Every Cloud

Ok,  so let’s get it over with.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum

Being a literal stone’s throw from my guest house room in Phnom Penh, I swallowed hard and spent some time at this museum, a testament to some of the most depraved and systematic excesses of human cruelty in modern history.

When the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975, they immediately set up around 200 torture centres around the country.

The one here at Tuol Sleng used to be a high school.

The regime imprisoned intellectuals, academics, artists, political activists, civil servants and their families here, tortured them, made them sign confessions, and then sent them to the “killing fields,” about 8km away, where they were executed.

The victims were of all ages.

While I hesitate to post the following details and images, in my view it’s important they be seen. But please skip to the next section if you need to.

*****

Classroom torture chamber

When the Vietnamese invaded and overthrew the Khmer Rouge in 1979, they occupied Tuol Sleng, and took photos of what was there. This is one of their photos. A number of prisoners were killed by Khmer Rouge soldiers just before they fled.

I won't post the worst of the pics.

The four large buildings of the school, all of three stories each, were converted into torture or holding cells.

Pol Pot, head of the Khmer Rouge. He was a secretive figure. Throughout the 4 years of Khmer Rouge rule, many Cambodians didn’t even know who he was. They were told that everything had to be done for “Angkar,” the “Organisation”. All of the policies, ideologies, teachings, tasks, absolutely everything, was for Angkar.

So brutally Orwellian.

Pol Pot himself was an intellectual, his family was wealthy, and he went to one of Cambodia’s most elite schools. He lived in Paris for over 10 years, where he became involved in the communist movement. He eventually returned to Phnom Penh, where he was a teacher.

Nah, it’s not hypocritical that after gaining power his troops tortured and massacred thousands of intellectuals, is it?

After the Vietnamese finally ousted the Khmer Rouge in 1979 Pol Pot escaped to the jungles of southwestern Cambodia and the Cardamom Mountains, and then over the border to bases in Thailand, where he was involved in a guerilla war against the Vietnamese. He remained hidden there for another two decades, until his death. He was never ever held to account for his unbelievably brutal crimes.

Comrade Duch. He was the Commandant of the torture centre. Duch learnt his craft before the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia, as the head of one of Pol Pot’s security and spy centres. While he was Commandant at Tuol Sleng, over 20,000 people passed through there, with only a very small handful of survivors.

Duch was one of the Khmer Rouge leaders tried at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. He testified that he was simply a cog in a huge machine, and acted out of fear of death. But evidence by witnesses outlined that this couldn’t have been further from the truth, and that he was an active and willing participant in all activities in the centre, and that the level of his brutality was horrific.

Torture methods he introduced there included everything you could possibly think of, and worse. Electricity (mostly on genitalia), waterboarding, hanging, use of insects such as centipedes and scorpions in genitalia, amputations (particularly of genitalia, often slowly), the ripping out of finger and toenails, part suffocations, part drownings, beatings, you name it. They specifically designed torture tables to be able to manipulate bodies in particular ways.

In 2009 Duch was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment, minus the 11 years he’d already spent in detention, from when they finally caught up with him in 1999, a full 20 years after he first escaped capture. He appealed the sentence, and the court actually increased his jail time to life, rather than decreased it. Duch(bag) died a couple of years ago.

Young Khmer Rouge cadres. They always wore black, and were indoctrinated nice and young.

And a tiny handful of their many victims

Age wasn’t a problem for them. Kids, pregnant women, young mums with their babies, everyone wins a prize.

Tiny cells, each of which housed a number of prisoners.

After each victim had been tortured and forced to sign a confession (eg. stating that they were a US spy, that they had stolen from others, that they were a teacher and had taught anti-revolutionary ideas etc), they were then sent off to Choeung Ek, the killing fields.

There they were forced to dig trenches, made to kneel alongside them, and were then bludgeoned to death with wooden clubs or metal bars, as bullets were too valuable to be wasted on such vermin.

Bones from the killing fields, which is open to visit. There’s another museum out there.

I myself politely declined my own offer to go there, as I’ve now seen enough skulls, bones and horrors in Tuol Sleng to last me for many many lifetimes of nightmares.

*******

After the Vietnamese invaded and took over much of Cambodia in 1979, the Khmer Rouge retreated to the western and southwestern parts of the country, and Thailand, and continued fighting a guerilla war against the Vietnamese. Incredibly, the US and other Western governments supported them, because they were fighting the Vietnamese, who were communist.

Actually, that’s not so incredible, it’s highly typical. Look at all the other tyrants and dictators the West, including Australia, have supported throughout history.

The US and many other countries continued to recognise the Khmer Rouge as the legitimate government of Cambodia for another 12 years after they were ousted, despite the horrors they’d inflicted on their own people, and despite the fact that they weren’t even ruling the country.

Eventually the Vietnamese left in 1989, and a new government was installed, headed by Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander, of all things. He’s been the Prime Minister ever since, and his judges have banned the main opposition parties for the last two elections. His party, the CPP, holds every single seat in parliament.

Unbelievable, but true.

Grandiose

Phnom Penh has some magnificent buildings, and some amazing memorials in certain parts of the city.

Some of the boulevards are wide and carefully curated, surrounded by parks, gardens, and important government buildings.

There’s money around this town alright.

It’s just not shared very well.

Same as most places.

The Royal Palace complex, constructed in the 1860s, was built for Cambodian monarchs and their families, and for all the official, security and support staff that go with them.

It sits close to the western bank of the Mekong River, alongside the confluence of  the Tonle Sap River, which itself runs all the way from the northwest of the country.

The buildings and gardens are magnificent.

Inside the palace walls.

The Throne Hall, for coronations and other big events like weddings, etc. So many of the buildings here remind me of the Grand Palace in Bangkok.

Unfortunately, photos of the inside of any of these magnificent buildings are prohibited, so this pic is from the net. I bet they’ve had some pretty spectacular feasts in there.

The building undergoing repairs is called the Napoleon Pavilion. It was a gift from Napoleon III of France in 1876, and is made primarily of cast iron. Funnily enough, it was initially built to commemorate the inauguration of the Suez Canal. After that event, it was shipped in pieces to Cambodia.

Wow, and don’t spare the khmermaids.

The silver pagoda, which doesn’t look very silver from the outside. The inside, however, is inlaid with silver tiles, and the temple houses very auspicious statues like the Cambodian emerald buddha. Thailand has one of those too.

There’s four incredible sculpted chedis within the palace complex. They’re beautiful.

A large model of Angkor Wat, which is the most famous temple of the Angkor region, in the northwest of the country.

I went to Siem Reap once, years ago, with Sam, and saw the real thing. The whole area houses some of the most vast and magnificent ancient temple structures and ruins I’ve ever seen.

It’s Cambodia’s most iconic site.

Throughout Cambodia’s earlier history, the seat of political and military power was at Angkor, during the days of the mighty Khmer Empire. It was a great age for the kingdom (but probs not for its slaves and peasants), and they conquered vast swathes of current day Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

Fun fact. At its zenith, the Khmer Empire was larger than the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire, which was based in Constantinople (Istanbul). That’s bloody big.

The capital of Angkor was ransacked by the Thais in the 15th century, and so the capital was moved to Phnom Penh, and later to the nearby towns of Longvek and Oudong.

Since 1866 however, the capital’s been back in Phnom Penh.

These guys were jamming out to traditional Khmer music.

The entrance ticket to the Palace. I love the Good Complexion bit. Before happiness and strength, no less.

Sin City

I’m sure it’s no surprise to you that Phnom Penh also has a booming and growing sex trade, some of it centred in the districts alongside the river, where many foreigners hang out.

And, as usual, there’s a lot of women, and sex is cheap. $50 for a fuck. $10 in the poorer districts.

Even cheaper than Thailand.

Some of the girls are really young. In fact, a couple of districts in the city specialise in underage prostitution. Great. Now that’s progress.

According to local NGOs, many of the young women working in bars and brothels in the poorer areas are literally sex slaves, who receive absolutely no money whatsoever. They can’t leave, because the buildings are secured by armed guards.

It’s estimated that there are about 20,000 sex workers in Phnom Penh alone, with up to 35% of them coming from poorer districts of Vietnam and China. Just like in Thailand.

Sex trafficking is rife, and sexual violence against sex workers is common.

Gang rape, by groups of military men, police, or groups of customers, is also common.

There’s a huge stigma around prostitution, and therefore major discrimination against sex workers.

For example, in a recent survey, only 13% of Cambodian men and the same percentage of local women agreed that forced sex upon a prostitute by a group of men, against her will, should be considered as rape.

Unbelievable.

In fact, in the same survey, 33% of males and 43% of females believed gang rape was dangerous only because it could lead to the transmission of STDs to the men who did it.

Not that there’s an actual woman in there or anything.

Most young Cambodian men visit prostitutes, it’s very common, and is regarded as a sign of virility. Young women, on the other hand, are expected to be virgins when they marry.

Well that’s fair.

Or, you could also call it a fucking travesty.

But I’m not judging. Cultural norms differ. I know I look at the world through my own cultural lens, and what I regard as totally unacceptable is completely common in some places.

But I also believe in certain universal human rights, even though I know it’ll take decades for some of them to actually become universal. If ever.

Just like in Thailand, there’s so much money involved in the sex industry here that it’s really hard to stop it, even though a number of NGOs continuously work to stop the worst abuses against women.

The riverside district’s actually quite beautiful at night

Beautiful carved hearse

The party and redlight district

Stepwife? Now that’s a new one.

Incredibly, it just so happened that a friend of mine, Jean, arrived in Phnom Penh while I was there, and when I sent him a text saying that I’d just posted a blog from Cambodia he immediately messaged me, and we realised we were in the same town at the same time. Great! For one afternoon and evening anyway.

So we caught up, it was so good to see him. He’s a warm and super interesting man, we’ve had some really enlightening conversations over the time we’ve known each other. We’re quite alike, in some ways.

I also spent time with some friends of his, one of whom is Waid, a fellow Frozzy.

A Frozzy, which is a name Jean also gives to himself, is a Frenchman who’s migrated to Australia. I’m not sure if the prefix comes from Frenchy or Froggy, but I prefer the Froggy version.

I also met William, another ex-amphibie, he lived in LA for many years, but hates it there now, because crime rates have skyrocketed, and prices for everything have become ridiculously high. He’s moved to Phnom Penh, his wife Lek’s home (well, she’s from a village nearby), and they live there with their son Marlon.

All of these guys are really interesting, friendly and warm people, people who’ve tired of the rat race, and have moved to somewhere where material gain is not the most important thing. Now they’re in a place where the rats don’t bother racing, they just hang around in the shadows of the garbage, amble along, do their thing, and no one seems to care too much.

Jean, Waid and I had a pretty chilled night out, not too wild, but fun. It was great to chat with him again, he’s on his way to Europe, to ride his motorbike from Lisbon to Nordkap, the most northerly tip of the European mainland.

It’s a cool 5,500km ride, which Jean says is peanuts, after having circumnavigated Australia. That’s what we were both doing when we first met.

We went out to a few bars. It’s a pretty weird scene. When you enter a bar in the riverside district, the huge number of young women working there all squeal, smile, and immediately come over and hang out, offering their services to you in the most unsubtle ways imaginable, including reaching between your legs for imaginary things, massaging you, and trying to get you to take things out (or put things) in the grand canyons of their cleavage.

Let alone what they say.

You can tell them straight up what you’re up for, if anything. They get it. If you don’t want sex, they’ll still hang out with you if you wanna chat with them (some speak quite good English), and they’ll ask you to buy them drinks, and try and get you to drink up and buy more.

Fair enough.

They make extra money if they get enough drinks bought for them in the month.

I had a great chat with one of the women, Sok, she’s 40 (looks way younger of course, being Asian and all), she’s so smart, and told me about her early life in a village, moving to the capital, working in a factory, what happened during Covid, and finally getting a job at a bar, where she can earn way more money than before. She earns USD500/month, (AUD740) or, if she gets bought enough drinks, USD600.

A month.

That’s a lot for Cambodia.

Jean tickled pink

Towards The Viet

And so eventually I rode out of the semi-organised chaos of the capital, and headed southeast, along the western bank of the Mekong.

The road was really good. Since just before Kampot I’ve been spoilt, with smooth bitumen roads and manageable shoulders. Of course it was dodgy getting out of Phnom Penh, especially in roadwork areas, where the traffic diverts itself onto obstacle-laden footpaths.

And my own shoulders have been manageable too. The smoothness of the roads has really helped the healing, my left shoulder feels a hundred times better than it did. I feel hardly any pain during most movements now. I’m so grateful, it appears I’ve dodged permanent damage.

Another impressive wat entrance

The fertile floodplains of the Mekong. It’s only about 250km from here to the delta of the mighty river, where incredible masses of water from a huge catchment area, across many countries, finally pour into the sea.

Shells everywhere

The incredible Tsubasa bridge over the Mekong, the largest bridge in the country, built a few years ago with aid from the Japanese government.

The view from the top. It was fun cruising down the bridge, I can tell you, except that a massive pomelo that I’d bought from a stall released itself from its bike-rack captivity when I went over some speed bumps too fast, and it went flying off downhill along the road. Luckily the plastic bag it was in stopped it rolling all the way to the bottom. Either that or it just ran out of juice.

Downtown Neak Loeung, where I stayed the night.

How did they know?

Ok, snack attack lunch version #5438. Pummelled pomelo, boiled eggs, peace-loving baguettes, and some sort of coconut cake. Delicious. And the woman gave me a salt/pepper mix too. The eggs were super fresh, they were impossible to peel. Egg white sticks to the shell when they’re that fresh. Good sign. Plus they were still warm (not from the chicken’s butt, they weren’t that fresh).

The baguettes, while they were also still warm and fresh, had some sort of fish paste in them. Hmmm. Not my fave.

Later that evening, by the time I went searching for food, there was nowhere at all to have dinner, everything was closed. So I bought three more boiled eggs from a different roadside stall, and some bread and Chinese bean cake from a little bakery that was closing up. Well I thought I did.

To avoid the peeling difficulty, I cut the boiled eggs in half.

I should’ve known. These guys are very popular here, half developed duck foetuses, steamed. They’re called balut.

You won’t believe this but I did eat two of the three (well, most of the bits). It tasted like hard boiled egg yolk and chicken bits.

I’m a vegetarian because I don’t want to support the killing of animals, but that doesn’t mean I’ll waste food, if I can help it.

But two almost-ducklings was enough, after the second one had some sort of weird liver thingy in it. Eeeew!

Looks so appetising doesn’t it. The bin ate the third one.

The trials and tribulations of travelling in the middle of somewhere.

The next day I continued to head east, and saw this woman as I left my guesthouse. She’s selling lotus seed pods, the seeds are eaten, used in soups, sweets, and other dishes.

This is where I bought my eggbryoes last night. The woman also had other interesting delicacies, such as a number of species of cockroaches.

And these. I don’t actually know what they even are. Maybe you can work it out. Some sort of dried small bird, or little dried frogs?

I’ve had a bad belly for a few days now, since I first got to Phnom Penh. Today feels the worst it’s been. No more balut for me.

Wet flat farmland.  Nearly ready for rice.

Very cute and very young mango seller. I bought a kilo of these delicious ready-to-eats from her for 3000 riels, which is about an Oz dollar. How could anyone bargain with that cuteness? Who needs to anyway, at that price?

I’m not sure what the issue is here. I’ve squatted on toilets ever since I first went to Asia in my 20s. In those days the toilets were just a hole in the ground. If you didn’t squat, you didn’t plop.

I find that squatting is way better than sitting. Higher clearance (of the bowels).

No sexual abuse hey. That needs to be on a sign?

It started pouring with rain not long after I started eating. So nice to watch it from here. I waited for it to get less heavy before I got back out riding in it.

The amazing shrine at my guesthouse.

All local carvings, according to the sign language from my host

And then I rode the final 50 clicks or so to the border.

More lotus seeds, and more s-cargo. This woman said she was fine for me to take this pic, and so gave me one of her best winces.

As I approached the border the road suddenly widened, as if the Cambodian government was trying to say to everyone coming from Vietnam, “hey, we’re a modern developed country too, ya know.”

The last border town, Khong Bavet, is jam packed full of casinos, with great names like The Titan King, The New Venetian, Dynasty, and, my favourite, The WIn Win Casino (win win for the house, that is).

Gambling is illegal in Vietnam, except for a tiny number of resorts in the country, where you can gamble if you have a foreign passport. So the Viets get their rocks off over the border in Cambodia.

I’ve Seen The Light

And so, here I am already, at another border, contemplating the experiences I’ve had in this relatively small country over the past few weeks.

There’s no doubt that Cambodia is poorer than its neighbours.

Materially, that is.

You just have to look at the poor (or nonexistent) infrastructure in large parts of the country, the limited variety of food that’s available out in the countryside, what people are trying to sell on the sides of the road, what people are wearing, what they have, where and how they live.

People obviously have less here, but of course that makes no difference to how they are as people.

Cambodians, as a rule, are beautifully warm and generous, friendly, and tirelessly curious. Riding around these rural roads I’m flabbergasted at their wonder of me and what I’m doing, which is quite incredible as I have very little flab to be gasted at.

I’ve said hello to so many people from my bike, especially kids, that I noticed the other day I was doing it automatically after they called out, almost without breaking whatever thought bubble I was in at the time.

Sad but true.

But most of the time I’m right there with them, and loving it. I love their open friendliness and warmth, their sense of humour, their unabashed curiosity.

When I stop, people are so interested, they check me out, they check out my bike, try the brake handles, etc, try to get a sense of how it all works. Ask me what I’m up to. Give me drinks.

The kids will put my helmet on and laugh like there’s no tomorrow. Actually for them, there’ll probably be few tomorrows that involve cycle tourists stopping in their village.

The other day Jean told me a local’s observation about the difference between the Vietnamese, the Cambodians and the Thais. It’s obviously a generalisation, but still worth sharing.

He said that if the three countries were a rice farm, the Viets would be the industrious ones who prepare the fields and plant the rice, the Cambodians would just lazily sit around and watch it grow, and the Thais would sell it.

I get what he’s saying. Cambodians generally don’t seem as interested in climbing that material ladder. They’d much rather enjoy the time they have to relax.

Cycling here’s been amazing, but the roads have been super challenging in some parts (the southwest mainly).

Traffic’s heavy in Phnom Penh, especially during peak hour, but that’s no different to anywhere. There’s much less signage and road infrastructure in the capital though, many intersections off the larger main roads have no signage or lanes etc, so people come at you from all over the place.

Having said all that, I’m absolutely not forgetting where this country has been in its history, and what that means for where it is today.

When the Vietnamese booted out the Khmer Rouge in 1979, the whole country was in shock. Traumatised. The economy was completely trashed. There was little industry, no proper education system, health care or civil administration, and virtually no other infrastructure in the whole country.

That was only 44 years ago.

And there was still fighting for some years after that, against the remnants of the Khmer Rouge.

So the country has come a helluva long way.

After such a devastating past, the warmth and resilience of the people here is so inspiring for me.

It just reminds me of how our essence as people, our overarching goodness and care for each other, will always trump our darker sides.

But sometimes that takes time.

I’ve only been in Cambodia for a few weeks, but I’ve got a strong feeling I’ll be back in this beautiful country sometime.

Insha’Allah.

My route through the beautiful Land of the Khmers

All Excited

And now, I can’t wait any longer!

I’m about to head off into the new wondrous lands of Vietnam, and guess what, Lali’s gonna meet me!

I’m so excited!

My 19 year old daughter’s flying in to Ho Chi Minh City in less than a week, and we’re gonna cruise around the south for a couple of weeks. Without bikes.

No plans yet, just some ideas.

How cool is that!

I’ve missed her so much, it’s been nearly 18 months since we were last living together.

And don’t worry, next time I’ll be sure to rave on forever about how much fun it was❤️

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