The Killing Fields

Day 233.

Henri has sharply called attention to my love of the macabre a couple of times. When we were dating I asked to be taken to the catacombs of Paris, he freaks out when I take pictures of dead things, I obsess about zombies, I love Poe and Lovecraft, there's even a photo of me with the tomb of Oscar Wilde! But somehow a visit to the S-21 prison and the Killing Fields felt perverse even for my standards. A torture tour? Quel horreur! It just felt wrong. But the locals said we have to go, not because it's there to see... They could not explain why, they just said it was important. The rickshaw driver who helped us get lodgings basically said, "just go and you will know." (Here is a link to a National Geographic article about the genocide tourism phenomenon in Phnom Penh in case you want a backgrounder.)

The more we thought about it, it became less morbid curiosity and more of a dare to face the evil depths our kind can sink to. The more we thought about it, the more it made sense that we had to go to learn what what we could, and understand if we could, what happened in Cambodia almost 40 years ago.

Henri and I rented a bike from an Irish guy, a living Wikipedia of local scams and travel advice. Apart from suggesting that we speed past any traffic officers ("They can't run after you!"), he told us to go to Toul Sleng first, then Choeung Ek about 7 kilometers away because seeing the sites in this order would really drive home the point.

Not your ordinary high school.

It was very humid that morning, but Toul Sleng ("Hill of Poisonous Trees"), perhaps the most famous interrogation center from that era, gave us the chills. In the time of peace it was just a school, but education was for the elite and the elite had no place in this new society; so the school found a new purpose - as a torture complex. 

Prisoners were hung by their feet on these gym bars and lowered into water jars.

For me, high school was hell on so many levels - but imagine the day that the academics, intellectuals, politicians and the occasional foreigner were tossed in here to be tormented on a daily basis. 

RANDOM PHOTO DU JOUR 13

We know, it's been a while. 

A lot has happened since we last updated the blog. We built a nest in Manila, Henri tested the waters for a business we talked about throughout the trip, I took a job, and we did a lot of DIY home improvement (which is still a work in progress). 

And then an idea to travel again took hold, and we packed our bags, went to Europe, and did as much as we could while seeing family and a few friends. (Merci beaucoup, Vero et Philippe!)

Guess where we are below!

In France, some of you asked us to finish the blog -- well, we're going to get to it soon, just let me find the pictures first :)

Thank you for reading about our adventures, more to follow!

Phnom Penh Royal Palace

The Royal Palace in Phnom Penh was not on our list of must-see places because no one comes from Cambodia gushing about it, but like the Everest that must be climbed "because it's there," we paid the fee and went in anyway, hoping to be surprised.

This was after having a nice but expensive breakfast at a restaurant halfway to the palace. We stayed at the restaurant a bit longer than expected, but it was perfectly timed after all because we found out we were just in time for the palace gates to open. We didn't have to wait outside like other early birds.

Scary flower that casts a sweet smell.

Phnom Penh

Going against "tradition", we took a tourist bus from Siem Reap to the capital, Phnom Penh. We couldn't find the local bus stand and the locals discouraged us from taking the ferry because the water level is too low to arrive via the Tonlé Sap. 

It was extremely hot in the morning, but it rained hard after lunch and the remaining four hours were cold and wet. The landscape was extremely flat and lovely lotus ponds trimmed the edges of rice fields. The houses on stilts reminded me of rural houses in the Philippines, and if I didn't know any better I could have sworn I was already home.

We had some ideas about where to stay, but early confusion led us to the new backpacker haunts a few streets away from the quay. We read on the guide that the old backpacker area near the big lake is a relaxing place with a nice view of the sunset to boot; but not one tuktuk guy suggested the lake so we wondered what had happened to it. More on this later.

Our room was oddly designed, it must have been an ordinary room before but the owner retrofitted a bathroom inside so they can rent it for a dollar or two more. The strangest thing about the guest house though, was this sign just on top of the stairs:

Angkor, the Final Encore

The Small Circuit Encore

The Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom temples are so photogenic that we couldn't stop snapping pictures. The ones below are just a fraction of the ruins we explored, climbed, ran over, jumped off from... some of these you might recognize from the Tomb Raider movie!

Angkor Thom, Angkor Wat and the Small Circuit

We were having breakfast at a café when we noticed people running in the street. An American who went out told us there was a fire, and Henri couldn't resist investigating. Go Tintin!

The next day, we woke up early, at 5 am exactly, and found a remorque (Cambodian tuktuk) driver sleeping near the river willing to take us to the Small Circuit.

The first time we went there our still camera went kaput, this morning we could guess better where the tourist trafic would be so we had a plan to avoid the tourist bus crowds.

We started at Bayon, where we planned to catch the first rays of sunlight. Unlike our first visit, there were only 2 other people at Bayon. Everyone was at Angkor Wat, watching the sunrise and going around the different levels of the temple with their loud guides. Here, it was quiet, it was peaceful -- it seemed like we had stumbled into a quiet, undiscovered ruin.

Angkor Big Circuit Part 2 (and then some)

The bad news is, Henri has a bit of a fever. Today we are in Chiang Mai, and I'm half watching over Henri and half watching Star Trek on Syfy... The good new is that I have some time to upload pictures of our Angkor Wat visit, BUT it's still Henri's entry to write, so I'm just here to give you a backstory.

These are the last pictures from our first day on the site. The "Big Circuit" includes the wats (temples) east of Angkor Wat. These are the less touristic temples, so we crossed paths with less tourists in some areas, and sometimes there wasn't a soul at all.

Angkor Big Circuit (May 18)

Sorry this has taken so long, but we've been jumping in and out of buses and guest houses so much recently that we never had much energy left at the end of the day to update.

Henri will write over all this once he regains full panda strength, and tell you all about our adventures on our first visit to the Angkor ruins.

Siem Reap

We decided to rest on our first two days in Siem Reap. After a day like the last (the border crossing), we badly needed to recharge. Wandering around, we tried to acquaint ourselves with Cambodian life, away from the tourist center. The weather wasn't so great when we arrived, but it was sunny enough in the morning, but it rained in the afternoons.

Dried fish in the market. Sophia of the guest house said
this is the food Cambodians like most.

Various spices. They can give India a run for their spicy money!

Went to the other side of the river to see if we can find another place to stay in.

Sitting at the fountain in front of the Raffles.
After some debate, we decided to stay put at the center,
where all the pubs and restos are, and save ourselves a bit of a walk.

Henri took the crappy sunglasses I bought in Khao San the day before.
The woman said it's "not made in China, made in Thailand, made in Thailand better!"
Well one side broke no more than 24 hours later...