Phnom Penh (days 20 and 21)

Yesterday we said goodbye to Vietnam and took a speedboat, right from our hotel in Chau Doc to Phnom Penh.  It was about a four-hour trip, first on a distributary of the Mekong and then on the Mekong itself.  It really is a huge river and I'd guess it must be nearly a mile wide at some points.  It was a pretty uneventful trip and there's not really much to say about it, other than it was very warm (high 30s in Phnom Penh).

Our tour leader is an early riser and we left Chau Doc at 7am.  This worked out well, as it meant we had time for a trip round the town in a cycle-drawn carriage before lunch.  The city is not as hectic as Hanoi or Saigon, which came as something of a relief.  It has a rather pleasant atmosphere, especially round the Royal Palace and the French Quarter.

In the evening we went out to a typical Cambodian restaurant and had some very tasty food.  I was beginning to tire a little of Vietnamese fare and, although not substantially different, I found the subtleties of the Cambodian food much to my liking.

Today was our first introduction to Cambodian history and I haven't yet absorbed all we saw.  We started with a trip round the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda.  The palace consists of a number of very attractive buildings, but they are not very old, having been built in the late 19th and early 20th century.  The Silver Pagoda is so called because the floor is covered in silver tiles.  These were made by the French and even sport Fleur de Lis as the motif.  According to our guide, Cambodia sent twelve tons of silver to France, but the French ripped them off, returning tiles only weighing six tons.

We then went to the museum and had a potted history of the country. Although Cambodia ruled most of Indo China back in the days of the Khmer Empire (up to 14th century), today it holds much less territory and has a population of only fourteen million. In the early days of the Khmer Empire, the country was predominantly Hindu, but over the years, it turned more and more to Buddhism.  It's history is complicated, to say the least, and I can't guarantee to reflect it at all accurately.  Suffice it to say that it has frequently been invaded by the Vietnamese, Chinese, Thais and the French. In the museum, there was a map that compared the boundaries of Cambodia under the Khmer regime with that of today's Cambodia.  It reminded me of maps I used to see in Lisbon in 1971, when the Portuguese were embroiled in their African wars. The maps would show Europe, with Portugal highlighted, together with outlines of all their colonies (Angola, Mozambique, Macau, Timor) superimposed over Europe, the point being, of course, to show that really Portugal was a huge country.

Our guide was very sweet, but quite melancholic when talking about her country's history.  The way she put it, whether by the duplicity of her neighbours or by the incompetent decision-making of her leaders, Cambodia has been made to suffer time and time again and is still suffering.  Undoubtedly, Cambodia has been through very hard times, especially under Pol Pot, but I can't yet decide whether some of the things she said are really true or stem from some sort of paranoia.  More of this later.

Going back to the 19th century, Vietnam and Thailand were both fighting over Cambodia and, in the end, the king decided to invite France to come in to establish peace.  A deal was struck whereby the French would have some influence, but not overall control over the country.  It seems that the French were not exactly true to their word and, once they had arrived, declared that Cambodia was now a colony.

After the second world war, Ho Chi Minh wanted to control the whole of Indo China and to remove the French entirely.  In the latter objective, at least, he was successful, but this is where it gets complicated.  There had for some time been a Cambodian independence movement (Independent Khmer) which later morphed into the Khmer Viet Minh under the influence of Ho and the Viet Ming.  When the USA joined the fray in Vietnam, King Sihanouk declared Cambodian's neutrality, despite pressure from North Vietnam to support their fight against the South. However, he did allow the Viet Cong to send weapons through Cambodia, down the Ho Chi Minh trail.  As the VC came through, they raped, robbed and killed the Cambodians.
 
The USA started clandestine bombing in Cambodia in 1969, despite denials to the contrary.  Many Cambodians were killed, the people became very dissatisfied with the king and started demonstrating in the streets.  Many Cambodians joined the VC, in order to fight the US, and the king was forced to flee.  The Khmer Republic was formed in 1975.  The Vietnamese entered into a treaty with the republic, but broke the treaty and didn't leave the country.

Meanwhile, the king wanted to return and he sought help from both China and Russia.  China said that he should support the communists, his previous enemy, and, desparate to return, he agreed.  Pol Pot was already leading the Cambodian communists and now, with the king's support, the infamous Khmer Rouge was formed.  In fact, the king was just a figurehead and all the power was vested in Pol Pot.

The people now thought that five years of war would end and they welcomed Pol Pot with open arms.  His regime lasted from 1975 to 1979, during which time he killed millions of Cambodians.  Soon after coming to power, he told the people that the US was about to bomb Phnom Penh and that they had to leave within three days.  On the way out of the city, they stopped everyone and asked them what jobs they had.  I don't yet understand this, but it seems that Pol Pot planned to kill everyone from the city, but starting with the educated people.

Our guide was telling us all this as we arrived at one of the 'killing fields', a little way outside Phnom Penh.  This is where people were summarily executed and put into mass graves.  Some of their skulls are now on display in cases. The standard method of killing the victims was to blindfold them, tie their hands behind their backs, and make them kneel on the edge of a ready-dug mass grave.  They then hit them across the back of the neck with a bamboo club and pushed them into the pit.  They were then buried alive!  This was all very gruesome and even though the mass graves have long since been exhumed, you can still see bones and pieces of clothing poking through the soil.

After the killing field, we were taken to S-21, a concentration camp that Pol Pot converted from a secondary school.  The camp covered an area of some 600 x 400 metres.  One building was for senior Khmer Rouge officers, accused of plotting against Pol Pot.  They were actually housed in quite large rooms, with a single bed, to which they were shackled and where they were tortured.  Blood was still clearly visible on some of the ceilings.  The other areas were for less important people, including women and children.  Systematic torture was common, but everyone ended up being executed. 

Pol Pot's motives in killing so many people are not at all clear to me and I have bought a book that I hope with give some explanation, in which case I may update this blog later.  [Bill, you probably have some thoughts]

Throughout the day, it became pretty clear that there is a lot of emnity between the Cambodians and the Vietnamese and Thais as a result of the way Cambodia had been treated.  This I could understand, but what was disturbing is that there are lots of hidden undercurrents and people in high places pulling the strings.  We're told that two or three ministers in the current goverment are ex-Khmer Rouge, but that they are only there because they are pro-Vietnam.  Those Khmer Rouge who were pro-China are now out of favour.  It's all very complicated and I wish I understood it better.

As for the political situation, there is supposedly democracy, but it does sound as though it's little more than a sham and that corruption is pretty widespread.  Economically, Cambodia is still a very poor country.  It does export rice and a few other agricultural products, together with some woven fabrics.  It has virtually no industry other than tourism and what there is is foreign-owned, mostly by the Vietnamese, Chinese or French.  It's hard to see what the country is going to do to move forward.  Maybe the sort of communism they have in China or Vietnam provides a better basis for kick-starting this kind of economy?