Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Steph > Chris and I were completely sobered on our first day in Cambodia after exploring the country’s recent history. Visiting the Killing Fields directly after the Genocide Museum at the ‘security centre’ , once an old school, brought home the horrors of what people suffered at the hands of the idealistic Communists that were the Khmer Rouge.

I couldn’t help but make an link between the irony of some of the Khmer Rouge’s ideals and those of Adolf Hitler, the brown-haired dictator promoting an ‘Aryan race’ full of blond-haired beauties. Similarly, the leaders of the Khmer Rouge were all highly educated academics (Pol Pot had been educated in Paris before returning to Cambodia as a teacher in a private high school) who exterminated any of their country men who had received an education themselves: teachers, doctors, scientists, and many urban dwellers. Unless they were part of a select few (let’s keep it in the family) they were all executed . Their crime: education and thus a connection with capitalism and a suspected involvement in free market activities.

The truth, it seems obvious to me, was more likely to be that their education and knowledge could have been used as a most powerful tool to rise up against the new regime. Pol Pot himself knew the power of education and thus believed he must eliminate the most likely to be able to provide argument and to appeal to the global community and his regime would remain safe.

I am amazed that they managed to pull it off to be honest. To empty a whole city in a matter of days is really something. The belief that they would be moved only a few kilometres and be returning to their homes in a matter of two or three days, and that the whole purpose for the evacuation was the imminent threat of American bombing, was encouragement enough for the inhabitants of Phnom Penh to leave behind their homes. If only they had known that this lie would lead to separation from their family, starvation, slave labour and a high possibility of death…

What remained was an illiterate society with a severe lack of modern medical knowledge. As an unfortunate consequence, until recently, Cambodia still lacked skilled workers and a literate mass. Due to the deaths and extermination of such a high proportion of the population in the 70s, today, the majority of Cambodians are under 35 years old.

To keep you is no benefit. To destroy you is no loss.

A Khmer Rouge motto in reference to ‘New People’ or urban dwellers new to life as a peasant following the evacuation of the cities.

With this new knowledge, we were both left deeply unsettled. I wonder why it’s not taught as part of the UK’s National Curriculum and others in the West to be honest.

On our second day, Chris and I took a far more relaxing bicycle tour of local markets and then visited a number of establishments for their Happy Hours, as researched by Chris. First, we stopped at Hotel le Royal, owned by Singapore’s very own Raffles chain. More interesting than this though, this hotel was where the foreign journalists along with so many Cambodian journalists took refuge when the Khmer Rouge first began their emptying of the city in 1975. Only a few days later however, foreign journalists were sent to the French Embassy before being forced to leave the country two weeks later. Sadly any Cambodian journalists, their being educated and all, were sent to Security Prison 21 (now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum which Chris and I visited) to be tortured before their extermination in the Killing Fields. The film ‘Killing Fields’ depicts exactly this and is partly set at the Hotel.

The hotel itself was old-world and splendid. Chris and I had thought to leave our bikes for the Valets to collect. They were having none of it however and we were encouraged to wheel our vehicles around the side of the hotel so as not to make the place look untidy!

Inside, we felt the decades melt away and we were back in the 70s in a large bar area with comfortable couches and floral décor.

Following our cocktails here, we cycled rather tipsily to the Foreign Correspondants’ Club - the site of Chris’ previous blog entry - and indulged in a number of their Happy Hour Delights.

We were excited to explore a little more of this fascinating country and looked forward to the next day’s journey to Siem Reap in the North for our discovery of Angkor Wat.

N.B Interesting info I have learned recently...Cambodia was ruled by the French for 90 years when in 1863 the King invited them to impose a protectorate over his weakened kingdom in order to protect them from Thailand. The French preceeded to model Phnom Pehn on a provincial French town!

Compared to Vietnam however, where the French ruled for many more years, the French invested relatively little in the Cambodian economy. What they did leave behind were roads and port facilities. In addition, the French rediscovered Angkor Wat, promoting for the Cambodians a huge sense of pride in their previously unknown yet utterly magnificent medieval history.