4th of July and a Rainy Beach

The 4th of July began with a trip to Cheong Ek, The Killing Field located outside the city of Phnom Penh. Not long after the Khmer Rouge ended, Killing Fields were discovered across Cambodia, sites of mass graves where many victims of the Khmer Rouge were buried. Cheong Ek was the burial place of the victims of the S-21 prison and the surrounding area of Phnom Penh. Today, the site has been turned into a memorial to the dead with a large stupa holding the clothes, skulls, and other bones of about 800 of the thousands of bodies discovered there. We took a tuk-tuk out to Cheong Ek and spent a good deal of time walking the area around the graves and visiting the museum that has been erected to inform visitors about the Khmer Rouge and the Killing Fields. A rather depressing start to our 4th of July (although there was only one American there – me – so I suppose the others didn’t feel that this was particularly depressing as I did), but a necessary visit for any individual in Cambodia.

Like Tuol Sleng, the Killing Fields are a quiet place, filled with reverence for the dead. Cambodian civilians and monks travel to the stupa to pray for the dead, leaving incense burning constantly and orange and yellow flowers at the base of the monument, hoping that the souls of the dead are at rest, which many believe is unlikely due to their manner of death. Within the stupa, there are 17 tiers, 15 of which are comprised of skulls of individuals killed at Cheong Ek, men, women and children. The bottom tier is full of clothing from the victims and another near the top is filled with other bones. Trails lead you from the stupa to signs around the Field that explain what would have occurred for the victims and then to the excavated graves (there are several graves at the site that are known, but that have not been excavated), which appear as large pits in the ground every few feet. We ended our tour at the Museum and then, extremely depressed, got back in our tuk-tuk to return to Phnom Penh.

After our trip to Cheong Ek, we headed to the National Museum in Phnom Penh. Every country in SE Asia has taken the time to establish a National Museum and…that’s about all they’ve done. In all honesty, these National Museums are not really worth visiting. The National Museum in Cambodia is a large(ish) structure that appears to be something of a cross between a Wat and a palace. The outside of the structure is quite impressive and really the only thing worth viewing. Inside, the building is full of Buddha statues. Now, that might not sound so bad to you, and really, there is nothing wrong with Buddha statues, but after a while, a traveler can get a little tired of Buddha. Upon my first arrival in SE Asia I was fascinated with all the Wats and statues of Buddha, they all seemed exotic and fascinating. However, it wasn’t long before I fell victim to a terrible travelers’ disease, OverBuddhaWatOut. Yes, indeed. I was suffering from a severe case of being tired of Wats and Buddhas. Unfortunately, the constant and unceasing flood of Wats and Buddhas in Laos has not allowed me to recover properly after all my Wat visits in Thailand and, so, the sight of all those Buddhas in the National Museum in Cambodia caused a resurgence of my illness, which led to my completing my circuit of the Museum in the astonishing time of 20 minutes. I looked at hundreds of Buddhas. Everywhere I turned, another Buddha was smiling at me, watching me! I start feeling a little panicky and conspiracy-theory-ish just thinking about it. We must move on…

We ate lunch on the riverside, a last meal in Phnom Penh before Saem left us to return to Laos and Zenia and I set off on the next stage of our journey to Sihanoukville, a beach town in Southern Cambodia. Before you get the wrong idea about that, let me say that we were traveling to Sihanoukville to visit a children’s shelter, a trip that had been prompted and organized by our boss, but…I won’t deny that the idea of an evening at the beach held some appeal. :) Unfortunately, joy at our beach front setting was not destined to be ours. Our journey to Sihoukville began at 12:45 pm when we boarded our bus. I have mentioned several bus trips so far in SE Asia, but this trip undoubtedly takes the cake. Our bus-mates were comprised entirely of locals, not a single other falang in site. Babies (crying, smelly, naked babies) surrounded us, the karaoke was blaring at an uncomfortable level, and the bus made about 100 stops as we neared our destination, turning a simple four hour trip into a five hour epic. To say the bus ride was torturous would be understating the case. I can honestly say now that I have no desire to ever travel by bus in SE Asia again (a dream that will be dashed again and again as bus is a primary means of transportation in this country and I am destined to travel by bus at least six more time, maybe more). However, a moment of light can be found in even this storm of horrors.

I mentioned the karaoke music on the local buses in my previous post, but what I neglected to mention was that, occasionally, English will appear in this music. Do not get your hopes up. I am not saying that English songs are played, merely that the Thai, Cambodian, Korean, etc. songs occasionally burst out with a phrase or a few words in English. On this particular journey, we hadn’t heard much English (except one song that added “ok” to the end of each sentence and counted “one, two, three, four” every once in a while) when suddenly, our ears perked at the sound of an entire phrase in English. We were intrigued. Something we could understand? Something in our language? The barrier had been breached! Our sanity was saved! And then we listened to what they were saying. Crooned, in the most loving of voices, “I love you, loving you as the mouse so loves the rice.” Um…what?! :) Yes, on a 5+ hour journey where the only English we heard was our whispers to each other and whatever voices chimed up in our minds, we heard the amazing phrase, “loving you as the mouse so loves the rice.” This will forever remain my favorite line from Asian karaoke songs. Zenia and I laughed for days about this song and it still has the power to make me smile when I think about the seriousness with which that man sang.

The drive to Sihanoukville was beautiful, another astonishing view of the Cambodian wilderness, this time a brief glimpse of the far distant mountains and forest that seem to dominate the most southern reaches of Cambodia. As I mentioned previously, Cambodia is a country that is seriously obsessed with food, and the south is no different. Every area of flat land has been used to cultivate crops and all the land leading up to the mountains is covered in fields of rice. Houses dot the landscape here and there amid the rice fields often standing on stilts in the middle of the rice fields so that the houses are accessed through the water by boat and no potential agricultural land is lost. The countryside in Cambodia is beautiful and although I disparage my travels by bus, even I must admit that it is an amazing way to see more of the landscape.

Our arrival in Sihanoukville was greeted with rain. We had traveled hours from an insanely hot Phnom Penh to the wonderful Cambodian beach…to be met with rain. Oh well. Sihanoukville is a very small town with only one road that is truly meant for falang, which is covered in guesthouses and bars. It is all fairly cute and can be covered by a quick five minute walk. The big draw to this area is the beach (which is located a decent hike from the main area of town, even though all the guesthouses advertise themselves as “beachfront”) where huge parties are thrown every night. When we arrived in Sihanoukville, we immediately got a tuk-tuk to our guesthouse and checked in, then took off on foot to take a look at the town. As I said, this circuit was complete in five minutes and we decided it was time to check our internet at one of the local internet shops. SE Asia is the light back-packers heaven for remaining in touch with family and friends as the major cities are littered with shops filled with computers where you can buy time to the use the internet, a mere 25 cents for fifteen minutes. As Zenia and I were concerned about bringing our laptops on our travels to these other SE Asian countries (where theft is much more common than in Laos), we utilized these shops to keep in touch with our concerned parents during our trip. After we finished our e-mailing, we headed back toward our guesthouse.

We had already decided to go out for 4th of July later that night, but as it was only 6 pm, it was a bit too early to begin our celebrating. As we walked the four doors back to our guesthouse, we noticed a building labeled Tom-Cat Cinema, which appeared particularly intriguing as we had not seen the word “cinema” is quite a while. We stopped to take a closer look and met the owner who told us that he buys bootleg DVDs in Phnom Penh (where a lot of movies that are still in theaters can be purchased for $1.50) and then plays the movies in a small theater he has set up. This sounded like an excellent idea to us and the perfect way to spend our 4th! We asked if it was ok to bring food and, after getting assurance it was fine, we headed across the street to a bar that was advertising “4th of July BBQ Food!”. We ran over and, making complete pigs of ourselves, ordered a smorgasbord of food – burgers, fries, and chicken strips – which we then carried over to the cinema to watch our movie! It was so much fun! We were in a little attic-like room with a TV on one wall and rattan furniture with blue cushions along another and a table where we unloaded our food. We ate our delicious 4th meal and enjoyed our time watching “Kickass” (a movie I would recommend to anyone my age – very funny!). It was the perfect way to relax in Sihanoukville and we both breathed a sigh of relief to have a night of relaxation and pure enjoyment after our busy time running around Cambodia.

We ended up passing on partying that night (and I’m noticing a trend that we just don’t like to go out in SE Asia – it just doesn’t seem conducive to that type of thing) and went back to our room after our movie to relax and enjoy life in peace, away from the crazy falang who are everywhere in Sihanoukville.