three days to Cambodia

The weekend following the earthquake, the time had come again for me to sojourn from Bangkok and Thailand. This trip would go to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. When I went to Saigon, Vietnam, I chose the location largely on a whim, inspired mainly by the cheap ticket price and convenient flight times. The trip to Phnom Penh, however, had been decided on several months ago, since it would have a higher purpose than merely to go see the place.
Jewish Help Hands, an organization run by Rabbi Joel Soffin (my rabbi growing up, he was even my legal guardian for a week on a trip to Ukraine in 2000), has become involved with a village near to Phnom Penh, helping to support a large group of orphans, the local school, and the development of a clinic with an especially inspiring man, Arun Sothea. The next trip of JHH to the site is not scheduled until next fall, but Soffin thought it likely he would go out to see the status of things between his last trip and the next. At lunch last January, however, I told him about my plans of being in Thailand, and the simple solution of sending me as a shalicha for him was devised.
For the first time in Bangkok, I took public transportation to the airport—I had managed my luggage on the motorbike taxi, so I figured the metro trains would be doable. Pretty reliable, happy to report.
Got to the airport and made my way through customs etc, easily enough, making a friend at the security checkpoint, when he forgot his wallet and belt at the scanner.
Eating a ‘pizza company’ personal pan pizza in the time before the flight, I soon found myself on the Airasia plane. With a team of ‘rugby players’. By ‘rugby players,’ I mean 35-50 year old anglo expats, mainly british it seemed, who play in a rugby league in southeast asia. And by play in a rugby league, I mean play a bit of the sport, and take weekends away to get drunk. And where their uniforms, so you always can tell that the idiots travel in packs . lol
I arrived to the city around 5pm, disembarked, paid for my visa, collected my luggage and went out to find my transportation waiting for me. It was the first time at an airport I’d had a driver waiting with a sign with my name—granted, he was from the hotel, but still. A little swanky.

All two of us (the driver and me) loaded into the van for the 10 kilometer drive to the hotel from the airport. After clearing the streets for emergency vehicles and maneuvering through traffic jams that make Bangkok roads look calm and organized, two hours later we arrived to the Goldiana. 5 kilometers an hour. I can definitely walk faster than that. But I wouldn’t have known where I was going. So after all that, on arrival to the hotel, I checked in, had a quick dinner with green fanta in the hotel restaurant (actually very good!) and went to bed. There was cable, so I watched some strange but amusing French musical movie.
DAY 2

I had very nice plans to wake up early and start exploring Phnom Penh from just after sunrise, just like Fodor’s suggests. It was a very nice plan, but sleeping in, it turned out, was a nicer one. Despite a 4am phone call from my mother, I managed to wake up around 8 enough to go downstairs and have breakfast and take my malarone. Then I went back upstairs to lie down again until around 11. Encino Man was on, and I have a thing for Brendan Fraser.
I left the hotel and hopped onto one of the waiting motorbikes. He asked me what places I was interested in seeing; for the day, my plan was the Tuol Sleng Prison Museum, a former school turned into a torture center and prison by the Pol Pot clique, followed by a trip to the Killing Fields, a final destination for many who passed through Tuol Sleng. My moto-taxi driver and I agreed on a fare to hire him for the better part of the day for both these outings.
Tragic Pasts
Arriving at Tuol Sleng, the museum had every feeling and inclination of the total loss of humanity and dignity required for such a place to come into existence. Similar to Dachau, the organization and systematic approach to the whole thing is at the same time incredible and sickening. The museum allows visitors today to see the places that all levels of individuals were brought to, read their stories, and see into the lives and current criminal trials of the individuals who enabled this regime to operate. The irony of the way that the use of a school can be perverted—that classrooms that had been established in a set way to enable cooperative learning, private instruction, etc. are inclined to support isolation, confusion, and depravity.
The 15 kilometer drive out of the city on the back of the moto to the Killing Fields was a mixed experience (and not entirely comfortable, as I think the bike seat and I are the same age). Driving the same route to a vastly different purpose than those whose memory I was exploring, I arrived to the field with the slight apprehension you feel whenever visiting a cemetery, that mixed emotion of selflessness and arrogance. The field itself was relatively raw. The shallow mass graves were no more than 4 feet at the deepest, 7 at the widest, and frequently next to each other, like giant footprints. Occasionally on the ground were scraps of clothing—I overheard a guide tell some other tourists that the scraps were there since the field had been ‘in use’, although with the natural weather patterns of the area, I don’t know if I believe that pieces of cotton cloth would have survived 30+years. In the center of the property was a spire and shrine, containing bones that had been uncovered from the mass graves. Throughout the area, chickens and roosters and chicks poked around. Even in the wake o f tragedy, life goes on?
It was getting a bit later in the day by this point, especially since everything in Phnom Penh seems to close at 5. As I was leaving the grounds, my cell phone rang—work. Even on a day off, in Cambodia—what powers of technology.
Upon leaving the Field, I found my moto-driver, and we embarked to return to the city. This time, because of the relative slow speed we were driving at, I was brave enough to be taking pictures from the back of the bike, up to the point where he suggested I put away the camera, as we were entering in to a more trafficky area, and people are known to steal bags and things from especially tourists on motorbikes. Instead of going back to the hotel, I asked him to bring me to the National Museum.
No Need to Visit Temples
For the most part, in Cambodia many of the older temples, ruins, etc. are not something you need to visit, as all the Buddhas, etc have been removed to the National Museum. The Museum itself is set up lie a beautiful pagoda with a courtyard complete with lotus ponds and koi fish. At the first room to the museum was a lovely installation about traditional Cambodian dance, and after that it largely all gave way to buddhas. It didn’t take long to full explore the exhibition, since really many Buddhas are not so different from each other. The entire area, however was lovely. By around 4:30, having finished seeing the pieces, I bought a water and sat in the courtyard.
Making a friend
This is when I met Wen. She was sitting at the same corner of the patio as me, drinking a coke. Or maybe a pepsi. Anyway. We started to chat. She was born in China, from Florida/New York. Having quit her job last year, she decided to backpack southeast asia for a while before going back to the real world. She was on month 7, of a probable 11.
The museum closed at 5, and she and I decided it would be fun to take a sunset boat ride on the Mekong. We finally found a boat that would not be a private boat (two relative strangers, better to find more strangers), boat some beer (her) and coke (me) (the soda), and boarded with the 4 others who would be joining the trip. Not quite sure how six people at $6 a head can make it profitable to operate such a large boat, but all the same, it was a nice ride, and the opposite banks of the river could not be more different from each other. On one side, a relative metropolis with tall buildings and construction, full of lights as the sun sets. On the other, clusters of huts and long fishing boats tide to posts in the grass.
The boat dock was near to the night market, which Wen and I perused—cute, but nothing to Bangok’s markets. Maybe100 vendors were here.
As it was nearly 9:30 by now, we thought we might get some dinner, and so we wandered over to the nearby, waterfront FCC (foreign correspondents club.) Its not really functioning as one anymore, but it was very neat all the same. And really good food and cocktails. And lots of lizards crawling all over the place. After dinner by the water, and then lounging in overstuffed leather chairs chatting for a while, we decided to call it a night around 11, since the next day I was getting picked up by Arun at 7am. We walked to Independence monument, agreed to meet the next night to see a traditional dance show that was in my guide book, and went to our respective ‘homes’.

Arun, and the village.
Arun, an orphan of the Khmer Rouge with incredible personal drive and strength, and another volunteer picked me up the next morning shortly after 7am. Early. The village would be about an hour and a half’s drive, on the other side of the river (requiring a ferry ride). To see how rapidly the landscapes changed around me, from city to developing to truly east asian rural, with dirt roads, footpaths, rice fields, you name it. Arun showed me how far inland the river would rise during the wet season, almost unbelievable. Things are on stilts for a reason. We arrived first to the clinic. A very modest sized 1 story building, the waiting room in front is a grass hut on stilts with a few IV poles set up. The property, which was donated by the neighboring monastery, is full of mango trees. The clinic itself is half a maternity center, as an average of 30 babies are born there each month. Due many factors, the water is unfiltered and delivered to the clinic by pump from a water tank, and there is only enough power generated through solar panels to have lights for deliveries at night; however, patients who are treated at the clinic are treated free of charge.
After the clinic, we went to the school, a five minute further drive up the road. Since it was a Saturday and the start of the Lunar New Year 3 week vacation, the school was not too busy, but we were able to look in on the Saturday extra computer class that was in progress. Moving on from the school, we went further into the village, stopping at the construction site of Arun’s future learning and community center for his orphan group, and then on to the temporary center, a house he is renting where the large group of children can come and meet, talk, play, etc. Part of my job during the visit on behalf of JHH was to take many pictures, which I did at the school and the clinic. But in this instance, surrounded by at least 25-30 children from 3 to 18 years of age, my shutter only moved a few times. It felt less appropriate—in this instance, the supposed subjects of my pictures were not something I could describe, explain or relate to in any realm. These kids who are supported by Arun so their foster families will allow them to go to school instead of work, who have lost more and done with less than I could ever know how to, looked at me and spoke with me, shifting between smiles and shy faces. And in response, what could anything I have to give them be worth?

Back
We arrived back to my hotel in the midafternoon. After thanking Arun for his time and effort, I decided to go upstairs, both for a short nap and time to reflect.
After I got up, having gained some idea of the geography of the city, I decided to visit a particular Wat that is home to Phnom Penh’s only working elephant, Sambo, and stopped at an unexpected silk shop on the way there. Dress to come.
By the time I made it all the way to the Wat, there was just enough time to give Sambo some bananas and take some pictures before the compound closed for the day. The rest of the evening consisted in meeting Wen, NOT finding the dance show, giving up and getting food and drinks at a little café by the water I’d found. $2 cocktails, and some of the best mozzarella sticks I’d had in a while. It was nice to have some company for a while, too.

Day 3
Uncertain of how the traffic would be getting back to the airport after the 2 hours it took coming from, the next morning I slept in, packed up, ate breakfast, checked out, and went to the airport. Once there, however, I could not check in until 1.5 hours before my flight, so I hung out in dairy queen for a while and read pride and prejudice on my ipad. No, the story never gets old. Finally checked in, paid my exit fee (more than the entrance visa!!) and went inside the airport. There was a spa and everything up there—you would think airport s would want you inside sooner, you’d be much more likely to buy crap at duty free, etc.
Oh, and the ‘rugby team’ were on my return flight, too.