Cambodia – Phnom Penh

April 6, 2007 Andy 0 Comments

My first impressions of Cambodia couldn’t be more different from those in Vietnam. The people here are so friendly. Generally the level of English is good and we’ve been approached by many a local who just wants to talk. They are very open and willing to talk about many things in their lives. If people walk or bump into you, they apologise immediately, even if it wasn’t their fault. That is such a far cry Vietnam, for instance, the tour guide who pushed me out of the way in the Ho Chi Minh museum because I was reading the display she wanted to show her group.

Another positive having arrived in Cambodia are the prices. Accommodation is back in line with what we were used to from Thailand and Laos. That’s $3 a night where we are now (including free pool and movies).

It is hot here. Power sappingly hot. It is only 40 degrees but the humidity gets you. We’ve taken to seeing the sights in the morning and spending the afternoon relaxing in our lakeside guest house, reading in a hammock, playing pool or watching the sun set. In short, I’m posting less here as I just can’t be bothered to sit in front of a computer. In fact I can’t even be bothered to explain what this photo is.

That said, I can’t post about the capital of Cambodia without mentioning the genocide that took place between 1975 and 1979 implemented by the evil Pol Pot.

Having read a lot about the auto-genocide before I came here and given my current book, “First they killed my father” I do feel I was prepared for seeing some of the evidence of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge. I’ll save you the history lesson (have a read over the wikipedia links above if you want to know more), but I find it incredibly hard to come to terms with how a whole country, so many people, can be so severely treated by their own “leaders”.

The deaths through starvation and disease, the torturing, the mass trial-less executions all brought on by Pol Pot and his attempts to create an agrarian utopia are all just so much to take in. To think that in such recent times 1/4 of the people in the country died is deeply shocking. For once I was thinking, well at least I can’t blame this on the Americans, until I read this in the Rough Guide:

“In 1969, the Americans began covert bombings of Cambodia’s eastern provinces, where they believed Vietcong guerrillas were hiding. Hundreds of Cambodian civilians were killed or maimed in these raids, which continued until 1973 and are widely acknowledged to have led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge.”

This, however pales in significance to the following, which left me speechless. In 1979 the Vietnamese invaded to over throw Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime, in the process liberating the Cambodian people. However, despite being fully aware of the atrocities…

“The International community came down on the side of the Khmer Rouge coalition, and refused to recognise the new government. After all, the new Vietnamese occupation could be the start of communist expansionism whereas the Khmer Rouge, despite being communists, only killed their own and didn’t pose a threat to the capitalist world. So Thailand, Britain and the US colluded to train the genocidal rebels, shelter them on Thai soil, provide money, arms and food, and offered them the Cambodian seat in the United Nations.”

Further disturbing proof, that political agendas and interests come way before human rights in this world.

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