Sunny Isles & somber days in Phnom Penh

My first experience of a sleeper bus wasn't actually too bad - not something I'd choose as a regular mode of transport mind, but not awful. The only very weird thing is that on this particular bus you had to share the rather small bed space with someone else - if you're alone that means a stranger. If you're lucky, a clean and/or attractive one, if you're unlucky, a smelly one. Fortunately I was with a couple of people from the hostel so just relative strangers, but still odd.

I arrived in Sinoukville, a beach town in the south of Cambodia and proceeded to get a ferry to Koh Rong Samloem - a small island, for a couple of days. It's beautiful there, similar to the smaller Thai islands but less developed. There are little villages with locals living amongst the tourist accommodation - it's a nice feel, although it's developing fast - I can imagine in a few years it will be unrecognisable. I went snorkelling again and saw many colourful fish and some corals which were thankfully not dead (lots these days are dead unfortunately, and lack the colour they once had) but the tropical fish were great. The skipper caught a massive barracuda too, it was about a meter long, he paraded it around the boat like a trophy.

It was a quick whistle stop tour of the island before heading back to the capital city of Cambodia; Phnom Penh for a rather depressing account of recent Cambodian history.

Phnom Penh, incorrectly pronounced by numerous people including probably me, is a busy city, bustling with mopeds, tuk tuks and people - there are no traffic rules here and it's crazy, hundreds of vehicles all weaving in and out of lanes that don't exist - but there's also a strange order in the chaos. Amongst the tooting of horns, constant traffic and mopeds balancing whole families, it just seems to work. No-one gets angry or frustrated and I've yet to see any incidents - if it was the UK or similar, accidents and road rage would sky rocket! Maybe we have too many rules... 🤔

It's not the prettiest of cities but has a disinct charm and retains a friendly vibe, made more poingant with a visit to 'The Killing Fields' and the 'S21 Prison' museum which are Phnom Penh's main 'tourist attractions'. I say attractions, but there's nothing attractive about what happened here or throughout Cambodia in the late 1970s. Both locations make for a very sobering, but really interesting and totally necessary experience if you visit this country.

So here's where it gets a bit bleak; in a nutshell, in 1975 just after the Vietnam war, which severely weakened Cambodia, Pol Pot and his ultra communist political party, the Kymer Rouge took over the country and established an atrocious totalitarian regime akin to Nazi Germany. They proceeded to inflict mass genocide on the people for almost four years killing over three million in the most horrific ways including families, children and babies. It's hard to believe that this was going on just 40 years ago. The vast majority of people in Cambodia are quite young as most perished or fled during this time - anybody older than about 40 who is here lived through the era. The Khmer Rouge deemed anyone who was or looked remotely educated a threat and they were subsequently tortured, made to write false confessions against the state and eventually killed. Others were driven out of the cities and forced to work on rice farms in extreme conditions for impossible targets with little to no food and routinely abused, often to death.

'S21' is one of about 200 prisons where people were held and subjected to all sorts of horrific atrocities. A former school, once filled with laughter and learning, it became an unimaginable place filled with screams, massacre and bloodshed. Out of the estimated 20,000 prisoners (innocent people) held there, just 12 are known to have survived.

'The Killing Fields' is a key example of many similar sites in Cambodia where prisoners were taken from places like 'S21' to be executed and dumped into mass graves because there was no room left in the prisons. Thousands of people are buried at these sites - human remains, clothes and bones are still being found today as they float to the surface of the graves when it rains.

The regime was finally toppled in late 1979 and Cambodia could begin to start to rebuild. There's lots more to say and it's a fascinating and deeply moving story, but that's the end of today's history lesson.

After seeing these places and hearing about the terrible things that went on here, it's amazing to see Cambodia today - sure it's not the most developed country but it's growing fast. The people are friendly yet have seen or can relate to such recent horrors through their families. It's a remarkable testament to how the country has picked itself up from the regime it suffered under. When you witness the history, you see them in a different light - even if they do constantly ask if you want a tuk tuk.

On a lighter note, I visited the market too! Czytaj więcej