Cambodia

Cambodia! 

Resume du quatrieme episode asiatique:

Apres le Vietnam, me voici a Phnom Penh, capitale du Cambodge. Au programme, visite des champs d'execution ou les Khmers Rouges tuerent de nombreux civils, dans l'indifference internationale la plus totale, et explosion de noix de coco a la kalashnikov. Puis, direction Sihanoukville au sud, afin de prendre un bateau pour l'ile paradisiaque de Koh Rong. Une semaine de glandouille et bronzette sur cette ile avec Sam, Maaike et Ward, ainsi que beaucoup d'amis rencontres sur place mais egalement au Vietnam et Laos et retrouves par hasard. Puis la version cambodgienne de la full moon party, en plus petit, plus intimiste, et avec du tres gros son jusqu'au lendemain matin. Depart apres tres peu de sommeil pour Kampot, sur le continent, pour aller visiter les restes de batiments construits par les colons francais dans la premiere partie du 19e siecle. Un peu decu car un nouveau complexe immobilier est en train d'etre construit a la place, mais interessant quand meme. Puis Siem Reap et les temples d'Angkor pour finir en beaute.

From Saigon, we went straight to Phnom Penh, without even stopping in the Mekong Delta. That will be for another trip in South Vietnam! At that point, I was only traveling with Maaike and Ward, Sam had to wait to meet his parents who were arriving in Saigon two days later.

Surprisingly, Phnom Penh was much nicer than expected. Low rise buildings, a few beautiful modern ones, traditional palaces and temples, nice riverside restaurants and an impressive Art Deco central market I had heard about back in Paris. For a day or two, it is actually enjoyable, even when traveling on the cheap. The city seems to be growing quite fast, so it will be interesting to see how it evolves in the next decade.

 Temple considered as the heart and soul of Phnom Penh

Art Deco central market and modern skyscrapers, a nice architectural mix

One of the main reason we stayed overnight in Phnom Penh was not happy pizzas offered everywhere, but the sadly famous Killing Fields, where Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge executed every Cambodian they considered a threat. In short, their leader Pol Pot, educated in France, had decided to transform Cambodian society by launching an agrarian socialist revolution and wanted to develop an entirely self-sufficient state under control of the Angkar, the local communist party.

One of these killing fields has now been turned into a memorial, and visiting it helps you understand better how the Cambodian genocide happened, not even forty years ago. Its mind-blowing amplitude (maybe three million Cambodians died out of a population of eight) as well as the way it happened (the Khmer Rouge emptied most towns in less than three days and sent everyone back to villages in the countryside, forcing most into starvation). 

 In front of a mass grave

Like Nazis in their extermination camps, the Khmer Rouge thought about executions in a very cold and rational way. Bullets were scarce, so any tool could be turn into a rudimentary weapon, including razor-sharp palm tree leaves found on site. Forcing victims to knee in front of their own grave before killing them would save the effort of carrying corpses around.

 

The killing tree, used to smash babies head in front of their mother

This is not very surprising, after you hear some of Pol Pot's most famous quotes: "No gain in keeping, no loss in weeding out" " which could also be expressed in a blunter way, "Better to kill an innocent by mistake than to spare an enemy by mistake", or another one, "Hunger is the most effective disease"... But listening to all those truly horrible stories forces you to take a moment and think.

 Victims skulls

Having visited Saigon's war remnants museum two days earlier, I must say that you feel a bit depressed and pessimistic about human nature after facing such levels of atrocious violence. At the same time, it also makes you think about subordination and peer pressure, how people execute orders without questioning them, how they can accept to kill others to save their own life. It is hard to realise that maybe, under the same circumstances, you could have done the same as those soldiers. There is so much evil within our own person...

The other depressing thought is that however hard we try to preserve those memories and learn from history, this can and probably will happen again. Who knows exactly the sufferances endured by civilians in Syria? People forced to move out of their houses, mothers not eating enough to feed their babies, murders, rapes, destruction, tears and constant fear... Will this ever stop? After having seen all this, honestly I don't think so.

Anyway, let me stop my depressive digression about human nature, this is a travel blog, not a philosophical one. 

Quite surprisingly, a shooting range has been set up ten minutes away from the killing fields, meaning that a typical half day trip around Phnom Penh could easily include visiting both places. Given that, I decided to try an AK-47, the only appropriate weapon to shoot with three months after Mikhail Kalashnikov death. I know this probably sounds extremely weird, but travelling requires a flexible mind, and you have to seize opportunities when they come to you! Shooting seems pretty popular in the region, you can find shooting ranges pretty much everywhere around touristic places in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia...

But our driver took us to another shooting range, more than an hour drive away, supposedly because the other one was used by the army at that time, but much more likely because the shooting range we ended up going to was run by one of his friends or relatives... Prices there were more expensive, and it clearly smelt like a tourist trap, but having done all that route with my two Dutch friends, I felt like now I really had to try... People there first show you a weapon "menu", where you can select your weapon of choice, ranging from shotguns to light rifles, heavy ones to hand grenade, guns to bazooka. I heard from a few people that for $350, you could go to a shooting range further away in the mountain and shoot a cow with a bazooka... Tourism for rednecks at its finest. 

After having (painfully) exploded a few coconuts, we went back to the city centre and headed to Cambodia national museum, mostly exposing Angkorian and pre-Angkorian statues (roughly speaking from the fifth to the sixteenth century CE), but got bored very quickly and visited the whole place in maybe twenty minutes. If you have not been properly introduced to that part of Cambodian history, it is a bit difficult to fully enjoy such a place. For a beginner, it can be challenging to appreciate differences between all those Buddha statues. Style remains overall simple across centuries, details on clothes and poses vary but are harder to notice, while materials also change across centuries. Just to clarify my point, I am not judging Cambodian historical artworks and would probably have exactly the same reaction going to a museum full of Greek or Egyptians statues. I am simply trying to describe how it felt in this museum, old statues are not my thing. A very different experience than going to a museum full of paintings for example, where cross-centuries comparison would probably be easier thanks to the abundance of details, but unfortunately, unlike Chinese or Japanese old paintings for instance, I have never heard about nor come across anything like that in Southeast Asia.

After this, and because our stupid driver had brought us all around Phnom Penh, we did not have enough time left to visit the royal palace, so we simply chilled along the river and then went back to Phnom Penh central market to buy speakers we had been looking at enviously the previous evening. 

 Royal Palace, seen from outside

 Phnom Penh

Later that night, we took a night bus to Sihanoukville, probably the worst sleeping bus I had so far this year. With no windows, it felt like being cattle carried around Cambodia, and cockroaches did not make the experience any better... But that was the price to pay to get as soon as possible to Koh Rong, Cambodia biggest island turned backpackers paradise only a few years ago (and god knows how long is left before bigger tourist projects start and ruin the myth...), a mix of bungalows, palm trees, white sand and turquoise waters, with no paved street or ATM, where chilling on the beach is the island main activity.

Vision of paradise

I spent the first two days with my two Dutch travel buddies doing nothing, resting and reading on the beach, having naps all day long and waiting for Sam. We also met Ziggy, an extremely nice Thai cook who had worked for thirteen years in Manhattan before coming back to Asia, and had just started a few days earlier his own small food stall on the island, finally becoming his own boss For two dollars, he would cook you amazingly good Thai food, most of the time what he had in mind on that day rather than your choice on the menu, but his fantastic cuisine and his friendliness had already turned him into a superstar on the island, everyone knew about him a week only after he started his micro- restaurant.

To be fair, our routine did not change much once Sam got to the island. Waking up - baguette breakast - beach - some sort of lunch, most times at Ziggy's - more sun and turquoise water - complaining about a clouds - dinner - drinks at Coco's listening to live Disney classics, followed by a healthy dose of good deep house - going for a swim with bioluminescent plankton - sleep. Repeat.

Only one day when we decided to change our usual programme and go on a boat tour to nearby island Koh Rong Samloem, doing some snorkeling and fishing, before coming back to Koh Rong for sunset from Long beach, finishing the day with a barbecue on our boat eating fishes we caught (it tasted pretty bad though, but luckily we also had grilled chicken to feed ourselves). Ward and myself had never caught fishes before, and even if it seemed very easy, I only got a ridiculously small and uggly one, while Ward got nothing at all... Not yet demoralised, he tried spear fishing the next day, only to come back empty-handed once again...

We started meeting more and more people, seeing every day and night more known faces, and after a week it felt like we really knew a lot of people there. I would like to make a special mention of Nicolas, a French guy wearing a t-shirt "I Love Cap Ferret", more than ten thousand kilometers away from my beloved holiday place in southwest France. Surprisingly, and for no obvious reasons, Koh Rong was full of French. In Vietnam, I barely spoke any French for three weeks, but in Koh Rong, I could easily spend an afternoon without using an English sentence, which felt weird to be honest. Also, being a popular backpacker destination, I met there people I had not seen since Laos, and of course many friends from Vietnam too. The travel community is so small!

Koh Rong

I stayed eight days in Koh Rong, which may sound like a lot, and probably would be in normal times, but once you get there it is pretty easy to get stuck, especially when you hear that the Cambodian version of infamous full moon party is taking place at the end of the week. Plus, it was Khmer new year, which means that many Cambodians enjoy an extended weekend and come to the island for short holidays. While this is pretty bad news accommodation-wise (after a few days, it got impossible to get any cheap bungalow), it also means locals celebrating new year over three days, with water and talc powder fights all day long, loud local music and improvised dances in circles in the middle of the street (I had never raved with four years old kids yet but now I can consider it done). It is not as crazy as Songkran, Thailand famous water festival during their local new year (held at the same time, and especially big in Chiang Mai), but a good Cambodian approximation, even if being a bit sick, I could not fully enjoy it. Actually, Sam and Maaike too were not feeling that good, maybe because of some food poisoning or a bad cocktail. In particular, one night, Maaike suddenly felt really sick and had to stay in bed for nearly thirty six hours straight to recover. Luckily, our little princess was back in good shape just in time for the full moon night.

And what a night, she'd better not have missed it. Basically, they took nearly everyone from Koh Rong to the empty island of Koh Rong Samloem (there are very few bungalows, it is usually extremely quiet there...) by boat, and you end up on the beach with no more than a couple hundred people in front of a huge scene/DJ booth, well equipped with massive and good quality speakers, one restaurant-bar on one side, another tiny bar on the other, and the whole bay behind you. Underground western techno and acid house playing until sunrise, which usually happens while you are chilling on the beach, the most hardcore part of the crowd still dancing while some start making their way to the first boat back to Koh Rong... An amazing night, especially since after a week in Koh Rong, it really felt like being surrounded by friends, being friendly and talkative with everyone, and dancing with people you now know.

I am not going to lie, taking a ferry at noon, about three hours after I got back to Koh Rong was quite tough, but I managed to do it. I said bye to most people who were still alive by that time and left the island.

On the boat, I realised it had been such a long time I had not been traveling by myself. Having stuck with most of my biker team for over a month, I was now on a tight schedule and had to leave ahead of them.

From Sihanoukville, I shared a taxi with locals to get to Kampot, another town close to the sea, located two hours east and known in particular for its hill, on top of which French colonists had built in the 1920s a small complex, called Bokor hill station including a hotel, a casino and a church next to it, to escape Cambodian often suffocating warm weather (culminating at 1200m above sea level, that palace sounded like a good idea at that time). The whole complex was surrounded by what is now a national park, giving it even more appeal.

After the French left, those buildings were abandoned, but you can still visit them. From the few photos I had seen, it looked magical, like entering a lost world, and to me, it was the main (or should I say only?) reason to visit Kampot. Do not get me wrong though, with its warm weather and nice guesthouses on the riverside, Kampot is definitely a nice place to chill for a day or two, but I think I had had my fair share of chilling already and had to move on. 

 Guesthouse in Kampot

Unfortunately, once in Kampot I discovered that the old palace had just been destroyed and  replaced by a new resort hotel, as part of a billion dollars real estate project. Yes, you read correctly, a billion dollars project right in the middle of a national park, officially to restore the palace to its previous grandeur but to me, this smells more like high-level corruption and a lot of money to be made for backers of this massive investment... 

 Coming soon @ Bokor National Park

Anyway, the church and some other buildings were still supposed to be there, and I had come all the way just for that, so I decided to rent a scooter and go check it out. The road was nice and curvy but also quite crowded, because so many locals were heading there for the last day of Cambodian new year.

Once on top the hill, I faced this huge, quite impersonal and charmless hotel which now replaces the old palace... What a shame! The old church was interesting though, a good example of derelict building, with its wall covered in graffiti, a very unique mix between religion and aggressive profanity. 

 New Bokor Palace

 Abandoned church

 Inside the church

 Inside the abandoned casino

Bokor hill casino

 Kampot seen from Bokor hill

There were a few other abandoned places offering great views on the surrounding park, and a lot of locals hanging around. Only at that point did I realise that for the first time in my life, I was taking part in new year celebrations for the third time in the same year: first in Uruguay with my family for our western new year, then in Singapore with my friend Chor for Chinese new year at the end of January and finally here for Khmer new year (which falls at the same time as many Southeast Asian new year celebrations, including Thai and Burmese ones).

Anyway, I left Kampot after that and headed to Siem Reap. Because of new year holidays, a lot of busses were sold out, and I had to go back to Phnom Penh to catch a night bus, a less direct route but actually a better option for me: I had forgotten a pair of shoes in our hotel in Phnom Penh and just had time to jump on a tuk tuk to get them. Then, I took my overpriced night bus (ten dollars extra just because it was Khmer new year, but I did not really have a choice...), which turned out to be a normal bus, not even a sleeping bus... Add to that the fact that my tuk tuk driver tried to rip me off and you can understand why I left Phnom Penh on a pretty bad mood, a fact rare enough this year to be worthy of note.

But half a Valium later, I felt deep asleep and this did not really matter anymore, until we reached Siem Reap at 3am. Come on, what is the point of taking a night bus if you arrive in the middle of the night? Some Asian companies still have to figure that out I guess. Three Indonesian girls came out of the bus and convinced me to share a tuk tuk with them and go visit Angkor main temples a few hours later. We dropped our bags in a hostel, had an hour sleep on their huge bean bags and left at 5am with our tuk tuk driver to watch sunrise over Angkor Wat, the biggest religious building in the world and one of Asia most famous temples.

 First sunrise on Angkor Wat

 Sunrise overcrowding

Rarely have I seen such a huge crowd watching a sunrise, but given how beautiful it is, I can easily understand why. We went through most major Angkor temples in the morning, since the girls wanted to catch a bus to Bangkok in the afternoon (yes, they really rushed it). It was a good introduction to Angkor temples, even if it sometimes felt weird being with three random girls more interested in taking selfies than in all the fascinating temples surrounding them.

 Ta Prohm temple, where both Tomb Raider and Two Brothers were shot

 Tree inside Ta Prohm

 Another tree inside Ta Prohm

But it was a good start. At the time they built those temples, only gods deserved stone and bricks, and nothing remains of the wooden buildings in which ordinary people lived. Angkor temples cover a huge area, being separated from each other by forests, and most have been built in the first part of the second millennium CE, often on top of older temples. When they built Angkor Wat (twelfth century), Angkor had a million inhabitants, while London population totalled around thirty thousands only.

 Bayon temple and its characteristic peaceful faces

Weather soon got unbearably hot, and after we came back to the hotel at lunchtime, I decided to visit Angkor national museum, which really helps to better understand Khmer civilisation and heritage and, even more important, has air-con. 

I met two French guys who were going the next day on a tuk tuk to visit more remote temples, and decided to join them. After another sunrise on Angkor Wat, we went on a long trip to a beautiful temple made of red stones, and then walked into a forest to get to a waterfall. Because the end of dry season was approaching fast, and temperatures were reaching year records, there was not a lot of water and therefore the waterfall failed to impress us. But interestingly, rocks all along the river had been carved: first time I saw ancient bas-reliefs in a natural environment! We then went on visiting so many more temples, until our body could not deal with the heat anymore...

 

 Second sunrise on Angkor Wat

 Bas-relief, somewhere north of Angkor Wat

 Red stone temple, again north of Angkor Wat

 

 Sculpted rocks along the river

A major advantage of waking up for sunrise is that you can visit many temples in the early morning, with a nicer light (as you can see on previous pictures), cooler temperatures and nearly no tourists in most temples (it can get very crowded later in the morning, Angkor being by far the most touristic place I have visited here in Asia).

 Good luck opening that door

 A slightly overloaded Camobidan car

Thus, on my third day in Siem Reap, I decided to rent a bike and went by myself for a third sunrise in a row (a personal record, if you exclude end-of-the-night ones), going at my pace and enjoying empty temples for the first few hours in the morning.

 Temple in Angkor Thom (1)

Unfortunately, a shocking aspect of Cambodia is how dirty it is. Like Vietnam, people throw their rubbish around without caring, and even places like some gorgeous beaches on paradisiac Koh Rong island, or even some roads around Angkor temples are covered with trash. A real shame, Cambodia has so much to offer, it would benefit a lot from developing trash collection system and educating people about it!

 Temple in Angkor Thom (2)

At that time, I was staying in one of those cool big hostels, with a nice swimming pool to survive Siem Reap extremely hot afternoons and plenty of backpackers to hang around with. By a stroke of luck, I ended up meeting again Alex, a friend I spent time with in Bolivia and Argentina and who had decided, like me, to follow South America with a trip in Southeast Asia. Our travel word is so small! I met some nice guys there, and in the evening, Ward and Maaike, who had just arrived in Siem Reap, joined me at the hostel rooftop sunset bar. Together again!
 

Sunset rooftop bar, best hostel bar so far this year?

 

I was going to Myanmar next, so spending a day doing nothing in a popular backpackers spot for my last day in Cambodia was definitely not a bad thing. It is also a good way to learn about other travelers background and cultures and make new friends from all around the world. Great travel memories overall, people you meet and travel with may be as important as countries visited. I'll leave you with this quote from a Dutch guy talking about people living in Southwest Holland: "It is not because you drink a lot and rape people that it means you are good company". Wise man.

Much love,

H.