Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Phnom Penh. The photo sums it up. A bit of gold and gilt, a bit of development and poverty.
I felt apprehensive about Cambodia. I knew about the street kids, beggars and poverty as well as it's deeply dark recent past. I sat next to a Cambodian guy on the bus from Saigon who was truly lovely and filled me in on life in Cambodia and what to see and do as well as assuring me my passport was safe on crossing the border.
When you get into cambodia the landscape is almost instantaneously different. As it's much less developed than vietnam, there are barren fields and palm trees and houses set back from the road. Not much agriculture, no rice paddies just mangy cows.
We arrived in Phnom Penh and I had a little late afternoon wander and felt almost panicky. There are a lot of westerners here. The worst kind. There are so many western men with khmer women it's disgusting. For me, an abuse of power; the men have money and the women have next to nothing. I saw a man at a restaurant with seven or eight local women sitting around him. I had a drink at a bar with local women dressed to the nines. I tried to talk to them but they just clinked glasses with me looking truly miserable. The place where I'm staying is owned by a fat old Aussie and his, surprise surprise, local wife ( I wouldn't have stayed there had I know as I would rather give local people my money than that chump). Another obnoxious cafe owner (canadian this time) started telling me earlier how his dog barks at beggars which is great because he can't stand them. I had a coffee this morning with two guys both necking beers at 8am. Why does this city attract these people with so little respect, who just want to get pissed, smoke weed, which is prolific, and god knows what else? I just keep turning away from them all as I don't know what I may say if I get into conversations with these pigs.
Last night I met a Canadian photographer and we had dinner at one of the many charity run restaurants. This one supports marginalised youth. So there are positive things going on but I'm not sure the grassroots training is there. Are they teaching Cambodians to run their own businesses or giving them the freedom to be hospitable the khmer way as opposed to western hospitality? Urgh, who knows but the whole place leaves me cold.
So to genocide. I spent most of the morning sobbing my way around the killing fields and S21, the brutal torture prison. On the tuk tuk ride back from the killing fields I just kept thinking what psychologically drives people to be able to commit the most horrible and heinous of crimes? One testimony of a former guard stated that his agreement to murder tens of thousands of people will always be on his conscience. He knows it was wrong. SO WHY?! Can an ideology or cult of person really make you do that? To let your guards brutally murder babies, rape and kill women, bludgeon men to death?
Pol Pot, a name that means potential politique and given to him to him during his education in France was the most evil of beings. Such gems as justifying killing whole families because 'to kill the grass you must kill the roots too' and 'it's better to kill an innocent than risk letting a guilty man walk free' where uttered in his quest for communist utopia.
One in five cambodians were killed by the genocide at the hands of the khmer rouge. A fifth of the population. It's a devastating history. Who knows what impact it's had.
This blog has a lots of questions and I'm not sure anyone knows the answers. So I'm leaving in the morning with a heavy heart. I hope that the sex tourists aren't omnipresent here, that I can have a chance to fund cambodians directly and that I find some beauty in a country that genuinely has been to hell and back.
- comments
P But tell me, did you sail across the sun to see all lights all faded ?
saroj bell Hmmm, thought provoking, Rach. Hard to digest, I am sure!
Jess Hunter There are no answers.. apart from that you are being brave enough to open yourself and your heart and your mind to the reality of the atrocities that the human nature is capable of. Many people never do that in life and live in a bubble, for better or worse, it is their prerogative, but you are being brave by looking the good and the bad parts of humanity directly in the eye. What a contrast withe delights of Mr Bin....you are growing and you will have changed and grown like a tree that grows its roots into the soil for secuirty and stability and its branches into the air for the light, the nature and the sun. Your compassion will deepen, your heart beat stronger...You are brave sister...Full respect......Go and get you some relax time now..harrowing is a luxury that westerners can walk away from. Ans that is ok to do...when life lessons have been learnt..