New Adventures In Backpacking

Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia, It’s sadly known best for its horrific tragedies rather than for the fun vibrant city that it now is. It really is a city of contrasts. During the Vietnam War, Cambodia was used as a base by the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong, and thousands of refugees from across the country flooded the city to escape the fighting between their own government’s troops, the NVA/NLF, the South Vietnamese and its allies, and the Khmer Rouge. By 1975, the population was 2 million, the bulk of whom were refugees from the fighting. The city fell to the Khmer Rouge. Many of its residents, including those who were wealthy and educated, were forced to do labour on rural farms as “new people”. Cambodians were detained and tortured. Pol Pot sought a return to an agrarian economy and therefore killed many people perceived as educated, “lazy”, or political enemies. Many others starved to death as a result of the failure of the agrarian society and the sale of Cambodia’s rice to China in exchange for bullets and weaponry.

There are two main areas in Phnom Penh for people to have a chance to see for themselves what the impact of Pol Pot’s regime was. The Killing Fields are a mere 15 kilometres away from the city and are also now a memorial to those who were killed by the regime. The Khmer Rouge marched prisoners from Phnom Phen to be murdered and buried in shallow pits. It is now a peaceful place, more of a memorial garden where people can pay their respects. Only a large tower with the skulls of the victims gives you an indication of the atrocities that took place in the fields. Eerily there is a school near by and you can hear the noise of happy excited school children whilst walking around the site which gives it a certain surreal feel.

In the city centre is the Genocide Museum a former high school, where Khmer Rouge torture devices and photos of their victims are displayed. This is not for the faint hearted. An entire block is dedicated to faceshots of the prisoners taken by the Khmer Rouge and when you see they are the faces of ordinary people and you know their fate, it really hits home what terrible things took place here. What struck me about Phnom Penh and Cambodia as a whole is these atrocities took place in very recent times. People just a little older than myself survived a genocide; people my parents and relatives ages were people who were either victims or actually took part in executing such horrific crimes. Yet the country as a whole is a happy place. It seems that when your history is so horrific you have two options, live in the past, or get on with it. I was brought up in a society that still follows in the self pity of a 300 year old famine and people who revel in glories from 400 years ago and get caught up in conflicts that have nothing to do with them. Coming to Cambodia and seeing how the people have moved on from very recent real horrors makes me even more ashamed of the degenerates from my country.

I stayed on Boeng Kak Lake during my time in Phomn Penh, a lively hub for travellers that offers numerous bars, restaurants and drugs. Care has to be taken when ordering pizza! My hotel backed onto the lake and watching the sunset with a view was sublime. My room cost $4, that included an ancient mattress, a loud fan which I was very afraid off, a doorless bathroom, a curtainless shower, graffitied walls and a view of the adjoining alleyway and in the morning I got to listen to a dodgy sounding English guy giving a local girl the best three minutes of her life. The entire place was wall to wall lineoleum. I’m not making that up. Despite all that I really liked the place and it seemed anything goes down by the lakeside; well that was Vince’s excuse anyway!

I spent a lot of time in bar called the Magic Sponge purely as it may have been the craziest bar I have ever been in. Be it the extremely bizarre regulars, the ‘magic’ drinks or the manic bar owner who set fire to his own bar then chased people down the street with an axe, and that was all in the one night. A night there never failed to disappoint nor went off without some sort of memorable incident. I think I could have written a blog all on it’s own about my time in that place, but it would be out of place on this website and makes me wish I’d done another blog under a false name that my mum would never read.