There is a bustling industry in Cambodia (and Vietnam, and anywhere in Asia, really) where locals photocopy novels and sell the ubiqitous Lonely Planets at wildly reduced prices to us turistas. Like, it breaks my heart that I am buying cut-price Lonely Planets, right?
Amongst these, next to the endless stacks of Life of Pi and Mr. Nice, were self-published (or practically so) books of histories and testimonials of people's experience under the Khmer Rouge. Thanks to these and gruelling museums, I have had a much larger dose of Cambodian history than I expected, or maybe even needed.
In a word. Sad, sad, sad. The country tried it's level best to stay out of the American/Vietnam war next door but ended up being sucked into the vortex. And that was bad, sure, but then....ah....but then.
Then came a time it's still hard to anyone to fathom, and certainly can't explain - even (or maybe especially) for those who went through it. A genocide of the people by the people. Naught to do with race, religion, status, gender - just plain killing of fellow citizens.
This mindless cannibalsim meant that there was no invading bad guys, no imperialist bogeyman, no government, political or corporate body to blame - just each other. And, therefore, no international outrage (or sympathy), no saviour, no Rambo, no where to direct both the bitterness nor the healing.
After all that happened in Cambodia, still no one has been jailed or brought to charges. The Khmer Rouge continued to represent Cambodia in the United Nations until 1999, and Pol Pot died a happy old man. That is, if he did die (he and his wife disappeared under unwitnessed circumstances, with no body left after the fact).
Cambodia is trying to get justice, or closure, or even dialogue. Trials are slowly under way of the extremely wealthy remaining old men, who have been forcibly pried out of their mansions to stand trial. Witnesses wait patiently day after day after day willing to be called to testify. Entire families camp outside the court house in silent memory of their lost relatives. And so many to remember...We read "The Gate" by Francois Bizot, who is also patiently waiting to testify against 'Duch' - the leader and warder of S-21. Duch is, yes, still alive and well and employing an extremely expensive Dutch team of lawyers that are stalling his trial as much as they can (hoping to have the UN-funded war crimes tribunal run out of funds).
The Gate was a moving book, with especially fascinating insight to the unconditional support that the Left in the West had for the Khmer Rouge at the time. There isn't much I can say about S-21. I mean, who looks at a suburban high school and thinks, ah, just the place for a detention, torture and execution centre? There's a link below. The place flayed us both, as this was not a lifetime ago. Imagine. I was listening to the Dead Kennedy's Holiday In Cambodia when the Killing Fields were going on. My worst moments were the photos of the dead - for most the first and last photos of their lives.
People who wore glasses were intellectuals and imprisoned. Women who had too many children were class traitors and imprisoned. Women who had too few children were not supporting the cause and were imprisoned. Elderly people were too feeble to contribute. Children of seven were removed for re-education, and prison guards were always 12 - 15 years old: because they had no conscience, or empathy, and their cruelty was unsurpassable. It was a master class in genocide.Today's tourist officials say less than 2000 'died or moved', while Amnesty estimated that over 25% of the entire population of the country disappeared.
Meanwhile, Mia Farrow will hopefully rot in hell for coming to S-21 not to show support for the trials, but to disrupt them, in order to draw media attention to Darfur. Because Vietnam still trades with Darfur. Nope. I couldn't figure this out either.
Weeks and weeks later, when we re-discovered Pascale and Matt - first met in Mongolia, then again on the beaches of Rabbit Island - he told us his story of escaping from Cambodia when he was nine. Firstly avoiding the landmines and army of the Khmer Rouge to stop him leaving, then the Thai army to stop him arriving in Thailand. This was his first time back in the country, and, as he put it, was happy to leave, happy to come back and really happy to be leaving again.
And the stacks of skulls at S-21 - a brutal thing for a Buddhist people to live with. Burning the bones of the dead releases their spirit, but the people don't want this meagre evidence to be burned away, until some closure has taken place. Imagine, they are having to keep their dead compatriots trapped in limbo, unreleased, as proof - in the hope that the world will believe what really happened here.
So Cambodia, I love Cambodia. But I feel my delight of the country is so coloured by the recent history, and so joy turns to ashes in my mouth.
I was watching a whole flock of young kids play naked in the dust in Siem Reap. Tumbling around with just the occasional bit of clothing, shrieking in the sunshine, it was like a perfect moment of childhood. And it made me realize that that isn't something I see too much anymore. I can't even recall seeing my family's kids nekkid (bar the extremely rare diaper change by this itinerant great-auntie) never mind a stranger's.
Children, and their exploitation are a big, big issue in Cambodia. Hey, whenever I thought of the place prior to coming here, my associations went like this: Angkor Wat. Pol Pot. Paedophiles (Gary Glitter). And there is no doubt it's a huge, huge problem here.
But I am happy to say that the government is starting to make some moves...Hotels are listed as 'Child Safe' - no one under 16 can stay in a hotel unless they are accompanied by an adult with passports proving they are family. And any hotel caught with an under-age kid onsite loses their licence to host foreigners (by far the most lucrative side of any hotel trade)..
Koh Kong remains the biggest paedophile hangout in the world - but publicity and the new fancy Thai-Cambodian highway running right through it with bus after bus of far more savoury and bigger spending 'normal' tourists is shining one hell of a big spotlight on the place.
Posters and handouts and rewards for reporting perverts and hotel programs and street kid hostels and education and awareness and so on, it's really good to see. But I do recall spending an awful lot of time bare assed as a kid, and I am sad that that's not cool anymore. I wish kids everywhere could run around nekkid, and be safe, cause that is really, really cool to see..
After the bright lights of the big city of Phnom Pehn, we decided to explore the south coast a bit. I had always heard so-so reports on the beaches and coast of Cambodia (that they were dirty, urban or non-existent) so I was really not expecting much - especially after the disappointment of the hyped Vietnam beach scene.
Wild things began to happen immediately.
Firstly, the four hour, highly entertaining bus ride gave us our first good luck at rural Cambodia. Dusty. Far quieter with less people than anywhere I have been lately, bar Saskatchewan. Or maybe Mongolia. But certainly beautiful and quiet.
Good-natured people, who don't barge on the bus - the seats are numbered! - and no one grumbles when we all have to troop off as the bus needed to cross a rickety board bridge that wouldn't have taken all our combined weight. All very amenable and pleasant, and the drivers didn't mind dropping us off at an unscheduled stop closer to the scattering of hotels in Kep.
Travelling and buses being the way they are in Cambodia, we got to the town of Kep in late afternoon on a Saturday and after real difficulty got an overpriced cold water hovel and went to stroll the town. The Ghost Town. It was just bloody eerie. Considering that every hotel was booked solid (and there were a lot of hotels) you didn't see a soul out and about - everyone comes down from Phnom Pehn, checks in to the hotel and just parks themselves.
Stumbling around in the dark, we eventually made our way to the charming Riel Bar, with a great south african born German owner named Marcel, who we hit it off with instantly. He had draft beer for sale. And he was a sound engineer for bad old bands I knew from the bad old days, eg. Siouxsie and the Banshees. Then it got even weirder when he played the Butthole Surfers and I said, hey! I used the know the tuba player for this band! I used to go-go dance for them! and he came back astonished, with the names that Trevor Malcolm - the tuba player in question - had been sitting in my chair not three weeks before. Okay, so that bent my mind. A lot.
Kep is an old resort, once the playground of the rich and infamous of Cambodia prior to all the troubles in the 1970s, so the place is peppered with crumbling old mansions and derelict buildings with huge overgrown gardens and broken walls. Usually with someone camped in the ruins, using them as at least some minor shelter. My first impresson of it as a ghost town was bang on, methinks.
We wandered around, gawped at old ruins, ate at the local crab shacks, which was stupid cheap and stupidly mindblowingly delicious and well, that was about it, really. The beach was really shite, really really shite, so I can see where the reports come from.
So we were really ready to kick on to Rabbit Island - Koh Tonsay in Khmer - a place that Chris had picked out on the map months before when he was looking over maps in China. And what a special little find it was indeed.
It was rustic to the point of almost being cartoon-like. We had a teeny bamboo bungalow on stilts, with a mattress, a light that worked from 6 - 9pm and a pink mosquito net. The shower was a big barrel of water with a dipper and the toilet was just a potty with another dipper. Oh, and a fantastic beach pretty much to ourselves after the day trippers left at 3pm.
lt was quiet and calm (except for the fukken roosters at 5 am) and we spent days simply lying around reading on the large beach. There were six or seven little bungalow groupings, each with a restaurant, with the usual Cambodian restaurant fare - rice, noodles, etc, but with the most amazing, organic shrimp, crab, squid and fish, dragged in from the sea right in front of us. Oh, and we discovered the joys of absolutely delicious deep fried eggs...
And the thing that really got my mind blown even more was lying in the sun one day and hearing...Sheila? C'est vous, la?? and looking up to see....Pascale and Matt! our lost little friends last seen in the Gobi Desert! wow!! So we had our little buddies with us for the rest of their stay, as well as making many new friends, too. It was a really special time all round, and we ended up staying there for almost three weeks!
Meanwhile, Marcel tells us the island has been sold to a foreign - owned developer with plans to open a casino on the island. Each of the families is getting $8000 - the only delay is they want to build a bridge from the mainland (why not just build on the mainland?) and the environmental lobby are creating a stink about it. Which really means, a bigger kickback needs to be made.
After the incredibleness of Angkor Wat, of which more later, we did our re-run of South Cambodia - having decided to swing south into Thailand - but in somewhat of a hurry as our visas were running out, again! Cambodia seems to entice me to stay and linger....
Bus through dusty villages with smiley wavey people back to Phnom Pehn. Which is starting to feel like home, already. Since we got the patter down by now - where to stay, eat, get tickets and so forth - it's all so effortless. And the next day it's back on the entertaining bus to Kep. With no glitches at all, and even taking the time to help other tourists, we are suddenly back on Rabbit Island.
In retrospect, this was probably a bad move.
Not only did we go back to a really special place that had really special synchronicity and magic - especially the incredible coincidence of seeing Matt and Pascale, and of course the fact that the water is full of phosporesence - but we bloody arrived on a Saturday morning on the biggest holiday of the year, Chinese New Year.
We barely got a hovel, the beach was awash with garbage (the Cambodians are really not too into recycling or picking up litter) and it was just all round nasty. In a mere ten weeks since we had last been, there were many new huts, new workers and none of the usual island families around. The horror!
I was intrigued to see the local fishermen had to put numbers on their boats, and now had to supply life jackets to the tourists that they formerly just tucked into their empty skiff next to the boxes of food and beer they were taking over anyways. And I bet they are none too happy by the pier built by an off-islander who put it up to bring big yachts in. and on the mainland, construction of a big parking lot for tourist buses to load up at the pier is well under way. This is all to go to a tiny island with a beach about 500metres long. Wow, are they going to be overrun.
So, I had a big crisis. Our little hideaway desert island is 'found'. When I meet the b*****d from the Guardian who wrote a glowing article about Rabbit Island, which was then promptly reprinted in the Globe and Mail (Canada) and the New York Times, I think I will have to smack him. Every second person I met quoted that article (grrr).
But then, you know, I grew up without running water in my very early youth. And it was great when we got it. So if all this means that the islanders get electricity, and water, and sewage and enough money to maybe send their kids to school, well then good for them. Just because I have some romantic ideal of a castaway island (but not 'too' castaway, you understand, one needs beer to be cold, after all), does this mean places like Rabbit Island should stay undeveloped? Nah, probably not. Good for them.
But still...for me, I will try to remember the first trip...
Right. That's it. I am so going to start a religion.
I am utterly inspired.by Chocin civil servant Ngo Van Chieu, who upon receiving messages from God via a spirit called Duc Cao Dai went on to "share his spiritual discoveries with others in Saigon". This intrigues me beyond comprehension. Not only did the guy have the chutzpah to actually admit that spirit/god creatures were speaking to him on behalf of God, but then he managed to convince dozens of others in 1920s Vietnam that it was for real. I am humbled.
Anyhow, Cao Dai passed on instructions to the first group of believers (henceforth known as mediums) to found a new religion. Lucky Le Van Trung was anointed acting Giao Tong (Pope) and Caodaism was formally founded on September 26, 1926 by a group of 247 disciples. And, lo, it's gone on to being the second religion (after Catholicism) in the country (although, in another North-South divide thing, it's found almost exclusively in South Vietnam).
And a real Life of Pi kind of religion it is, too (I plan to ask Yann Martel if he has ever been to Tay Ninh). By combining Catholicism, Buddhism, the more mystical writings of Judaism and Taoism with – and I am not making this up – the sacred texts of Saint Victor Hugo, the church is sure to cover all it's bases.
But t's not just the pick-and-mix approach to other belief systems that I love about Cao Dai: really I love it because it's like the great drag queen of religions. The Holy See at Tay Nihn (just like Rome!) with it's massive mostly pink Cathedral (that they are at pains to say is larger than St. Peter's) has to be seen to be believed.
The place is simply awash with ritual, symbolism and colour...There's the vibrant red, blue and yellow coloured robes for the various upper echelons of the psychic mediums that guide (but never lead) the congregation by Ouija-board like predictions, set off by the brilliant white robes of the disciples. The wildly discordant choir and instruments are audio cues used throughout the daily noon service to order the precise and ritualized movement of the ranks of people in an elaborate dance-like mass. And all this set in a razzmatazz and totally over the top Sacred See with divine eyes, checkerboards, pink and gold and gild and gilt everywhere, topped by a roof with both a giant cow and a globe. Fabulous.
I dunno, why not. Who the hell knows, maybe gods want some fabulousness for once. Predictions on wooden mystic markers might have as much weight as Revelations. Victor Hugo may be a Prophet. And maybe gods do like to mess with the heads of civil servants. This would explain an awful lot in public service, no?
http://www.religioustolerance.org/caodaism.htm
It's hard to believe the incredible number of landmines still around in Cambodia. Vast regions of the countryside - dozens of square kilometres at a time - are still off-limits thanks to the frenetic mine programs of both the Khmer Rouge and the government during the 80s and 90s.
The KR were laying mines right up to 1998, which goggles me, and they really liked using them, really really alot. Firstly, land and personnel mines were a dime a dozen on the arms markets at the time as other nations moved on to laserguided missiles and left the antiquated stuff for the crazy people. Peaceful little Thailand were especially generous with funding land mine dispersal along the mutual border, as it served the dual purpose of helping keep refugees out. And mines were good value for the Khmer Rouge especially, as they had very few soldiers to hand to maintain their occupied areas. But for the government, the mines helped contain the KR to the said occupied areas, so it seemed both sides did nothing but lob literally millions of the things into this country's sad soil.
Cambodia remains the most mined land in the world - according to non-Cambodian sources. The currrent government, you see, has had huge influxes of donations and foreign currency to supposedly fund the military clearing the mines. So they vehemently dispute the figures, and point to successful regions which they have cleared.
Unfortunately for the average prole, these tend to be high-profile or tourist areas. A prime example is the way the military famously cleared a huge farming area on the Thai border, relocated the locals to a non-cleared area, and built a massive casino. It seems the easiest, and cheapest, way for them to clear the mines is simply to let the people desperate for farmland into a region and shrug when the bombs go off.
Everywhere we see limbless people, and far too many limbless kids..Meanwhile, we tread softly, and follow very well-worn paths.
This might not come as news, but Cambodia is really, really, really hot. And in the rainy season it must be muggy as all get out (if my experience in Vietnam and Bali is any indication).
The French, in their quest for a little light relieft, built the Bokor Hill Station (or 'station climatique') in the 1920s - to provide relief on many levels. Up in the looming 1000m high hills, surrounded by naught but jungle (now a nature reserve) and away from the heat and plebs, they dotted their lovely villas and houses around the plateau, overlooking the distant Cambodian coastline. And now, it's all a most glorious ruin.
We made the trip up on a hilariously bad road, with eight of us dumb tourists packed into the open back of a seriously butch 4X4 that - literally - has been through the wars. Fortunately, it had a metal bar down the middle and we were entertained immensely by having to cling on it as well as duck the whipping trees and vines. It was really fun, if hot, treacherous, dusty and hugely masochistic.
At the top, we first viewed the ruins of the King's palace, because of course the local nobs had to have a joint near the French. Then it was to the Hill Station itself, with the ruined villas and houses bracketed by The Church and The Casino. How Catholic is that.
It was a small and simple church perched above the road, glaring down on the resident sinners and gamblers. Inside, it was even smaller as the back of the building housed the priest, with a wee kitchen and bathroom. Only the front half of the church served a religious purpose with a small altar, now badly damaged by smoke, vandalism and gunfire. I was especially struck by the ghostly shroud-of-turin like crucifix over the door. It'd been used by target practise by the Khmer Rouge, and though it's long gone, it's shape is now etched on the wall in smoke and bullets.
Ah, but the Casino "Le Grand Coloniale", this was a beauty. This huge, rambling building with room after room over several floors is quickly losing it's battle with the damp and the creeping jungle. But you can still easily imagine drinking champagne and dancing on the open terraces. But somehow only in black and white. Now it's all blackened concrete and thick orange lichen - quite striking really. And everywhere are the gouges where the locals tore out all the wiring, copper and anything else, really.
During the Khmer Rouge occupation, which lasted right up to the 1990s in this area, the Casino was government and the Church was the KR stronghold. Each of the buildings (or remnants of same) were on little knolls, and you could see how they would have a good line to shoot across at each other.
It's now a ghostly, and most atmospheric place. My only regret is that we belatedly found out we could have stayed overnight. Shoot. But after a really, really good lunch, they poured us back in the trucks, trotted us through the jungle - we heard gibbons and i almost saw a spider - then to top it off they stuck on a fabulous boat down the river past stilt houses and floating fish farms back to Kampot, where we arrived like twelve hours and ten bucks poorer later. What a deal, what a place.
So here we are in the ass end of January, already, and we find ourselves in the ass end of Cambodia.
Glorious Battambang, Cambodia, to be precise. This was one of the places I was determined to go to. I would like to say I wanted to come here because as a politicized savant, I knew Battambang was the gathering place for refugees fleeing the Khmer Rouge into Thailand, but I have to be honest. I just really like the way it rolls off the tongue.
And it is a nice place. Very dusty and very friendly and with very, very little to do. Sadly, Chris is not well, so we are hiding out in our lovely $5 room with cable tv, and great $2 meals and riding out his cold. We have had a terrible start to the year, actually, as I was ill in Kuala Lumpur, so I pressed Chris to abandon me. He went off to Thailand on his own, I recovered, and we hooked up in Phnom Pehn - which is quickly becoming to feel very, very home-like to us both.
So we have both had a decidedly feeble launch into 2008, both choking down penicillin and anti-histamines, but I reckon leaving homely but stinky Phnom Pehn was a good start to our renewed lung health. The Tonle Sap river on the beautiful PP river front was shockingly low - probably eight or ten feet lower than last seen six weeks earlier - and the mud is quite aromatic, i must say.
We had a brilliant bus ride (scheduled 4, actual 6) from Phnom Pehn to Battambang. Frequent mini-breakdowns, mechanical bemusement, pee stops in the bushes, miles of barren, dry -season land with herds of the skinniest cows (almost enough to put you off ordering beef, the poor things) and patient, friendly fellow passengers.
Eventually we arrived in Cambodia's second largest city, glorious Battambang. And, well, there ain't much to see or do. It's got a few crumbling French colonial buildings and dusty cobbled together buildings clustered along a much dried river. But it's sweet and laid back and we like it despite it's real lack of any particular charms.
We are anxiously eyeballing said river, however, as this is our intended route to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat. Tales abound of the 3 hour boat trip taking 14, so when we finally go, wish us luck....
Travel certainly affects your perspective. It’s the American War here. And it’s very much “here” in Vietnam. Which is strange, really, because it’s such a remarkably young country. After China – the country that rests literally and metaphorically on on the indomitable shoulders of little old ladies - it was notable to be in a country without old people. I would double-take if I saw white hair - just like in Sarajevo.
I had Graham Greene's Quiet American on my mind here. That great, wry, ironic title makes me grin, of course, but it makes me think about the real quiet people, the Vietnamese themselves, and how they quietly went about their way through the myriad wars in their land.
So maybe I have been too hard on the place. It's really been through the meat grinder over the years. Finally freed of France, split in half by the UN, invaded clandestinely and then overtly by the US, and winning all these relentless brutal battles pretty much through sheer bloody-mindedness. And once they get free, having to rebuild a country devastated by a bitter civil war and the harshest economic sanctions ever seen. Even North Korea, today, has more freedom to trade than Vietnam did post the American withdrawal. So then this hardened battle weary but still battle ready people decide to wade in to kick the dictators out of Cambodia, for which they still get no thanks.
I stick by it not being the prettiest, or most lovable place in the world. And I wish that some of the younger people would let the bitter go (like their elders seem to have). But mostly I wish things, finally, go well.
"1 – 2 – 3
What are we fighting for?
You know, I don’t give a damn
Next stop is Vietnam…."
I have rarely been as curious and expectant about a country as I was crossing into Vietnam. For which I blame Hollywood - I can't believe how much I knew about the place through music, movies, books, TV and the news of my childhood. The Doors, Hanoi Jane, CCR, Guthrie, Platoon, Oliver Stone, Baez, Guthrie (see above),Kubrick, Coppola, Coming Home, the DMZ, Alice, the Rockpile, My Lai, China Beach - Vietnam's recent history is so weirdly familiar to this Saskatchewn farmgirl. And the songs and scenes kept following me all the way of the nine weeks it took Chris and I to work our way across the country, from top to bottom.
Then there's the incredible influence of all those cool draft dodgers who ended up so completely imbibing Canadian culture (and particularly my Art Department at University). with an anti-war, anti-authority, free-living, psychedelic kind of vibe that is still percolating around. Thank you, Sam the Record Man, Waffle Party founders and gay marriage advocates that crossed North instead of fighting, I salute you.
So, crossing the Chinese-Vietnamese border was fraught with big expectations for me. And it was also, for me, the biggest transition at a border I have seen for ages!
Borders are usually bogus, really. In an artifical construct of nationhood, defined by invisible lines drawn in the sand, you pass over a line, and things somehow change, just on the other side. Of course, really, they rarely actually do.
But this time, I thought it was radical. Maybe it is not the best idea of try to compare China and Vietnam, but of course we couldn't avoid it, crossing that border. One side, frenetic buzzy, loud, chaotic, bustling China. The other, a desolate wasteland with streets that are suddenly wide, dusty….and empty. Vietnamese women in those iconic palm hats, bringing in impossible loads of cheap consumer goods on their backs, with absolutely no curiousity in the big white backpackers. The silence was shocking...as was the immediate, blatant and indiscriminate overcharging.
China made me crazy in many ways, but I can count on one hand the times we were blatantly ripped off without any shame on the part of the ripper offer. That ain't the story in Vietnam, man. I could count on two hands the number of times people would try - or would succeed - in taking us, in one day. They make ripping off tourists a national sport and have absolutely no guilt or problem with it at all. It's really fukken tiring and was really a shock to the system.
Every single traveller I talked felt the same: they liked the country but got tired of the incessant gouging. The locals have completely taken to Party condoned entrepeneurial capitalism, but most don't get the big picture - the concept of service, or encouraging return trade or word of mouth. Across the land, they just don't seem to give a sh*t about the tourists.
We spent over nine weeks - really taking our time and seeing the sights (we only cut Sapa out of the itinerary because we were rice terraced out after China) but, well, I just never fell for it. I mean, Halong Bay is beautiful – even if they weren’t actually from the James Bond film. Hanoi is great, a fun buzzy city - my favourite place. Ninh Binh was cool, and Dalat pretty but Vietnam is not - heresy!! - that beautiful really.
People used to rave about the beaches, and some were pretty damn nice (and empty). But too often the water is a floating mass of plastic and garbage (in the locals defense, usually washed over from the big neighbour up North). Or they are ‘living’ beaches, used by the villages for both latrine and landfill. In many countries I have been, that are a lot more ‘developing’ than Vietnam, I have never seen that level of just plain lack of care.
Off the coast are some of the last great dive sites on the South China Sea, a mecca for tourists and a money spinner for locals. But this is Vietnam, the last country on the coast to allow commercial dynamite fishing and reef trawling. Greenpeace reckons more coral, marine habitat and reef has been destroyed in Vietnam in the last 3 years than in the last 30 prior.
So, yeah, it’s developing, but it’s developing stupid.
The food was fabulous, the level of comfort and sanitation was great (thanks to the rebuilding in the 70s), the people were often super sweet and just lovely, and it's pretty enough, but....I don't know. There's a very thin layer of bad history there, there's a big dose of sad and a bigger dose of bitter. Maybe it's just too thin a Thin Red Line between today and recent history....
