashed into the Mekong, tragically killing all 49 passengers.
There had been some heavy rain-storms in Cambodia (latterly the fringes of Typhoon Haiyan that hit the Philippines and Vietnam) and from the air, we saw great swathes of the country-side under water right up to the airport, punctuated by the tips of trees and houses with a new-found shoreline.
Poor Cambodia, a country that has been in the wars literally and metaphorically for several generations. As with Laos, it was sucked into the Indo-China war and with the withdrawal of America and it's allies in the mid 1970s, it was left with a huge power-vacuum. This was filled by Vietnamese interference and, more infamously, by Pol Pot (bizarrely, this was not his real name, but an abbreviation of 'political potential' from his French university days) and the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge's policies were based on the crazed dogma of creating a 'pure, self-sufficient peasant society'. To achieve this, the cities were emptied and their inhabitants sent out into the countryside to be 'turned into peasants'; the money-economy was abolished and anyone who was, or appeared to be, intellectual (for example they committed the heinous crimes of wearing glasses, or having un-calloused hands) were singled out for the worst treatment. Dissenters, or 'enemies of the regime' were sent to torture camps for the extraction of a 'confession', before they and their entire family were brutally executed. In little more than 10 years, a quarter of the Cambodian population perished, either in the Indo-China war, or through disease, starvation, forced labour or torture / execution.
The Vietnamese called an end to the regime in 1979 by invading, but this simply pre-saged a 20 year civil war, with the Khmer Rouge retreating to the jungle and only really ending with the death of Pol Pot in 1998. The situation is more stable now, but the government and economy remains dominated by Vietnam and there is widespread allegation that the last election was rigged in favour of the ruling party. The people have an indomitable faith in the UN to help them keep their development on the right track, which could seem a little naive when noting that the Security Council allowed the Khmer Rouge a place right up until 1993 and their members apparently regularly attended sessions in New York.
The suffering of the Cambodian people in the Indo-China war and under the Khmer Rouge still felt like an open-wound at times. Our guide Chet, was 1 year old, when the Khmer Rouge entered his home city of Siem Reap. His parents were sent to an agriculture camp and he spent the next 5 years with his aunt. His parents survived and he smiled when he told the story, but there was a sadness in his eyes that belied him.
The horrors were really brought home to us though, when we visited the Killing Fields Museum (where victims were brought by the truckload to be executed and dumped into mass graves) and the Tuong Sleng prison in Pnom Penh, which has been turned into a genocide museum. Tuong Sleng was a school, which was converted into one of the main holding centres, where 'enemies of the state' were brought to have their confessions extracted. The cells were grisly enough, but the most powerful 'exhibit', was a series of panels, where the photograph of every inmate (including tiny children) holding their identification number was displayed. Here was raw, emotional power deflected back at the camera: shock, confusion, terror, pleading, denial, defiance, pain, exhaustion, anger, hatred, sorrow, pity, compassion, resignation - spirits alive and then broken.
This feels like a story that still needs to be told. Indeed the UN-backed court to try some of the Khmer Rouge perpetrators was only started in 2006 and is ongoing. At Tuong Sleng, we met Chum Mey who was one of the few survivors of the camp and has given evidence at the court. In a horrible irony, he survived, because he was a mechanic and, at the price of his life, was forced to repair the typewriters that were used to record the confessions of his fellow prisoners and ultimately his own. For a few dollars, we bought a signed copy of his memoirs and he showed us his picture in the display.
Despite this grisly overhang, we enjoyed our 8 nights in Cambodia and there is much positive to be viewed and experienced here, which explains why it has become such a big tourist draw in the last 10 years. Uppermost here, is the Angkor Wat complex a few miles to the north of Siem Reap. Built in the 12th century, it was the capital of the Khmer Empire, which dominated south-east Asia in its hey-day. We took a couple of days to see the area, but could easily have taken another. On the first, we rose at 4 am to get a spot by the lake and see the sun rise over the main temple. On the second, we hired bicycles and cycled some of the way round the huge site, stopping on a couple of occasions to take partial shelter from torrential tropical downpours.
In some ways we were under-awed by Angkor Wat itself, but wowed by the succession of temples, shrines and old walls to the north of the main site at Angkor Thom and beyond. Many of these were partially hidden by forest (indeed new buildings are still being uncovered), with tree roots growing like coiled snakes into and out of old walls. Because some of these were so well hidden, there were far fewer people around them and this exclusivity added to our enjoyment. We didn't venture too far off the path, though, as we had been warned that some areas had not been cleared fully of Khmer Rouge mines.
On one of the evenings, we went to see a Cirque du Soleil style circus show, written and performed by a school for under-privileged children that specialises in creative education. The energy and enthusiasm of the performers (particularly knowing they came from difficult backgrounds) was inspiring and, even if the jugglers dropped their props a couple of times, it was all still very impressive and enjoyable.
For the rest of our time in Siem Reap, we took advantage of the pool, read, starting getting this blog up to date and enjoyed the great food and drink in the bars and restuarants of Siem Reap. The tourist scene was interesting here, because it managed to encompass everything from the lowest backpacker hovel, sorry hostel, to a 6 star resort (owned by the Vietnamese, we understand). In any case, by the end of our 5 nights, we had got our equilibrium back and ready to hit the road again (though Archie had been left at the border and swapped for a small coach, as the Cambodian authorities wouldn't give it a licence).
We were straight back in the saddle, with a 10 hour stint, stopping at a roadside cafe, where fried terantula and other insects were on the menu (see pic below). Our next stop, Phnom Penh, was interesting as the capital and also the best place to get to understand the horrors of the last 50 years. There was not much else to see here other than a lively night scene. We initially enjoyed the £1 mojitos and the great food, but we quickly spotted the nasty underlying 'sex' industry. A lot of the bars openly had prostitutes waiting to entice customers, but far worse were the rumours that paedophilia was not far beneath the surface and stories of families 'selling' their children into prostitution. Sue and I went off to watch a showing of The Killing Fields and embarrassed ourselves by accidentally walking into the adjacent building which was a brothel: we beat a hasty, red-faced retreat, to the amusement of the occupants!
As a much needed counter-balance to this, we took a walk down to the river front (yes, our friend the Mekong again), where locals were promenading as part of the celebrations for their 'Water Festival'. We followed the tide to a large square, where a large crowd had gathered in front of the Royal Palace, which was lit up by thousands of golden bulbs. An excited and entirely good natured hubbub filled the air, alongside the smell of roasting meats and whole families were sat in circles around picnic blankets. This was a great way to finish our stop in Pnom Penh and to show us that there is an undercurrent of goodness and optimism here that will stand the country and it's people in good stead as they continue to build on their recovery from their past problems.
Our final overnight stop in Cambodia was in Battambang, a pleasant city of 250,000 people on the banks of the Sangkae river, that completed our loop of Lake Tonke Sap. On the lake, we took a short boat trip through a floating village, populated by Vietnamese Water Gypsies who had fled up the Mekong river in the early stages of the Indo China war and had never left.
On the way back to the Thai border, we stopped at a beautiful temple sitting atop a rocky pinnacle with commanding views over the surrounding rice fields. There must have been 300 steps to the top and young children wearing English football shirts raced up alongside, flapping fans to cool us and hoping to earn a $1 fee in return. It is hard to be cruel in these circumstances, but these children should clearly be at school and giving them money would only encourage them to keep staying away.
This brings us to Thailand, which we will tell you about in our next post. We will, however, just say that as we write this a State of Emergency has been declared in Bangkok and there have been riots on the streets. For those of you worrying, you needn't: we left Bangkok on 22nd November, just as the demonstrations were starting up and headed south almost to the Malaysian border where we are safely and peacefully ensconced on a beautiful island in the Andaman Sea, before heading down to Kuala Lumpur.
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