En route from Thailand to Cambodia, we spent the entire day in Airport World, traveling from Phuket to Bangkok to Phnom Penh without going outside. I like Airport World - there is always good people-watching and time to relax and reflect. Occasionally I wait long enough somewhere that I'll momentarily forget which country I'm in. Despite its enormity, the Bangkok airport has become one of my favorites
- the customs agents smile warmly and actually seem like they're having
fun, it has beautiful gold statues and art, and a view of gardens
outside. Throughout the day, we had plenty of time to eat overpriced snacks and browse the bookstores, where we found some enlightening how-to books for Western men on how to get a Thai girlfriend or wife (complete with sample wage charts), and read some horrifying personal stories of young women in the sex-trade industry.
The Phnom Penh International Airport, and Cambodia in general, is quite a contrast from Thailand. Our first step upon arrival was obtaining a visa. When we got to the front of the line, our intention was to ask about what kind of visa we needed, since we'd planned to enter the country twice on this trip. The official who took our passports either didn't understand us, didn't care, or some combination of both - he also didn't acknowledge Allie's attempt to tell him he was actually stapling a photo of a 40 year old Asian woman to her application. Regardless, we paid our $20 and our applications were processed promptly. Customs was two stern-looking uniformed men leaning against a wall. We walked on by with our packs and our forms, which were never looked at.
After the ease and relaxation of Thailand, Phnom Penh throws some sensory overload into the mix. Motorbikes, cars, and pedestrians battle for space on the street, constantly near colliding but keeping their flow. Lanes are nonexistent, but horns compensate. Trash lines the streets; a shop owner actively sweeps it there from the sidewalk. Sparks fly as a man welds metal on a rooftop, barefoot and without any special protection. A small child climbs around on some sort of machine, engine exposed and black with road dirt. An old man sits idly on his tuk-tuk, intensely following my gaze as we pass. Dogs bark, wander, and pick through the trash. Old women and children with sad eyes approach and ask for money. Vendors prepare and sell food from carts - various meat and fish, coconut balls, fried savory cakes, bread. Kids in school uniforms congregate. An old man crouches over a small fire on a side street lined with shanties. He stares unmoving as Allie snaps a photo, and I wonder what he is thinking about. Motorbikes carry entire families, large loads of anything and everything. Life moves all around us.
On one tuk-tuk ride our driver stopped for gas, parking opposite a petrol station and crossing through four lanes of traffic to the other side. After a month of flailing across busy streets all over southeast Asia, his ability to stroll casually through the sea of motorbikes and cars truly amazed me. He did the same on the way back across, this time holding two soda bottles full of petrol without a lids, never spilling a drop.
We found a great guesthouse in Phnom Penh for $3.50/night (for the two of us), dropped our bags and headed out to explore. We found a market with a streetside restaurant full of locals and had a seat. We were the only travelers there, and two of just three women. I ordered a small Angkor beer, which I soon found out means a pitcher - a large was a free-standing tank with a tap set up near your table. We shared the small. A girl stood attentively near us, refilling our glasses nearly every time we took a sip, occasionally dropping in huge chunks of ice. Allie had the fried eel, I had fried rice, and all told the meal was US$4 and delicious.
Later that night, I realized that I've been doing the budget travel thing a while when I caught myself commenting that our room was really nice aside from the fleas, spraying the sheets with Deet and going to bed. It was the first time in a while we'd had an inside shower and a fan that actually cooled the room, so we felt like were in luxury. I love how travel makes me appreciate the small things.
We filled our first day with the most emotionally draining of Cambodia's historical sites. Around midday we arrived at Choeung Ek, also known as the Killing Fields. A few kilometers outside Phnom Penh, this was where thousand of people killed by the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970's were executed and buried in mass graves. The main structure is a tall memorial filled with human skulls, bones, and tattered clothes of the victims. We walked around several large pits, each marked with a plaque describing who and how many people were once buried there. Signs marked trees where babies were routinely killed, and where a speaker hung to create noise to drown out the screams.
As if this wasn't depressing enough, afterward we went to S21, now a Genocide Museum that provided more context to what we had just seen. Originally a secondary school, it was converted into a prison during Pol Pot's regime where people were detained and tortured. Four concrete buildings surround a courtyard which now holds 14 gravestones and PE equipment that was later used to hang and torture prisoners. I will spare you all the details, but I will say that a scary movie could easily be filmed here. The inside is left largely as it was during this fairly recent atrocity, with the addition of a heartbreaking photo gallery and a film depicting individual stories of victim's families.
By the end of our time there, I was spent. I looked out a third-story window at all the houses below, ranging from colorful French-colonial style to corrugated metal shacks. I wondered about the people who live here now, and how this story has intertwined with their families' lives. Outside, people play hackyy-sack in the courtyard and the usual pack of tuk-tuk drivers animatedly solicits our business. We walk. I feel ready to go home and stare at a wall, needing time to process what I'd just seen.
