Cambodia: welcome to the third world

We took advantage of the long Easter/Ching Ming holiday and visited Cambodia for a week.  Although it's only a two hour flight from Hong Kong, Cambodia is a world away.  The first thing we noticed was how flat, dry and dirty the country is.  In Phnom Penh, the capital, there are only a couple of "high rise" buildings of more than 10 stories.  Traffic flows the same way as Guilin (blog March 6), with the addition of numerous tuk-tuks (motorcycle-drawn open carriage).  In the picture on the right, Jeff is standing in front of a row of them. Since our trip to China, we are no longer scared to see cars, motos, tuk-tuks, bicycles, trucks, and pedestrians weaving their way through the streets without any Western safety restrictions.  Jeff says that I'm getting much better at crossing the street!  We noticed that most of the vehicles in Cambodia are Toyotas.



Phnom Penh has many French Colonial buildings - some are beautifully restored (owned by banks, NGOs, and the government), while others have been neglected for 50 years and are slum tenements.  The wide balconies and arched windows reminded us of New Orleans.  Upon our return to HK, I googled "Jewish Cambodia" and discovered that Chabad has recently moved into Phnom Penh.  They are housed in the Colonial building that was the former location of the U.S. embassy! (Chabad Cambodia)

The main tourist attractions in Phnom Penh are the National Museum, the Royal Palace, the Genocide Museum (S-21), and the Killing Fields.  The palace and museum were within walking distance of our charming hotel (on the right), which felt like an oasis after walking for hours in the unshaded 38 degree temperature.

The Museum, built around 1920, is a traditional terracotta structure with a beautiful tiled roof.  The four wings of the building surround a peaceful garden containing a relaxed-looking Buddha.  The Museum houses the world's finest collection of Khmer sculpture, mostly from the Angkorian period (9th-15th centuries).  There were also examples of earlier figures including an imposing statue of 8-armed Vishnu and a giant pair of wrestling monkeys.

The  ornate Royal Palace is just south of the Museum.  The entire complex is surrounded by a 6-foot-high yellow stucco wall.  It takes up the equivalent of two city blocks.  There are guard posts every few hundred metres, however most were unmanned!  The site consists of the king's official residence, temples, stupas, shrines, and gardens.  It was all a bit "over the top", compared to the poverty on the other side of the wall.

I realize that this blog is starting to sound like a travel brochure, so here goes the hard part of the trip.  Poverty.  People living on the streets (taking shelter under a lone palm tree near the Palace walls).  People sleeping/living in the parks.  Garbage everywhere.  Children left free to roam and free to sift through garbage for food or recyclables.  Much of daily life takes place on the street - for example barbers and numerous food stalls.








The Cambodian Civil War (1975-1979), led by the infamous Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, completely ruined the country.  Twenty-five percent of the population was murdered (especially the educated populace).  Even the wild animals escaped to Thailand!  The KR left thousands of land mines all over the country - you can't walk two city blocks without seeing maimed victims of these horrendous booby traps - and thousands more are still buried, waiting to be stepped on.  In Canada the orphanages have been turned into luxury condos.  In Cambodia, they house the children of land mine victims.  According to the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Cambodia is an aid-dependant country with a weak government.  Political reforms are difficult to implement, so economic and social progress is slow and fragile.


S-21 (the Genocide Museum) was originally a high school in a residential neighbourhood.  The KR used it as a centre of detention and torture.  The museum is a gut-wrenching testament to the legacy of the KR.  Like other holocaust museums, it is disquieting to see beautiful trees and flowers continuing to bloom, oblivious of the crimes and tortures that took place.  The museum was so disturbing that we decided not to visit the Killing Fields, where 17,000 people were exterminated.  The Killing Fields have been "privatized" and are now controlled by a Japanese company.

On a happier note, there were many many wonderful surprises in Cambodia.  The local Khmer food is delicious!  It is somewhat like Thai food, but even more flavourful.  One of the national dishes is called Amok, and Jeff ate it four or five times during our trip.  Service everywhere is friendly, and even when we were being accosted to hire a tuk-tuk it was always accompanied by a large grin!  Shopping is fun, too, especially in the markets.  Jeff bought some linen fabric in the Russian market (so-called because the Russians used to shop there), and hired a tailor in the market to sew a pair of draw-string pants the same day.  Total cost (including delivery to our hotel): $17.

After two days in Phnom Penh, we were off to Siem Reap, home to the temples of Angkor.  We chose to cover the 300 km by plane, rather than a six-hour bus ride over roads that do not resemble the 401.  Angkor is the main attraction in Cambodia.  It is a UNESCO World Heritage site, containing the remains of the temples of the Khmer Empire from the 9th-15th centuries.  Angkor covers 400 square km.  No, we did not see it all!  Our legs just felt as if we had.

Angkor reminded us of Raiders of the Lost Ark - with no Harrison Ford in sight!  The structures are massive - and it is daunting to think that the sandstone was imported from a quarry 50 km down the river.  In its heyday, Angkor was home to one million people.  It is now an eerie reminder of a lost civilization.

A further calamity of the Civil War was the destruction of many of the statue-lined walkways to the temples.  The KR lopped off the heads of the statues and sold them over the Thai border.  In the photo, you can see an original head, a headless statue, and a reconstructed head (which looks completely fake).  It is a wonder that they did not destroy more of the structures.

We were awed by the size of the temples, the intricate carvings, and the bas relief.

The guidebook (Lonely Planet Cambodia) informed us that Lara Croft Tomb Raider was filmed at Ta Phrom, one of more interesting sites.  The jungle has grown over many of the buildings - man conquered nature, and now nature is reclaiming its own space.

As many of you know, Jeff and I try to cover every inch of places we visit.  On the second day of our exploration of the site, we visited Angkor Wat, and wanted to climb up to the top of the highest temple.  However, the wait line was 20 minutes long, so we decided to do the climb at the end of our third day as a "farewell".  The photo on the left shows the original stone steps leading to the top.  Luckily, a wooden stairway has been installed for easier access.

Local children were everywhere at Angkor, selling postcards, bracelets, and other souvenirs.  The guidebook says that most children do attend school at least half of the time, if their families can afford it.  I bought ten postcards (for $1 US) from a little girl, and as a thank-you she gave me a bangle!

Believe it or not, we actually took it very easy on our last full day in Cambodia.  The heat was a deterrent to returning to the unshaded temples.  We visited a silk farm just outside Siem Reap, where we saw all the stages of silk production.  Rural folk are trained to produce the silk.  The farm is run like a co-op, with a percentage of the profits returned to the employees.  The workers can stay in their villages and be productive there, rather than swarming to the cities in search of work.  Back in Siem Reap, we spent time touring Les Artisans d'Angkor, which includes a school that specializes in teaching wood- and stone-carving techniques to impoverished youngsters.  There is a beautiful (and pricey) gift shop on the premises which sells their products.  We bought a teak apsara (dancing woman) statue, and a lacquered panel (oops, and a silk purse for Dale...).  We thought you would all enjoy Jeff's interpretation of an apsara.

Some parting thoughts and observations:
Canada does not have an embassy in Cambodia (it closed in May 2009).  The embassy in Bangkok is accredited to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar (Burma).
Cambodia is still a place where backpackers can survive on $10 a day.
There are no McDonalds in Cambodia.  The only chain we saw was KFC.
When possible, we ate and shopped mainly for a cause.
We did not watch the "Final Four" weekend, although we did follow the results on Jeff's BlackBerry.
While waiting for our return flight, we observed some monks checking in.  We were quite surprised when one of them reached into his robe and pulled out a BlackBerry.  Modern times!