We chose Cambodia because of a Steve McCurry photo-—you know the photo…those trees hugging and prying into stone temples, and a doorway with monks in saffron robes peering out. This was the third stop on our around-the-world trip, and we were anxious to spend more time in Asia. And we found so much more than those jungle trees in beautiful Cambodia.
To Cambodia via Hong Kong
We flew from Brisbane Australia overnight, connecting in Hong Kong. There’s something about a night flight, and a flight to HONG KONG–a place name we’ve heard all our lives and now it was printed on our boarding passes! It was 4,300 miles and 8+ hours to Hong Kong, passing over places like Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, the Philippines, and the South China Sea. I slept little, instead eyeing the flight map, trying to see the land below, and reading.
In Hong Kong, we had 70 whole minutes to change terminals and planes. We bought water, got some Hong Kong coins back in change, and I stood staring at a display of books… it took a minute in my groggy state to realize that these were for readers of right-to-left text—and were not stacked on the table backwards afterall.
Arrival in Siem Reap
We arrived in Siem Reap, Cambodia about three hours later, and exited the airport into a hot, hazy land, full of buzzing mopeds and smiling people. There was a closeness in the air, maybe the enveloping humidity and the smoke of wood fires, or maybe the dreaminess from our lack of sleep.
Mr. TinTin, a driver from the hotel, met us with a sign, escorted us to a waiting old Mercedes, and politely chattered in English with the full-blown AC on as he drove us to the hotel. We tumbled back out into the heat and smoke and sounds of buzzing motorbikes at the Privilege Boutique Hotel, and were greeted with sunny, smiling people offering cold white lemongrass-scented washcloths, and a dainty glass of an orange tasty juice I couldn’t identify. Nothing has ever felt more refreshing.
It was still morning and our room was not yet ready. So we sat and talked to our friendly hosts: Jasmine, Phally and Ken. I felt so welcomed here, it was as if we were long-lost family. They gave us advice on seeing Angkor Wat, filled us in on their elected monarch, and taught us a few important words and phrases in Khmer like Chul Mouy (which means cheers and to my ears sounded like “chew muy”). According to Jasmine, “You say this so the ears can enjoy it too”.
These friendly Cambodians have a history that is equally grand and empirical, elegant and exotic, and cruel and haunting. There is Angkor Wat, a vast religious monument that is evidence of a time when Cambodia was the center of an empire. There are also the sophisticated architecture and cuisine leave-behinds from the Indochina era when Cambodia was under French protection as a buffer between Siam and a French Vietnam. And there are the lingering effects of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime when 25% of the Cambodian population was tortured and murdered between 1975-1979.
Cambodia’s Recent History
There was a civil war in Cambodia in the early 70s. After, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge regime arrested and eventually executed almost everyone suspected of connections with the former government or with foreign governments, as well as professionals and intellectuals. This state-sponsored genocide killed more than two million Cambodian people—men, women, and children. There are at least 20,000 mass grave sites in this small country (a country about the size of the state of Oregon). Today, bones have been gathered and are placed in “Killing Field” stupas around the country. Sometimes, bones or teeth are unearthed in monsoon rains, or when farmers are tilling fields and are brought to local stupas or monasteries out of respect. While the bones remain unidentified, they are cared for, remembered, and give the world a place to contemplate the horrors of genocide. Please, if you haven’t yet, read “First They Killed My Father” by Loung Ung and see the movie, “The Killing Fields”. As painful as these may be, it is important to remember these atrocities and the events that led to them. It is astounding what unbelievable horrors and cruelty people can inflict on other living beings.
Lingering Impressions of Cambodia
I don’t want to end this post on this note. Cambodia is so much more than the haunted history of Pol Pot, mass graves, and land mines. I will remember it for being a land of French touches like baguettes and coffee, of beautiful green rice fields and white-water salt flats, of red dust and of dragonflies, of smells of night jasmine, lemongrass, and peppercorn; of humidity and a glorious diffused light from the woodsmoke and motorcycle haze, and being home to some of the friendliest people in the world. Remarkable. Cambodia reaffirmed how kind people can be.
