SE Asia: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge

New Year's Day in Phnom Penh, Cambodia had a decidedly less festive feeling than New Year's Eve. Our first stop was the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Pol Pot began his career as a Buddhist monk before turning to revolutionary communism. My knowledge of the Khmer Rouge was pretty limited before visiting Cambodia, but they certainly deserve a spot in the list of most evil regimes ever. Anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of Cambodia's population was killed during this time, either by execution or from starvation. You can still see the effects of this today. Half of Cambodia's current population is under 18 years old.

Tuol Sleng was a high school-turned-prison that held about 17,000 men, women and children during its 4-year history. Out of that number, only 7 survived. The inmates were massacred just before the North Vietnamese (yes, that other local oppressive regime) liberated the prison in 1974. The stories were unbelievably grisly, pretty much everything you'd expect from such a place - torture, starvation, rape and worse. The cells are still standing, so you could see the tiny rooms they were forced into. They weren't allowed to talk to their neighbors or do anything without the permission of their guards. Most of their "crimes" ranged from being an intellectual or other undesirable to simply being related to one of the former. The stories were heartbreaking and displayed all around the museum. During our visit, we saw a man standing in one of the cells, speaking through a tour guide/translator. He was one of the seven survivors, and he visits the jail regularly to share his experience and make sure that what he and thousands of others suffered here is not forgotten.

After the Genocide Museum, we went to the Killing Fields. A large stupa monument to the victims was built just at the entrance in the typical ornate Khmer style. It is only when you get closer that you can see through the glass. All the human remains found on the Fields are housed within, a gruesome collection of skulls and bones. This was done in accordance with the Buddhist belief that all the body can't find peace unless all its remains are together.



Despite all the bones within the stupa, not all of the remains have yet been recovered. Walking through the peaceful meadow, our guide found a tooth in the path. There are bits of cloth strewn around everywhere and the occasional bone can be seen sticking up from the ground. There are sunken pits all around that were once filled with dead and dying bodies, even newborn babies (Pol Pot didn't want them to grow up with a sense of vengeance against his government after their parents were killed). If all this wasn't heartbreaking enough, there is the fact that most of the Khmer Rouge still have not been brought to justice. Pol Pot escaped to the jungle and lived there as a fugitive until his death in the 1990s. Many other prominent members are in the current Cambodian government, our guide told us, as he looked around to make sure there was no one to overhear him. In the last year, the UN has brought some of them to trial, but there's still a long way to go before this country can truly recover from such a horrific history.

SE Asia: New Year's in Phnom Penh

Leaving behind Ho Chi Minh's hordes of mopeds, we boarded a public bus for Phnom Penh, Cambodia with the Intrepid tour. The journey takes about 7-8 hours, although the distance is only about 300 miles. The landscape became much more jungle-y as we got further away from the traffic of Ho Chi Minh. The apartment buildings changed to small houses supported by stilts, surrounded by flooded rice fields and spotted with water buffaloes. The biggest difference could be seen at the border - where apparently we were the first to use their e-visa system because no one knew what to do with them. Vietnam's border crossing building was cold and communist with no decoration. The Cambodian side featured a glittering roof with spires soaring up in the air.


I didn't really know what to expect from Cambodia, but little could have prepared me for the wonderful city of Phnom Penh. Our hotel was just around the corner from the Royal Palace and National Museum. Everywhere we looked were gorgeous Khmer-style buildings. I wonder how long it will take until this city is as clogged with tourists and foreigners as Bangkok.



Our first glimpse of the city was a quick walk outside the hotel along the river, where we walked into a Buddhist ceremony of some kind with lots of incense and singing. We got a better look around just before dinner with a group cyclo tour. The cyclos are like a cheap taxi, where they push around a seat using their bicycles. Their business has been hurt by the motorized tuk-tuk cars, so this was a way to support them and a more leisurely way to sightsee. We passed even more amazing buildings, monuments and temples. Again, I was struck by the fact that most people have never even heard of this place, and there was so much wonderful stuff to see here!



After our cyclo tour, we had a group dinner at a local NGO-sponsored restaurant. This is where we first discovered the delicious Cambodian cuisine and their special dish - fish amok. Amok is the coconut curry sauce they make with the kaffir lime leaves and other spices. Simply mouth-watering and unbelievably cheap. I think our dish cost $5 at this "expensive" foreigner restaurant. My total bill, which included the amok, half a bottle of wine and a soft drink was $13!


Since it was New Year's, we decided to eschew our usual habit of heading back to the hotel to rest up for the next day of travel. We went to the Temple downtown where there were also celebrations going on for Phnom Penh's 650th anniversary. The most famous singer in Cambodia was even there, giving a concert. After going to a bar for about 10 minutes, Jon and I and Lynda and John, an Aussie couple from our tour, decided to head to the river for some fresh air and quiet. It was hot and humid, despite the fact that it was the dead of winter. We enjoyed some nice conversation - comparing Australia and America, and Europe - and watched the firework show over the Mekong River. It certainly beat watching the ball drop on a TV screen in America.

Southeast Asia: Memories of Saigon

The 5-hour flight from Seoul got us into Vietnam a bit late - almost midnight - but the warm, humid air of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh) was such a wonderful contrast to the bitter cold of 5F that we left behind in Korea. In our cab ride to the hotel, it was immediately apparent that we also left behind the high-tech, first-world, super-modern Asia that was Seoul. Motorbikes were everywhere, streets were torn up from construction and even the power lines looked overburdened and sagged precariously close to the sidewalks. Our cabbie only ripped us off slightly -it was after midnight, after all - and we arrived at the Hong Vy3 hotel where the friendly staff took us to my first-ever windowless hotel room. At least the A/C was working!

We woke up super-early at seven a.m., both from the excitement of being in a new city, and the jet lag where we were 2 hours ahead of Vietnam time. Breakfast was a real treat - no kimchi! - and included lots of fresh pineapple and baguette as well as one of the most delicious yogurt drinks I've ever had, and the famous Vietnamese coffee. Yum.



Our first stop was the Jade Emperor Pagoda. Despite Jon's superior navigating ability and our fairly decent map, we managed to get lost in the heavily under-construction streets. Crossing the road was the first huge obstacle - as well as the most memorable thing about the city. If I thought the traffic was crazy in Istanbul or Moscow, they had nothing on the sea of motorbikes that rode about on these crowded streets, which by the way, didn't have any traffic signals. Trying to cross at first was a leap of faith, hoping that the sea of motos would swerve around you as you gingerly made your way to the other side. We were lucky that they did.



After a half hour of walking through the streets which smelled of fresh-fruit, incense and gasoline from the thousands of motorbikes, we finally found our Pagoda. It was smoky from incense and the humidity inside and intricately decorated. Offerings of coconut milk and fruit were on the altars in front of these grotesque demonic Buddha statues. Outside, we watched a woman pray over a cage of birds with incense sticks, until finally her friend released the birds by placing them in the hands of the praying, kneeling woman and they flew away.



Our next stop was the War Remnants Museum, formerly known by the less politically-correct title of the Museum of American War Atrocities. Lots of pictures of the people affected by Agent Orange and nasty descriptions of torture techniques. Outside were some of the cages they used for political prisoners. We tried to wash the propaganda out of our heads with a tasty lunch of banana flower shrimp salad, spiced rabbit and spring rolls before we headed for our next dose of anti-Americanism at the Re-unification Palace.



We took a tour led by Vietnamese tour guides dressed in these gorgeous silk long-sleeved, flowing shirts and pants. The decor was very kitschy, 1950s Cold War-style conference rooms and bunkers. We again heard about all the terrible things the Americans did - quite reminiscent of the Russians' diatribes against the Germans at the Catherine Palace in St. Petersburg. Apart from all that, it was still an interesting place and history that I knew little about. We saw the tanks that "liberated" the palace from the South Vietnamese and escape routes used by the parties in power at the time.



Our second day here was a bit more laid back. We visited the Ho Chi Minh City Museum, which had a wide assortment of historical stuff on display. After a quick trip to the Indian mosque and some spicy Indian food for lunch, we next we headed to the Saigon River, which was much browner and dirtier than I expected. We sat and had ice cream out of a coconut while watching the river.



All in all, Saigon was incredibly interesting, if not the prettiest place I've ever been to. You can already see the signs of capitalism and growth in the area around the city center, which is already looking more like 5th Avenue and where the prices are starting to match it. They even have traffic lights.