I heart Cambodia
Sarah says:
I desperately want to dispel those terrible rumors and impressions from message boards and guidebooks that the only reason to go to Cambodia is for Angkor Wat and a traveler should “get in and get out”. I want to scream from the mountain tops, “I LOVE CAMBODIA! GO TO CAMBODIA!”.
Sure, Phnom Pehn is not the most pleasant city. The poverty is massive, incomprehenisible, surrounding you all the time. It’s the country’s capitol city yet most of the streets are unpaved, a red dusty mess. There are chickens pecking around major inner-city construction sites. There are stray cats and dogs everywhere and always, always, hungry children and disfigured landmine victims asking for food and money. It’s tough to be there, this is no lie.More…
We didn’t go to PP to do happy things. On our list, on everyone’s list, was to visit the museum that was once a high school and then the city prison where Pol Pot had thousands and thousands of people sent to be tortured before being driven by the truckloads to the killing fields 7 kms away. We walked silently through the classrooms turned brick or wood cells where people were chained and beaten, starved and tortured: mothers in cells with their babies, children of all ages - all innocent. If you squint real hard you can see how it was once a school but you don’t have to try very hard at all to feel all the ghosts in the air. Of the 15,000 or so people who were kept prisoner there from 1975-1979, only 7 lived to tell about it. Each prisoner’s mug-shot was displayed for you to walk among and we desperately wanted to look at each and every face to pay each person respect. To say, “we see you, we are thinking about you, we wish you peace”. To say that the Cambodian people are physically beautiful is an understatement and it was remarkable how many of the girls and women still looked stunningly beautiful in their mug shots even though we know they had likely gone through unimaginable hell right before the photo was taken. I was standing in front of these pictures thinking, “I was alive on the day you had this picture taken. I was probably playing outside and you were here, your life about to be brutally taken, you were in so much pain and agony, confusion and bewilderment. We woke up on the same day but my day ended very differently.” I watched a tourist bus pull into the main front gate, the same gate through which trucks drove in and out on their way to the Killing Fields. We opted not to visit the Killing Fields as most tourists do, driving in tuk-tuks along the same route as the people in these photos had taken. We’d kind of seen enough. Instead, we walked down some dusty, dilapidated side-street, through a 10-foot high corrugated iron fence and into the most lovely, tranquil garden cafe and decompressed. It was surreal to go from one environ to something so completely different and that juxtaposition didn’t pass us by.
We have heard of foreigners moving to Phnom Penh for one reason or another and we honestly didn’t stay long enough to be able to see how anyone could stand it. I mean, we did have some good times. We had our glorious dinner (see my previous post) and I also had the most amazing massage at Seeing Hands, a message therapy institute where all the therapists are blind and my happily spent $4 went to an excellent cause. And, of course, you can’t put a price on the random conversations we had with locals - obviously that’s partly what this whole endeavor is all about. We also got a huge kick out of all the variations they have on the 7-11 convenience store: 7-Nice, 7-Happy, 7-Super…..Looking back, we think that, as with any culture and city so crazily different from your own, you need to give it time to see the beauty and we just plain didn’t give PP the time. We listened to the guide book and headed straight for Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat. As with the bus ride into the city from the border crossing, the drive out of the city north gave us a chance to see how GORGEOUS this country is. The landscape is rich and lush, the village houses are all built on stilts among palm trees and jungle, the sun always seems to be shining a favorable light no matter what time of day it is. The children all come to the road to wave at the bus; everything about it just kind of makes your heart smile.
Please read about Angkor Wat or, better yet, fly to Cambodia and see it for yourself. It’s one of the ancient wonders of the world and it IS truly spectacular but I’m not going to write much on it. We spent 2 days in a tuk-tuk touring around them (ok, for those who don’t know and want to finish reading my blog before researching: wats are temples and Angkor is the name of the city as well as the name of the reigning dynasty responsible for building these stunning stone carved temples in the 11th century, the detailing putting anything in Europe to shame). The main little town that visitors stay in to visit the temples is Siem Reap and it was absolutely charming. We weren’t expecting to love it as much as we did and I’m so thankful that we had at least 3 days there but I would have liked to spend more. The people just make your heart melt, their warmth and sincerity shining through if the guarded tourist can open up and take a chance on a real conversation underneath the desperate pleas for money. We got to be friends with the owner of the 7-Happy where we bought our water everyday and we talked about his store as he asked us about our trip and wished us well.
I had this constant feeling of happiness, of just loving being there. I had this overwhelming feeling of wanting to help, contribute in some way. Right now, seeing as we have no income, there is only so much we can do. One of the big problems is simply getting kids in school and keeping them there so we bought some kids’ artwork from and organization that gives 100% of the profits back to local schools. We also bought a few little things from an organization that trains and employs women who would otherwise likely be on the street. We visited this fantastic photo gallery displaying the works of kids who’ve been given a camera and some skills and sent out the take street pictures. They’re also given a safe place to play in the afternoons, to do their homework, to shower and drink clean water (if anyone has seen Born Into Brothels, it’s kind of the Cambodian equiv.). My heart is welling up right now all over again. I just can’t say enough.
Unfortunately, we simply didn’t budget enough time for Cambodia. There are other towns I’ve love to see, more time I’d love to spend and give, more money I’d love to give….and since we heard fantastic things about Laos as well and we didn’t get there, I guess we have another trip to SE Asia in our future!