near the Royal Palace
As you may remember, our trip to Phnom Penh was an extra trip and so we only had a couple of days in the city. If you'd really want to explore Phnom Penh in full, you'd need much more time. Phnom Penh is big, and busy, and filled to the brim with traffic jams. It's loud and obnoxious and smelly. I liked it, though. We spent our 3 days in Phnom Penh enjoying our hotel and learning about the Khmer Rouge.
I've been thinking about how to tell you about the Khmer Rouge, because I assume that, like myself, you don't know that much about it (I certainly never learned anything about Cambodian history during my 6 years of taking extensive history classes in high school and it never really came up during college either), but I don't know how! I will try anyway. Here is my cautious interpretation after all that I've read and heard and seen:
The Khmer Rouge took power on April 17, 1975 in Phnom Penh after a 5-year civil war, thereby defeating General Lon Nol, who had, in turn, taken over power from Prince Sihanouk in a military coup in 1970. The Khmer Rouge ('Red Cambodians') were led by Saloth Sar, also known as Pol Pot. The Khmer Rouge was heavily influenced by Marxism, Communism and Maoism. Like so many of these 20th-century ideas, it all started innocently enough with the idea that everyone is equal. This quickly changed into: everyone SHOULD be equal, by force, if necessary. The Khmer Rouge changed Cambodia's name into Democratic Kampuchea and their goal was to transform the country into an independent and self-sufficient nation. They named the present Year Zero and destroyed everything that came before, including such temples as those that can be found at Angkor today. Everything and everyone outside of Democratic Kampuchea was seen as the enemy, especially technology, which was believed to have corrupted the people. The Khmer Rouge wanted to create a peasant-dominated agrarian cooperative. Intellectuals were thus the enemy, even though Pol Pot and many of his highest followers had studied in France and had taught as teachers, where they learned about such ideas in the first place. Education and religion became forbidden. Intellectuals and monks were all killed. Wearing glasses was enough to dub you an intellectual. Money and currency were abolished. Everyone was forced to wear the same black uniform, as all colored clothing became forbidden. Everyone had the same haircut, as well. All major cities, such as Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, were swept clean in days after the Khmer Rouge took over power - everyone, including children, the elderly, and the sick, were forced to march to the countryside. Here city people were forced to work alongside country people in these farm cooperatives. Everyone had to work from sunrise to sunset to produce 3 times as much rice as had been normal before the Khmer Rouge had taken over, in order to repay China for the weaponry that they had given to the Khmer Rouge. While rice was transported to China, millions of Cambodians starved to death or died of dysentery, dengue fever or malaria. There were no doctors to cure anyone - all the doctors had been killed. If you were unable to be a productive member of Democratic Kampuchea, you were simply killed, since you were of no use to the Angkar (the 'Organization'). Furthermore, anyone suspected of 'crimes' against the Angkar was either immediately killed on one of the hundreds of killing fields throughout the country or brought to Tuol Sleng, a high school turned prison, for ' interrogation' (read: torture), until someone confessed to something and had named other individuals to be called in for questioning. As Pol Pot became more and more paranoid, more and more people were killed, including some of his own Party Members. The Khmer Rouge rule lasted for only 4 years, until January 7, 1979, because then the Vietnamese got involved, but it is believed that during this period between 1.5 and 3 million people died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. 1.5 to 3 million on a population of just 7 to 8 million people, that is.
What I find to be so unbelievable about this story, is that the violence was directed at their own people. And the brutality of it all is just unbelievable. Bullets were expensive, so the majority of victims was hacked to death with axes, knifes, shovels, hammers and bamboo sticks. Sometimes people's throats were cut with sharp palm leaves, which took a while to perform. Children were simply slammed head-first into a tree. Music and political speeches were played to drown out the screaming. People were dumped in mass graves and then covered with DDT, a chemical that hid the smell, but also conveniently killed anyone still alive.
We arrived in Phnom Penh on Monday, visited the Tuol Sleng Museum on Tuesday and saw the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek on Wednesday on my 28th birthday. Reading about this, and hearing about it, and seeing it, I'm even more impressed with the Cambodian people than I already was, and I understand now why it was so important to come to these places, even if it was on my birthday. I keep thinking about our tuk-tuk driver in Siem Reap who, like everyone else, was affected by the Khmer Rouge, and how he gave us a big and beautiful smile and said: "It's okay!" I'm in awe.
Security Prison 21 (S-21) at Tuol Sleng Museum
pictures of deceased victims of torture at Security Prison 21 (S-21) at Tuol Sleng Museum
mass graves at the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek
the killing tree at the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek
skulls inside the memorial stupa at the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek
It was not all about horror, though, during our stay in Phnom Penh. We also saw the Independence Monument, Wat Phnom and Psar Thmei, the Central Market (and if the raw markets of Cambodia haven't cured me from ever wanting to eat meat or fish again, I don't know what will). However, I never saw any fried tarantulas anywhere, despite searching through quite a lot of smelly Cambodian markets. I think that maybe it's a myth (for the tarantulas' sake, I hope it is).
Most of our time, however, was spent at the Juliana Hotel. Since I didn't need anything, I asked for what I really wanted, which was a stay at a luxury hotel. Jochem picked out a beautiful hotel including a swimming pool and room service, where I enjoyed things like AC, a bathtub and a separate toilet (no more wet toilets after showering!). It was very nice.
the birthday girl in her bathtub in her beautiful hotel room at the Juliana Hotel
And then, on Thursday, we flew to Kuala Lumpur. I must admit that we feel kind of lost in this city and in this country. Unlike in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, we have absolutely no idea what we want to do here. We are in southern Malaysia so I don't feel like traveling to northern Malaysia because we only have 2 weeks here before heading to Singapore and then Bali. Borneo is inconvenient because we'd have to pay for yet another flight, which doesn't seem smart considering our budget and how much more expensive it is here than in the rest of South East Asia. We are thinking about visiting the Cameron Highlands, Taman Negara, Port Dickson, Cape Rachado Forest Reserve and/or Melaka, but have absolutely no concrete plans whatsoever.
We did a little bit of sightseeing in Kuala Lumpur by visiting the Petronas Towers, by enjoying the view from Menara Kuala Lumpur, or the Kuala Lumpur Tower, and by hiking the nature trails through Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve, but most of our time has been spent at the Suria KLCC Shopping Complex. Does this sound strange? Let me explain.
Menara Kuala Lumpur
Petronas Towers
Suria KLCC Shopping Complex
We aren't the kind of people who like to hang out in malls. In fact, I hate malls myself. We haven't done a lot of shopping here at all, despite the obligatory deodorant purchase and a blue Swatch watch that I got myself for my birthday (if I HAVE to wear a watch to tell time, I might as well wear one I actually like, plus: my fake CK was falling apart). We did see the movie What's Your Number? at the Tanjung Golden Village and we ate and drank a lot. The truth is, despite how much I love the food here, sometimes I get a little bored with yet another plate of rice or noodles. The fact that I prefer to eat vegetarian doesn't make matters any easier, since there isn't as much choice in vegetarian dishes as you might think (the people here LOVE their meat and fish). So I was politically incorrectly happy to enjoy things like latte from Starbucks, cupcakes from Bisou and eggs with hollandaise sauce at Dome. I can't tell you how much I miss butter! On my birthday I kept thinking about the fresh pasta and chocolate and peanut butter cheesecake I would've made for my family and friends. Better luck next year?
And then something happened that has had me stuck in our guesthouse for 2 days already now. Although I'm not 100% sure, I think that I've been attacked by BED BUGS! We were staying at one of those cheap guesthouses in Chinatown and after our second night, when I woke up scratching my back, I was completely covered in bug bites. And because I have a crazy skin condition, my entire body was quickly turning into one, big, bright-red, heated, thick, lump of flesh. Imagine an English person who's spent too much time in the sun without sunscreen and who's now bright-red. Then add a thickening of the skin and a nice collection of bug bites. That's what I look like right now.
We quickly rushed to the nearest hospital where the itchiness almost killed me (nice to be in hot and humid weather, by the way, when you suffer from a skin condition such as mine). The doctor gave me a shot of anti-histamine (which I didn't even know existed - nice!) in the right buttock and also prescribed me 2 different sets of pills and a cream. I'm happy for the treatment but know from experience that when my skin is this bad, it takes days to feel relief. So we moved to a new guesthouse that, for now, seems to be free from bed bugs, and we've been hiding here for 2 days already. I feel better, but not well, and I don't even want to think about going outside when I can't even wear a bra yet because it hurts too much. I suppose that this is part of the backpacker experience, but couldn't I have gotten a nice food poisoning instead? Jochem wasn't bitten at all, by the way, which is just so unfair. But he keeps getting me Starbucks and Indian naan and spicy noodles, so I really can't complain.
So, that's where I am right now - sitting behind a computer at our new guesthouse, waiting it out. Stay tuned!
If you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip, check out our picture gallery here!
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