The bus from Siem Reap was uneventful, though I enjoyed watching the bus overtake tractors, motorcycles with trailers, ox-pulled carts and even the occasional Mercedes (the Mercedes drivers must be the government officials). After navigating rush hour traffic in P.P., the bus arrived at the end of the line about seven hours after departure. I quickly negotiated a fare with one of the moto drivers who was bombarding me and hopped on the back of the bike, bags and all, and was zipped through traffic to the Nomad's Guesthouse on St. 108, where I saw my sister Lauren upon pulling up to the place (she having arrived a couple hours prior on a flight from Bangkok).
After our brief reunion and awkward hug, we dropped my bags in the room and set about finding a place to eat. We walked down to the place where the Tonle Sap River meets the Mekong and I caught my first glimpse of that mighty river, which is just a wide swath of nearly tepid water by the time it reaches Phnom Penh. Hopefully a couple months from now I will stand far upriver, somewhere near Tibet.
We settled down for some food and Angkor at a local eatery off of the main tourist drag where we could find some reasonable prices. After just a few hours enjoying our drinks street side, we ambled off to catch some sleep.
The next day was an uneventful day of rest and Lauren and I explored a bit of the neighborhood and climbed to the tallest "hill" in all of P.P., which must have been at least 8 meters high! We enjoyed the minor temple on top and the monkeys around the park. The locals got a laugh out of our fascination with these city inhabitants, for whom they must have about the same level of interest as we do for squirrels.
Our final day in Phnom Penh was full of emotionally draining exercises in the history of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. In 1976, or some time around then, the Khmer Rough attempted a radical forced change in Cambodian society. They evacuated all of the city inhabitants to rural areas in an effort to start a nation-wide agrarian cooperative. While the idea of an agrarian coop sounds pretty non threatening to me, what really made the three years of the Khmer Rouge so horrific were the Nazi-like torture, genocide of minority groups (in order to have a more uniform society), and the the imprisonment and execution of anyone deemed a threat to the new social order; namely intellectuals, or anyone they thought to be an intellectual or enemy of the state. Pretty strange for a regime run by rich intellectuals who had learned Marxism during their studies in Europe.
Our tour of this history began at the Killing Fields, a site about 15 km outside of the city where prisoners were taken to be executed. The victims were men and women of all ages. The regime decided that it was safer for them to kill the whole family of their alleged enemies, rather than risking later revenge being taken upon them by their victims' descendants. We saw where the prisoners were brought in by truck, housed overnight, then where they were killed, usually by blunt force trauma, and buried in mass graves. In the center of this seemingly peaceful field is a giant stupa (tower) displaying some of the skulls of the many thousands who were killed here. The rest of the site is mainly a series of mass graves, some of which have been excavated and the human remains have been exhumed, and some where there are still tatters of clothing and bone fragments exposed at the surface of the packed soil. Walking in these places, I felt an energy go through me that I can't quite explain.
We went on to read the history of the three years of the Khmer Rouge regime, and the subsequent decades of KR rebels holding out in the hills and finally the beginnings of the prosecution overseen by the International Criminal Court. After leaving the fields, we went to Prison S21, a place where enemies of the state were tortured until "confessing" to transgressions against the new order. We saw the pens where they were held and the devices with which they were tortured. After the prisoners were expunged of all the information that could be gotten from them, they were sent to the Killing Fields for a near certain execution.
Studying the history of this regime and the ongoing criminal proceedings against them, I was forced to reflect on my own background in the criminal defense field. The ICC proceedings represent an area of criminal law that I have never really thought of. Whereas I usually think of criminal defense as representing the lowly and disadvantaged, the ones who usually have little power in society, the Khmer Rouge trials represent, at least on the surface, the heinous crimes of those who had the most power. It is harder to reconcile this with my own ideals.
However, near the end of the tour of the prison, we did see some firsthand accounts of members of the Khmer Rouge regime. They often voice a sentiment that they began fighting for what they saw as a good cause, and by the time they realized the brutality of their employer, they had two choices: to obey orders or be killed themselves (probably along with their families as well). These people of course include the ones who were carrying out the brutal acts.
I suppose though that the only way a society can properly deal with those people who have done the most to damage the ideals of human decency, is to deal with them in an orderly and just way. I can understand the sentiment of those who suffered the most though, who often state that all the old leaders should just be killed rather than undergoing the lengthy and imperfect trial process. It was a day full of philosophical reflections, to say the least.
Moving on, we headed back to our side of town, bought tickets to Laos for the morning, and got some tasty Indian food. We calmly said farewell to Cambodia and set off for Laos on a nice bus in the morning. I have rather enjoyed Cambodia, spending about ten days here. It is easy to travel here because everyone seems to speak English so well (much better here than in Thailand). I have never seen someone get visibly angry or upset and hope to come back here one day.
Laos holds much excitement though, and I look forward to getting to know that place. In the next chapter: Si Phan Don.
oh you allins.
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