The flight from KL to Phnom Penh was fine and getting a visa proved to be quite easy. I was met by Mr.Phannaks brother who true to his word was holding up the "welcome Mr.Peter..." sign. We then had a unforgettable hours journey through the biggest traffic jam I've ever seen. I will try and describe it but it really does beggar belief.
Ok, try and imagine the M25 at peak rush hour time but moving much faster. Add to that a selection of vehicles, trucks, tuk tuks, mopeds, bikes and people pulling carts all of whom seem to be having their first driving lesson! There does not seem to be a highway code and during the ride to my hotel, I must have seen at least two dozen or more near misses. The mopeds weave in and out of the other traffic and often drive on the wrong side of the road! Use of the horn seems to be obligatory but amazingly there is no 'road rage'.
Street lighting in central Phnom Penh is not common and the road system resembles a grid so there are many crossroads to negotiate. Lots of moped drivers dont use their headlights which seems totally mad as there are numerous craters to avoid. Anyway I arrived safely at the Fancy guest house, had a shower and went off to explore. Nothing could really prepare you for the shock to the system that is Phnom Penh. Crossing the road is an adventure in itself and the secret seems to be that you DO NOT stop or change direction; keep walking at a moderate pace and the traffic will avoid you; if you hesitate or falter you will probably get hit by something!!!!! Well thats all very well but the first time is scary to say the least; an Aussie guy told me " its simple mate, just tuck your balls away, pick a line, keep walking, untuck your balls and have a beer ".... great advice and now I'm fairly confident and don't worry about it too much.
The rainy season in theory should be over; wrong! We have had some deluges that are quite spectacular and basically trap you wherever you happen to be (so far that has been two bars!} The roads are then awash with rubbish and quite often right outside the Fancy GH the water has been almost two foot deep. Apparently in Hanoi at the moment they are having the worst floods for forty years and Bangkok too has had terrible flooding. The thunder and lightning that accompany this rain is a sight to behold and because there is virtually no street lighting in central Phnom Penh, the effect the lightning has is really spooky; otherwise dark and dingy roads are lit up for a second or two and then plunged back into darkness.
When I decided to come to Cambodia, two of the things I wanted to do were to visit the infamous 'killing fields' and the Toul Sleng museum. This is how the Lonely Planet guide describes Toul Sleng. 'The latter formerly the Tuol Svay Prey High school, was taken over by Pol Pot's security forces and was transformed into a prison and zone of unimaginable torment. Renamed Security Prison 21(S-21), the classrooms were turned into torture chambers and equipped with various instruments to inflict pain, suffering and death. These instruments are still here along with graphic photograghs of the victims as they lay dying. The long corridor is a hallway of ghosts containing photographs of the victims put to death, their faces staring back eerily from the past'.
I went there yesterday and did not realise what a profound effect it would have on me. In one room were the stories of eight people that had relatives murdered by Pol Pot's regime. The sense of horror was palpable and I could'nt really stay there too long. The people of Phnom Penh and indeed any other sizeable towns or cities were forced to evacuate to the countryside in 1976 when Pol Pot came to power with the Khmer Rouge. Religion was banned and then started one of the most barbaric acts of genocide the world has ever seen. The beginning of this reign of terror was known as Year Zero. I have talked to many Cambodians and there are few that did'nt have at least one relation who was murdered and tortured by the Khmer Rouge. One girl told me the story of her grandparents forced march out of Phnom Penh and the subsequent ordeal and eventual death that became them; I could tell how affected she was whilst she talked to me and don't mind admitting it moved me to tears.
From there I went to the 'killing fields' and saw some of the mass graves where those executed at Toul Sleng were taken. I know that I'm quite an emotional person but the sense that something awful happened there was definately in the air. There was a huge tree next to one of the graves where babies and very young children were literally beaten to death by hitting them against the trunk of the tree. A speaker was attached to one of the branches to disguise the screams of the little ones. I studied all this in 1978 and remember reading about it in the press but no ammount of study or research could match the feeling of absolute horror, shock and compassion for so many, that I felt yesterday. I'll leave it at that because words can never really do justice to this.
There will be more about Phnom Penh later
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