Smiles, Sales, and Sorrows

In my moto-remorque (like a tuk-tuk) ride from the airport. Notice which side of the road we're on!
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I must admit the idea of Cambodia excited me less after being in Thailand. I wanted to see Angkor, and the Killing Fields were important for humanity's history, but I was leaving so many good memories, locations, and tastes behind. However, like a mediocre movie review, this lowered my expectation of the country,　especially the city of Phnom Penh. The economy is poorer than that of its western neighbor. Beggars are more abundant and sellers more aggressive. However, my smile was returned more often and my "thank you" more warmly received than any other country thus far. People seemed honored that a rich Westerner would bother to smile, make eye contact, and bow to someone like them. Although I fear it was amazement more often than honor.

My first, and unfortunately only, night at the Number 9 Guesthouse overlooking Boeng Kak lake.
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Within a day of being in Cambodia, I realized exactly what I was - a meal ticket. Many people in this country earn no more than $20/month, so a traveler spending that per diem is a potential customer for just about anything. Getting off buses, exiting guesthouses, or coming out of museums, people wait to offer "cheap" taxi rides, bottles of water, or things far more scandalous. I knew if I let it, my 4 days in this city could seem very tiresome because of this. Instead, I chose to view each offer as an opportunity to speak with someone in my limited Khmer or in their limited English. Even when nothing got across, we both grinned at each other, mine with usually more teeth.

Number 9 on the morning of my departure.
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My first day in Phnom Penh was also my first in the country. I arrived in the morning at the tiny international airport and found my way to Boeng Kak, a large scenic lake on the northern edge of the sprawling city. In Bangkok, the first gestures I received were of respect, the wai, and happiness, smiles. In Phnom Penh it was a bit different. In addition to outstretched palms, I frequently received whistles and cat calls - usually from men trying to sell services either from themselves or the women they represented. In guesthouses, Thailand's consumable leisures were replaced by a smorgasbord of inhalant entertainment. But this is why I have come to appreciate this trip. Some transitions are gradual while others are dramatic and blunt, pun intended. Within a few minutes of my arrival, the Number 9 Guesthouse quickly became my favorite spot around the lake. I spent the day eating the ridiculously cheap and delicious food, mapping out future plans in the lush papasan chairs, and watching an array of movies on the communal big-screen TV. For a movie-lover like me, this was fairly significant. Not only have most hostels and guesthouses not offered this service, but in southeast Asia recent US films are available on DVD. Other guesthouses in Phnom Penh followed suit, so by the time I left the country, I had satisfied my philia with several new releases as well as some old favorites.

Saw these signs everywhere. Apparently there are several parties, but this one is most apparent and has the most power.
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After I returned from Angkor, I continued my education on Cambodia's more ancient history. I visited the Royal Palace, which actually happens to be a 19th and 20th Century construction, and the National Museum, which boasts a large collection of art from the Pre-Angkorian era to present day. While the Palace was indeed grand, it was only so relative to the poorer area of Phnom Penh in which it was situtated. It paled in comparison to Bangkok's palace and to the majesty of Angkor. Its most noticeable features were its monochrome silver stupas, built for the recent kings of Cambodia, the frescoes on the inner courtyard, and the Silver Pagoda, a temple whose tile floor is completely made of silver.  The National Museum was worthwhile but with much of the same mediocre aftertaste.  A visitor should arrange his or her trip with the museum first and Angkor second.  Their collection shows variety and spans an impressive period of time, but the environment in which these treasures are kept lacks grandeur.  Old tile floors, chipping painted walls, and rickety ceiling fans do not compare to the nature's light and sound.  Angkor's crumbling collection easily outdoes the awe of the museum's simply because of its setting.  Once again, it is so much more than just vision which triggers sentiment.

My first site after returning from Angkor was the Royal Palace. Like most buildings here, the throne room pictured here was built in the 20th Century.
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On my final full day in Phnom Penh, I visited two sites I'd eagerly anticipated and dreaded since planning my trip to the city: the Killing Fields of Choeng Ek and the genocide prison of Tuol Sleng.  If Angkor is a reminder of Cambodia's mighty Khmer past, then these two sites are an important memory of its grim recent history.  Similarly, as the magnitude of Angkor cannot be fully understood through photos and guidebooks, the horrors of the Khmer Rouge cannot be internalized on screen or in biographies.

Pictures inside the throne room weren't allowed so I zoomed in from the outside to show some of the beautiful paintings on the ceiling.
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I visited Choeng Ek early in the day to advantage of cooler temperatures.  It would be uncomfortable enough as it is.  The first thing every visitor encounters is one of the most powerful images I have witnessed in my short life.  A memorial stupa, clean and ornate, asks two things of each visitor: silence and shoelessness.  Within the stupa are the remains of nearly 9,000 victims of the Killing Fields.  That's a dozen shelves 9m^2 holding mostly skulls, but other remnants as well.  The walking tour continues with mass gravesites, some marked with horrific descriptions and others left to the cruelty of human imagination.  The astonishment of such events left me questioning the inhumanity of human beings.  I found few words to reconcile my shock, but one Cambodian man's description of his captors seemed most appropriate: "[The people did not take] a human form, [but had one] with a demon's heart."

Along the walkway of the throne room.
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Before visiting the genocide prison, I lightened my mood with a trip to the Russian Market.  Named for the large Russian population that used to shop here, the market is a wonderful mish-mash of products, services, and tasty treats for locals and foreigners alike.  My favorite alleys were Tailor's Row, the fresh vegetable stands, the central grill restaurants, and the booksellers, where I purchased two Lonely Planet guidebooks for less than $15.  It was here that I also felt the richest.  Amongst the vendors and visitors are the poor and hungry.  Many barefoot children walk the alleys asking for handouts of food or money.  I'd encountered several around the streets and I usually apologized in Khmer and kept walking.  Today was different.  I purchased a large bag of fried banana puffs, which were awesome incidentally, and walked around handing them out to any child I saw before he or she had even approached me.  Perhaps this was inspired by my morning's experience, perhaps not.  Regardless, I left the market ready for Tuol Sleng.

The Napoleon III Pavilion was originally built for a French empress and gifted to the King of Cambodia in the 1860s.
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The genocide prison of Tuol Sleng is the sister facility to Choeng Ek.  Once a school, the Khmer Rouge converted the grounds with one intention: to hold and torture enemies of the state.  Some schoolrooms were merely holding pens, private and mass, for the human livestock awaiting butchering.  Other schoolrooms still contained the wire-frame beds, car batteries, and electric cattle prods the regime used to get the answers they desired.  Should someone not give that answer, they were zapped again.  Cry out in pain as a weak traitor would?...another 5 zaps then.  The ground floor of one entire wing of rooms now holds photographs.  Dozens of blackboards with posted black and whites of the inmates of this former school.  Several of them entered this hellhole on the same day I was born half a planet and another world away.  It was these photographs that finally broke me down.  Not so much the faces themselves but those who were looking at them.  Men and women would stare, sniffle, and break stillness only to raise their dark-tinted sunglasses to rub their eyes.  Everyone I saw found at least one photo which grabbed them more than the rest.  I think it is safe to assume that those people graduated that day.

Surrounding the central garden and Silver Pagoda are the Ramaketi Frescoes.
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Cambodia has much power.  Ancient and recent, natural and unnatural.  Massive stone temples and frail human forms.  None of them can be fully captured through any media, and all of them command respect and awe.  They are waiting for your discovery.