The heart and soul of Cambodia

The first weekend we were in Cambodia we headed north to Siem Reap with the main purpose to visit the Temples of Angkor. There are about 19 temples (or wats) in the area - spread out over some considerable distance. The temples are a source of inspiration and national pride and they are a point of pilgrimage for all Khmers, and a huge tourist magnet - who come in their thousands to see this Wonder of the World!
The temples are in various states of disrepair, some being allowed to be consumed by the jungle around them, others are being restored through international agreements with other countries ie America, Germany and Japan.
We started our sight seeing at 4.30am to climb to the top of the highest temple (Phnom Bakheng) for sunrise, scrabbling up a large rock face in the dark hanging on to roots and trees was not an experience we will forget! but nothing prepared us for the magnificence of these structures. Built between 9th and 14th Century, they are feats of construction and reflections of mans commitment to their gods.
I could bore you with details of each temple we saw but I think some of the photos would be of more interest ....
Phnom Bakheng Temple




Breakfast of mangos at a sacrificial table!
Bayon- this temple has over 50 towers with 216 huge (approx 12ft high)smiling carved faces



Spring cleaning at Bayon!
Angkor Wat - the most famous of the temples at Angkor and the largest


We are not sure why these beautifully carved women have particularly shiny body parts - one can only guess!



Monks are a very common sight at the temples. The different shades of orange robes denote how long you have been a monk.

Traffic Management

As alluded to in the previous post the roads are quite simply chaos theory at work!! Despite this I think we can learn from them.
The roads are so hard to describe as you have to experience it to know what it feels like! (Italy and France have nothing on Cambodia). Most people get around on little motorbikes (called motordops) and bicycles or 4 wheel drives!
No one is quite sure what the traffic laws are in Cambodia - but this does not seem to matter - the main rule seems to be - worry only about what is in front of you, the things behind you will worry about themselves! Cross roads are the most fun (read scary), though there are traffic lights and even a seconds counter telling you the remaining time left on red or green, most people ignore them or at least the last 10 seconds before they change so you are hurtled out in to the junction with traffic coming at you from all sides, the feeling that over a hundred motorbikes are heading straight for you is something I reckon everyone should experience at least once in their lives! and somehow everyone misses each other...


1. Traffic Jams
We rarely encountered a traffic jam but when we did, even then we managed to squeeze our way through, even if it meant taking over the pavement, driving through the forecourt of a petrol station or through someones front lawn - we got through. Bearing in mind about 100 people were doing the same thing in the opposite direction!

2. Car sharing
well that should be bike sharing really - Cambodians have the most amazing sense of balance and it was a common sight to see a family of 6 all seated on a motordop and with their shopping (bags of vegetables, live chickens and sacks of rice), or see someone on their way to market with 10 live pigs strapped to the back, or 25 live ducks hanging from their feet strapped to a plank of wood or people delivering TV's - we saw one bike with 3 men on and 6 TV's stacked up! or people on their way home from hospital holding up their IV drip as they were whizzed through the streets. Women generally sat side saddled with their legs crossed as if they were watching daytime TV, children from the age of 1 were perched in front of the driver. Anything that could be lifted on to a bike was transported by bike! Essential motordop gear is high heels (for the girls!) sun hats, gloves to keep the sun off you and a towel and sunglasses to keep the dust out of your face, no helmets, no leathers, no boots!
To get goods in and out of the city for people the common way is to load up a mini bus with people and goods, they would not leave the market until they were full and by full I mean people on the roof and ladders were used as extension seating out the back of the van - how any of the vans had suspension or could move is actually a mystery to me!
A slightly more dangerous mode of transport was lorries that were transporting a large amount of goods - these were stacked up as high as humanly possible and then people climbed on top for the journey home. On a serious note this is dangerous - as when lorries swerved or braked suddenly their passengers were thrown to the ground and often died.
Cambodia certainly could teach us a thing or two about sharing transport - imagine if we all did this here - how empty our streets would be !

3. Transport for religious leaders
A common (but continually endearing sight) was the monks on the back of motordops. Monks are able to stop any motordop, van, car or bus and ask to be taken to their destination without charge, in exchange for a blessing! Maybe the C of E should consider this for their clergy to cut costs!



Travelling in Cambodia was exciting, life threatening, entertaining, frightening and fun! Having said all this there are real problems with road traffic accidents outside the city where roads are wide enough for one way traffic but often are accommodating traffic travelling 3 abreast on each side! This aside it did make me seriously wonder about the lengths we go to with traffic management and control - maybe we should adopt a bit more chaos theory ...
I have just recieved an email from my father-in-law (Jack) suggesting another Cambodian traffic management idea for the M5 in the avon area - "on Bank Hols and other busy days they allow traffic to travel on the M5 in any direction if there is a space but it would be wise you also mentioned the speed would be reduced to say 25mph while travelling in that Somerset area - but at least the traffic would be moving and it would add a certain interest to the journey"
this really happens in Cambodia!

Cambodia

Obviously I have not blogged for a few weeks - Gayle and I have been in Cambodia visiting Gayle's parents who work for OMF. There is so much to say about our experiences (sorts out blog material for a few days!). The in-laws live in Cambodia's capital - Phnom Penh, but we also managed to go up to Siem Reap (where the Angkor Wat Temples are) and down to the coast to Kep (near Vietnam) as well.
There is plenty to see in Phnom Penh - standing on a street corner is an experience especially when your father-in-law is shouting from the other side telling you to cross the road despite there been thousands of motorcycles coming straight at you! But this trauma aside... Phnom Penh is where the Mekong river converges with 3 other rivers in the capital to form the Toule Sap lake, this is also home to the refugee Vietnamese boat people (probably one of the poorest group of people in Cambodia). We got around on Motodops (low cc motorbikes) or Tuk Tuk's (a carriage pulled by a motorbike) - traveling around Cambodia, especially in the city, is a real experience. The markets sell you anything and are packed full of live chickens, dried fish and live fish, glazed pigs, congealed blood (yes for sale!), more fruits than you could ever imagine, vegetables, GAP t-shirts, souvenirs, postcard sellers (usually landmine victims), watches, gems, offerings for Buddha, the list goes on.

Typical market scene

Chickens head for tea anyone?!

Congealed blood with your chicken head?

Wat's (or temples) are everywhere as are monks, rich and poor live side by side, often poor families building a shack on top of quite a rich block of flats. Your senses are overloaded, there is always some strange sight to see - a motordop carrying a family of 7 or someone with their IV drip being taken home from the hospital, or live ducks bound by their feet tied to the back. The smell of frangipani trees lining the wide streets, cooking meat, drains, dried fish, noodle soup and rice cooking on wood fires, it is quite overwhelming at times. And it was hot and humid (up to 40c a lot of the time)

on the surface Cambodia has everything for sale as a saying goes "Cambodians can sell you nearly everything and everything nearly works". this is so true - as a country it lacks any infra-structure and corruption is rife, though it is hard to judge the policeman and the teacher and doctor who don't get paid from month to month but keep working, who then demand some bribe to pass a child's exam, to give medical care or to let to a driver pass-by for a minor traffic offence (that nobody evens knows if it is law or not!). we held many discussions with each other about how on earth this kind of situation is ever solved. It would certainly take a real crusader to sort it out. Despite all this and Cambodia's horrific past the Khmer people are very friendly, welcoming and helpful. They certainly know how to smile!
There are many many NGO (Non governmental organizations) working in Cambodia trying to change things for the people there, in fact it seems that ex-pats support the economy - if you pulled them all out there would be so little money coming in to Cambodia you have to wonder what would happen, though it might sort out some of the corruption!
traveling outside the capital also was fascinating - trucks, buses, cars, motordops and bicycles and cows with carts hurtling towards each other on roads that were not built for 2 way traffic! In fact some of the roads were not built!! trucks and buses were jammed with people and their purchases or goods for sale- infact some mini-buses had seat extentions out the back to accommodate all the travelers and their baggage!
we whizzed past wooden huts on stilts, rice paddies, children playing in the puddles (Cambodians seems to love swimming), water buffalo ploughing the fields. I think what amazed me was that many places we passed on our travels did not have electric but many had a large TV aerials poking out of their homes despite their home being nothing more than four walls of cardboard and a tarpaulins roof!
Perhaps one of the more depressing days Gayle and I spent was visiting Toul Sleng and the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. Though it is obviously set up for tourists it is something that every visitor to Cambodia needs to do. Toul Sleng High School was taken over by Pol Pot's forces in the mid 1970's and soon became the largest detention and torture centre in the country. In the space of 3years over 17000 prisoners were taken to the Killing Fields for execution. The Khmer Rouge very carefully recorded the details and photographed all their prisoners. The photos of the prisoners and of torture fill many of the rooms at Toul Sleng. There is an excellent video following the story of one prisoner which gives a real insight in to the times. When the Vietnamese liberated Phnom Penh they found 7 survivors. 14 others were being tortured as the Vietnamese entered the city - these 14 rooms were photographed and have been preserved as they were found on that day. Visiting here is profoundly depressing and there was not a lot we could say to each other afterwards. We then took the same journey out to the Killing Fields as the prisoners (bound in a truck) would have taken. Though there is not a lot to see at the Killing Fields it was not a nice place to be. Clothes and bones are still emerging from the mass graves, as you walked round bits of clothes were under your feet, a tree was marked as to where they beat babies to death (whole families were killed at once so there would be no revenge attacks), another tree held a microphone that played loud music during the killings to cover the sounds of screams. Prisoners were killed with hoes and spades to conserve bullets. There is a Memorial Stupa which houses skulls, bones and clothing form one of the exhumed graves - most of the graves are left untouched. The majority of the security forces involved in Toul Sleng and the Killing Fields were young men and women (average age 17).


Toul Sleng School


Killing Fields Stupa -found skulls

Killing Fields Stupa - found clothes

How a country's people recovers from this we do not know... There are a whole generation of people missing - a whole generation of lost skills, knowledge and wisdom.
Despite ending on such a depressing note - we loved Cambodia, its people and the way life was pushed right in to your face, as Gayle said after she had sped along on a motordop "you could not help notice you were alive!"