We left Saigon early on Sunday morning to drive by public bus to the Vietnamese-Cambodian border at Bavet. To aid the border crossing process along we had the services of a local guide who accompanied us on the bus, distributed the necessary forms for us to fill in, collected in passports then disappeared into the immigration hall at the border while we wondered if we'd ever see our passports again.
After a brief wait in stifling heat, we were individually called to collect our passports and cross over the Vietnam border into No Man's Land ready for entry into the Kingdom of Cambodia. After having photographs and fingerprints taken, passports were stamped and we drove into Cambodia. After a brief lunch stop at a makeshift roadside restaurant we continued on our way to Phnom Penh, some three hours away.
First impressions of Cambodia were of surprise and a little sadness. I knew, given her history, that Cambodia was much poorer than her neighbour Vietnam but I didn't expect to see such abject poverty in the countryside. Houses or shacks on stilts made of little more than bamboo, wood or corrugated iron lined the roadside. Occasion lush green fields would be interspersed with dry, dusty road tracks and the river, the Mekong, was a murky, brown colour. Throughout our journey we saw children in bare feet and ragged clothes playing in the dust, cows in the fields or wandering across the road into the direct line of traffic, chickens and dogs and roadside shacks selling drinks, snacks, tyres or petrol in old Pepsi bottles. After the built-up towns in Vietnam with their bright advertising signs and throngs of people sitting or milling about the streets, I expected Cambodia to be the same so initially it was something of a shock. It was much quieter with considerably fewer cars or motorbikes on the roads. However, we did pass a fatal accident at one point, where a truck had gone off the road and the deceased were laid out, covered in tarpaulins, next to the wreckage.
We arrived in Phnom Penh in the late afternoon. After the sparseness of the countryside, the capital of Cambodia was a pleasant surprise. Foreign investment is helping to build modern shops and hotels that sit alongside the more traditional family-run businesses. Roads are wide and well laid out, with streets following a numbered, grid system. But the poverty is still there to see in Phnom Penh and the juxtaposition of rich and poor doesn't always sit well. Unfortunately, it's a legacy of the Khmer Rouge years, of which more later.
After checking into our hotel we took a walk into the city as dusk was falling. We walked down tree-lined boulevards and past the Royal Palace and Independence Monument, which marks Cambodia's freedom from the French in 1953. Everywhere in the city France's legacy can still be seen. Beautiful colonial style buildings and French names still remain in the city, a throwback to when Cambodia, with Vietnam and Laos was part of French Indochina.
In the main thoroughfare close to the Palace we saw huge groups of people who had gathered to dance en-masse, something, we were told, they do every night. It was wonderful to see and quite magical.
After dinner at a restaurant serving both local Khmer specialities and pizzas topped with 'happy' herbs, though my pizza wasn't particularly 'happy', we caught tuk tuks back to the hotel. It had been a long day and tomorrow we were going to be delving into Cambodia's devastating history. It would be a day that would leave us all somewhat shaken.
Monday morning dawned with a tour of S21 or the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. A former high school, during the reign of the Khmer Rouge it was transformed into one of several hundred prisons throughout Cambodia where tens of thousands of Cambodians - teachers, professors, intellectuals, ministers, farmers, men, women and children - were brought to be interrogated and tortured. Between 1975-1979 around 3 million Cambodians were killed by the Khmer Rouge, headed by Pol Pot. His vision for Cambodia was a return to its agrarian roots with an uneducated peasant stock working the land. The educated or middle classes were deemed dangerous and his plan was to eradicate them. He did away with education and currency and forced the people to work the land, effectively as slave labour. Almost forty years on, his legacy is still there to see. Indeed our guide, a man in his early forties described how his family was affected. He was separated from his parents and sent to a Children's Centre. His uncle went missing and was never seen again, presumed dead at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. His mother was forced into an arranged marriage, another of Pol Pot's decrees, despite being already married.
At S21 you can still see the cells where people were held, the photos of people who were imprisoned there, the instruments of torture, the testimonies of the women who were raped or people who were tortured and still see their blood on the ceilings and floors of the cells. There are also paintings depicting some of the utterly horrific scenes that took place at the prison and at Cheong Ek Genocide Center or the Killing Fields, where people were taken to be executed and their bodies buried or thrown into the river. At the end of the tour we were introduced to a survivor of S21 and one of the few people who managed to escape. It was humbling.
The experience of seeing S21 left an indelible impression on us. With heavy hearts we took the short trip to the Genocide Center, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. There were 343 similar centres in Cambodia at the height of the Khmer Rouge, a fact I find too unbelievable for words. You can see the mass graves where hundreds of men, women and children were executed and buried, and walk over ground where the clothes of those who died is still visible under the soil. We were brought past the palm tree where long shards of palm leaf were used to slit the throats of victims and past the Killing Tree where babies were beaten to death by being repeatedly thrown against the trunk of the tree. And in the midst of all this horror is the recently built towering glass pagoda housing the skulls and bones of the victims as a permanent monument to those who died. The experience of S21 and the Genocide Center was difficult to articulate and we drove back to the city pretty much in silence trying to make sense of it all.
Back in Phnom Penh, and still somewhat subdued, we went to the FCC, or foreign correspondents' hangout, for lunch with views out across the waterfront. Lunch was a local Khmer fish amok dish, and very tasty it was too. Later that afternoon we headed to the National Museum where thousands of priceless artefacts from Angkor Wat, some of them almost 1,500 years old, are housed. After being asked to make an offering to Buddha which inevitably involved parting with cold, hard cash we started to make tracks only to get caught up in the most incredible tropical thunderstorm. The rain fell fiercely and within a few minutes the streets became flooded. When we eventually decided to leave the shelter of the museum to find a tuk tuk, we had to wade through shin-deep water to get out of the grounds. The main streets came to resemble a river as cars, motorbikes and bikes waded through.The tuk tuk drove through the flooded streets until eventually the driver admitted defeat and decamped to a petrol station forecourt to wait it out. For the next forty-five minutes, we along with several scooters, tuk tuks and saffron-robed monks, waited for the water to subside. We eventually made it back to the hotel, taking several detours to avoid heavily water-logged streets. But it had certainly been an adventure.
For our last night in Phnom Penh we went to a restaurant, Friends, not that dissimilar to Streets in Hoi An in that it helps disadvantaged young people train to become chefs. The incredibly adventurous opted for deep fried tarantula followed by beef with red ants. I played it safe with tofu.
All too soon, our time in Phnom Penh had come to an end. I would have given anything to stay a little longer. Despite the fact that many middle-aged Cambodians are undoubtedly still haunted by their past, people were kind and extremely good-natured. They smile a lot. Many spoke surprisingly good English. Phnom Penh was a bit of a revelation and Cambodia had stolen a little bit of my heart. Still, at least we had a few more days in Cambodia. Our next destination was Siem Reap home of temples, temples and more temples including the daddy of them all Angkor Wat.