I really can't even describe Angkor. It's not something you can't put into words. It's one of the seven wonders of the modern world. There's good reason for that. Speeding on the back of a motorbike into the temple's domain at sunrise, rosy mist hanging above the calm moat waters. Making your way carefully over the broken stones that make up a 500 meter walkway to the inner wall of the complex. Finding your personal viewing space amidst the crowds. Watching as the sillhouette of the wat becomes more and more defined, until the day has truly begun. It's magic.
I'm concerned about the land and temples being preserved. It seems inevitable that the area will be marketed until each stone is worn into the ground. Go there.
Kip and I had our last meal together at Chhouk Rath (chook wrath!), a restaurant we'd been frequenting with such diligence that they knew how Kip took her spaghetti. The next day we would be separating. She, heading back to Bangkok, I, to Phnom Pehn. She was an awesome travelling companion and made my trip that much more enjoyable. Plus she's funny as and kept me smiling even when I was vomiting and bleeding. What more can you ask for? Our goodbyes in the morning weren't too sad, as we'll be seeing each other in a week!
I took the speed boat to Phnom Pehn. It takes 10 hours on a bus but only four on the boat, so I couldn't really refuse the speediness due to former bus rides from Hades. The "Friendship", as the vessel was called, was rather frightening. It was just a tin can, but luckily it floated. The scenery was astounding. I had been to the floating village before, but as we got out onto the lake and rode near the shore you could see that people live on these rafts, floating houses and boats all the way around the lake.
I settled into a guesthouse on Boeng Kak lake once in Phnom Pehn and went on a little walk. That turned into a big walk, all the way to Tuol Sleng Museum. I had been planning to go there on my second day, but there was just so much time left in the day I thought, why not.
On the 15th April 1975 Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, invaded Phnom Pehn. He took control of a local high school and turned it into a detainment center called Security Camp 21 (or S-21). He divided some classrooms into small cells, barely big enough to squeeze into. Others were kept as large multi-prisoner cells. 1000's of prisoners came in and out of those doors. 17000. He detained former Cambodian army leaders and anti-Khmer Rouge revolutionaries. But he did not just capture the men he thought were against him. He took their wives, their children, newborn babies. They were all kept under horrible conditions, tortured, beaten and ultimately brought to a patch of land 15 km away to be killed. They were mostly all bludgeoned to death, to avoid wasting ammunition. This happened over the course of about four years. When the Vietnamese army stormed in to liberate Phnom Pehn, remaining prisoners at the camp were beaten to death. Seven people were alive when the Vietnamese arrived. They were the only detainees out of the 17,000 to survive their stay at Tuol Sleng.
The grounds of the museum are dotted with frangipani trees. The rooms are full of sunlight. The lawns are tidy and green. Children play at the back of the buildings with balls and nets. You can hear them laughing as you walk from room to room, looking at the meticulously documented photographs of the people who were held here. Row upon row of young men, elderly monks, young girls, toddlers, babies in their mothers arms. Black and white faces with modern designs on their t-shirts and bewildered, battered looks. Ín another building you can see the rooms containing nothing more than beds where people were brought to be tortured and where the final victims were found after their hurried and horrific deaths. A picture hangs on each wall of the body as it was found; mouths open, skulls crushed, chests bloody, arms dangling. It was a terrifying place to visit on my own. And after careful consideration of my state upon completing the tour, I opted to skip the killing fields (where the detainees were brought to be beaten to death en masse) and head out of Phnom Pehn the next morning.
I took a bus south, to the ocean. We tangled ourselves in the mountains and untangled again at the sea. I'm in Sihanoukville; a pretty, undeveloped seaside community that I'm lucky to see before the high-rises and resorts arrive. I got in with time to see the sunset last night and it made me silently cry.
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