Phnom Penh: a sobering experience

Written September 16th

So where were we?  Last entry, I had summarized half of another country, Vietnam.  Our group started to splinter off at the end of Vietnam: one had flown home and another had flown to Indonesia.  We were down to 4 people now :(

At the end of the Mekong Tour, arriving in Cambodia.

My plan upon entering Cambodia was to only stay in the country for less than a week.  I had started off my travels down Vietnam thinking I had all the time in the world to get through the rest of SE Asia, but realized as we were getting to Siagon that I was actually really tight on time.  I had already moved my next flight from Bali to Australia back a week, so I had to squeeze things in the best I could unless I wanted to spend more money to change my flight again.  No can do, I’m on a budget!!

When we got to Phnom Penh, we were a little surprised at what greeted us: a dirty, crazy, crowded city.  We were at the end of our “Mekong River tour” and hadn’t showered in 2 days when we pulled into the street to get off of our mini-bus.  Men and women were knocking on the windows of the van trying to get us to take their tuk-tuks or to stay in their guesthouse.  

I sighed a deep sigh and got out of the bus ready to politely tell about 15 people that I didn’t need their tuk-tuk or didn’t want to stay in their guesthouse.  Armed with a guidebook, I figured out where we were and led our group to the guesthouse that we had picked from the book.  As we walked there, I saw plenty of signs for Indian restaurants and I almost had a heart attack - INDIAN FOOD!  YESSS!  At this point, I was totally over SE Asian cuisine and my mouth salivated for a nice Indian curry with some naan bread.

Our attempt to find something fun one night...

That night, I got my Indian food while my friends tried some classic Cambodian dishes which were surprisingly good. I was shocked when I found out that my Dutch friends had never had Indian food before.  “What?? How is this possible????” I asked them.  We decided the following night, we would go to a legit Indian restaurant for a full-on meal.  

The next morning was part II of the serious and heavy tours of SE Asia: the killing fields and the Genocide S-21 Museum.  For those of you who don’t have any idea what those places are, it is worth looking up.  To summarize what happened in Cambodia for those of you who are unfamiliar, in the mid-70’s, after decades of fighting against various other countries, a new ruling group called  the Khmer Rouge came into power.  For about 5 years under the insane leader Pol Pot, there was a movement to go back to “Year Zero”, aka to begin again in Cambodia and to eliminate all modern things and ideas. Over this period of time, approximately 1 to 2 million people were killed.  Depending on the source, anywhere from 1/6 to 1/4 of the Cambodia population perished under this regime.  

The killing tree.

At the Killing Fields, we saw several of the mass graves that were used in addition to the killing tree, a tree that was used to beat babies against before they were dropped into one of the mass graves.  It was disturbing and something I will never forget.  We were then shown a video about how the site was found at the end of the Khymer Rouge’s rule, because it had been kept secret until then.  

As if that wasn’t heavy enough, we then went to see the S-21 Museum.  What is now the museum was once a high school turn main torture and interrogation center that fed people into the killing fields.  Only 7 prisoners survived, and their graves are located in the main courtyard of the complex.  We were able to walk the halls and could go into each of the rooms that had once been torture rooms or cells.  The furniture, if you can call it that, that was in the room 30 years ago was still there, as were the stains on the walls and floors.  The second half of the museum had board upon board covered with photos of each of the prisoners on them.  It was impossible to leave this museum without shedding a tear.

The hallways of the S-21 Museum.

Our evening was somber and I realized that I felt like shit both inside and out, so I decided it was time to return to an old pastime of mine --  a workout!  

“What?  A workout?   You mean you haven’t been working out throughout your whole trip, Alison?”  Sadly, dear readers, no, I haven’t been.  But I decided that night that it was time to start again.

I wrote up a program for my 2 Dutch friends and I to do, told them to get suited up, and started to assemble the room for the workout.  When the girls came downstairs, they were wearing flip-flops.  Instantly my inner trainer came out and I asked them, “What do you think we’re going to do here?  A few sit-ups and push-ups?  Get on your sneakers!”

10 minutes later, we were all properly suited up and ready to go.  I blasted some motivational music and explained the workout.  Their faces transformed from big smiles to serious wide-eyed stares as they realized I wasn’t kidding... I really was going to kick all of our asses.

45 minutes later, I took us through a cool down and felt like a teacher leading some weird aerobics class, but I felt good.  So did my friends.  We vowed to keep up the workouts together until we all separated at the end of our Cambodian escapades.  To follow up the fat-burning, we showered up and headed to our next destination: the Indian restaurant we had found earlier in the day.  Time for my friends to try their first Indian food!!