January 7, 1999
New Website: From Sideshow to Genocide
On January 7, 1979 -- 20 years ago today -- three years of horror came to an end in Cambodia. On that day, Vietnamese troops roared into the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, displacing the communist Khmer Rouge government that had ruled Cambodia since April 17, 1975. The Vietnamese, despite being hardened by 30 years of war, were truly shocked at what they discovered in Cambodia: an entire country dismantled and displaced, with millions of Cambodians forced to work in agricultural labor camps. There were no more schools, no offices or businesses; money and family relationships were totally banned. And throughout the countryside, Cambodia was pockmarked by sunken depressions of dirt, as if hell itself had sucked in cavities of earth in the hopes of devouring the world above it. As the world soon discovered, these earthen depressions were indeed the stuff of hell, for each marked the spot of another mass grave: the graves of the hundreds of thousands of Cambodians slaughtered by their own ountrymen.
In the short span of time from April 1975 to January 1979, the Khmer Rouge managed to starve and murder as many as two million Cambodians - two out of every seven people in a country no larger than the state of Missouri. In the 20 years since, little has been done to seek justice in the memory of those who died. This past year, Pol Pot, mastermind of the genocide, died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack. His three senior henchman, Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, have been granted amnesty by the current Cambodian government. It is as if the world would rather forgive and forget rather than face up to the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge.
In honor of the two million Cambodians killed by the Khmer Rouge and the countless others whose lives were destroyed by their policies, I would like to present a new website:
From Sideshow to Genocide:
Tales of the Cambodian Holocaust
http://edweb.gsn.org/sideshow (now http://edwebproject.org/sideshow/)
This website is a virtual history of the Cambodian genocide, covering events in Cambodia from the turn of the century to the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. The website is divided into three main chapters. In "Cambodia Before the Holocaust," visitors can explore the effects of the Vietnam War and US Cold War policy in Cambodia. "The Khmer Rouge Years" covers the bloody Khmer Rouge regime and its relentless oppression of Cambodian citizens. "Survivor Stories" recounts the tales of Cambodians who managed to escape the Khmer Rouge, written in their own words. Sideshow also includes a guide for online resources related to Cambodia, the Vietnam War, holocaust studies and other subjects. In the coming months, the website will also include a collection of lesson plans for use in schools as well as information on current events in Cambodia.
Over a year in the making, From Sideshow to Genocide is designed as an educational resource for schools and the general public. However, it should be noted that the subject matter might be somewhat graphic for younger audiences. I highly recommend that students view this website with their families or teachers and discuss the issues raised here in order to better understand the gravity of the events surrounding the Khmer Rouge genocide. It is all too easy for genocide in all of its evil forms to seem distant and unreal to those who have not experienced it. Therefore it is my hope that this website will help eliminate the disconnect to these events and allow all of us to bear witness.
Please feel free to share this invitation with your friends and colleagues. The more who know, the harder it will be to forget.
Posted by acarvin at 2:47 PM
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January 8, 1998
Susanne's Angkor Diary
Hi everyone. My travel companion, Susanne Cornwall, has asked me to post her journal diary for our recent visit to Angkor. Hope you enjoy it.... -ac
ANGKOR
From the window of our Royal Air Cambodge flight, I could see the vast green expanses of Siem Reap. Jungle Green... Rice Paddy Green... There is no crayon in the Crayola box that can express the depth of this color. And Angkor is covered in green, surrounded by it. Green creeps into the stone ruins, between rocks, up towers.
The ruins at Angkor go on and on. They are grander than I expected, larger, fuller, healthier than I imagined. Angkor is friendly and magical. It's almost as if nothing happened here... almost as if the war never touched Angkor. Of course it did - rows of headless statues and amputees in every wat remind me that this too was the front-line. But today it is so peaceful. Children climb on the ruins as if they were in an enormous playground. If Phnom Penh is like a city of children, then Angkor is like a magical land of children. At every turn they hang out, play, run, try to sell their wares to tourists. They bombarded us with flutes, T-shirts, wooden boats, film.
"You buy madam? You buy?" "If you buy, you buy from me." "Cold drink, madam? Cold drink, mister?"
We are surrounded by child merchants. Women also sell film and water, but the overwhelming majority of people at Angkor are under seventeen.
The beauty of this place amazes me. In all my travels, I have never seen anything that compares. Petra in Jordan comes close, but the Pyramids and the Taj Mahal cannot rival the majesty, the aura of Angkor. The war did not destroy it. Like the people here, Angkor is an enduring witness. Land mines have been cleared from the area. Restoration is in progress. Bamboo scaffolding supports some of the ruins. Angkor is a rugged survivor. One thousand years of time and four years of the Khmer Rouge, and it is still quite clearly one of the wonders of the world.
Spanning from Charlemagne to Joan of Arc (802 AD to 1432 AD) Angkor rose, thrived and fell. Some 750,000 people lived here during its height. The city was founded by Jayavarman II in 802 AD. Many more kings built many more temples over the years. Hindu, then after 1181, Buddhist tradition dictated the layout of the stone structures. That is why Angkor Wat's towers, constructed between 1112 and 1152, were built in imitation of Mount Meru (the holiest mountain in Hinduism). In contrast, Angkor Thom's stones, sculpted between 1181 and 1201, are covered with faces of the Buddhist Avelokiteswara. The 12th and 13th centuries saw the pinnacle of the complex. But after suffering two defeats to the Thai army, in 1351 and 1431, the Khmer court abandoned the city for Phnom Penh. Vines moved in. Trees dug their roots into the ruins. The jungle encroached upon the massive gray stones. Jungle Green ... Rice Paddy Green crept through this magnificent ghost town.
Our plane touched down in Siem Reap at 7:15 AM. A literal mob of men stood at the airport door offering guides or taxis. Andy walked headlong into the mob and pointed to one man. Later Andy explained that to me that he'd selected this man out of the crowd because he was the smallest. If he tried to cause problems for us, Andy figured he could take him on. We were still feeling paranoid and overly cautious. The man Andy chose grabbed his wrist and led us through the crowd to his car.
"My brother," the man said pointing to the driver. "Do you need a guide at Angkor? My brother will take you everywhere." "How much?" We asked. "Twenty dollars a day," he said.
That is the going rate, so we agreed. We gave the man the fee for tickets into Angkor - forty US dollars each. Like Phnom Penh, the US dollar is the preferred currency. He dropped us off at our hotel, The Golden Apsara Guesthouse, then went off to buy our tickets. The hotel was nice. A good bathroom with toilet paper. Three beds, each a little wider than your average dorm room bed. A balcony, air conditioning, nice paintings of Angkor Wat in the hallway, and orange curtains, almost the shade of a monk's saffron robe. A cat perched on the rooftop of the next building over. Geckos scurried around on the balcony. The hotel manager only spoke French. I actually had my first chance ever to use my 7th grade French.
"Vous avez une corbellie?" I asked holding my empty water bottle.
He nodded and threw it away. Even in France everyone spoke to me in English, so it was fun to finally get to use all those years of vocabulary. After maybe twenty minutes, the man we met at the airport rode back on a moped with the tickets.
"He's 27," one guy pointed to the man with the tickets, "but he's small," he laughed. The driver told us he was 29 years old and his name was Rang. Rang took the tickets from his brother, and we hopped in the car.
Angkor is about 15 to 20 minutes away from the hotel, and the drive brings us straight through the heart of the city. Siem Reap is much calmer than Phnom Penh and much smaller. It is a village more than a city. One of Sihanouk's palaces dominates the center of town. Huge paintings of the king are set on the street corners. Red and blue banners decorated with the white outline of Angkor Wat stream across the road sides. Mopeds and bicycles make up about 90% of the traffic. Like the capital, no street lights dictate the flow. School children, stray dogs, and roosters sidestep mopeds on these dirt roads. Homes and merchant stalls line the river banks.
The first structure that welcomed us to Angkor was the South Gate of Angkor Thom. It is a huge archway crowned with four smiling faces, each looking out on a different north, south, west direction. The stone gate is twenty meters tall. It is an imposing introduction, but the mysterious smiles on the four heads of the bodhisattva Avalokiteswara are welcoming. Under the green shades of the forest, the grin looks peaceful.
Angkor Thom, some 10 square kilometers large, was built by King Jayavarman VII between 1181 and 1201 AD. A moat - crocodile-infested according to legend - surrounds the city. A square wall, eight meters high and 12 kilometers long borders the city. There are four gates, each topped with four smiling faces of the Buddha. We entered through the South Gate and drove on to the Bayon.
As soon as we got out of the car, a swarm of children surrounded us.
"Flute?" "Boat?" "Film?"
We encountered the same thing at every stop.
"No thank you," we smiled and kept walking.
Stone steps lead up to this huge "castle" of rock. Two pools, one on either side, reflect the ruins. From a great distance, I thought, the Bayon could look like a natural formation of rock with gargantuan stalagmites jutting out of it. As I got closer and climbed higher up the rock staircase, the details began to emerge. Intricate bas reliefs of women, dances, battles. A woman maybe fifty years old pressed her palms together and returned my wei (a bowing greeting you make with your hands clasped.) Her white cloth draped over the rock she was sitting on. When she smiled I could see her teeth were brown and black.
I climbed up another set of stairs to the top level - the top level I could climb to anyway. The tallest tower still rose far above me. This was, for me, the most mysterious ruin. Dozens of faces, all bearing that enlightened grin, are carved into the rock. Some of the faces have roots and leaves running through their cracks and crevices. Andy and I split up and wandered around. A man, sitting on the ground, played a two-stringed instrument. It was about the length of a woman's outstretched arm, and he held it against him, as if it was a cello. The music echoed throughout the ruins, adding depth and mystery to the site. The instrument appeared to rest on the musician's thigh, but once I walked around him I could see that he had no thigh, no right leg at all. Land mines loomed even under the soil of Angkor. The tourist areas are all cleared, but in the outlying fields, the threat is still there.
I walked in a circle around the upper deck of the Bayon. People sat on the rocks to write or take photos. There were actually about fifteen tourists up there, maybe less, but I felt alone anyway. The music and the majesty seemed to silence everyone. Most of us just wandered, pressing our palms from time to time against the chiseled rock faces. Various shrines are set up within the ruins. Women encourage passers by to light an incense stick for Buddha, and of course to make a contribution.
Outside and in front of the Bayon I snapped a picture of an elderly woman sitting by one of the pools. I gave her one dollar, as she requested, and I respectfully weid to her. She smiled, laughed and weid back.
We met Rang back at the car, and he directed us to the next set of sites. As he pointed down the dirt road, I noticed that his pinkie fingernail was about an inch long. I'd seen that on other men here as well. I wondered if that was current fashion or tradition.
Our next stop was the Baphuon. The steps were on the far side of a huge puddle of water, and to the right stood the Terrace of the Elephants. A whole parade of pachyderms carved into a 350 meter long wall. We walked along the terraces, careful to sidestep puddles, until we came to the Terrace of the Leper King. A nude, sexless statue sat cross-legged on the top. According to legend, at least two Khmer kings had leprosy. What a view the kings must have had from this spot, I thought. Elephants cloaked in fine cloth, musicians drumming and piping, raised parasols, swaying palm leaves.
From there we climbed down and journeyed away from the road, down a dirt path. We passed a circle of boys who were kicking their flip flops in the air and betting on the results. The dirt path narrowed and led us to Tep Pranam and Phimeanakas - a Buddhist terrace and the site of a palace. There's not much left of those structures now. Three little girls skipped alongside us. They followed us down a dirt pathway, across a field of grazing cows, under a series of windblown banners and to North Kleang. We passed a number of large linga shaped ruins that were well over fifteen feet high - probably more than that. Music of that multi-rhythm Asian flavor poured through the forest, but since the gathering of trees between the musicians and us was so thick, we couldn't see them. I wanted to track down the performers, but the path that would have brought us to them was slushy with mud. Besides with the midday heat bearing down on us, we were two disgusting bundles of sweat. It was time for lunch and a shower. Rang told us that Angkor empties out from noon to 2 PM everyday because of the heat. And while it may sound like a great time to explore the ruins all by yourself, it's not. The heat is just too much.
Rang drove us out of the park and back to town where we ate at a great little restaurant called The Bayon. It was laid out around a courtyard, and the host pointed a fan directly on us. It was perfect. A woman we'd met at the Phnom Penh airport that morning walked over to our table to say hello. She was traveling alone, and we asked her to join us. She was from Manchester, England on holiday for two months. She'd been to Hawaii, Samoa, Australia and Vietnam. Her husband didn't enjoy traveling, and her children were all over thirty, she explained, so she just went out on her own. She planned to take the "Palace on Wheels" train trip across India next year. We exchanged travel stories and shared chicken and fish in curry and coconut milk and a plate of fried rice.
After a quick shower at the hotel, we decided to check out the market down the street. Across the dusty dirt road and down about a block, we found the open air market. Dozens of merchant stalls sat under a large tent. The whole market was no bigger than a small city block. Fish mongers displayed their products in piles (not as if they had to, the smell was advertisement enough). We walked under the tent and into the maze of stalls. Many of the merchants rested in hammocks. One young merchant fell asleep on a glass cabinet full of watches. A woman sat at a cloth stand and rocked an infant in a hammock. Women sold miniature figures of the Bayon heads, wood carvings of the Angkor sites, paintings of Angkor Wat, rubbings of the bas reliefs. An elderly book seller stood in front of his collection: "Brother Number One: Pol Pot," "The Tragedy of Cambodian History," and other Khmer Rouge era studies.
We hurried back to the hotel and met Rang. Refueled and rested we went directly to Angkor Wat. Rang said we could meet him at 4:40, and we'd drive to Phnom Bakheng, a hill where we could watch the sun set. We waved good-bye to him and started down the stone bridge that spanned across the moat.
Angkor Wat is Cambodia's signature piece. Historians believe it was built during the reign of Suryavarman II (1112 - 1152 AD) to honor the Hindu god Vishnu and to serve as a funerary temple for the king. The details are incredibly well preserved. The most significant features of the wat are oriented towards the west which is traditionally the direction of death. Like many temples in Angkor, the highest tower represents Mount Meru, the mystical center of the world according to Hindus. The surrounding towers represent the lower mountains.
As we walked down the sandstone causeway and through the gate, the outline of Angkor Wat was slowly revealed. Breathtaking, incredible, superb - all the superlatives apply. It is a monument to mankind. The complex is enormous. The moat is 190 meters wide; the outer wall is 1025 by 800 meters long. The 475 meter long avenue leading to the wat itself is lined with naga balustrades (statues of snakes). The avenue is cradled between two pools. Strewn with lily pads and pink flowers, the pools reflect the ruins. Jumping fish and restless insects make the waters shimmer. I have seen places like this in storybooks. Old fairy tale books that my grandmother would page through as I sat on her lap.
Inside the wat, we climbed up stone staircases and walked around the different levels. Women with shaved heads sat by statues. They asked us to donate money and to light incense. The levels are difficult to walk around because every few steps, you have to jump over a foot-high, foot-wide divider. We figured maybe the floor was designed like this to slow invading armies, but then again if invaders got that far it was probably too late. Who knows. Out the tall windows, we could see the endless landscape of trees and rice paddies. We got up to the second highest level and found a rather perilous-looking stairway up to the top of Angkor Wat. A rusty metal handrail ran up the narrow stone steps. I don't remember how many steps there were, but they were set at a step angle. I held onto the railing like a mountain climber grasping a rope and looked only at the few steps directly below me. It wasn't exhausting; it was just a little nerve racking.
Finally we reached the pinnacle of Angkor Wat. We circled the level and looked out at the view, then we lit incense at the shrine of a reclining Buddha. On its way out the window, the smoke drifted past a saffron cloth twisted around a chunk of stone. Three children sat under the shade of the temple playing a game with marble sized stones. We rested for a while at the top, met other tourists from Washington, D.C. and Australia, then we went back down the way we came. From a few feet back, it looked as if the staircase dropped off like a cliff. In truth, going down was ten times easier than going up. A group of women were gathered at the base of the stairs like a sort of congratulatory committee.
We walked down the various levels and towards the entrance of the wat. Just as we were leaving we found a troop of traditional Khmer dancers preparing for a show. The covered entrance was their dressing room. Teenage girls prepared their elaborate stupa-like headpieces and adjusted their golden sequined costumes. Younger girls put on lipstick and red rouge. One of the girls giggled as I took her picture. Boys smeared white paint on their faces and applied lip color. A dog wandered around sniffing at the costumes and makeup. Little children from all over the park gathered around the dancers. They rested their elbows on the ground and pressed their palms against their cheeks... and watched the backstage frenzy. Young performers tried on their plaster masks, painted to look like Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god, and his crew.
After about forty minutes of prepping, the young cast was ready to go, and Andy and I parked ourselves in front of the stage. The performance was for a group of French tourists and our "seats" were the stone steps directly in front of the dancers. Little kids leaned on the stone railings to watch. With Angkor Wat as the backdrop, the performance began. The band played xylophone-like bells, drums and other instruments that I'd never seen before. Women in stupa headpieces and sequined dresses came out first. The clicking of the cameras almost created a counter rhythm to the music. The young women gracefully reached out their arms and struck poses. The next number was the coconut dance. Young girls, dressed in red and white, tapped coconut shells on the stone stirring up a rolling rhythm. Then the boys came out, smiling and sneaking up behind them. They tapped coconuts with the girls and danced around in a circle. The last dance was performed by the youngest children. It was a scene from the Ramayana. The girls had red sequined mermaid-like fins attached to their backs, and the boys were dressed up like monkeys. The monkeys scratched and rolled in perfectly timed movements. The boy who played Hanuman, the white masked monkey god, was amazing. His movements were so controlled. He mastered that part.
The whole time we were a little worried because this unexpected event was making us very late for Rang. As soon as the performance ended, we hurried back across the field, over the causeway and down the steps to Rang. He didn't seem surprised that we were so late. We decided it was too late to climb up the hill to catch sunset, so we headed back to the hotel. We ate fried rice at a local restaurant called the Singapore. Christmas lights were strung all over the outside of the restaurant... in the bushes, across the awning. Geckos scampered across the walls, Cambodian TV played in the hallway, and friendly locals drank and laughed at the next table.
The next morning, November 10th, Rang picked us up at 5:15 AM, so we could make it to Angkor Wat in time to see the sunrise. The streets were empty. When we arrived at Angkor Wat, we found that it was empty too. We looked around for the best shot and decided to stake out a corner of one of the reflecting pools. Because it was dawn and we were directly in front of a muddy swampy pool, the mosquitoes were out in full force. I put on my nylon anorak, pulled the hood over my head, crouched down and waited for the sun to rise. Andy had brought a krama, a Khmer scarf, and he wrapped it around his head. As the sun rose higher, the number of mosquitoes decreased, and the number of tourists increased. Monks from the building next door began the morning chores, sweeping their courtyard and collecting their wash.
Finally, the sun got to just the right height, so we took some shots of Angkor Wat silhouetted by the sun, reflected in the pool, from the left corner of the water, from the right corner of the water, and from just about every other angle until we decided we'd taken enough pictures. As we walked back to the causeway, an amputee held out his hat. Children followed close behind us. I don't remember looking back at Angkor Wat. I should have. That was the last time we would visit it. At least for this trip.
We met Rang back at the car. He was so nice to us. He taught us how to say "thank you very much" in Khmer - "Ah cone chair-eye." That is my own personal interpretation of the spelling of course. To pronounce it correctly, you have to flip the front of your tongue against the roof of your mouth between the "chair" and the "eye." We got it after a while, but in the meantime, Rang, Andy and I laughed at our pitiful attempts. Just plain old "thank you," by the way, is just "ah cone."
From Angkor Wat, we took a brief detour back to the Bayon to get some morning photographs. Then we began to make our way through what is known as "The Big Circuit." Our first stop was a mysterious maze of fallen rock and endless hallways. Very little restoration has been done to Preah Khan, so I really felt like Indiana Jones tromping through some abandoned temple. Walking toward the ruins, we passed a line of statues lined with cobwebs. Light poured in from the thick canopy of palm trees above. The sun came down in shards of light, illuminating the morning mist. A boy maybe twelve years old, followed us through the arched entryway and into the ruins. He didn't say anything. He just followed.
Preah Khan is truly a maze. I don't know if it was that we were there so early or just that most tourists don't go there, but the temple was completely abandoned. We three were the only ones in the entire Preah Khan complex. Intricate spider webs spanned across the archways. Detailed reliefs rose out of stone pillars. Green leaves draped in from above; green grass crept in from below. At one point we wanted to press farther into the ruins, but a jagged pile of rocks stood in our way. Andy started to turn back to look for another path, but the boy spoke up for the first time and pointed to the pile of rocks.
"Very nice this way," he nodded.
We decided to follow his lead. He navigated his way over the rocks, and we followed him. Some of the stones were slick with moss, and a couple times I almost lost my footing, but it turned out to be worth the trouble. On the other side and around the corner was a large courtyard. Stone lions stood guard next to a platform. A ruin, surrounded by columns was positioned at the far end. We found a pond choked with lily pads under the shade of the palm trees.
Like many of the magnificent ruins at Angkor, Preah Khan was built during the reign of Jayavarman VII. The name, Preah Khan, means "Sacred Sword."
Past the courtyard, the stone floor dropped off into a muddy plain. It wasn't so muddy that we couldn't walk on it though. A small thin snake with dull green stripes hugged the walls of a crevice. I bent down to watch it slither off into the cracks between the stones. When it was gone, I joined Andy and the boy in the muddy plain. Every time I took a step, dozens of little frogs, each about the size of my thumbnail, darted up. From the plain we could see how a large, canvas colored tree had grown right through the ruins, pushing its roots through the walls and across the ceilings.
Except for our footsteps and the chirping of various insects and frogs, the ruins were quiet. Hiking around the fallen rock and overgrown roots was a chore, but I found Preah Khan to be one of my favorite stops at Angkor. I felt a little bit of what it must have been like before the tourist trade. Lonely, green, overgrown and untouched. I was afraid that all the boy wanted was money, but all the same I liked that he was there. He'd led us over the rocks after all, and I was also glad that we were sharing this experience with a local who'd probably navigated these ruins since he was three. It's not that I felt safer with him there; we were safe enough. It was even fun to get lost, but somehow he added something to that place. I felt somewhat like an explorer and somewhat like his guest. When we left, he didn't ask for money. He didn't even try. I smiled and waved good-bye to him. He smiled shyly, waved back and then sat down on the stone railing that led into the complex.
At the next stop, we started to walk through an archway of trees. We only got a couple feet before we could see that a large, ankle deep puddle stood between us and Preah Neak Pean. Men stood around offering to escort tourists across the puddle on their bicycles. For one dollar a per person, they'd load us on the back of their bikes and ride across to the other side of the muddy puddle. A thick, swampy gathering of trees blocked any chance of going around the puddle. If we took the bikes, mud would no doubt spray up on our clothes, and when you've got two pairs of jeans for three weeks, clothes become pretty important. Instead we ducked down, looked at the ruin from afar and went back to Rang.
Ta Som, the next ruin down the circuit, was an adventure. There were no other tourists there. We had the whole complex to ourselves, so we split up and made our own ways through the cavernous ruins. Spider webs clung from doorways onto chunks of fallen rock. I squeezed through a crack in the wall and found myself in a small courtyard. Huge fallen stones lay in piles. Details of flowers and dancers were carved into the rock. I felt guilty about using these glorious pieces of art as stepping stones. I thought suddenly how happy I was that we'd come to Cambodia. A little reckless courage pays off, I thought. It was just then that I realized Andy was nowhere in sight. I called out to him, but there was no answer. It was exciting to be lost and alone in this deserted ruin. I climbed over the piles of rock, steadying myself by pressing my palm against the central tower. I squatted into a little doorway and climbed over more rocks, which were teaming with red ants, then through a doorway and out into a clearing. I followed a dirt path and finally met up with Andy again. We walked to the end of Ta Som where an old man swept fallen leaves into the river. An enormous tree, maybe three stories tall, grew out from around the doorway, and a large spider hung from one of its branches.
From Ta Som, we drove on through the Eastern Baray, which is now only a field of rice paddies, then on to a large four-cornered ruin called the Eastern Mebon. Stone elephants stood guard on each corner. They seemed to be staring out into the vast expanses of surrounding rice paddies.
At Pre Rup, we found yet another steep staircase. I told Andy to go on without me. After sixteen temples, I was getting tired. Instead I sat in the shade of a tower. A little girl selling flutes sat next to me. At first she pushed her flutes ceaselessly... then her cloth... then her film. After a while, she gave up on me and just sat there. She had a floppy denim "Guess" brand hat on her head. We were the only people in the courtyard. A few tourists walked by now and then, but on the whole it was quiet. I asked her what her name was. She answered, "Ah soon" (or something close to that). I told her my name and after a few minutes she was explaining to me how to say hello and hat in Khmer.
When Andy walked back down the staircase, she said, "your friend?"
"Yes, that's Andy," I nodded, then asked, "How do you say good-bye?"
"Lia suhn hao-y," she answered.
"Lia suhn hao-y, then," I stood up.
"Lia suhn hao-y," she smiled.
From there we went back to the Bayon. It's not the official next stop along The Big Circuit, but we wanted to go back there and sketch in our journals. Sitting on a step next to the amputee musician, I drew a rough rendition of a Bayon head. It was wonderful to sketch a Bayon face, shaded by a rock and accompanied by the two stringed instrument. Every once in a while, kids would come and sit with the musician. The guards always struck up conversations with him when they passed. He made pretty good money by Cambodian standards. More than half of the tourists who passed him felt compelled to give him money. His music helped create a mystical feeling there. How could you not thank him with a buck? He put the money in a small wad and threw it to a friend, then continued to play with an empty hat in front of him. He smiled at me from time to time. When we left, I dropped some money in his hat. He weid and thanked me. But it was I who was thanking him. His haunting melody brought life to the weathered stones.
We ate lunch at the Bayon Restaurant in town again, then went to the market to buy souvenirs. We'd come to the right place. The market boasted cloth, carvings, T-shirts, books, postcards. Andy bought a wooden boat. I picked up a pair of Khmer-style masks from a couple of eleven-year-old merchants. The masks look like the painted plaster ones we'd seen on the performers the day before. Each one of these hand made souvenirs cost me three US dollars. I didn't even attempt to haggle. How do you haggle with children over three dollars? After all, it wasn't a bad deal.
After lunch and shopping, we went to Banteay Kdei where we were immediately greeted by two boys. One of them was a tiny little kid. He stayed by my side the whole way through the ruins. The older boy walked next to Andy. Both boys explained the history of Banteay Kdei and pointed out different features. I asked the little one his name.
"Da," he said. I would guess he spelled it differently, but that's what it sounded like to me.
"How old are you?" I asked.
Da looked confused. The older boy spoke with him in Khmer then answered, "Seventeen. He's seventeen."
Andy and I laughed. There was no way this little guy was more than ten years old.
"Oh, seven," the older boy corrected himself. "He's seven."
When we asked the older boy how old he was he told us that he was sixteen. Andy told him that's impossible. He was small and thin and looked twelve years old, tops. The boy simply shrugged his thin shoulders and replied, "Cambodians are smaller."
Andy and I felt bad for contesting him. Maybe malnutrition in the wake of the Khmer Rouge reign stunted his growth. Overall I found it very difficult to determine children's ages in Cambodia.
"Built by Jayavarman VII in the 12th century," Da pointed to the ruins. Our impressive young guides led us through Banteay Kdei pointing our details here and there. Da and I walked a few paces behind Andy and the older boy, and I could hear that sometimes Da was just repeating his friend, pretending the words were directly from his own memory. When he smiled up at me, I could see that his two front teeth were just coming in.
Afterwards, we gave them some money for the tour. They ran off laughing and wrestling with each other. Andy and I crossed the road and sat at the edge of Srar Srang lake. Da and the older boy joined us there for a while, then waved good-bye as we got back into the car and headed for Prasat Kravan.
At Prasat Kravan, Andy bought a charcoal rubbing of the temple's bas reliefs from a boy who was no more than six years old.
"That's definitely the youngest person I've ever done business with," Andy shook his head and laughed.
Little girls played jump rope in front of the ruins. One child balanced her baby brother on her hip. Boys rested on the rocks, and dogs challenged roosters.
Next stop was Ta Prohm, a 12th century temple built by Jayavarman VII in honor of his mother. As usual an army of T-shirt vendors rushed us. In all the commotion, a kid cut in and offered to led us through the ruins. We said no thank you, crossed onto the grounds, then suddenly realized that in Ta Prohm, it might be best to follow a local guide. I ran back out and found the kid standing by a truck holding a drum. He was strikingly handsome with his high cheekbones and wavy black hair. He looked about fourteen years old to me. Meas (pronounced May-ahs) it turned out, was eighteen years old. That means he was born in 1979... the year the Khmer Rouge fell.
He told us he knew where to find all the best photographs and "the tree that looks like a snake." He directed us through the fallen rocks and overgrown trees. Ta Prohm has been completely left to the elements. No restoration projects have been undertaken. No efforts have been made to rescue the ruins from the trees. The site looks very much like it must have appeared to the French explorers who rediscovered it. The stone is wrapped in roots and cloaked in vines. The jungle has such a fierce stranglehold on the ruins that if the trees were removed, the structure would crumble. Meas pointed out a root that looked like a boa constrictor... wrapped around the ruins, dripping from level to level. He climbed up a steep pile of rock and motioned to us to join him. Even in his flimsy blue flip flops, he could scale the ruins faster than a cat. We followed him up the rocks, but of course we didn't look even half as graceful as he did. From the top, we could see piles upon piles of rocks split by roots, and we could hear countless frogs screeching in the river.
Meas told us that he sold drums at Angkor. He didn't talk much during the tour, but he was sweet. We could have searched for those photos for hours if we'd explored Ta Prohm alone. He pointed out features and took us to sections that we might have missed without him. We gave Meas three dollars, thanked him and said good-bye. From there we went to Takeo, another temple where we basically got out of the car, looked up the steep staircase and got back in the car.
Sunset was approaching by that time, so Rang took us to the base of Phnom Bakheng. This ruin sits atop a rocky, sandy hill. Rang told us that the sunset view from the top is spectacular. Four children, each of them no higher than my elbow, joined us as we tromped up the hill. They laughed and posed for our cameras. The boys, Lee, Hing and Phaeng, were complete hams, but the girl, Suan, was a little camera shy. The kids directed us up the hill, told us the Khmer word for tree, and held my hand when we climbed the stairs. Actually I would have been better off on the steep staircase if Lee and Phaeng hadn't each taken a hand, but they were cute and wanted to be polite. At the top of the hill, the children played tag, using a medieval stone table as base. Two little girls in pretty dresses sat by smiling and watching. More people gradually traveled up the hill, tourists and locals alike. The sun set over the ruins throwing gold light onto Phnom Bakheng. It was a perfect way to end our trip to Angkor. Finally the sun was just about gone, and we walked down the hill by the dwindling light.
I went to Cambodia to honor the survivors and to pay respect to the dead. I also went there hoping to find the country that lay beyond the Khmer Rouge history. Travelers can't help but see the tatters of the recent horrors, but then they can't miss the spirit of survival either. Cambodia has the energy of a restless teenager and the soul of a wise old man. For the tourist, Cambodia is an adventure. For the local, Cambodia is a challenge. Either way, it is an exciting, beautiful, graceful and remarkable country.
Posted by acarvin at 2:04 PM
Listen to a computer-generated podcast of this article
December 8, 1997
Phnom Penh Diary - another perspective
Hi everyone. Last week, I posted my diary entry for a day I recently
spent in Phnom Penh. Susanne Cornwall, my perennial travel partner, has
just finished typing up her journal for that day as well and she's asked
me to post it online. I hope you enjoy it. -ac
Phnom Penh Visit, November 8, 1997
Susanne Cornwall
I'm on a plane to Cambodia right now. Andy and I plan to stop first in
Phnom Penh to witness the Killing Fields, then we will travel on to
Angkor to explore the ruins.
A couple weeks before this trip I fished out an old copy of National
Geographic from 1960. Inside there were dozens of pictures of Angkor in
that glorious old grainy film... the majestic Bayon heads, the incredible
outline of Angkor Wat. However, I found myself drawn not to the pictures
of the monuments, but to the pictures of the people. Children playing in
the ruins. A boy holding a toddler on his hip. I couldn't help but wonder
'what happened to these people'? This article was printed fifteen years
before the Khmer Rouge's reign of horror, but these children were
certainly effected. It is said that as many as two in eight Cambodians
were murdered or starved to death by the Khmer Rouge. Did these children
survive? Those magnificent ruins faded into a backdrop for me as I zeroed
in on the children's eyes.
I cannot think of Cambodia without thinking of the Khmer Rouge. It is an
unfortunate association. Cambodia has a fascinating history full of great
kings and jungle temples. Thousands of years of civilization. But my
impression of Cambodia has always been based on what happened over a
period of less than four years.
April 17th, 1975 was declared by the Khmer Rouge as Day One - Year Zero.
"History begins today," they told the people of Cambodia. The capital,
Phnom Penh, was emptied out. All city dwellers were evacuated to the
fields. This was to be an agricultural utopia. Pol Pot's forces took a
strangle-hold over the nation. Like a house with boarded windows and
locked doors, Cambodia became a mystery to the rest of the world. Inside
the worst massacre in my lifetime was raging. People were shot if they
wore glasses, if they spoke French, if they were too educated. Sons
bludgeoned their parents with shovels. Children starved to death. Finally
in December of 1978, Vietnamese troops invaded the country and drove the
Khmer Rouge back into the forests. Thousands of families had been wiped
out. Skulls littered the rice fields. Blood seeped into the dirt. Vietnam
called Cambodia 'hell on earth.'
It has been almost twenty years since Pol Pot disappeared into the
jungle, but the country is still struggling. Bandits roam the forests,
land mines are buried in the fields. King Sihanouk's popularity is
strong, but new issues grow out of old horrors. The US government
considers Cambodia a highly dangerous destination. Americans are advised
against any non- essential travel to the country. So why am I going
there? I've asked myself that countless times. Certainly it is largely to
see Angkor. The ruins are reputed to be among the most incredible
man-made structures in the world. But I know it's not just that. In a
way, I am drawn to Cambodia in the same way a person is drawn to look at
a man's scars when he rolls up his sleeves. But much more than morbid
curiosity, I am amazed by this country's perseverance. I respect these
survivors with my entirety. Day One, April 17th, 1975 was my third
birthday. This massacre, this perversion of humanity, occurred during my
lifetime. While I ran around in sundresses and played with Star Wars
people in the sandbox, Cambodia tore itself apart. I have come to witness
Cambodia's memorials. To see the era after the aftermath. I want to find
the face of survival. As far as I can express, those are my reasons.
All the same, I must admit I am worried about our safety. For weeks I
have found myself muttering, "Please Lord, no bandits, no land mines, no
kidnappers." Andy knew a woman who was shot by bandits three years ago.
She was on a private visit to Banteay Srei when she and her husband were
ambushed. The coup this past July intensified my concerns, as have the
recent reports of tourists who were attacked on the streets at night. But
I am willing to take the risk, because this is a trip I feel compelled to
take. Besides I'm on the plane to Phnom Penh. There is no turning back.
And in truth, I don't want to turn back.
Phnom Penh
We arrived at Phnom Penh's Ponchetong International Airport around 11AM.
We walked from the plane, across the pavement to the terminal. Another
American, a man in his early 30's, snapped a picture of the airport from
the outside. He turned to Andy and me and said, "got to get that shot."
We waited in line for visas - a cold assembly line process - until our
passports were stamped "Cambodge" with thick black ink. We headed through
the terminal to look for our pre-arranged guide. I was surprised to find
the airport in such stellar condition, considering that the control tower
and radar had been destroyed in the recent coup. By the main entrance,
young men motioned to us, called to us, offering taxis. We made hotel
reservations at the terminal's hotel desk. Still no guide. Finally a
young man stood in the crowd holding up a sign that read "Susanne C and
Andy C". He smiled kindly and directed us to the car. On the way through
the parking lot, a teenager walked alongside me trying desperately to
sell me a newspaper. The headline read "Verdict on Pol Pot" and the
teenager kept saying "Pol Pot," and looking sadly up at me. Pol Pot, the
leader of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, was tried in some undisclosed
jungle court several months ago. He's living out the rest of his
miserable life in a mosquito infested hut with his wife and 12 year old
daughter.
Our guide's name was Rith. He was a young attractive man with a blue polo
style shirt and trim black hair. Automatically I liked him. While driving
to the hotel he asked what we wanted to see. Too embarrassed to say we
were mainly interested in the genocide monuments, we waited for him to
reel off the sites. We nodded when he got to Tuol Sleng (the Khmer Rouge
prison) and the Killing Fields monument. We also agreed that we wanted to
see the Silver Pagoda.
Driving through the city was fascinating. It seems to be a city of
children. Well over half the people we saw were under 17 years old. Paved
main streets branch off into dirt roads. Concrete lays uprooted long the
sidewalk. Motorcycles dart in and out of cars, cyclos, and vendors
pushing carts. There are no functional street lights. People cross when
they can. Traffic moves with subtle anarchy. (Still better than LA on a
sunny day.) From behind the car window I could see naked babies, children
with backpacks in school uniforms, young merchants balancing baskets on
their heads. Teenage women ride side-saddle on mopeds, their long dark
hair swept over one shoulder. The city is teeming with life and youth.
Over half of the current population wasn't even alive during the Khmer
Rouge's reign. A boy no more than nine years old drives two little girls
on his moped. A woman washes her baby in the shadow of an old French
colonial-style apartment.
The buildings look as though they could have once been grand, modern. But
dust and decay coat much of their once glorious facades. Chunks of
concrete lay where the streets roll off into dirt roads. Dogs lounge in
the shade. Puppies play around the food stalls. It seems to be a city
without a time period. It's not like going back in time, not as if
technology just hasn't arrived yet. I've been to places like that...
Varanasi, India, and to an extent, Venice, Italy. But Phnom Penh isn't
like that. It was like too much time had passed, and a once prosperous
city was worn out, frayed. But what I saw in the buildings I did not see
in the people. Young children ran and laughed. Women on mopeds smiled
shyly at me. The city I now call home, Washington, D.C., seemed sterile
compared to this action and youth. "Life goes on" the old saying goes. So
it does.
Rith dropped us off at the hotel and said he'd be back at 2PM to show us
the city. He walked us up to the Hawaii Hotel's main desk and waited
while we checked in.
"How old are you?" I asked. "29," he smiled. "I was born in the year of
the rooster."
He was born, then, in 1968. He was seven when the shit hit the fan here. I
wish I could have asked him about his life, but that would be terribly
inappropriate. He would offer the information if he wanted to, I figured.
Everyone my age or older here is a survivor, a witness, a victim. My train
of thought was broken when the hotel staff greeted us with pink papaya
drinks. The air was heavy and humid, and those drinks were damn good.
The hotel was strangely empty. We were the only customers in this enormous
dining room with straw woven chairs and glass chandeliers. It seemed so
strange to be the only guests in this grand room. Outside the window,
children played on the curb. Schoolboys walked by. Two other tourists,
American men in their thirties, followed a guide to a car. All the
foreigners here seem to have the same look on their faces - a look that
seems to say, 'I don't know what the hell I'm doing in Cambodia, but it's
pretty cool.'
After lunch we figured we had some time to kill before Rith came back, so
we headed out to the nearby market. We dodged cars, crossed the streets,
passed toddlers walking clumsily on the sidewalk, and stopped in front of
the flower market. Young women sold flowers from buckets in their stands.
Awnings or sheets of cloth covered the stalls.
The market was laid out like a starfish. A main domed building poured
outside into rows of cloth covered stands. The outside merchants sold T-
shirts, Khmer cloth, flowers. Amputees gathered around the stands. When
they saw us, they immediately came over holding out their hats, asking
for money. A uniformed amputee stretched out his hand. It was
heartbreaking. One T- shirt at the stand where the amputees hung out said
"I survived Cambodia." I thought that was horribly tasteless considering
what had happened here in living memory. I can't imagine a tourist
arrogant enough to think that his little trip to Cambodia was some kind
of ordeal that merited such a T-shirt.
We walked into the domed marketplace. It was enormous. Sunlight shot
through slits in the high ceiling and fell on the mazes of merchant
stalls. Watches, radios, gems, clothes - you name it. Wooden reliefs of
Angkor Wat sold next to underwear. Middle age women tried on bras over
their clothes. A boy maybe 10 or 12 years old came up to us. His brown
shirt was torn and ripped, and he was speaking in very broken English and
French. I couldn't quite understand what he was saying, but he clearly
wanted money. I wasn't carrying anything under a five dollar bill, and
Andy argued that we only had five singles, and we needed them since it
was a weekend and we couldn't cash our traveler's checks. I know in
theory that you are not supposed to give money to children, but I wished
I had a buck on me anyway. He tailed us through the market, following not
more than an arms-length away. Most of the time he walked right next to
my elbow. We had become involved in a tragic game of dodging and hiding.
We walked faster. We slowed down. We tried to weave into the maze of
cloth stands. He never missed a turn. Finally, I realized that every time
we went near the police sitting at the entrance, he had to back away. So
we stood at a stand there and pretended to be interested in the gems.
"What's this?" Andy pointed to a large fang. "Tiger's tooth," the woman
answered and laid it on top of the glass in front of him.
Finally, when the boy wasn't looking, we dodged into the outside market
stalls. The market really is a maze of people, cloth and stands, and
after a few turns we knew we had lost him. A young girl smiled at Andy
and pointed to her cloth. He smiled back and said no thank you. She
laughed shyly and waved good-bye. Andy bought some scarves, but after
maybe twenty minutes we decided to leave the market. The boy and the
amputees reminded us that we could not be invisible observers here.
At 2PM we met Rith and the driver in the hotel lobby, and headed out to
our first stop, the Silver Pagoda. Housed in a gated courtyard near the
palace, the Silver Pagoda and its adjoining grounds are incredible.
Sweeping roofs, panel paintings of the Ramayana, lion statues, and stone
nagas create a majestic display. Even more incredible is the fact that
these structures, the Emerald Buddha and the solid gold/ diamond studded
Buddha survived the Khmer Rouge.
I walked around aimlessly for a while just taking in the enormity of it.
Inside the Wat Preah Keo (Temple of the Emerald Buddha) is even more
impressive than the grounds that surround it. The structure is called the
Silver Pagoda because the floor is covered with 5,000 silver tiles
weighing one kilogram each. It was built under King Norodom in 1892 and
was apparently inspired by Bangkok's Wat Phra Kaew. At the far end of the
Pagoda is a gold painted platform where the Emerald Buddha is seated. It
is actually made out of Baccarat crystal. In front of the Emerald
Buddha's platform is a life-sized standing Buddha made out of solid gold.
700 diamond pieces dot the statue - as a tika on its forehead, as the
eyes, as a string necklace. I still can't believe the Khmer Rouge didn't
melt it down, sell it or destroy it. Supposedly they left it in tact to
inform the world that "all is well in Cambodia."
The grounds, like our hotel, were strangely empty. Especially since we'd
just come from Bangkok where the wats were so choked with tourists that
you couldn't avoid getting twenty of them in every photo. Suddenly a
group of school children arrived - boys and girls about junior high age
in blue and white uniforms. They pointed at us, smiled, waved and finally
approached us with a camera. They wanted to take our picture. We happily
agreed and the kids gathered around us for a shot. After their photo we
asked them to pose for us. It was a wonderful experience. They were so
cute and excited. I guess they don't see many tourists anymore.
Outside as we waited for the car, an amputee limped up to us asking for
money. In the distance ten foot pictures of Sihanouk and his wife were
plastered onto stone fences. The Cambodian flag - blue and red with an
outline of Angkor Wat - flapped in the wind.
Tuol Sleng
The drive to Tuol Sleng wasn't very far, but once we left the main
street, the dirt roads were bumpy and punctured with pot holes. More
children, dogs and vendors lined the streets. A sign on the white gate
read, in English and Khmer, "Tuol Sleng - Museum of Genocide." Children
peddled bikes too big for their bodies around the gate. An old woman
stood next to her fruit stand. Boys played tag. We drove past the sign
and into the prison.
Some 17,000 people were brought here during the Khmer Rouge's reign.
Seven people survived. In this gentle setting that used to be a high
school, victims of the Khmer Rouge were tortured and murdered. Men
missing legs came up to us as we got out of the car. We paid the entry
fee of two US dollars and met our guide, a middle aged woman named Pala.
The campus consisted of four buildings congregated around a grass
courtyard. The bright sunlight revealed where paint had chipped off the
walls. A thin, lanky man swept off the 14 graves in front of the first
building. In these graves lay the last 14 people killed at Tuol Sleng. A
monk in saffron robes and black rimmed glasses followed in the tour
behind us.
The first building housed prisoners on two stories. They were chained to
metal bed frames. No mattresses, only hard metal. On the walls, hanging
above each bed, were photographs of the dead found in each room after the
Vietnamese wrestled the city from the Khmer Rouge. In one cell, a
photograph showed a naked body, wretchedly twisted, handcuffed and
shackled. He had been killed with a shovel. White bits of cheekbone were
exposed. A pool of blood gathered under his bed. This was the very room
where he was found. The room where he was tortured and murdered. I looked
around the cell. In his anguish, that prisoner must have focused on the
bits of dust encrusted in the walls. He must have seen how the plaster
had fallen off the walls in fist-sized chunks. He must have seen those
spots where the paint changes hue on the ceiling. This room had been a
tomb for the living, and I was surprised somehow by the amount of light.
The window was covered with a series of slates which allowed strips of
sunlight to pour through. Past the window slates I could see a little
girl on a tricycle, riding just outside the prison. I could see green
trees, houses, people working in their backyards. I turned around and
looked out towards the outside hallway. The monk in the small tour group
behind us was standing at the cell window looking in. He had his hand up
to his mouth. The prison reflected in his thick glasses.
Our guide Pala pointed out a sign hanging in the hallway. It had been
translated into English. This sign greeted the prisoners of Tuol Sleng. It
stated such prison rules as "The prisoner will not cry or yell out while
receiving lashes." Each line of horror was stated as a matter of fact.
The next building was even more haunting. The Khmer Rouge kept meticulous
records of their work. Every prisoner was photographed upon arrival. Some
were photographed in their rooms, chained to their beds, but most of the
prisoners were forced to sit on a thin wooden chair with a rod stemming
out from the back that dictated where their head should be. This
collection of photos is the victims' last testament. A woman, hair
cropped holding a baby stares out from one photo. A boy with his mouth
bloodied and swollen. Blood smeared up his cheek. A young man with his
arms pulled behind him stares into the camera. His eyes bulge with
terror. Every shot is black and white, making them seem ever the more
like evidence. Rows upon rows of evidence. Walls and walls of evidence.
Some of the victims smiled innocently into the lens. Shards of sunlight
poured across the pictures. The few foreigners who died at Tuol Sleng
also have a place on the wall. An Australian businessman who missed his
chance when the world evacuated from Phnom Penh. A westerner with a
scraggly beard and wide horrified eyes. One photo struck me the hardest.
A boy no more than twelve years old with cuts on his cheeks and around
his eyes. A heavy metal chain hung around his neck like a leash. Tight
jaw, dark eyes.
I cannot understand what happened here. How could this happen? How could
anyone torture these children, these women with babies, these young men?
I know the history. I have heard the Khmer Rouge rhetoric about creating
a utopia. Andy and I discussed the theories. Brainwashing created a world
in which a person was a cog in the system. The individual soul was
disregarded. Murder was commonplace, systematic and nonchalant. But I
still cannot understand how a person could bludgeon that little boy in
the photograph to death with a shovel. In the same way, I cannot
understand how the Nazis could have murdered so many millions of men,
women and children. Again I know the history, I understand the rhetoric.
But such mass cruelty is still beyond my comprehension.
I believe that violence is innate in man, but I believe that what
happened here was not innate. This was a perversion of humanity, a
malignancy on mankind. The prisoners here were hung from the high
school's gymnastics bars and dropped to the ground. Their fingernails
were torn out while their hands were clamped between two pieces of wood.
They were held underwater, electrocuted, lashed. God, how could this
happen?
We walked past the walls of photos to another room. Pala pointed to two
more rows of photos showing boys about 13- or 14-years-old in cloth caps.
"These were the interrogators," she stated. "Interrogators, killers, same
thing."
13-year-old killers? These were the guards? The ones who tortured mothers
and children with such ruthlessness? They had been brainwashed, I know.
They were, in a way, victims too. But that doesn't mean that I feel any
sympathy for them. Next to the pictures of the boys were pictures of the
young female cooks.
In the next building over, rooms were divided into small brick cages.
Inside, I couldn't stretch out both arms the cages were so small.
Prisoners here were starved until their ribs showed through their skin.
They were shackled and left to await torture or disposal.
"Why didn't they escape, some people ask me," Pala said. "Why didn't they
try?"
Clearly, the brick walls were pretty flimsy and a good knock could topple
them.
"They were too weak," she continued, "to push down the walls."
After a beat she began again. " I lost my own family during the Khmer
Rouge. My husband was killed with a bamboo stick. My daughter was starved
to death. My brother was killed with a shovel..."
She listed off the members of her family and their violent deaths. Some
light crept into the room illuminating the thick gobs of concrete between
the bricks, the holes in the plaster walls that served as doors, the
wooden slates over the windows.
"I wanted to commit suicide," Pala's voice was low. "But I did not." The
whites of her eyes were faintly pink, but I could tell she was past
crying. Now she was telling us her story to share her pain, her country's
anguish and to make sure that her family somehow lived on.
"You understand, lady?" She kept asking me, in case I didn't understand
her accent.
I understood what she was saying, but not why, not how. I didn't
understand like she did anyway. I had come to witness the aftermath, and
I found it, twenty years later, still imprinted on her face and in her
eyes.
Outside a group of boys played volleyball. The net was strung up between
the back of a barrack and a palm tree. Two puppies tumbled around in the
courtyard. Of course to them, nothing happened here. A young boy rode a
bicycle up to the door. Andy bent down and took his picture. The child
gripped the handlebars and smiled broadly.
"My nephew," Pala smiled.
The building was covered with barbed wire so that the prisoners didn't
kill themselves by jumping to their deaths before "confessing." They were
not given spoons in case they used them to slit their writs.
The fourth and final building housed paintings by one of the seven
survivors of Tuol Sleng. The three by five foot paintings showed guards
ripping out people's fingernails, prisoners being whipped by five guards.
One painting showed a blindfolded, half starved man being carried like a
hog at a luau. Another painting showed a man, thin and bent, sitting in
one of the brick cells with a shackle around his ankle. Pala explained
that was a self portrait. In the next room hung instruments of torture,
and down the hallway, was a bust of Pol Pot. The nose had been hacked
off, it looked like, with an ax.
The final room displayed a map of Cambodia that covered the whole wall, 10
feet high maybe, ten feet across. The map was made of human skulls. Skulls
of the victims. Red lines, to represent blood, drew the Mekong River and
Tonle Sap.
Pala walked us outside. We thanked her , not really knowing what to say.
Andy asked if we could take a picture of her, and after she agreed, we
each took one photo. When I snapped the picture she wasn't smiling, but
her jaw was strong and tight and her chin was pointed slightly upwards. I
thought to myself, even if the picture doesn't come out, I will never
forget that profile.
The Killing Fields
After Tuol Sleng, we drove in silence out of town to the Killing Fields
of Choeung Ek. Paved roads ended at the edge of Phnom Penh. Our journey
was dirt roads the rest of the way. The driver had to maneuver around
barrel- sized potholes. Raised houses with corregated metal roof tops
lined the roads. Some roofs were actually made of palm leaves, though
most were wood and metal. Dogs played under the shade of a drop cloth
awning, while children held kite strings and played tag in their school
clothes. A young man with his shirt off stood on the balcony of his
wooden stilted home. A bright pink towel, hanging on the railing next to
him, blew in the wind. We crossed a bridge and saw the homes standing
right up alongside the river. Every once in a while, I could see the vast
expanses of rice fields and distant palm trees. It was just as I had
imagined.
After about thirty minutes we arrived at the Killing Fields Memorial. We
paid the very small fee (one or two US dollars each), then walked up to
the three story high Memorial Pagoda. Inside piles upon piles of skulls
are stacked according to age and gender. "Female, 14 to 17" read one
card. We were close enough to touch them, although I felt that would be
disrespectful. Pile of bones. Thousands of lives. The towering Pagoda
shelters more than 8000 skulls. When the interrogators at Tuol Sleng were
done with their victims they told them they were going to be sent home.
Instead they were taken here and killed.
Behind the Memorial Pagoda are the mass graves. Pits of bones with grass
and dirt thrown over them. Andy brushed his hand through the dirt. A bone
came up under his fingers. He quickly covered it back up. Across the pits
I could see the river. On the other side of the Pagoda, rice fields
yawned and stretched under the setting sun. It is incredible that this
peaceful, quiet place was the Killing Fields. Rith, our guide, walked
around with his hands in his pockets. Women watched two boys picking
fruit out of the upper branches of a vine covered tree. I took a picture
of three children who were playing just outside the gate.
We drove back the way we had come. A little boy waved, and I waved back.
He ran alongside the car for several strides just to smile and say hello.
The sun slid past the palm trees and down into the rice paddies. Again we
sat in silence.
Rith and the driver dropped us off at the hotel. He gave us his business
card, so we could write to him. It turns out he is a conservation
specialist at the Silver Pagoda. We thanked him about half a dozen times,
said good-bye to the driver and went inside.
While Andy showered, I stood on the balcony outside our room watching the
traffic on the street below. The city has not yet recovered, but there is
an overwhelming sense of hope. Phnom Penh is a city of survivors and
their children. They have not pushed the horrors of the past aside. They
acknowledge the past; they live alongside their memorials; they set up
shop and play tag in the shadow of Tuol Sleng... and they carry on with
hope and grace.
I hardly slept at all that night. Every time I closed my eyes I saw
images of Tuol Sleng. When the alarm went off at 4:50AM, I was already
awake. That morning we left Phnom Penh and set out to experience the
grandeur of Angkor.
Posted by acarvin at 1:31 PM
Listen to a computer-generated podcast of this article
November 10, 1997
Saying Goodbye to Angkor
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| Andy and some new friends at sunset, Phnom Bakheng |
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| Da, our young guide to Banteay Kdei |
At 2pm we met up with Rang and returned to Angkor's Big Circuit. We started with Banteay Kdei, a large 12th century Buddhist temple. Several girls were selling t-shirts outside and we suggested to them that we might buy one after we visited the temple if they stopped hounding us. They backed off and sat down, waiting impatiently for our return. We were joined by two boys, one of whom couldn't have been more than six or seven years old, the other perhaps 12 or 14. We weren't looking for a guide, but the older boy began to spout interesting facts about Jayavarman VII and the use of avian Garuda images on Buddhist temples. We invited them along. I asked them how old they were, and the older boy said he was 16. "No way," I said, "12, 14, right?" To this he responded "No, sir. 16 years old. We Cambodians are much smaller than you." True, whenever we had asked others how old they were, we always seemed to guess five years too young. Maybe it was true - Cambodians certainly are smaller, so maybe that makes them look younger as well. I also wondered if malnutrition made a difference, but I didn't ask. I'd have to check with some Khmer friends back home. We also asked the younger boy, whose name was Da, how old he was. "Seventeen?" he said with some doubt.
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| Da and his friend lounging at Sras Srang |
Banteay Kdei was devoid of visitors so we admired its carvings and its ancient moat in peaceful solitude. The moat now looked like a pond in a city park, complete with crickets and floating lotus. The t-shirt girls then reappeared, and after haggling down to $3 a shirt we bought a couple of them. Before driving off, we crossed the road to Sras Srang, a 12th century reservoir with a short terrace and several nice statues. The two boys horsed around on one of the statues by the water's edge. We soon said goodbye and returned to Rang's car.
We then paid a brief visit to Prasat Kravan - five brick towers from the 10th century. They were restored in the 1960s to the point that they almost felt like replicas of what the original towers might have looked like. I didn't care for the freshness of the brick; it just didn't seem like they fit into the rest of Angkor. The site also had an inordinate number of kids for such a small temple. About 25 children jumped rope, played tag and messed around on the temple platform. Some of the kids were selling charcoal rubbings so I approached the youngest of them asked to see some. He couldn't have been more than five or six, but he rolled out his pictures and said, "10 dollars, mister." I found a beautiful image of a royal court scene, so I pointed to it and said "five dollars." The little boy turned to some older children and conferred with them in Khmer, holding his hand in front of his lips so I couldn't see what he was saying. He then turned back to me and said, "six dollars." I figured the older kids would have told him to press for eight dollars, but who was I to argue? I counted out my singles one by one and made the deal with him. We were both quite happy.
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| A tree-entwined passageway, Ta Prohm |
For the next temple, we headed to Ta Prohm. Ta Prohm is a popular destination here for it's the only large temple at Angkor that is still fully encroached by jungle. So a visit to Ta Prohm isn't too far removed from what the French explorers of the 19th century would have found here. At the entrance to the site, a young man offered to be our guide. At first we weren't interested but then I remembered that the LP guide suggested to get one of the local kids to show you around, since they knew all the great photogenic spots. So we ran back after him and agreed to hire him for part of the afternoon. His name was Meas and he was 18. Again, I would have said 15, but I kept my mouth shut. As we approached the temple a high pitch shrieking sound emanated from the forest. It was like a far alarm going off in a stairwell - I didn't think nature made noises this loud. We asked Meas what the sound was but he didn't know the English word for the particular animal that was making all the noise. After playing a brief game of charades and hand gestures we concluded the noise was coming from hundreds of small frogs.
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| Susanne and Meas contemplating Ta Prohm |
Ta Prohm was an Indiana Jones adventure brought to life, or perhaps the Disney World Jungle Cruise. Either metaphor would have been appropriate: towers of stone twisted by tree roots, some hundreds of years old; bas reliefs distorted by seven centuries of lichens and moss. We climbed through the rubble, marveling at the Tolkeinesque sight of these gargantuan trees had taken root and spread over the temple walls, producing some of the most famous and recognizable images of Angkor. The further we ventured into the temple, the older and grander the trees seemed to grow. At the center of the temple courtyard, Meas scampered higher and higher in his flip flops as we tried to keep up. The next thing I realized we were perched high atop a shattered temple wall, 30 feet or more from the ground. I was too awestruck by the view to be terrified of a misstep. The forest was alive with the chirps and calls of birds, monkeys, more frogs. It was an uncanny, otherworldly experience. Cautiously we returned to solid earth and backtracked to the entrance of the temple to meet up with Rang.
Lee, Phaeng and Hing
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or Listen to them Play with RealAudio!It was getting close to 4:30pm and we still had the Ta Keo temple on our itinerary, but we were both beat and eager to get to Phnom Bakheng for sunset. Rang took us by Ta Keo for a brief look, and we stepped outside for a few minutes to appreciate it. But Phnom Bakheng beckoned us, so we purchased some bottled water and headed to the foot of the hill. We slowly climbed the 300-foot mound, its gravel path providing less than adequate footing. Eventually we reached the top, the highest point at Angkor. Four kids had followed us up the hill and we soon struck up a conversation with them. There was one girl named Suan and three boys: Lee, Phaeng and Hing. They spoke little English but were very giggly and outgoing. Suan tried to help me up the temple steps by grabbing my hand, which actually made my balance on these aging steps all the more difficult. But I didn't want to spoil the moment.
Up top, we could see Angkor Wat in the distance, but without a telephoto lens or binoculars it was hard to get a clear view of it. Facing west, though, the sun descended over the waters of the Tonle Sap, reflecting reddish hues across the temple terrace. The kids were having a merry time playing tag and they mugged for countless photos, which we couldn't resist. We had our own little photo shoot going on with these youngsters, taking at least a roll of film's worth of pictures. There was also a Khmer family, sitting on the rocks with their cameras and cans of Coke. They had two little girls who were sneaking peeks at me and Susanne. I smiled at them and said "Johm riab sua." After some motherly encouragement, the smaller of the two girls ran towards me, bowed her head with her hands pressed together by her chin and yelled "Johm riab sua!" back to me. Her parents laughed approvingly. I reciprocated the bow and then said to her in Khmer, "Aw kohn charan. Sabai te?" to which she responded with another enthusiastic "Johm riab sua!" I quickly grabbed my Cambodia guide and looked up the phrases for "What is your name?" and "My name is Andy." I struggled terribly; Khmer is so difficult for westerners to pronounced. I kept on trying to get the words for "my name is" - khnyom chhmeu, if I remember correctly - but they didn't roll of the tongue the way I had hoped. Nevertheless, the girl played along with my conversation until she got a case of the shy bug and ran back to her daddy. It was my first and last productive conversation in Khmer.
Two Khmer sisters, Phnom Bakheng I sat on the terrace peacefully as the sun set over Angkor. For me, this was closure for Cambodia. The last three days had gone exceptionally well; I really was going to miss this country and its beautiful people. Susanne also seemed quite content at this fleeting moment. As the sun vanished below the horizon, we made our way slowly down the hill's gravel slope. The four kids were now joined by two others as they led the way down. At the bottom of the hill, though, they all turned to me and said "now you pay - one dollar to each." I was so disappointed. I tried offering them the handful of riels I had left and the last two dollars left in my pocket. They pouted and continued to demand more money. This really ticked me off, because it was clear they were having a good time up there, and to expect a dollar for each and every one of them was stretching it for me. Susanne seemed to feel sincerely bad about not having enough money on hand, but after seeing their testy reaction, I decided it was tough luck for them. They'd get more money from tourists after school tomorrow.
Rang took us back to Siem Reap and drove us around on a wild goose chase to find some baguettes for the next morning. None of the bakeries were open but we managed to find a food stall with a brick oven and fresh bread. They only accepted riels, so Rang ran across the street, got a couple dollars changed for us, and made the purchase of four baguettes for 100 riels each. Back at the hotel, we made plans for Rang to take us to the airport the next morning. Meanwhile, I paid him the balance of his fee plus an extra 20 dollar tip. He was worth every penny, as he served as our driver, translator, guide, concierge, and any other position we might have needed to fill. We then returned to our rooms and packed, for tomorrow would be a travel day. It was almost time to leave Cambodia.
Posted by acarvin at 10:16 PM
Angkor Wat Sunrise
Once again our pre-dawn alarm managed to get us up for an early morning adventure. Rang wasn't downstairs with the car just yet, so we stood outside admiring the clear night sky, the fresh air and the marvelous view of Orion and the Pleiadies. By 5:15am, Rang's car pulled up in front of the hotel and we were soon on our way to Angkor. Today would be dedicated mostly to the circle of ruins collectively known as the Big Circuit, but first we had a more pressing agenda: to watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat.The number of stars dwindled and the sky turned from black to dark blue as we pulled up in front of Angkor Wat's stone causeway. The sun would rise soon after 6am, so that gave us about half an hour to find a good spot. The causeway was deserted apart from some cows grazing to the left of the first gate. Most people go to the Bayon for sunrise, but I figured that there would still be some folks who would come to Angkor Wat, right? But as we entered the main courtyard and approached the wat, we were still the only visitors inside, save a few local Khmers who were starting their work day at a renovation site.
A grassy area behind a large pond appeared to boast the best view of Angkor Wat, so we placed ourselves there and waited. Within a matter of seconds, flies swarmed around our faces, darting back and forth in front of my eyes. To make matters worse, our bug spray was back at the hotel. Susanne took cover under her anorak while I wrapped my trusty krama scarf around my face and head to keep the pesky beasts at bay. A Spanish couple arrived with their Khmer guide and he commented that I was using my krama "like a real Khmer." He asked me where I bought it, and I told him about the Central Market in Phnom Penh. "Oh, no, no," he exclaimed. "Kramas made in Siem Reap, not Phnom Penh. Buy kramas here from now on. Better for Siem Reap." "Not better for Phnom Penh," I replied, smiling. "Next time," he repeated, "buy in Siem Reap. Very good kramas."
Wide-angle view of the Angkor Wat pond The flies died down as the sky brightened. Several bats swooped over the pond, savoring mouthfuls of bugs with each pass. I rooted for the bats. More tourists entered the courtyard but there were still no more than 15 of us at the time. While we maintained our spot near the pond, the others gathered on the causeway itself, about 100 yards in front of the wat. They were treated with the first rays of sunlight that morning - the stone towers obscured the sun from reaching our pond spot as quickly. Eventually, we were greeted with the yellow beams reflecting off of the shimmering pool in front of us. Sunrise at Angkor Wat. Well worth the wait, even with all of those flies.
Before beginning the Big Circuit, I asked Rang to stop briefly at Angkor Thom's South Gate and the Bayon as well, just for a quick photo shoot. The rising sunlight was spectacular - a thick, bright orange from the morning humidity - I thought it would be a waste to not try to capture it. After a few photos I hopped back into the car and we drove north through Angkor Thom to Preah Khan, which is believed to be a temporary residence for Jayavarman VII. Preah Khan is a large stone temple that remains in good condition, despite the piles of rubble that litter the site. As soon as we entered it, a young boy latched on to us and followed us around. He started to point out things that we already knew - "Preah Khan, very big, very old" so I told him we really weren't in need of a guide. Undeterred, he continued to stalk us, always within a 20 foot range.
Andy by a large tree behind Preah Khan
We climbed through an obstacle course of stone to reach the east side of the temple, where large trees had sprung from the walls of the temple itself. We cut through the center of the complex to a small stupa, about waste high. Bats flew through the corridor, prompting me to wrap my krama around my head. As we exited the temple, the young boy simply walked away without asking for money. That was a first for us at Angkor. He might have just been a bit lonely - we were the only visitors there at that time of day - and we felt bad for ignoring him so much.Rang drove us east to the temple of Preah Neak Pean, but our stay was quite short for the only entrance to the site was flooded from the monsoon. Some local kids offered to push us through the water on their bikes, but the thought of having water and mud spraying all over our clothes caused us to decline their generosity. We moved on to our next stop, Ta Som.
Main Courtyard, Ta Som Ta Som was a minor temple built by Jayavarman VII. No one ever visits it, and the LP guide barely gives it a sentence's mention. But we decided to check it out nonetheless. The path to Ta Som was covered in sand - I felt like we were at the beach. Passing through a stone gate we found a small temple whose insides were a complete mess. Columns overturned, boulders and other debris littered about like a earthquake victim, but the anarchy of the stones made the temple into a venerable jungle gym for our climbing pleasure.
Susanne wanders the hallways of Ta Som
Susanne disappeared amongst the debris in her own little adventure while I wandered to the gate on the far east side. I found a skinny old man who appeared to be the keeper of the temple, and he used a broom a palm fronds to sweep leaves off of the sandy stone path. "Johm riab sua," he'd say to me every time we made eye contact. Hello, hello. He appreciated the company, even for a few minutes. I noticed his homespun cigarette smelled like pot - no wonder he was so happy to be at his job this morning. Susanne soon met me at the east gate, near the old Khmer, having finished her climbing about the ruins. "I thought I'd lost you," she said. "It was really great." "Thanks, I missed you too." She took me into the courtyard and over the obstacle course she herself had just conquered. I had forgotten that climbing on dangerous rocks could be so much fun.
Andy captures an elephant at the Eastern Mebon
We returned to the car and drove through the Eastern Baray, an ancient 14-square kilometer reservoir now used as a giant rice paddy. The only visible remnants of the original structure was the Eastern Mebon, a 10th century temple fashioned with the typically Angkorian five-towered quincunx on a three-tiered platform. The Mebon gave us a great view of the rice paddies, and the temple itself had some elephant statues in excellent condition at each of its four corners. But soon enough, we were ready to move on. Our next stop, Pre Rup, turned out to be a larger replica of the Eastern Mebon, so Susanne sat down in the shade and chatted with a young Khmer girl in a floppy Calvin Klein hat while I climbed around the ruins. It was now just after 10:30am and we were running a little ahead of schedule, so Susanne and I suggested we return to the Bayon.
Avelokitesvara heads, the Bayon
We settled ourselves in front of a particular Avelokitesvara head that was relatively close to eye level, and proceeded to spend the next hour drawing it. The head was just a few feet from that amputee musician who played the Khmer folk cello. We sat there sketching the face, listening to the sound of Cambodian melodies rise through the air. We noticed that the musician had a friend nearby, to whom he would hand any recent donations from tourists - that way, the musician's money bowl always seemed pathetically barren. In the time we sat there, he probably collected five dollars in small bills, not bad money by local standards. Several Khmer teenagers approached us to watch us draw; they smiled when they saw what we were doing. By 11:30 we were both satisfied with our work so we paused for a few more pictures of us standing by the stone face. We then returned to the car and drove back to Siem Reap for our lunchtime break.
Posted by acarvin at 1:31 PM
November 9, 1997
Apsara Sunset
The rest of the day would be dedicated to Angkor Wat, the most famous of the Angkor monuments. Occupying more than two square miles and surrounded by a 500 foot wide moat, Angkor is the pinnacle of classic Khmer architecture. Dedicated to Vishnu and its builder, King Suryavarman II, Angkor Wat served as the king's funerary temple. The temple itself faces west, acknowledging the setting sun and the symbolic passage from life to afterlife.
Novice Monks, Angkor Wat Angkor Wat maximizes its symbolic potential by serving as a physical representation of both time and space. As you walk inward - across the causeway and moat through the main gate, along the internal causeway and up the tiers to the summit - you in turn go back through time, from the present moment to the birth of the universe at the top of Mt. Meru. Similarly, by going inward you cross the rivers and oceans, the land of the continents, the sacred foothills, and (again) the summit of Mt. Meru, the symbolic center of the universe and the source of all life.
Angkor Wat And despite our profane reality of sweat, tourists and children selling flutes and postcards, Angkor Wat delivers a profoundly holy and thoroughly mystical experience. I've got a noticeable bounce in my step as we walk down the causeway to the main gate - I still can't believe I'm actually here. The sun begins to shine brightly as we reach the gate, a shadowy stone arch that obscures the view of the structures beyond it. I'm sure this was the intended effect, for as we cross through the darkness, suddenly the arch opens to reveal the full glory of Angkor Wat itself. Another long causeway terminates at the temple entrance, its column-studded base stretching far to the left and right. Another row of columns cover the second tier of the temple; above these I can see the temple's five towers that make Angkor Wat so recognizable. I wonder how high we can climb inside. As we reached the columned entrance, I am greeted by the first of many old Buddhist nuns inviting me to light some incense. I decline for now - I figured I'd wait til I reach the top. The old nun smiled and said "Sok Sabai." "Aw kohn, Sabai te," I say back - "thank you, be well" - at least I think that's what I said.
Susanne standing in temple courtyard, Angkor Wat Just beyond the entrance I saw dark corridors extending both left and right, running in a square around the central tier. The corridors were shaded on both sides by stone columns that are chiseled so intricately you would swear they were wood and carved with modern molding tools. It's somewhat difficult to walk through the corridor for each compartment is separated by raised stone blocks as high as 18 inches above the ground. Walking became an introductory step aerobics class as we maneuvered our way down the corridor. Well worth it, though. The path took us about 30 minutes to walk all the way around, so we moved up to the second tier: four stupas stand at the corners of the tier, with large courtyards and courtyards-within-courtyards in each quarter of the tier. We decided to cut through to the back and then walk around along the sides. The view of the surrounding landscape is lovely, and we weren't even halfway up. In one corner we found a western couple who appeared to have claimed the sunniest spot in which to sit and enjoy a soda. Susanne noticed that there was a nice view of them from another courtyard window, so she offered to take their camera and get a picture of them. It turned out that one of the two tourists, was from Bethesda, about half an hour from my apartment in Arlington. Small world.
I've already gone through a roll of film at Angkor Wat and we've only been here for about an hour. I'll relent on my snap-happy enthusiasm but also note to myself that I could always buy more film. Besides, I'm not exactly in the neighborhood every day.
Bas relief detail, Angkor Wat We decided to climb up to the third tier, an imposing task considering the steps are thin and rise at about a 75 degree angle. We walked around to the south side and found a set of reinforced steps and a handle rail leading to the top. As we began the climb, a nun at the bottom courtyard said something in Khmer that I took as meaning Be Careful, Kid. Luckily we made it to the top unscathed, albeit severely out of breath and sweaty. As with the two levels below, the third tier is divided by quadrants of courtyards (that were once shimmering water pools) circumscribed by dark columned corridors. In the main corridors extending cardinally from the center of the summit, old nuns sat on the floor and chatted with younger women and a couple of park policemen enjoying a cigarette. The nuns smiled as us and laughed as they asked, "Sok Sabai te?" which I now began to regard as the official form of hello inside Angkor. "Sok sabai, aw kohn cheran, sok sabaiiii...." I replied.
At the very center of the tier were four small shrines, one facing each direction, all containing statues of the Buddha at different stages of life. We paused at the Buddha facing north - a reclining Buddha in the midst of achieving nirvana. We had reached the top of Angkor Wat and I felt it was time to give thanks for our safe journey through Cambodia, so I lit some incense and a candle, leaving a dollar on a silver plate in front of the statue. Hopefully the Enlightened One would appreciate the gesture from a couple of itinerant Judeo-Christian farangs such as ourselves. I also thought about Susan Hadden, the former head of the Alliance for Public Technology, who was killed in an ambush visiting Angkor's Banteay Srei temples two and a half years ago. I'm not sure if any of her friends or colleagues had had the opportunity to visit Cambodia since her tragic death, so honoring her memory with some incense seemed like the right thing to do.
It was about 3:45 pm now and we were supposed to meet Rang at 4:45 in order to climb the hill at Phnom Bakheng, which apparently offers the best view of Angkor Wat at sunset. But as we returned to the base of the temple, we found a group of kids dressed in classical Khmer dancing costumes - girls in golden apsara outfits and boys in colorful harlequin ensembles. In the distance I noticed a minivan and several men carrying xylophones up to the causeway. There was going to be a performance! Susanne and I had been disappointed in our inability to find traditional dance performances during this trip, so we decided to hang out, get a good seat and see what happened next. At first we got a little over-anxious and tried to snap some pictures while the kids prepped for the show. The boys hammed it up for the cameras, but the girls were much more intent on getting ready to dance and ignored our gestures to take a picture of them. Meanwhile a small crew of men set up a red cloth on the causeway - the stage, undoubtedly - and placed their instruments off to the left side of it. Having noticed this, I placed myself strategically at the left corner of the front stage, leaning on an ancient stone pillar next to the gamelan orchestra.Susanne continued to get pictures near the dancers while I held our place. About a dozen chairs were set up in front of the stage and soon they were occupied by a large tour group made up of French and German retirees. I guessed that explained the reason for this "impromptu" performance. I glanced at my watch and saw it was now 4:10pm, half an hour before our rendezvous. Well, Rang might have to wait a bit - this was the chance of a lifetime, to see Khmer dancers in front of Angkor Wat at sunset - there was no way I'd miss this. Besides, we could always climb up Phnom Bakheng for tomorrow's sunset.
Listen to the Petal Dance with RealAudio! By 4:30pm the gamelan orchestra started to warm up, so Susanne returned to our front-row position. Within a minute or two, the musicians broke out full swing into an overture. Fortunately, I had just hit the "record" button on my tape player. Soon the Apsara dancers glided gracefully to the stage, bathed in warm orange hues from the setting sun. I couldn't believe our good fortune for being here at this moment. The dancers demonstrated a traditional flower dance, where bowls of flower petals are balanced in the palm of one hand and eventually tossed in the air as an offering of good luck. Susanne and I went trigger happy, taking almost a roll of pictures each in a few minutes. But we knew that some of these pictures would be classics, so it was worth taking extras just in case they captured a particularly magical moment.
The monkey god Hanuman in a dance from the Reamkin
For more scenes from the performance, visit The Children of Southeast Asia
Listen to the Coconut Dance with RealAudio! We stayed at Angkor Wat for two more dances - a wonderful percussive number where boys and girls skillfully collided coconut shells to a rhythm, and a scene from the Reamkin (the Cambodian interpretation of India's Ramayana epic), a reenactment of the monkey god Hanuman courting a beautiful maiden. The young boy who played Hanuman wore an ornately painted mask, and his movements were incredibly crisp and precise. I ran out of film and audio tape at the end of this performance, so we took this as our cue to meet Rang back at the car. Once again, we found him standing by his Camry with a gleeful grin on his face. Before I could finish apologizing for being late, he said, "Yes, Apsara dancers, I know," and agreed that we could always climb Phnom Bakheng for tomorrow's sunset.
We chilled out at the hotel, writing in our journals on the balcony as dozens of geckos congregated on the ceiling over our heads, waiting for the arrival of the evening mosquitoes. We eventually crossed the street to the Singapore Restaurant for another order of fried rice and some hot Singapore coconut curry chicken. The cafe had a bit of a bug problem, so we spent our meal blowing small flies off the table. More geckos crowded the walls while a TV played Khmer music videos at full volume. The videos reminded me of ones I had seen back in India, though I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not.
We hit the sack at 8pm. Tomorrow we would meet Rang at five in the morning to catch sunrise over Angkor Wat. Despite my high level of anticipation awaiting another glorious day at Angkor, I managed to get a good night's sleep.
Posted by acarvin at 11:43 PM
Arrival at Angkor
4:45am, and it's black as pitch outside, yet we've got no choice but to get out of bed. Our morning flight to Siem Reap had been changed from 7:30 to 6:30, which meant we'd have to ride through the streets of Phnom Penh before sunrise. Just a day or two before, I was nervous about the prospects of a pre-dawn drive through Phnom Penh. Bandits, corrupt cops, hottentots, we'd inevitably be kidnapped and sold for scrap. Now, of course, I realized that this was an absurd overreaction on my part. At 5:30am, the streets of Phnom Penh seemed safer than Washington DC would have been at the same time. Just don't let the cabby take any short cuts down some hidden alleyways, I grimaced.
Avelokitesvara head, the Bayon We rode along the quiet treelined boulevards and reached the airport in about 15 minutes. Susanne and I picked up our boarding passes, paid the $10 departure tax and waited for boarding as two large groups of German and Japanese tourists crowded the departure lounge. They looked well traveled, sporting Saigon and Luang Prabang t-shirts. Susanne talked with a woman from Manchester, England who had spent two months alone wandering the South Pacific, Burma and Vietnam before coming to Cambodia. Meanwhile I worried we'd get hassled because of the size of our backpacks - there was a 10 kilogram per passenger limit on baggage, and I'm sure our packs exceeded the limited, but no one asked us anything except "carry-on bags?"
The sun rose at 6am, not long before we boarded the flight. Before the July coup there were seven flights a day to Siem Reap. Now there were only three, and until the end of the rains last week, they were largely empty. Our flight had about 40 people on board, more than half full. We munched on angel cake muffins and coffee during the brief 35 minute flight. I had hoped for a stunning view of Angkor on the way down, but instead had to settle for rice paddies, stilt houses and the occasional humble wat.
Siem Reap is perhaps the smallest airport I've ever seen, even beating Connecticut's New Haven airport. A few steps inside and we were already at the exit, as two dozen or so frenzied taxi drivers waited outside ready to pounce on unsuspecting tourists. We too would have to choose a driver from amongst this crowd, so we paused for a second, put on our game faces and then opened the door to face the music. All 20 cabbies charged us, shouting "Siem Reap! Siem Reap! Angkor! I will drive!" About six or seven of them pressed into me and pawed at my hands and shirt. It was time to choose, so I decided to grab the smallest guy I could find - that way, if he proved to be a difficult person, I'd look all the more intimidating to him. Maybe. I looked at a small, smiling young man to my left and said, "You! Golden Apsara Guesthouse." He charged forward, as did the other drivers - apparently they could all get a commission from this particular hotel. I asked him how much the ride would cost, to which he responded, "Free ride - courtesy service to Golden Apsara." I suppose his commission would surpass the price of the cab ride. "OK, let's go." We pushed through the crowd, caught a breath of fresh Cambodian country air, and climbed into the little man's Camry. Another young Khmer, this one grinning even more than the first man, closed our doors and got into the driver's seat. We started the short ride into Siem Reap, the only major town around Angkor.
Rang, our driver and guide to Angkor
Interested in hiring Rang next time you're at Angkor?
The driver didn't talk much, but the first man told us a bit about the area. The town had about 70,000 residents but it felt much smaller to me, like a pleasant country village where everyone knew everyone else and exchanged gossip over Tiger beer and Mild Sevens cigarettes at the local garden cafe. The only traffic was the occasional motorscooter or young boy herding the family cattle down the road. The first man asked if we wanted a driver for our stay. "He will drive you - his name is Rang," he said, pointing to the driver, who repeated "Rang," smiling cheerfully. "20 dollars a day." This was the going rate in town, so we agreed to use him as our escort for our stay. We arrived at the hotel, a quaint villa in need of a fresh whitewash, but quite nice by our flexible accommodation standards. The owner, an older gentleman who spoke fluent French but no English, showed us a large room with three beds, ceiling fan, a refrigerator, bathroom and a spotless floor, $20 dollars a day. Fair enough. We gladly dropped our backpacks to the beds.Susanne and I changed clothes and prepared our film supply for the day while Rang arranged our two day passes to Angkor for $40 each (the passes would have been good for a third day if we'd had the time). $40 may seem rather steep compared to practically every other entrance fee in Asia, but considering that here were the greatest archeological ruins on earth and one of the few steady sources of hard currency for this poor country, $40 seemed a small price to pay. Rang returned about 20 minutes later. He still had that large grin on his face, as if her were excited for us, this being our first visit to the famed ruins of Angkor.
From the 9th to the 15th centuries, the Khmer kingdom at Angkor was the most powerful and architecturally prodigious culture in southeast Asia. The Khmers had lived for centuries in this region, which had earlier been known as Funan and Chenla, but they were often dominated by the regional superpowers of the time, namely China to the north and Java to the south. In 802 a Khmer official in the Javanese court returned to his homeland, declared himself the god-king Jayavarman II and decried full independence from Java. Jayavarman II became the first of many god-kings of the Khmer court at Angkor. As god-kings, Jayavarman and his successors commissioned stone temples to themselves as well as to the Hindu god Shiva, often patterning the structures into a three-tiered representation of Mt. Meru, the mythical centerpoint of time and space. By around 880 CE, the monarch Indravarman became the first god-king to construct massive irrigation works that allowed Angkor to expand in size and population.
The next three centuries would see a series of political waves fluctuating between growth and decline. Angkor reached its first peak with the ascension of Suryavarman II in 1112, who expanded the kingdom into Vietnam and Thailand and built the famed Shiva temple of Angkor Wat. Yet the southern Vietnamese state of Champa would not be subjugated. In 1177, the Chams initiated a covert counterattack, quietly sailing up the great lake of central Cambodia, the Tonle Sap. Within a few years, the Chams sacked Angkor and executed the king, but the Khmers immediately regrouped for an attempt to take back Angkor. A cousin of the former king led the charge, retaking Angkor around 1180. He was eventually crowned as Jayavarman VII. For the next four decades, this Jayavarman would reign through Angkor's greatest period.
Jayavarman VII is best known for constructing Angkor Thom, the nine-square-kilometer walled city that would serve as the royal capital for 400 years. Jayavarman VII commissioned the Baphuon Palace as well as the Bayon, famous for its scores of smirking stone faces. On the cultural front, Jayavarman VII officially converted the state religion from Hinduism to Buddhism, though the conversion process had been going on in Khmer communities for some time. Instead of constructing monuments to Shiva and Vishnu, Jayavarman VII glorified images of the Buddha and his incarnation as Avelokitesvara. Jayavarman VII's reign was the pinnacle of Khmer culture, and after his death things began to slip away. By the 15th and 16th centuries the Thai kingdom of Ayutthaya was in ascendance, and after several half-hearted attempts at destroying the Khmers they sacked Angkor in 1431 and 1594, eventually ending its term as Khmer capital. The Khmers eventually regrouped in their new capital at Phnom Penh, many miles away to the south of the Tonle Sap, but the glory period of Khmer history was over.
Angkor was not known in the west until it was "discovered" by French explorers in the mid 19th century. They brought home tales of adventure - as well as unbelievable etchings of Angkor itself - back to an eager French public. Through the turn of the century to the 1960's Angkor was a popular spot for globetrotting European Asiaphiles, but civil war in 1970 and the Khmer Rouge takeover in 1975 made Angkor and surrounding Siem Reap province a rebel hotspot. Khmer Rouge cadre buried thousands of landmines in and around Angkor, occasionally kidnapping and killing tourists as well. As recent as 1995, Dr. Susan Hadden of the Alliance for Public Technology was killed in a bandit ambush near the grand ruins of Banteay Srei, just north of Angkor. I didn't know Dr. Hadden well, but we had emailed each other on numerous occasions in the summer of 1994 while I was constructing my EdWeb website. Her death at Banteay Srei was a chilling reminder that even with the end of the fighting and a strong UN presence, Siem Reap province was still a dangerous place.
With this long history of glory, intrigue and murder in my mind, we were now in a car passing the entry checkpoint into Angkor. The checkpoint consisted of a small roadside kiosk where several bored policemen sat around while a smiling woman checked visitor passes. We drove north until reaching a T in the road. We turned left and continued along a wide body of water that Rang pointed out to us to be the moat of Angkor Wat. The moat was over a mile long on this side and at least 500 feet wide. But on the other side of the water, all I could see was forest, dense and lush from the recent monsoon rains. Somewhere within this verdant island fortress was Angkor Wat. I eagerly awaited my first sight of it.
We hooked a right and hugged the left-hand side of the moat, again heading north. As we approached the moat's western causeway I finally saw the five stupa-like towers of Angkor Wat. Even with this passing glimpse I was awestruck, perhaps less with what I saw and rather because I was so amazed that I was even here in the first place. But before I could have any sort of metaphysical epiphany, we whizzed by Angkor Wat, heading north towards the walled city of Angkor Thom. The greatest temple on earth would have to wait, and I would have to settle with only a teasing taste of it. Angkor Wat vanished behind us, again shrouded by its dense forest cape. I had always envisioned Angkor to be a massive open expanse of monuments, like the pyramids of Giza or the central plain of Chichen Itza in Mexico, but much of Angkor was separated by miles of trees and swamp land. Angkor wasn't a single archeological site - it was an entire city preserved by centuries of outside ignorance of its existence.
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| Angkor Thom south gate |
Soon we reached the south gate of Angkor Thom. A stone causeway took us over a statue-lined moat. At the end of the causeway stood an intimidating stone arch topped with the face of the Avelokitesvara. We paused for a few snapshots but clouds obscured much of the sunlight. We'd have to return for some better pictures later. About a kilometer further down the road the forest turned swampy as the dry earth metamorphosed into frog-infested wetlands. It was in these damp marshes that stood the Bayon, the jewel of Angkor Thom. No one is really sure if the Bayon was a temple or something entirely different, and only recently did archeologists conclude that it was built by Jayavarman VII. Mysteries are the Bayon's specialty, for it is best known for its 54 stone towers topped with over 200 faces of the Avelokitesvara, each visage bearing an enigmatic, patently Buddhist smirk.From a distance the Bayon looked like a jumbled mess - a bunch of ruined towers surrounded by heaps of stone rubble. We exited the taxi on the Bayon's east side and headed up its crumbling causeway. We were hounded by kids and young woman selling flutes, knives, statuettes, drums, water, film and many other things we simply didn't need. They pestered us for about 50 feet and then retreated for the next round of tourists - standard operating procedure for the touts of Angkor. We climbed the steps to the first tier of the Bayon. In each direction were long shadowy pathways decorated with bas reliefs in surprisingly good condition. An old monk manned a small Buddha shrine in one of these corridors and he tried to get visitors to light incense and candles for a small donation. I lit some incense for good luck and left him a few hundred riels - small change but nonetheless appreciated. He smiled and said something like "Sok sabai," which I took for meaning "be well," based on its similarity to Thai.
Khmer children swimming in front of the Bayon
