There is something magic about Cambodia. Either you feel it, or you don’t. There is nothing in between. During my first trip through the former Indochina in 1997, which included Cambodia, I certainly felt it. I’d better not analyze too deeply what made me come back. There was my dad in Ho Chi Minh City to visit. There was improving security in Cambodia’s provinces. There were some articles to be written. All true, but then there was maybe also the feeling of being at a place where some of the biggest horrors of mankind have taken place, the adventure of going out to the provinces where no guidebook tells you what to do, where to go, and what the situation is. But to make it clear: My sense of adventure is not being held up at gun point by a drunken soldier. It is the exceptional, the unknown, and the magic.

To get from Ho Chi Minh City’s Kim Cafe to my favourite Hotel Indochine (251, Sisowath; 10 US $ for air-con, fridge, satellite TV and private bath; say Hello to Savuth from Marcel, the journalist from Switzerland) in Phnom Penh cost me precisely 10 US $. One hour to leave the moloch of Vietnam’s sprawling city, unfriendly Vietnamese border guards, saying good bye to Latin characters, walking 100 meters to the other side, and there you are, in the country of American bombings, Killing Fields and landmines. But it may be different than you think. I will learn it in the course of the next three months - hopefully I can share it with you.

My "Suo Sedei - Sok Sabaii?" ("Hello, how are you?") is well perceived by the friendly Khmer border officials - this guy has been here before. On the road to Phnom Penh - the same road the Vietnamese took to invade Cambodia in 1979 - about 200 party signs are visible. It’s election time in Cambodia. The main contenders are the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), FUNCINPEC, and the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP). But there are also the more bizarre names like the "Woman and nation’s rule of law party", the "Buddhist liberal democratic party", or the "farmer’s party" - no less than 39 of them are registered for the second post-communist elections of July 26th, 1998. They could be the last chance for a democratic Cambodia. After last year’s coup (5th/6th July 1997), the optimists are rare. Numerous self-proclaimed Cambodian experts advised me against going: "Have you not heard that there is a Hun Sen style election campaign going on?", was the useful comment of a Lao opposition group. "We’re all watching world cup footie here in the Heart", emailed someone else, describing a rather quiet situation...

Cambodia - the "Heart of Darkness"?

"The Heart" is the name insiders give to the most popular bar in the capital - the "Heart of Darkness", named after Joseph Conrad’s famous book. He described the Congo of almost 100 years ago, but what happened in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 can certainly be compared to the horrors of central Africa. In the Congo, it was exploitation of humans by humans for economic reasons. In Cambodia, it was exploitation of humans by humans for ideological reasons - the most radical transformation of a society ever attempted. Pol Pot’s idea of a purely agrarian society without money, cities, schools, and hospitals - practically cut off from the outside world - had a human price: 1.7 million people died due to exhaustion, starvation, and political persecution.

The latter took place at Security Prison 21 ("S21"), a high school transformed from educating the young to torturing the educated. Intellectuals were in low demand in Pol Pot’s "Democratic Kampuchea". Wearing glasses was enough of a crime. Having to confess to working for the CIA, the KGB or even worse – for the Vietnamese. A sign told the victims not to cry while being tortured with electric shocks and other methods. Barbed wire prevented them from committing suicide - jumping down the second or third floor would have been much preferable to watching your child being stabbed with a bayonet. Today, "S21" is the "Tuol Sleng Holocaust Museum", and all of this can be seen on pictures. Thousands and thousands of portrait pictures are on the walls, with fear of death in their faces. This girl can’t be older than 17 - what has she done? Human creativity has no limits, also when it comes to cruelty. The horrendous results of torture can be seen as well. Also the torturers - mostly teenagers – were later tortured themselves. Paranoia of the ruling elite. In the last room, skulls and bones make up a huge map of Cambodia. Is that what Cambodia was all about? In the museum there are some camera teams, no tourists, some mine victims, and I, sitting down outside, watching a few kids play volleyball, writing in my diary, being near tears.

"Tuol Sleng" helps not to forget, but it doesn’t help to understand. The same is true for another place on the Khmer Rouge tourist circuit. It is one of the most horrible places in the world, known as the "Killing fields" - the mass graves of "Choeung Ek" outside Phnom Penh. That’s where my motorcycle driver drops me off. Skulls taken from the mass graves remind future generations never to let genocide happen again. They are in a 25-meter glass stupa, where they are sorted according to gender and age. I find myself touching some of them, almost trying to caress them because I feel their tremendous pain. What have these people done against Paradise on Earth? "Female, 15-20 years", is written on one shelf of the immense glass stupa. It’s my second time here, but now, I am completely alone. Alone in the "Killing Fields". Only a cow is drinking some water out of an empty grave, with a sign next to it: "166 victims without heads".

Every young man and woman who has not experienced the Second World War should come to one of these places of horror. I had been in Auschwitz, I had been in Sachsen-Hausen, and I was at the Killing Fields. There is no doubt in my mind that humans (including me) are capable of doing anything to each other. Revenge is only projecting your own evil part onto others, qualifying them as completely evil. That doesn’t help to understand. When looking at these skulls you realize that there is no real justice in this world. If it exists, it is in another world. 

So maybe Cambodia where people forced to work in the fields were beaten to death (to save bullets) was really the "Heart of Darkness"? Back to the bar. It is a strange, small, kind of dirty hole-in-the-wall pub where the decoration includes a snake wine and big fake spiders hanging down from the ceiling. And of course: it’s dark in the Heart of Darkness. You can also play pool, but that’s not why you go there. (NB: driving at night on the back of a moto taxi was not always very safe - losing your money at gun point is very common at night time Phnom Penh). You go there to drink beer and meet the fascinating mix of expatriates (UN and NGO staff), local and foreign journalists, English teachers, backpackers, tourists and weirdoes. The American working for the council of ministers on behalf of the World Bank, the Human Rights Monitor from Colombia, the Japanese photographer waiting for the next shoot-out, the British political science researcher, the Irish bodyguard.... the list has no end. What drives them to the Heart of Darkness? Cheap drinks, the best music in town, or perhaps.... the magic?

Let’s take the Irish bodyguard. Black jeans, black T-shirt, black woollen cap, black hair, and small black beard "goatee style". I remember him from last year when I saw him in the very same bar. He did some kind of shadow boxing in the air then, every now and then right in front of someone’s face. You meet strange people in Cambodia. I am trying to stay away from him this time around. But he takes the initiative. He fixes me with his dark eyes, points at me and says slowly with his calm voice: "I know you". He’s the kind of guy you don’t object to. He knows me, ok. He wants to talk, also ok. He’s in his 30s and works as a bodyguard, one of his previous customers was the son of Prince Rannaridh. You don’t talk about salary in this job, which is "99.9% boring - just waiting". You also don’t talk about how many people you’ve killed. What you do talk about is yourself. He lifts his T-shirt and shows me his body full of scars and some tattoos. In Ireland, he has been a heroin addict for eight years, he says. But then that wonderful country called Cambodia made him completely clean. Quite admirable, considering the fact that drugs are cheap, laws are neither known nor enforced (Marihuana is free in the Heart), and that anarchy and corruption are probably the two most accurate words to describe the country we are in. Now he’s proud of being "100% clean", as he sips his 11th Tequila. No objections on my part. Also no objections when he tells me he is married to an Irishwoman and has a child. The kid will never go to the International School – "We will teach ourselves". The future? "I have nowhere to go".

Election campaign in Cambodia

Visitors, however, have lots of places to go. Before moving to the Heart at around 10 to 11 p.m., the colonial-style "Foreign Correspondents Club of Cambodia" (FCCC) is clearly the place to be. You can "watch the river go by", as the advertisement says (if you ask me: the best view in South East Asia), while sipping a drink, eating good food, and talking to interesting folks. It’s more the upscale crowd who goes there, more difficult to get connected to. Someone I did connect to was a UN employee dealing with, amongst other things, for getting the election material to the 11,699 polling stations all around the country. Amongst the stuff are seven tons of indelible ink - one of the ways to make sure no one votes twice. This ink had to be flown in from India via Thailand, he explains, while we were sitting in the large armchairs of the Club. Yesterday morning, however, there was no ink in the Thai airplane arriving at Pochentong airport. Today is the deadline. If he couldn’t manage to get the ink to Phnom Penh by today, the election could have been postponed, he says. He phones the Thai ambassador, who phones the Thai Prime Minister, who phones the CEO of Thai airways. The PM makes clear to the CEO that the ink is going to be on the plane. And guess what - it was on the plane.... Going to the FCC has something colonial in it. You fight your way through amputees to get upstairs, where there is a 10 US $ / hour internet cafe, buy the newest magazines and newspapers, and look down on people who earn 100 times less than you while you are eating pizza - don’t ask why a lot of expatriates are overweight.

The first Canadian election observers have arrived. An English-speaking newspaper ran an advertisement looking for additional International Election Observers. A chat with one of the Canadians gives me some hints about whether I should apply. The man in his 50s with a T-shirt "Jamaica election observer" explains: "We have been briefed back in Canada - you know, things like Malaria, and how to overcome the culture shock", he says. Malaria? Culture shock? If they take him, why not me? "If you do that job, it’s gonna be an eye-opener", he adds. I don’t know how he knows that my eyes are closed, but the next day I call and become a volunteer international election observer for the "Neutral and Independent Committee for Free Elections in Cambodia" (NICFEC). More details later.

The reason why I have talked so much about nightlife is - do I dare to say? - that Phnom Penh is quite fun at night. One of the places I can unconditionally recommend is "Tom’s Irish Pub" - a very relaxed place run by former UNTAC employee Tom who has his heart at the right spot. Every now and then, he organizes a party for orphan children, and this makes him at least as happy as the kids. His wife and his staff are extremely nice, always there for a chat, and "Tom’s" is by far the easiest place to make friends.

As a whole, Phnom Penh still seems pretty much like the year before. Less expatriates (a number of aid programs were cancelled after the coup), a lot less tourists (except the drug and sex tourists), a lot of political propaganda (trucks with supporters of Sam Rainsy driving through the streets: "Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy!"; posters everywhere), more crime - but Phnom Penh is still Phnom Penh. Big boulevards, quite a nice riverside to stroll by, thousands of motor taxis (easily recognized by their baseball caps), and beggars in front of the expatriates places: "njam njam". The Phnom Phenois talk a lot about the elections. There seems to be a lot of support for the rather intellectual opposition candidate Sam Rainsy. Not surprising in an urban environment. Also there seems to be some irrational feeling with the people that violence or war is ahead. It has been like that every time something changed in Cambodia since 1970.

"Wanna shoot gun?"

Another constant since 1970 are guns. Time and again, people are asking: "Wanna shoot gun?", referring to an army shooting range near Pochentong airport where everyone willing to pay can give his instincts a free ride. I am reluctant to go, but (let’s be honest) I think it might be a good story. First, a motorbike takes me to the "army market" to buy ammunition. Sitting in a hair salon, I am waiting for the bullets - one magazine costs 15 US $. Then the "motodop" - happy with his commission - drives me to the shooting range, easily located by the sound of serial fire. It’s basically a wooden hut, open on both sides, in which members of the Cambodian armed forces hang around. Children are playing. A Briton and an Israeli are shooting some automatic weapons. The young Israeli seems to have a lot of fun, though "we have this for free at home", he says. The local Commander lies in his hammock (hammocks are a universal passion in Cambodia) and plays with his loaded handgun. Every now and then, he stands up and shoots a few rounds. What a comfortable place. Of course, like everywhere, there is also a Buddhist shrine. The instructions for me how to shoot the AK-47 take about one minute. Unsecure, hold it the right way, point, and press the trigger really slowly, slowly. First shot. I don’t know if I’ve hit the silhouette of a man at the other end of the range. But it doesn’t matter. Afterwards, with serial fire, I am sure I have hit. After I give back the weapon, I feel like the biggest of hypocrites on the face of the earth. Apart from some technical fascination, I hate weapons. They are made to threaten and kill. And in Cambodia, they are used to threaten and kill. Furthermore, the 8 US $ I am paying (other prices: revolver 5 US $, hand grenade 10 US $, B-40 rocket launcher 45 US $) for the immense pleasure of shooting at a model of a human being surely goes to people who do use weapons for purposes that do not conform with my principles (which are not very strong it seems).  Asked whether he would pass the money to his superior, the hammock Commander smiles: "Some". This is the place where 500 - 1000 US $ gets you out of prison if you’ve committed a murder - this is Cambodia. I later get offered 50 bullets of machine gun for the special price of 11 US $. It’s pure cynicism in a country where nothing is abundant except guns and landmines. 

Other than learning about myself and about others and their culture, I also travel to "see places". So I re-visit the tourist spots in Phnom Penh like Wat Phnom, where I enjoy the wonderful peaceful feeling of a Buddhist pagoda with its flowers and smoking sticks inside. It’s impressive how the Cambodians have kept their Buddhist culture in their hearts despite the fact that the Khmer Rouge have destroyed almost all places of worship. Pagodas are being re-built all around the country despite massive poverty. You can question if money is used the right way, but the Khmer, including King Sihanouk, do support their religion. Every morning, monks in their orange robes are going on their alms rounds and get their food for free from the population of one of the 20 poorest countries in the world. Still, the longer you spend in a monastery as a young man, the more respected you are.

Buddhism survived Pol Pot

Heng Hoeung is one such young man. I meet him in front of the magnificent Silver Pagoda in the compound of the Royal Palace. He and his friend ask if I would allow them to practice their English with me. (NB: In the tourist shop, you can buy the Cambodia Lonely Planet from 1992, even before UNTAC. They admit that they haven’t sold a single one for years.) Thanks to UNTAC, Cambodia may be the prime English speaking country in South East Asia. The elderly who have experienced French colonial rule still speak French. But the young, like those all over the world, want to learn English, the American accent. They want Coca-Cola, ATM machines and nice-looking women. That’s what TV tells them. America does not have to conquer the world, money does the job. If you read somewhere that the national currency of Cambodia is something called "Riel", replace it with "Dollar". The Riel is generally only used for amounts smaller than 1 US $. But Heng Hoeung doesn’t care about Dollars or Riels, at least not for the moment. Board and lodging is free, and living in poverty is not only a constraint, it’s also a choice for a Buddhist monk.
I get a chance to see how he lives in "Mohamontry Pagoda". The living quarter is very basic - one big room where 18 people live together. Only some orange curtains provide a bit of privacy. Hoeung offers me some water, and his fellow monks (novices, to be precise) are quickly there to see the "barang" (the world for "foreigner" is not meant to be derogatory like in Thai). Few dare to practice what they have learned so hard in daily English lessons from teachers who have rarely enjoyed more than three months of training themselves. When I tell them I was an election observer, they think I get piles of money. I tell them I am a volunteer. They don’t seem to understand. Silence reigns for a moment. When I tried to explain that I wanted to make a tiny contribution to the successful elections and that I wanted to have a new experience, the man said something I will never forget in my entire life: "On behalf of the Cambodian people, I would like to thank you. And I would like to give you something back. But I have nothing. All I can give you are my prayers when you go to Stung Treng".

Stung Treng is my province of choice for the elections. It is in the very northeast, a sparsely populated region of Cambodia near the border with Laos. Only 35’675 voters (= 1 seat in parliament) are registered in the rather large province, but the recently defected KR make sure international observers are needed there. My group is composed of 89 international observers spread all over the country, mostly expatriates working in Cambodia. The UN and EU observers make up the bulk of roughly 600 international observers. National observers and party agents will also be trying to make sure the elections are "free, fair and representative". It is well known that people close to the ruling CPP dominate the Polling Station Committees of the 11,699 voting stations. Our job as observers, we learn in a training session, is strictly that: observing. We are not running the election, we are observing and reporting. We are informed about the election laws and the exact process of how the voting takes place. I have mixed feelings when I think about the approaching election. The campaign was quite peaceful, but in Cambodia, you never know. There is a sense of history as July 26th, 1998, comes closer. I will be there.

Driving to the real Cambodia with my friend, the monk

But before I fly up to Stung Treng, I meet him again, my friend, the monk. He invited me to his home province Takeo for a day. I hire a motorbike at "Lucky Lucky Motorbikes", where the friendly employee keeps my passport saying: "In Cambodia, no insurance", meaning I am paying 500 US $ if something goes wrong. My friend, the monk, seems to think something will go wrong all the time. He sits in woman’s posture behind me, while we are heading south out of Phnom Penh. Hoeung never forgets to tell me when one of the newly installed traffic signals is red, probably thinking that I have never seen a thing like that before. He also frequently mentions that I am driving fast. To be honest, I would prefer if my friend, the honourable monk, would balance himself a bit better instead of providing advice. While driving and counter-balancing the monk, I remember Lonely Planet’s advice to consider all Cambodian drivers as "visually impaired psychopaths". The rules, which I have found out in an empirical way, are as follows:

1) Only look what’s going on in front of you. Everyone is doing the same.
2) Never make abrupt changes in your movements. Everyone supposes you continue doing what you are doing.
3) The bigger the stronger. Truck, big car, small car, big motorbike, small motorbike, bicycles and cyclos, and God bless you if you are a pedestrian.

Having those rules in my mind, we are driving through rural Cambodia, the real Cambodia that makes up 85% of the country. Some of the rice paddies look like deserts - the rainy season has not yet taken off. The lives of thousands of people could depend on it. Sometimes people shoot at the clouds to get some rain. Everywhere people are waving at us, especially children.

After a stop at the little-known ruins of Tonle Bati, we drive up a "mountain" to a monastery, where fellow monks from other places are always welcome. A "mountain" in Cambodia is anything in the landscape that is not completely flat. In this case, we are talking about a mountain of app. 300-m altitude. An elderly man who came to provide food for the monks is asking me whether we have mountains as high as this one in Switzerland, and if we, too, have problems with the rainy season this year. He, about 20 villagers and about 20 monks listen carefully to the translation of Hoeung, as I am explaining that we have mountains with eternal snow, that we have four seasons and are rather into potatoes. Everyone is very attentive and seems very happy. The villagers have cooked for the monks, who eat first, but only after chanting prayers in their traditional Pali language. It sounds monotonic but somehow magic. After we’ve all watched the monks eating, the others are also allowed to sit down on the ground and eat. It goes without saying that I eat amongst the most elderly persons present, and my friend, the monk, translates constantly. They read my lips. When I mention in passing that I am a bit tired, someone brings a mattress and allows me to rest for a few hours. Then I go outside, look down the wide landscape of palm trees, even see some monkeys jumping from tree to tree. We hear the music of a funeral and decide to join it after asking the senior monk if my presence is in any way disturbing, of course. It is not. A 26-year-old monk has died of a stomach problem. Strangely, his body is not burned, but buried. We can’t find out why. The last stop on our tour through Takeo province is the village where Heng Hoeung lives. We turn from highway number 4 into what I would call a bad footpath. I try to keep the balance with my unbalanced monk on the back for about 20 kilometres until we finally reach his village. It’s a hot day in Cambodia. The children surround me immediately - they have never seen a foreigner, Hoeung explains, and they hesitate between curiosity and fear. Hoeung’s mother offers me some hot tea - not that I am cold, but who wants to refuse hospitality? Finally, my friend, the monk, and I are driving back to Phnom Penh. "I will never forget this day", he says.

Unforgettable is also the day of my departure to Stung Treng. An article in the Cambodia Daily, a semi-professional rather pro-opposition paper, misquotes me as saying: "Unlike the EU/UN observers, we are covering different polling stations in one day". What I did say to the backpacker-turned-journalist named Freya Williams was "Like the EU/UN observers... ". In other words: the contrary. For everyone who knows the least about politics and the elections in Cambodia, it’s absolutely obvious that the small number of international observers can’t be stationary. I am furious - Freya apologises and promises to correct my statement in the next issue. When I came back from Stung Treng, I saw that the paper didn't publish a correction.

Next Page...

Basic Info

The Culture

The People

The History

Attractions

Environment

Money & Costs

Getting Around

Entertainment

Photos

Hotels

Links

[ site design: © access web-design 2004 ]