Travel Blog: Cambodia - country of children

travebite.co.uk
Wednesday, 30 Jan 2008 10:17

Anna Kainberger is taking a year-out from her career to travel in south-east Asia, Australasia and the South Pacific, along with Hawaii and the USA. This month she will be reporting from Laos and Cambodia. Here is her eighth blog entry:

I crossed the boarder from Laos into Cambodia at Strung Treng, where it was a simple matter of filling out a few forms, handing over US$22 and a picture to retrieve a one month visa for Cambodia.

When then showing your passport to the authorities you pay another US$2 "stamp fee": probably more of a back pocket tip for the customs officials.

But keep smiling and get it over with; after all hanging around at the boarder in the glistening hot sun arguing with Cambodian officials is not really something I would recommend.

From Stung Treng it was another three hours to Kratie, where I stopped for the night as I simply couldn't face nine hours straight on a bus after my very relaxing holiday in the 4,000 Islands.

Kratie is a small town nestled at the Mekong and is another great place to spot the Irrawaddy dolphins. Boats and drivers can be hired from the pier for as little as US$4-5.

I skipped more dolphin sighting tours and just enjoyed a fresh cool coconut at the river front, watching one of the best sunsets I have seen so far. I wondered if the afterglow could be any more colourful, taking one picture after the other, unable to believe my eyes.

After a night in what I would call a plush hostel (US$4) with my own bathroom and a fan, I got up early again the next day to continue my journey down towards Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, where I arrived at 15:00 the same day.

Watching the landscape from my window seat, the thing that immediately caught my eye was the massive piles of plastic and plastic bags flying around the fields and roads.

Cambodia seems to be buried in heaps of plastic and whilst this particular road was tarmac, it was not the most pleasant journey I have experienced.

The second thing I noted was that there are endless numbers of children around; playing along the street, walking, hitchhiking and waving at the tourist buses.

Arriving in Phnom Penh I had to fight off several tuk-tuk drivers, as they are very keen to take you to a hotel of your choice, or drop you off at one of their own recommendations to earn a small commission.

One million of Cambodia's 13 million inhabitants live in Phnom Penh and it is not easy to navigate around initially, as there is no main traveller's centre.

The variety of accommodation is endless - from a cheap hostel costing US$2-3 per night up to a five star luxury hotel - you can take your pick.

Most backpackers and travellers stay around Riverside, where it is not far to the Grand Palace, the National Museum and the vast number of pubs, bars and clubs overlooking the river.

The town itself offers an interesting variety of buildings, from French colonial through to wooden stake huts and traditional Khmer style houses. You will find anything and everything right next to each other. It boasts two main markets.

The central market is called Phsar Thom Thmei (apparently this is the more expensive one), where you will find shoes, clothes, jewellery, sunglasses, food, flowers, electrical equipment, fake watches and so on and so forth.

The Russian market (Toul Tom Poung) is the cheaper option and also sells a lot of household goods, clothing, silks, DVDs and other digital and electrical goods and food, (both wholesale and retail mind you).

Phnom Penh is also the location of the infamous Tuol Seng Torture prison, or S21, and the "killing fields", or the Choeung Ek Genocide Centre, is located 15Km southwest of the city centre.

These show the legacy of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge regime. Between 1975 and 1979 two million Cambodians were starved, executed or tortured to death.

Pol Pot's regime wanted to create a farming communist country, cleansing its people of anyone who was educated, part of the former government or simply wearing glasses.

The Khmer Rouge also placed an unknown number of landmines across the whole of Cambodia, without drawing maps, mind you, so to this day straying off the trodden path is a big no-no.

Clearing work is taking place but it is going very slowly, so my advice is to stay clear of the jungle.

To understand the Cambodian people it is vital to see what crimes the Khmer Rouge committed in just the four years of their reign of terror.

Today Choeung Ek is a memorial marked by a Buddhist stupa filled with 8,000 skulls of victims who were executed here, most of them former inmates of S21.

Visiting S21 will send chills up and down any hard-trodden traveller's spine. The torture prison was located in the middle of town in a former high school.

The prision cells have been left unchanged, sporting torture tools you would not be able to dream up in your worst nightmares, as well as pictures of the bodies found in the individual cells.

The Khmer Rouge meticulously took pictures of every person admitted to S21 and huge black and white photographs are shown on display, a reminder of the many men, women and children who were killed.

Any Cambodian alive today has lost at least one member of their family to the Khmer Rouge.

The thing that struck me most about Cambodia was that the average age is about 25-40. Phnom Penh is also a city full of begging street children; orphans living in the street trying to survive on the money they are able to beg from tourists.

In perfect English these children will explain to you that they want your half-drunk can of coke because they are starving.

If you want to do something for these kids you should gather them together and take them to dinner or lunch at any of the local food stalls.

You can feed ten kids for as little as US$3-4. There is also a lot of organised begging and book selling going on in the capital and I was not sure if the kids were actually able to keep the money or had to hand it to a superior.

Buying a book from either a landmine victim or a child is another option for putting some money back into the community - money better spent than paying the US$6 admission fee at the grand palace.

For me three days of Phnom Phen was enough before I moved on to Siem Reap, home of the famous Angkor Temples.