Welcome to Cambodia

Not having a masters in political science I will not attempt to dissect and explain the threads of history’s tapestry that have been woven, unpicked, and burnt to end up with the Cambodia that is today.

Within one very small and ancient country you see brilliance, suffering and hope, each in stark relief.

 

Cambodia is small compared with its neighbours, particularly Thailand.   The head of the phoenix rising from the fire is Phnom Penn. It is a small city with a mix of old and modern . The infrastructure is basic and not as polluted as the old Bangkok.   The city’s skyline is low-rise and home to about 2m of the total 14m Cambodian population.

First impressions

The Cambodians (along with many of the Asian cultures) have a mythical beat called the Naga.  This is a large serpent that is dragged along the ground, raking up and destroying the land in order for new growth to replace the old.   In the Khmer culture, destruction is recognised in equal measure to creation as the necessary balance of life. 

This serpent has been working overtime during the last century, raked over the Cambodian landscape and its people (indiscriminately it seems).   Perhaps it’s working.  Despite the extreme poverty, corruption and malnutrition evident wherever you look in Cambodia, the country is advancing in leaps and bounds on economic and life expectancy terms among other markers.   

Thida is landlady to my friend Jehangir,   She represents a new Cambodia.  We compare notes on our respective farms.  That of her family down South is 4 hectares planted in (Kampot) pepper, rubber and tobacco, three relatively valuable cash crops.  Thida has two children, a one and a three year old.  She is a mother and an astute businesswoman working hard to ensure her children can get the education to ensure their success.  Between the three apartment buildings she owns, she balances raising her kids with importing sports drinks from Malaysia for the Cambodian market (“Not carbonated, ”  Thida explains, “Khmers don’t like carbonated drink.” Come to think of it I’ve not seen any local with a coca cola can to their lips here). 

The contended older gentleman in the singlet near the step bounces the young girl on his knee.  You could be forgiven for assuming he has been a farmer in days gone by.   Another misconception.   “My Father, ‘ continues Thida “…was a Doctor in the hospital here in Phnom Penn.”   I gauge his age and quickly do the sums to figure that the serene smile probably masks a set of gruesome memories.    

With > 50% of the Cambodian  population being under 22 years of age  the impact of the civil war, Khmer Rouge and genocide ripples through the subsequent generations.

Whether it be Vietnam, Thailand or France, all three have a place in Cambodia’s history (and therefore influences over the future).  This is equally evident in the melting pot of religion where the Angkor temples blend Hinduism with Buddhism.

East meets East (then West) with interesting results here.

International aid is a melting pot of funding  from foreign Governments and NGO’s.  This seems to manifest itself in two forms

a./ The fleets of 4WD vehicles (usually the obligatory UN white Nissan Patrols) with various logos and country of origin/donation (including Australia, China, France, US  and others)  parked in impressive line-ups in central Phnom Penn.

b./ Central NGO offices that rival some of the best looking embassies in the capital.

Despite the various fleet vehicles signalling their intended purpose through the sign-writing that invariably speaks of rural recovery and development, three days of rural travel proved these vehicles and their occupants to be a scarce commodity in the countryside. For the 30 I counted in Phnom Penn, I saw one in Siam Riep and none in the countryside on the way between both locations.

 

Cigarette lighters and limbs

Siam Riep is the modern day portal to the ancient world of Angkor Watt.  It is a bustling city and tourist town.  The markets are colourful and crowded. Among the various Armani, North Face and levis merchandise (all for <US10 and with dubious pedigree) I come across shops with trays of Zippo cigarette lighters. 

These are a time capsule in themselves and made famous the world over by die-hard smokers who use them for conventional purposes and (non smoking) action heroes in movies who invariably have them to light the fuse on an incendiary device or casually toss them over their shoulder to unleash an inferno on leaking fuel engulfing expensive cars or villains alike.

I am not a smoker, but being married to one, I have an appreciation of this arcane device.  The trays catch my eye.

Each tray carries about 20 lighters.  The new brass of some gleam and highlight the various logos (Harley Davidson and others).  It is not these that interest me.  Among  them are tarnished and dull brass, like discarded shell casings.  Each has a battalion or platoon logo on one side – usually soldered on,  not engraved.  The top of the lighter has a  date range (I see several including 1968-1972, 1970-1975) and some, on the reverse side, have a quote (“getting home is hard to do”, “I look forward to when I can help build a church here rather than dropping a bomb”, “If you can’t love the one you want, love the one you are with!”).   The new ones, the shop keeper tells me, are US$10.00, the old are US$12.00 – a premium for a history with unknown resolution.   It’s hard to say how many of these are fake but I presume some are real.  It is hard to know, for the real ones, what became of their owner.  Was it dropped and found in a field?  Was it traded for something more precious at the time or was it liberated from an owner who would never find the need for one again? 

 

Small cylinders of a different variety are another relic of the war left by soldiers, lying dormant until discovered , usually unwittingly and with lethal consequence. 

Hideous gaps and mute spaces where arms or legs should be.   

Land mines and cluster bombs are the gift that keeps on giving. While no one is really sure of the volume of unexploded ordnance, it is believed that there are around 4 million unexploded devices in Cambodia.  They are indiscriminate of age, race and sex.  Men, women and children, now permanently interrupted and incomplete ply their trade or sell their wares, playing in bands on street corners or begging.  In the plain and descriptive language of military, the little gems that cause this carnage are catalogued as “anti-personnel devices”.  They certainly are that.  Invariably designed to sever the limbs of their victims, these are not designed to kill, rather to render the victim from a functioning member of the “enemy” to a wounded and therefore maintenance tail that will slow them down.  They are incredibly effective in doing that in perpetuity.  Just remember to substitute the word “society” for “enemy” in the above sentence when in peacetime! 

 

Futures

Despite (or perhaps because of) the tribulations that have (and still do) face them, the Khmer people have a spring in their step and a smile on their faces.  I’d originally thought that the smiles were camouflaging a deeper and more gritty reality. While there is an element of that, it’s the smiles on the children’s faces as they laugh and wave that really speak to an unwritten and wobbly potential.  Goodness knows they’ve earned it.
 

Getting from Thailand to Cambodia

One word. Fly! 

My last location in Thailand was the island of Koh Tao.  Looking at the map, it seems logical (a word I’m increasingly learning to drop from my vocabulary in South East Asia) that there might be a way of catching a ferry or portage on a ship to Cambodia.  The hotel manager in Koh Tao was extremely helpful in trying to look at options. Through the dialogue she was having on the phone the only word  I recognised was “Kampuchea” .  There are a myriad of blogs and advice on catching trains and buses to get from Thailand to Cambodia (and on to Phnom Penn).  One that seems most up to date and be a superset of most other advice is herehttp://www.ibackpackertravel.com/tips/poipet-to-bangkok-by-train/.  (While this talks about different destinations, the "comments' and corresponding answers at the end of the thread are vey useful) 

 All advice shared some a common themes:

·         Most options use Bangkok as the starting point

·         Most options rely on buses at some part of the journey

·         The potential hydra of scams at the border

·         The length of time for Bangkok to Phnom Penn (by my reckoning) being 1.5 – 2 days.

Bugger that. I checked out the cost of flights through Air Asia http://www.airasia.com/kh/en/home.page  (one of the RyanAir equivalents for Asia) and, at 5200 baht (NZ$185) Bangkok-Phnom Penn  return, I decided to cut through the Gordian knot and chose to fly.  There are certainly cheaper ways to get there – but the amount of mucking around and hidden costs of various things, the one hour flight from BK to PP seems reasonable.

For two countries that border each other, there does not seem to be a lot of local knowledge on the Thai side of what lies beyond the Cambodian border and various travel options.  Having subsequently read about the warring history between the two countries, this does not come as a surprise. 

Thanks to Alex and Toon via AirBnB for hosting me overnight on the same-day’s notice so I could fly out of Bangkok the next morning.  The reverse  3 hour Ferry and 8 hour bus trip from Koh Tao (and a great conversation with Steph from the UK in transit) I arrived in Bangkok ready for the onward journey next morning.

 

Customs and immigration

If you want an interesting experience, fly or travel into Cambodia without $USD, otherwise, take US$20 for a seamless (?) immigration and instant visa process at the border/airport.  I opted (unwittingly) for the former.

There are two currencies in play in Cambodia; US$ and  the Riel.  The first is in most use, the second serves to clog up your wallet, make you feel like a millionaire and you might have enough with a  fistful of Riel to buy a bottle of water.

In the immigration area of Phnom Penn airport there is a cash point machine.  This, like many you find around Cambodia, was ornamental at the time (I’ve learned the Khmer characters for “out of service” now).  With the need to pay US$20 for a visa and cash-only accepted, I felt in no-mans land.  Never fear.  With the immigration official holding onto my passport, I was directed, un-chaperoned, out of the airport to another cash machine.  Carrying my duty free and carry-on luggage I darted past the customs, border control and immigration seemingly invisible to bump into Jehangir outside the airport.  He kindly lent me the money (so I did not need to queue behind the others who had found themselves in the same predicament), I handed him the duty free (though could have been anything) then headed back into the airport for “due processing”. 

I didn't know Carolann had been here already!