Today has been a sobering day and one of contrasts. I palled up with the Brit couple I met on the bus yesterday and we took a moto tuk tuk (an experience in itself) around town. We first visited the killing fields, about 14kms from the centre and the site of mass graves and a memorial to the genocide of the Pol Pot era. The central point is a Buddhist temple type memorial stacked with skulls of some of the people who were killed there grouped by age range and sex which somehow makes them more real. But the most disturbing part was as you walked around, the effect of rain and wind on the dusty, sandy soil means that it is still gradually giving up the contents of the mass graves beneath – pieces of clothing and bones are slowly making their way up to the surface under your feet. We then moved on to somewhere completely different, and a visit to the Russian market (so called due to its popularity with Russian expats during the 1980’s). Full of piles of clothing, silks, shoes and other stuff all mixed in with the smell of food, dried fish and other even less pleasant odours. I wasn’t sure their stock merchandising is quite up to Harrods standards; we weren’t there long and I will go back another day. We then motored on to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum the site of the infamous S-21, the security prison designed for the interrogation and extermination of anti –Angkar (the Organisation) elements. It started life in the late 60’s as a primary school, and the building itself looks like any 60’s concrete designed school in Britain. Its use only changed in the mid 70’s after the Khmer Rouge took power. Estimates are that nearly 13,000 people were killed here after being brutally tortured between 1975 and 1978 including 2000 children. There were some graphic pictures of the torture and the stark rooms with an iron bed with shackles and a single picture black and white picture from the time on the wall were chilling. And rows of pictures taken at the time of the people who went through there – only 12 survived. It has been interesting being here, I now understand a lot more about what happened in this country during the time of the Khmer Rouge, both from visiting places like this and reading books – a lot of what happened was somewhat overshadowed in the news we got at the time by the Vietnam War which was also going on. We were talking to the tuk tuk driver who lost both his parents at this time. Everybody in this country has been directly affected by the brutal regime as they have all lost a mother, father, brother, sister or other close relative, and often many more than one. I read the book of the Killing Fields over the last couple of days, and bought a copy of the DVD in the market today, and watched it tonight. But given they lost so many people it’s good to see that now Phnom Penh at least appears to be thriving again, and reading the local papers there is more and more new investment – mainly in the tourist trade with new hotels going up, but hopefully that will help towards getting these gentle people back on their feet.
After such a day, I needed reviving, so up to the terrace at the FCC for a happy hour cranberry mojito – good for the vitamin intake. It’s a great place to not only enjoy the views over the meeting of the rather brown Tonle Sap and Mekong rivers and the riverside promenade which gets busier as darkness falls under tonight's full moon, but also the variety of people who are up there. It’s an ever changing panorama (if you stay there long enough…) of groups of German tourists, young Gap Year Brits talking loudly in drawling accents, groups of girls having an early evening drink, expats having early evening meetings. The character who looked like someone straight out of a Graham Greene novel, a big, elderly, grey haired gentleman with a battered panama, silver walking stick and huge cigar gingerly edging his way down the steep stairs after his couple of pre prandial G&T’s. And last night a group of Koreans – loud as usual – filming something with a great fuss of cameras, mikes, people and the man who was presenting whatever it was, perhaps a Korean travel programme, preening himself before the mirror. The riverside here that the FCC overlooks has a feel of the bund in Shanghai – much smaller, without the skyscrapers and lots less sophisticated, but full of little shops, rooftop bars and trendy restaurants all overlooking a busy river. But there is also a bit of a divide – the western tourists in the trendy bars and restaurants on one side, and the locals promenading on the river bank on the other…..
After such a day, I needed reviving, so up to the terrace at the FCC for a happy hour cranberry mojito – good for the vitamin intake. It’s a great place to not only enjoy the views over the meeting of the rather brown Tonle Sap and Mekong rivers and the riverside promenade which gets busier as darkness falls under tonight's full moon, but also the variety of people who are up there. It’s an ever changing panorama (if you stay there long enough…) of groups of German tourists, young Gap Year Brits talking loudly in drawling accents, groups of girls having an early evening drink, expats having early evening meetings. The character who looked like someone straight out of a Graham Greene novel, a big, elderly, grey haired gentleman with a battered panama, silver walking stick and huge cigar gingerly edging his way down the steep stairs after his couple of pre prandial G&T’s. And last night a group of Koreans – loud as usual – filming something with a great fuss of cameras, mikes, people and the man who was presenting whatever it was, perhaps a Korean travel programme, preening himself before the mirror. The riverside here that the FCC overlooks has a feel of the bund in Shanghai – much smaller, without the skyscrapers and lots less sophisticated, but full of little shops, rooftop bars and trendy restaurants all overlooking a busy river. But there is also a bit of a divide – the western tourists in the trendy bars and restaurants on one side, and the locals promenading on the river bank on the other…..
