phnom penh

It took me a while to pronounce Phnom Penh correctly. It just looks funny! But the same was true for learning new Khmer words. Thank you, one beer please, etc. Maybe my brain is tiring of learning new words! But I'm getting there now.

Phnom Penh was once a beautiful city. The French, as in most cities in Indo-China, left a legacy of great architecture and sound city planning. But that was before Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge came to power and started the terror. The very fabric of this country was ripped out not so long ago. I am certain the wounds are still very much open although the Khmer smile always does a good job of masking the collective pain.

I strongly recommend you find out about their 1975-1979 reign of terror. By some estimates, a quarter of the population were killed. That's up to two million people. The Khmer Rouge wanted to create the perfect agrarian society. Everyone would be a farmer. Money was abolished along with titles, education to be limited, land ownership banned and most radical of all, the urban areas were to emptied.

The urban people were treated as dirt. Especially if educated or even if there was a preception of being educated. Methods for ascertaining your level of education included if one wore glasses, if one had soft palms, if one spoke well. If it was established that one was educated, death would surely follow. Usually at the hands of ruthless teenagers. These were the most ardent Khmer Rouge followers. (Rank was denoted by the number of ball-point pens held within the breast pocket!) Oh, and if you thought that a bullet would end your time in the world then you'd be wrong. You were usually beaten to death with whatever came to hand. The bullets, you see, were needed for fighting standing armies.

I went to the killing fields where 10,000 people were put to death. Young children were swung by their feet and their heads battered against a tree. Loud music was played to drown out screams. I was amazed to see human bones still lying about the place. The famous skulls are all preserved (thankfully) within a tall shrine. Shame on the Cambodian government though for selling off this awful place to a Japanese tourism company. Crass and disgraceful. They have a name for this new market of tourism and it's called 'dark tourism'. Immoral, I say, to franchise death.

I also went to the torture centre, known as S21, where people were subjected to the most terrible torture and humilation. The Khmer Rouge, like their Nazi bedfelllows, were good record takers. When they fled the city before the Vietnamese army, they hadn't a chance to destroy everything. Every inmate had a mugshot (taken by a 9 year old photographer, for heavens sake) and these pictures are displayed within the walls of this one time secondary school. It's harrowing. Many of the mugshots were of young children. The terror in their eyes is unmistakeable.

It is a terrible, terrible tradegy. The Khmer people must be one of the most hospitable and warm people I have ever met. I really impressed by their gentle ways and playful laughter. The khmer smile deserves all the praise I have heard. It is something else. It seems to me, from my travels, that it is often the people of the countries that have suffered most, that are the most friendly.

ho chi minh city

Arrived in HCMC in the sweltering heat. On the journey I hooked up with a girl from Windsor and shared a room together to cut costs. Nothing more. My first impressions of Saigon (the locals still call it so) didn't match my expectations. It hasn't got the hustle and bustle of its northern counterpart, Hanoi. It's busy but didn't appear to have the same frenzy of Hanoi. The streets are wide, the city itself nicely laid out, and it feels spacious. There are just as many crazy moped drivers, steering through the traffic with suicidal abandon but it never seemed to reach the same concentration as Hanoi. By my estimation, that's over five bikes per square metre. Then one must consider how many people are on the bike. Driver, wife, kid, grandma. Possibly a chicken hanging by its legs off the handle bar too.

I was expecting more from the place. Maybe it was the company!! More on that later. There were many things to see and do. Visit the chilling war museum. A place where they aren't afraid to show horrifying photo's of napalm victims, kids disfigured by agent orange and mutilated bodies of villagers murdered by rampaging GI's. There is the Unification Palace (formerly the Presidential Palace of the puppet government of South Vietnam) where the NVA tanks crashed through to mark the end of the war. There are many beautiful churches and temples. Plus peppered throughout the city are the remnants of French Indo-Chinese architecture and some are very impressive.

The Chu Chi tunnels were a highlight. A complex of 260 km of underground tunnels built by generations of Vietnamese resistance fighters. It reached its height of fighting effectiveness against the Yanks. I crawled through a 100 metre stretch and it was quite scary when the women in front on me started freaking out after only a few metres in the cramped, dark passage. These tunnels (enlarged for westerns) are still tight and I was fearful she would rush at me toward the nearest exit. The trouble being that there was no way she could pass me without me turning around and pushing against the twenty or so people behind me. In a way, she ruined it for me. I had always tried to imagine what it was like for these subterrean fighters. One of the first books I ever read was called 'the tunnel rats" and I was about 11 years of age. It intrigued me. Instead rather than try to envisage all those people who lived down there, I was just panicky about what the freak in front me of me would do next. Maybe this explains why I bought two dozen bullets for my AK-47 on the shooting range later on!

At least the beer was nice and cheap in Saigon. The most popular places are the pavement cafes where you can gulp beer and exhaust fumes at the same time. Everyday, beering. Oh, my company......this lady had some hang up's. One time I offered to carry her backsack up four flights of stairs but she refused. Then went on and on about being an independent woman!! Then she told me she had a hatred of everything fish. Looking at them, smelling them, eating them, swimming with them and so on. There is actually a phobia, look it up. The worse of all was when she ordered a 'Pho Bo' which is a beef noodle soup and complained bitterly of it tasting of beef. I figured it best to lose her as soon as possible.

Then I met larry, a Hong Kong-Canadian bloke, which was good timing. The next day I was to take the Mekong tour for three days with the end point in Cambodia. I really enjoyed this journey. It was like I was looking for Marlon Brando heading up the delta. The landscape is lush and beautiful. One night, we stayed in some bamboo, wooden houses beside the river and watched the world go by. There were lot of other nice people on this tour too. Beer and good company. It was a very pleasant way to end my Vietnam visit.