Part 2: Phnom Penh

Man it's hot!

I mean it's bloody friggin' hot!

After having spent the previous five days in Hanoi, where the temperature hovered around 15C, arriving in Phnom Penh and its 33C heat was a real kick to the system.

After having had my camera stolen, the subsequent dent in the budget led me to pick a place because it was cheap. Big mistake.

Don't get me wrong, the people were very helpful and friendly but the concrete room with no hot water left a lot to be desired. Sure it had a fan but when the night time temperature only drops to a cool 25C it does little to help with the sleep. As such I spent two rather restless nights in Phnom Penh.

I was never my intention to stay long in Phnom Penh. I mostly only went there to see the Killing Fields. As such my impressions of the city will be brief.

The day I got into town I walked for an hour in the afternoon heat in order to save a few bucks and to find the Tuel Sleng museum; once known as S21. Tuel Sleng was once a high school, but when Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge came to power they transformed the school into a prison of unspeakable terror and torment. Walking around what were once classrooms it was impossible to be emotionally detached. All of the photos of children, the cells, the barbed wire, and the skulls took a real toll.

That night I went for a walk along the river and ended having about an hour long conversation with a Cambodian University student. He kept talking about how happy he was to be able to speak English with someone. It was a nice change of pace from all of the other times when your constantly being implored to buy this or that or to find out if you want some drugs or a prostitute.

It was during this time that I recognized the problem with traveling alone; at least from my perspective. Traveling by yourself frees you to do what you want, when you want and how you want. For me though the problem begins when the sun goes down. I'm not a partier, so hitting up the clubs holds no appeal for me. Its that time between dinner and bed that can make you feel lonely.

On my second day in Phnom Penh, I decided I would rent a scooter. Great idea I thought. It only cost $4 for a day and would save on a lot of tuk-tuk costs and provide for a nice ride out to the Killing Fields. That lasted all of about a half hour. Before I even left the city I was pulled over by the police who claimed that it was illegal for me to drive in Cambodia without a Cambodian drivers license. The normal course of action was for them to take me jail and for me to pay a $100 fine. After a little of this show, the lead cop called me over to him and said that if I paid the $100 to him I could avoid the jail. After a couple minutes of me trying to convince him that I didn't have $100 on me, he took what money I had and told me to get lost.

My $4 scooter was costing me $27.

So according to my guide book, to get to Cheung Ek (the Killing Fields) you needed to take the main road heading south out of town. It said that it was about 15km south of the city. Well after driving for a good amount of time and having gone through a town and a village I was pulled over by more police. I'm sure you can figure out what was going through my mind at this point. Fortunately these police were helpful and politely told me that I had gone too far the wrong way. That I should go back to the town and follow route 2.

So I go back to the town, get onto route 2 and follow it for what seems like a dozen kilometres without any success. I stop and ask someone for directions. They can't speak English. So I ride back to town ask at one gas station. They don't know what Cheung Ek is. So I go to a different gas station. They too don't know what Cheung Ek is. At this point I'm flabbergasted. How could these people not know of one of the main sites of atrocity in their nation? Luckily someone came into the gas station who did and they were able to provide me with a map.

So off I set again and after another 30 - 45 minutes I finally found it.

The centre-piece of the site is a huge stuppa filled with skulls dug up from the graves that had been uncovered. Many of the original buildings had been torn down. A number of the graves that had been excavated were fenced off and had signs telling you about what had been found there. One of the more gruesome remainders of the Khmer regime was a tree that they used to smash the skulls of children against.

When it came time to leave Phnom Penh, I can't say that I was unhappy to leave. I think that I will always remember Phnom Penh as a depressing place due entirely to the fact that much of my time there was spent confronting the evidence of genocide.

Next: part 3 - Siem Reap.