Page 68 - Phonebox Magazine February 2008

68 Phonebox Magazine
mosquitoes near enough eating us alive. Itching aside we took upon discovering the
‘real’ Phnom Penh which we knew would be a mixture of light and very dark.
We started our exploration of Phnom Pehn by hiring a tuk tuk driver for the day at a cost of 12 US dollars. “Tiar” would drive us around all day and stop anywhere we wanted for this price. Aware that we would learn about and witness some of Camdodia’s dark past, we opted to visit a gun range first, as neither of us could imagine firing guns after any of the other darker experiences.
After a dusty drive to just out of the city, we arrived to be greeted by a group of young men, all very eager to show us the arsenal of weaponry on display that we had the chance to fire (believe us when we say you had the option to do just about anything). Between us we fired an AK57, AK47 (Mark) and a M16 and Colt 45 (Emma). Unfortunately there were no bullets for the Anti aircraft gun and the Rocket Launcher was 200 US Dollars – out of our price range.
We were told that a very rich Chinese banker visited the range and paid 5000 US dollars to buy and blow up a pick-up truck that had a gas canister in the back, with a rocket launcher. They said it was the biggest explosion they had ever seen!
After the
excitement of the
gun range we
moved onto the killing fields, again just outside Phnom Pehn. This was a horrible, gut wenching experience and the pair of us were left feeling physically sick and deeply shocked. In 1975, when Cambodia fell to Pol Pot, the country quickly plummeted into darkness. Pol Pot declared ‘year zero’ and directed a ruthless program to ‘purify’ Cambodian society of capitalism, Western culture, religion and all foreign influences, replaced instead with an isolated and totally self reliant state; no opposition was tolerated at all. All educated and professionals, people of different religions, minorities, basically anyone who wasn’t a peasant or a farmer was targeted.
Around three million Cambodians, or about one quarter of the
country’s entire population of about seven million died during nearly four years of Pol Pot’s rule.
The killing fields were a number of sites in Cambodia where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the Communist regime
Khmer Rouge (under Pol Pot). The site we visited (sold to a Japanese company by the government for a lump sum, which the Cambodians will never benefit from and are very unhappy the government made
a profit from their misfortune) had 86 mass graves with nearly 9000 victims discovered, all unidentifiable. To remember the victims, a memorial tower has been created with the skulls, bones and clothing displayed of the victims who couldn’t be traced, the only way they knew people were dead was due to the fact that each victim had their photo taken before execution.
It is probably not right for this
article to go into detail about the
nature of the killings but the
years under the Khmer Rouge
were near unthinkable, acts were barbaric, almost medieval, and life was crushed. Under the Khmer Rouge you did not look to the left or the right, just down at the ground. Even whistling a tune that did not represent Khmer Rouge belief could get you killed.
The day continued at the S21 Prison museum where we learnt further about the trauma of the Cambodian people. Again S21 was a Pol Pot creation, a school that was turned into a prison and interrogation centre where many Cambodians, even foreigners stuck inside the country, were interrogated, tortured and executed. It was a
hard day after soaking up all that happened, and the pair of us found it hard to break many smiles. A visit to the Russian Market afterwards helped get us back into the travelling vibe and we found some great buys with our haggling skills from Vietnam, it helped to lighten the day which had quickly turned very somber.
After spending just about every minute of the day with each other for nearly two months, we decided that we would do our own thing the next day with Mark visiting a national kickboxing match (the only foreigner in the arena!) and Emma visiting an orphanage with a girl we’d met on a tour. This proved quite healthy for the both of us and it was great to tell different stories when we got back – talking about, for example, the ceremonial music and atmosphere of the boxing to the emotional experience of poor conditions and quality of life for children who deserve more.
The next place we decided to visit after Phnom Penh was Ban Lung, in the north eastern province of Ratanakiri. This small town and indeed the area of Ratanakiri is not often ventured to by travellers, either through a lack of knowledge or the uneasiness of venturing out of Camdodia’s major cities. The bus journey took 13 hours and trust us when we say Cambodian buses are not comfortable; nor did the roads resemble . . . well . . . roads.
About six hours in the roads turned from
reasonably smooth major tarmac roads to orange dusty roads with more craters than the moon. The bus was overcrowded, with some locals sitting on plastic chairs in the aisle, and it
seemed we would never get to our destination as the bus stopped every five minutes, doing what appeared to be family favours or a bit of business on the side. However, we arrived as darkness fell in Ban Lung, unsure if this was finally where we were meant to be.
Grabbing our oily, orange dust covered bags we were bombarded with local guest house owners trying to secure our custom, the last thing you want after the journey, yet the best thing when you’ve arrived
without pre-booking a room!
The town of Ban Lung summed up: well its
dusty (orange), extremely hot and looks like a town in the wild west, with a similar atmosphere you get the impression that life can be very tough in this hardened town. The pair of us were permanently sporting orange hair and faces (Emma thought she might finally have a tan) and our clothes were never fresh for more than 5 minutes. This was another point where we both realised how far from home we were as converted vehicles (some with literally just an engine and seat) chugged by and clouds of thick orange dust constantly swirled around making even the plantation orange.
Ban Lung itself doesn’t really take more than a day max to discover given it’s size and lack of any real distinctive attractions. What we had come for was the waterfalls, a volcano lake, jungle vines and elephant trekking in the surrounding area of the town. To achieve this we opted to hire a couple of motorbike drivers to take us to and from on this exciting adventure, both of these guys would be much more capable of dealing with the off road tracks (you could actually fall down a pot-hole!) and were sure to have a better sense of direction.
The day started by driving down to the market and purchasing face masks to enable us to
Cambodia . . continued
breath through the dust clouds on our motorbike journey. From there we drove to a small village to hitch a ride on an elephant to the first waterfall, which was an amazing yet uncomfortable experience! We finally arrived an hour later after many stops, which was down to our elephants enormous appetite and an occasional lack of obedience. Throughout the day we visited three magnificent waterfalls,