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The tragedy
of Phnom Penh Arriving back at Pochentong airport, I realize something has happened that is not in the spirit of reconciliation. It’s full of police. At the hotel, Savuth is agitated: "Sam Rainsy will be arrested. You have to go to Cambodiana now." What a difference a short plane ride makes. Two grenades were thrown at Hun Sen’s house, where he never is, and then Cambodia’s strong man apparently lost patience with the demonstrators. He declared that today, at midnight, the demonstrations will be over, and those suspected to be responsible for them, including Sam Rainsy who has used a lot of violent words in the last few days, will be arrested. Since then, Rainsy is in the office of the UN’s special representative to Cambodia, which is under the luxury Cambodiana hotel. I immediately go there. Outside the compound, app. 500 demonstrators shout slogans like "We want democracy". Some police are inside the compound to keep them at a distance. All foreigners with some importance are there (more foreigners = less deaths). Several camera teams, photographers, journalists, diplomats, human rights representatives, Sam Rainsy’s spokesman and somewhere... Sam Rainsy. An Italian colleague and I try to get to the opposition leader. Of course we know we will not get through. At the entrance of the Hotel itself, friendly porters open the door for you. Inside, the typical atmosphere of a luxury hotel: nice instrumental music, you can have an expensive drink at the bar. The only thing that reminds you of the agitation going on outside are the foreigners with the sound of their mobile phones and radios. But everyone knows they are not going to storm the hotel. At reception, we are asking: "Can you please tell us the room number of Mr. Sam Rainsy?" (That would be like asking: In which room is Chelsea Clinton?) The answer: "Can you write down guest name, please?". We write down guest name. "Oh, Sam Rainsy... ha ha, he not here". Why then does she think all these demonstrators (many more by now) shouting "Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy", all these barangs and all these armed people are out there? We are going downstairs to the UN’s office, where of course nervous Rainsy bodyguards keep us from doing anything. Then the tragedy happens. Police shoot into the air to disperse the crowd. Inside the hotel, everyone has the urge to run, even though there is no need for it. Outside, all the journalists are running away from the shots (something of a natural instinct, isn’t it), while the camera teams and the photographers are running towards the shots. After the demonstrators have been forced back, we see a dead man in his thirties is lying on the ground with his motorbike. A few minutes later, another journalist asks me to take a picture of him touching the remaining shoes of the dead man with litres of blood around. For what purpose? To show what a tough guy he is? At midnight, nothing happens. The armed forces wait until the demonstrators are so tired that they will encounter little resistance. They dissolve "Democracy Square" the next day using fire-fighting cars (no deaths) while I am sleeping. When I try to get out of the hotel, all the streets are closed down by military police. "It’s difficult to get a cup of tea", says one of the rare tourists in the hotel. From time to time, warning shots are fired in the air. One of the most bizarre scenes of my trip is this: about 30 military police close down Sisowath (the street parallel to the riverside). A motodop is trying to come too close, they fire in the air, the man stops and gets beaten up. Only a few minutes later, while every Khmer on Sisowath is afraid of leaving his or her house, a foreigner with walkman jogs next to the road. He doesn’t even slow down the speed of his daily jogging trip when he passes the military police roadblock. Barangs can do whatever they want in Cambodia. And they do whatever they want. Kratie: Dolphins and a mountain monastery
Later we stop at Phnom Sambok, a Buddhist mountain monastery. Like at many places in Cambodia, some police guy offers to protect you, but there is no need for protection in this monastery. I leave him some water. An old monk they call "Grand Father" waves me inside his sleeping cell. He has no teeth and no English or French word left, but a younger novice translates. I am trying to find a sitting position where my feet don’t point at any of the two people in robes, which is not only difficult, but also extremely uncomfortable. Same thing later on when they allow me to attend a teaching session. About 40 nuns and monks in white clothes listen to what a senior monk comfortably seated in a big chair has to say. For me of course, a purely visual experience. Their visual experience is enlarged by my presence. A nun whispers in perfect French I should recite some of the Pali phrases. But Pali sounds to me as familiar as Swahili, and I would feel uncomfortable anyway reciting something I don’t understand. If you go up there, pay the utmost respect to these people - they don’t often see foreigners. One monk invites me to sleep on that monastery hill, which would certainly have been one of the great-grand-son-experiences, but I have to return to Phnom Penh early next morning. Before I leave Kratie, I am forced to see the other side of Cambodia again. Dozens of soldiers are in the restaurant I eat. They will be "escorting" illegal logs down the Mekong during the night. One of the wood traders tells me later about the old times when there were two prime ministers and he needed three signatures: "The minister of agriculture (FUNCINPEC) wanted 50’000 US $, the first PM (Ranarridh) 60’000 US $, and the second PM (Hun Sen) only 40’000 US $ for their respective signatures. So Hun Sen is the least corrupt!" Last interviews in the capital: de facto Minister of Tourism, the CEO of Royal Air Cambodge, the managing director of the popular Swiss company "Diethelm Travel", and others. The general feeling is that after a new government has been formed, Cambodia has made it. Filing articles, then: saying good bye to the dozens of people I got to know well in Phnom Penh. Last night at Tom’s - incredible, I almost cry. Talking to Tom again about Kratie, where he was stationed under UNTAC. "It’s close to my heart", he says. And yes, I also have to say good bye to the "Heart". But I find only the four or five most crazy customers there, so not many to say good bye to. Many of the foreigners in Cambodia do excellent development work, though I am not really qualified to judge. Personally, I was impressed with Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital, run by Swiss paediatric doctor Beat Richner. He runs probably the only hospital in Cambodia that is full, clean, and corruption-free. His friendly Swiss nurse Simone shows me around. Opinions whether this almost Western-style medicine is sustainable in a country as poor as Cambodia are divided. But one looks into the eyes of one of the hundreds of sick children waiting to be treated in Kantha Bopha, and you forget about politics. The tragedy of Siem Reap The politicians don’t leave me alone during this trip - not even in Siem Reap, the most peaceful place you can imagine. Inauguration of the 122 new Parliamentarians, including Hun Sen, Prince Ranarridh and Sam Rainsy, in front of Angkor Wat. Someone attacks the car of Hun Sen with a B-40. Instead of hitting the car, it huts a house, where a 12-year-old boy is killed in a horrible way. His sister loses two legs. The litres of blood on the destroyed walls of that house will always remind me of the reality of violence and war. It is ... beyond description. The news journalists grab the story and wire it as fast as possible all around the world. If you watched CNN that day, you get the impression that Cambodia is in a state of terror. In the evening, one of the resident free-lance journalists is giving a philosophical speech to me: "A million deaths is a statistic. One death is a tragedy". Give me a break, my fellow journalist. No one is interested in what’s going on in Mali. You make your money with these dead 12-year olds, and a day like this is eldorado for a freelancer. If it were not for events like this, you wouldn’t be here. But violence sells better than the inauguration of a Parliament. If you are that concerned about children dying, why don’t you try to get 6-7 km outside of here, where the roads are so muddy that basic food supplies can’t get through anymore? The body of that boy doesn’t get out of my mind. On that day, I hate everyone. Angkor - capital in the jungle
It’s strange to switch now to talking about how beautiful Angkor is. I spend a full week exploring again the ruins of Angkor, the centre of a big kingdom between the 9th and the 13th century. I am exploring every corner of Angkor Wat, the biggest temple on the face of the earth. Once I sleep a few hours inside Angkor Wat over the hot time. I go back to the spiritual centre of the mighty Khmer empire maybe five times, go to the mountain to see it from the top in the middle of the jungle, and of course the place I return to most frequently is Ta Promh, a Buddhist temple left in exactly the same state the French found it in 1860. Big trees have grown over the stones, have cracked them apart but help at the same time to maintain the structure. A strange symbiosis between nature and culture. Complete romance. Once one of the monsoon rains comes when I am there. I am sitting inside one of the windows. In all of Angkor, only the holy has survived, because stones were reserved for the holy. Wooden buildings have disappeared over the centuries since the capital was moved away from the jungle. I am sitting inside this broad window and watch the rain falling onto the partially overgrown stones. I am doing nothing else than enjoying the moment. Another place not to miss is Banteay Srei - the "citadel of the woman", allegedly built by a woman. But de facto women (the beautiful Apsara dancers) were responsible more for the erotic part 1’000 years ago in Cambodia. And today, the woman does all the real work in Cambodia, while men enjoy their lives. The beautiful fine carvings at Banteay Srei are reproduced all over Cambodia. Banteay Srei used to be one of the off-limit places at Angkor, but those times are over. On the first World Tourism Day celebrated in Cambodia, the temple is officially re-opened. The de facto tourism minister - Secretary of State Thong Khon - had invited me for the event when I interviewed him. He arrives in style - by special airplane and brings with him the Chinese chairman of the chamber of commerce ("This is my friend Marcel, journalist from Switzerland"), the minister of culture, the Governor of Siem Reap province, a number of people from the tourism industry, and of course the compulsory five Cambodian camera teams. I am on Cambodian TV a lot these days, just that the TV per inhabitant ratio is not enough to make me famous. At the ceremony, Khon says: "Security is very good now. The roads are bad, but we have already asked the Asian Development Bank to make a new road". We tour the wonderful citadel.
- Eat at least once at one of their restaurants and forget for once that you are in Cambodia
- Also go to the "Elephant Bar" downstairs. Like the restaurant, this bar could be anywhere in the world. It has its price, like the two of the above, but it gives you a feeling of what colonial life must have been like. The Elephant Bar is where I meet up with Tim, an American photographer whom I got to know at the Banteay Srei inauguration. You realize immediately that he is an open-minded person. It’s also not his first time in Cambodia. He spent the summer here as a photographer and was indeed one of those guys "running in the direction of the shots", as he explains himself. He has to sell his pictures for next to nothing to the Daily or - if he is lucky - to an agency. But he can live with the money he makes in winter with a slightly different job. The Alaskan manages research stations on Antarctica. Once he spent a whole winter at the South Pole station, where he was locked in with 26 other people from February to October. If temperature drops below -55 degrees Celsius, the planes don’t work anymore. So even in the biggest of emergencies, nobody could get out of that research station, that burns 2’000 litres of fuel a day, amongst other things for refrigerators. And you know what the biggest problem at the South Pole was? Computer games! Some want to sleep, others want to play... Tim certainly wants to find out something about life. That’s why he goes to Antarctica, that’s why he goes to Cambodia. Pailin: Where communism and capitalism merge There is something strange about the Cambodian way of extending visas. You have to do it in Phnom Penh at an office where the working hours could be those of our two cats during the day. "I’d like to get an extension for one month, please", I said when I didn’t know yet I was going to be here for three months. "All right", said the official, "this costs 30 US $ and takes 30 days to proceed". Extending your visa for 30 days takes 30 days? "Oh, we also have an express service where you can pick up your passport the next morning. But this costs 45 US $... (NB: Having said this, you normally don’t get overcharged in Cambodia). Well, I did this twice, and now there are only two weeks left and the most interesting destination is still ahead of me: Pailin, the former KR stronghold that became something of an autonomous province in 1996. This means: The flags and some of the uniforms have changed, but the KR are still in charge. Ieng Sary, number two after Pol Pot, lives there in peace. I have to go through Battambang, Cambodia’s second largest city - the only one deserving this qualification except Phnom Penh. The boat ride from Siem Reap (why do it the normal way when there is an exceptional one) takes an incredible seven hours to cover the 100 kms or so - but it’s a lot of fun driving over the Tonle Sap. There is even another barang, Rebecca, a feminist, who does a study for her MA on domestic violence against women. There is something about feminists that I ... dislike ("Children? I’d like to kick them across the street"), but we end up spending half a night in a Battambang disco, sharing the hotel room and having a lot of interesting discussions. During the civil war, Battambang was the place to be for journalists. In the yearly "dry season offensive", the government tried to push the KR further into the jungle. And that’s where I want to go. Now Battambang is full of expats – it’s full of mines. Some Italian surgeons tell me horrible stories about mine victims they operate. Sometimes when there is a big explosion they have to decide who to treat first, second, third... and sometimes whom not to treat at all. I inquire about security in Pailin. "You can go", says one CARARE official, "and we’d like to hear from you when you’re back". Not a lot of foreigners go up there.
But I have also something for the KR, a letter and an
article published on Ieng Sary from a colleague of mine addressed to "His
Excellency, Mr. Ieng Sary". He asked me to transmit it. According to his
instructions, I ask for Mey Meak. I don’t have the slightest idea
who this man is, except of course that he must be a KR.
On my last night, there is a Buddhist festival, which supposedly should announce the end of the rainy season when the monks are allowed to leave their monasteries again. There is a destroyed temple on a hill in Pailin where I went a few times and looked over the area where the civil war went on for decades... Now I stroll through that other monastery and again enjoy the atmosphere. Barang, barang - I am the centre of things, one more time. Leaving Cambodia - My heart will go on The day I left Cambodia via Battambang and Sisophon (NB: on the last "bush stop" it was a snake which watched me pissing), I have an ear jaw problem, but nonetheless the crossing of that border brings up some emotions. On the other side of the border: a perfect tar road and an air con bus to Bangkok. Why do I prefer Cambodia's crater roads? After 90 days, I was ready to leave. But already after my first week at home, I wanted to go back to Cambodia. It’s the magic. Either you feel it, or you don’t. There is nothing in between. I hope I could share some of it with you. Re-reading this report, I feel the negative impression it leaves is much too strong. I left out so many good sides. Angkor alone would be worth an article like this. The many invitations I got; the exchange of ideas with the locals, the good NGO people, researchers like David Roberts, the children I played with in Sihanoukville, the discos (Apsara-style rock dancing) of Rattanakiri ...
Taken from: 90 days in Cambodia... http://www.stoessel.ch/cambodia.htm
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What
I want to do is to see the freshwater dolphins reported to be in the Kratie
area. I have to remind myself that I am here to write travel stories, not to
run after the bad news. To get to the fast boat, I have to climb over
several other boats, until I reach "Rambo 4". Rambo is almost an airplane on
the water - really fast (5 hours uprive
r,
4 hours downriver). It goes without saying that like everything that moves
in developing countries, it’s overloaded. Sitting outside gives you a bigger
chance of sunburn, but also a bigger chance of survival if the boat flips.
On the other hand you miss the wrestling video inside. So I am inside.
Kratie is a wonderful clean town on the Mekong. Too bad my time is running
out. I am driving with a motodop north for about 15 kilometres near the
village of Kampi, looking for dolphins. But for now, I only see people
building provisional bamboo boats to get the illegal logs down the Mekong.
So let’s take a boat - someone will surely be happy to make 5 US $ an hour.
Finally I see the rare freshwater Mekong dolphins, always at a distance of
at least 8-10 meters, but it’s a wonderful experience. Spotting these
animals while they jump out of the water reminds me of the game drives
Sandra and I have done in Africa. There is such a big fuss about some
dolphins in the very south of Laos. No one I talked to has ever seen them.
Here, there are about 30 of them, and you can easily spot at least two or
three in an hour’s boat ride.
What
else shall I tell you? Everything has been written about Angkor, which was
bigger than any European city 1,000 years ago. Shall I tell you about the
limb-less and blind who play their melodies on their erh hums and
manage to keep up their smiles even if most of the few tourists ignore them?
About the five-year-old girl that doesn’t take no for an answer: "Wanna buy
cold drink? Postcard? Guide book? Krama?". Or shall I tell you about the
owner of a restaurant who has his distinct opinion about the Khmer: "The
Cambodians are not a people of rice farmers. If they can have an easier life
with an AK-47, they will prefer that. They love war"?
Maybe
I should tell you about the Grand Hotel d’Angkor - think about
colonialism what you want, but it is worth a visit. It has been completely
renovated so you can enjoy the atmosphere of the 20s with the luxury of the
90s and the price of ... the next millennium. 320 US $ costs a night in
Cambodia’s most upscale hotel. Even if you can’t afford that, there are
three things you should do there except wandering around its colonial halls:
-
Absolutely go to one of the Saturday night Apsara (traditional dancers)
presentations. You haven’t seen Cambodia if you haven’t seen the Apsara
dancers with their very soft hand movements. I wish my English was good
enough to describe it. Go there!
Maybe
I should see a therapist back home. It might be better to get to the bottom
of whatever my problem is instead of driving on a road where there are signs
to the left and to the right saying "DANGER!! MINES!!", passing no less than
six military checkpoints, and doing all of this in a cramped pickup taxi to
meet some of the most extreme communist guerrillas. Former
guerrillas, of course. But some of them didn’t even bother changing
uniforms. Pailin in the hands of the KR, just that the war is finished. The
town is basically a long very dusty road. Everything has a bit of the Wild
West, and it is in the Wild West of Cambodia. A lot of people bear
guns. But crime is reportedly rather rare, because there used to be only one
penalty... But since Cambodia has luckily abolished the death penalty, they
had to build a prison (but nobody could tell me where it was...). There are
definitely more weapons here than are necessary for my personal well being.
But believe it or not, even the presence of weapons is something you get
used to. In my hotel, the owner always sleeps in the entrance hall under his
mosquito net with his hand gun next to him. KR play pool (it seems to be
the sport in Pailin; don’t ask me why) with their AK-47’s on the back.
Once I play against a KR. Back in Battambang, and someone told me: "Be
careful whom you piss off up there". As I don’t know who qualifies for being
pissed off, I took it as a rule strictly not pissing anyone off, even
that KR playing pool with me. He was clearly losing - and I am really bad.
But nonetheless he was giving advice: "You have to learn, step by step", he
keeps repeating. OK, step by step.
Next
step: the casino. There is nothing more capitalist than a casino. There is
nothing more communist than the Khmer Rouge. But it’s right here that a new
casino has recently been opened, and you can loose as much money as you
want. Even KR can occasionally be seen playing roulette. What a strange,
contradictory place I spent my summer. Just once, I want to play blackjack,
and once roulette. In less than five minutes, my money is gone.
I
find him and hand over the envelope. He invites me to eat rice with him; a
few days later, we will tour the whole province together. When I tell him
that I write about travelling, he becomes more open: He’s building a
guesthouse right now. Do the Westerners want toilets inside their rooms?
What name should he give to his guesthouse? "Khmer Rouge guest house", I
suggest, and he finds it very funny. The envelope is sent over to Ieng Sary
directly by a motodop – he transmits his thanks. So I have done what I have
promised to do. Nonetheless, I want to know who this Mey Meak is. Finally he
shows me an article written about him: He was the personal secretary of Pol
Pot from 1979 (after his loss of power) until 1992. He was in charge of
propaganda. During "Democratic Kampuchea" (1975 – 1979), he was in charge of
Pochentong airport, with only one flight per week to China and one every two
weeks to North Korea - and of course he didn’t know anything about the
genocide... I reluctantly try to ask more questions, but he doesn’t like
investigators. He talked about living in the jungle, and he described Pol
Pot - whom he saw almost daily - as a decent, kind, almost warm person who
always listened carefully when someone else spoke. But Mey Meak's preferred
topic is the future, not the past. Pailin will certainly become part of the
tourist trail. Direct flights to Phnom Penh, a casino, honest gem stone
traders, and then you can tell your great-grand-son that you have slept in
the guest house of a former guerrilla - perhaps the "Khmer Rouge
guesthouse".