27^th March 2006

This 2 week  visit to CAMBODIA has been a deeply moving experience for both David and I.  The beauty of the Khmer art in the Angkorian temples and carvings was juxtaposed next to the cruelty excercised by so many Khmers during the terrorism that took place in 1975 and only just stopped in the late 1990’s, allowing tourists to visit safely for the first time in 2000.  I hope you will read the comments I have put forward amongst the photos.

Tricycle and street sellers in front of the Royal Palace at Phnom Penn

The road from the airport to Phnom Penn was bustling with activity, dirty and crowded  with street stalls selling piles of French golden baguettes, amongst other things.  Nearer the centre, the roads became large regal avenues lined with frangipani trees in full blossom emitting the most sensuous fragrance hiding the fumes of the traffic.

This was definitely the French touch which has been so pleasantly continued right the way through what used to be considered the loveliest of the French-built cities of Indochina.  Its charm, while tarnished has largely managed to survive the violence of its recent history.  The French left a legacy of now-crumbling colonial architecture, some of which has been tastefully renovated into embassies and other official buildings.

The Buddhist temple-monasteries wats have come back to life with a passion – monks in saffron robes can be seen wandering around the streets.  Nowadays the monks are learning how to become computer literate during their study time.

The riverfront is most splendid, lined with palms and flags.  The mightiest river in Asia, the Mekong, converges right alongside this city.  Cafes, hotels and restaurants are delightful places to sit and watch City and river life go by.

Elephants used to be the way to get around, now we have a car and Mr Ben Wee

I checked the internet the night before we left and found an English speaking Cambodian driver, Mr Ben Wee,  with an air conditioned car.  We gave him a call the day we arrived and he agreed to drive us all the way to Siem Reap, in the North of the Country where the famous Angkor Wat ruins are located, and back down the other side of the Tonle Sap lake over a period of 10 days.  He agreed the same rate it would have cost us to hire a car for ourselves should that have been a possibility, which it isn’t, nor is it  recommended in Cambodia!  Mr Ben Wee, our driver, confirmed that in the past two years, the roads have been improved to make the journey pleasant.  This is not likely to last long, however, as for every $70 of road given by Aid organisations, the Government pays  $7 to the contractors for the road and pockets the rest!  So dirt roads just have a surface of tarmac spread over them, and become deeply potholed and broken again within 6 months.

Small birds, tortoises, large black hairy spiders, beetles and grubs are amongst the food sold in the markets

            Baby-sitting amongst the Pomelos

The countryside is most attractive in the dry season, which is during Jan to April.  Houses are built on stilts (the ground is flooded during the monsoons).  They are all attractively styled with red tiled roofs bordered in white with a carving at each apex, and outlined doors and windows.  The seem to sleep in hammocks under the house during the hot dry season, together with the bullocks, chickens and pigs, and have their kitchen down there too.  

Rice hay to feed the bullocks pulling the cart

         Live pigs ready for the market

Cambodians have a proverb for every walk of life, and the rampant problem of corruption is no exception.  The saying goes ‘Small people take small bribes, big people take big bribes’ and this aptly sums up the situation in Cambodia today.  Puk roluy if Khmer for ‘corruption’ and translates literally as ‘something that is rotten and should be thrown away’.

Corruption has been enslaving the people of Cambodia since the 19^th Century.  After the  death of  Pol Pot Regime in 1998,  it was the arrival of the United Nations that really sent corruption spiraling out of control.  Many of the members of the newly elected democratic government were originally Pol Pot supporters! The injection $2 billion into the country’s tiny economy created a bonanza of opportunity.  Today, the situation is so bad that the government loses $100 million annually to illegal logging alone.  The saddest part is that the majority of Cambodians are extremely honest and their struggle to survive is already hard enough without having to contend with widespread corruption.  Teachers are so poorly paid that they levy a charge for pupils to attend class, preventing poor families from sending their children to school.

There is widespread begging at all the tourist spots by children for this reason.  We are so distraught at seeing children begging, they find it is easy to earn money this way and therefore not bother to go to school even when the odd note is handed to them, or if they manage to sell their souvenirs.

Woman lighting charcoal BBQ fire

    Lotus flower and incense seller

I generally tried to always give something to the older women.  They are the pour souls who would have lost their sons during the Khmer Rouge occupation.  Without children to care for them, they have nothing . Very few people in the world realize that nearly 3 million Cambodians were massacred in the paddy fields close to their towns and villages. (compare this with the one million Jews exterminated during WW2 and how little is made of this genocide in Cambodia).  There are currently only 17 million people in this country – which is mainly flat paddy fields.   Pol Pot got to like power whilst believing in his quest.  There was so much blood spilt, that, when we visited one of the killing fields near Phnom Penn, there are still bits of rag, teeth and bones sticking out of the ground, which is washed away whenever there are heavy monsoon rains.  Fortunately the new post war generations is growing up oblivious of the hardships of their parents, who unsurprisingly don’t want to dwell on a painful past.

Boys smiling beside mass grave of           

beheaded Victims of Pol Pot Regime

Young Cambodians eager to try their English out on David  at the Koh Kher ruins

Evil exists as a disembodied force, and I could feel it darkening peoples hearts, at certain times and in certain places.  But to even suggest that, is one absolving the guilty of their crimes?  Its easier to prove the existence of evil.  But if evil is a power at large in the world, then surely good must be present too, and justice will be beyond the efforts of human courts.  Those men who were the torturers are now living alongside their fellow citizens in the fields and towns we were visiting.  I asked our driver how his family cope with that.  “We get used to the fact that they did those atrocious things in order to save their own lives and that of their families, they are the ones who have to live with their conscience, and consequences of their actions!”  Corruption needs to be eradicated in Cambodia (as it does in other countries suffering the same fate) before the country can realistically travel the road to development.  However, with low salaries and little action, the country is set for many more years of puk roluy.

Land mine victims playing traditional music  

Truckload of villagers leaving market

Land mines are still very much in evidence.  It is unwise to leave the main road even to have a pee.  We saw mine detectors at work along one stretch of the main highway from Siem Reap to the next big town of Battambang, which is the road used by coaches arriving from Thailand!  So many people have lost limbs and therefore any means of earning a living, they are mostly seen trying to sell photocopies of important books for travelers, which we took advantage of occasionally, but could not possibly give to them all.  Many are taken in by charitable foundations, and taught other skills in order for them to make a living, but most are unable to leave their villages to take advantage of those places.  Any military who have been maimed are given a small pension, but most people that are maimed used to be farmers searching in the woods for other sources of food or wood.

Ancient ANGKOR WAT temples are the heart and soul of Cambodia, a source of artistic inspiration and national pride to all Khmers as they struggle to rebuild their lives.

We arrived on a Saturday, to witness many weddings using the Monument as the backdrop for their photographic albums.

Built between the 9^th and 14^th centuries AD, they are among the foremost architectural wonders of the world.  The right to dwell in structures of brick or stone was reserved only for the gods.  The wooden and bamboo homes belonging to the villagers who constructed these massive temples have long gone.  

Angkor Wat is surrounded by a moat, 190m wide, forming a giant rectangle measuring 1.5km by 1.3km.  It makes the moats around European castles look like kid’s play.

Bas-Reliefs of two young ‘Apsara’ girls for the gods

 Notice they are wellrubbed by the tourists

    Central Sanctuary of Angkor Wat,

Surrounded by these carvings

.  .

The temples conjure up images of a golden age of abundance the leisurely temple construction.  This was constantly interrupted by times of turmoil, conquests and setbacks caused by invasions from nearby Vietnam, Malaya, Siam (Thailand) and Myanmar (Burma).

 Part of Prei Luck 700 ADin Northern Cambodia

    Armies of ants destroying the temples

Armies of ants are the one cause of the collapse of these temples. The incessant work of  armies of these insects burrowing beneath the earth supporting these stone structures, causes subsidence and the massive walls and roofs to tumble over under stress.

For centuries, the fount of royal divinity had been with the Hindu deity Shiva, and Vishnu.  But the Buddha of Compassion took over during the reign of Jayavarman VII.

Statues of Buddah cloaked in saffron robes in Angkor Wat

The Linga, worshipped as divinity itself

So many temples of the early periods have been swallowed by the jungle in the past 400 years, that they make very atmospheric photos.

They are cloaked in dappled shadow, with crumbling towers and walls locked in the slow muscular embrace of vast root systems.

The face of their god or their king conveys calm and peace at Ta Som

Ta Som entrance  reflected in the small moat surrounding it

Early morning at Preah Khan, magical entrance with birds singing

Ta Som engulfed in roots of the Ficus trees

Modern painting representing dancing girls performing for the King

We visited a rescue zoo where maimed tigers were given a new chance, having been rescued from traps laid by poachers.  One female was so happy she even managed to produce a baby just a few months ago.  Many black asian bears were born in the zoo also, it’s too frightening for them to be released back in the wild knowing that poachers will be after them for Chinese medicine once more.  Rare storks were anxious to get back in the huge netted cage again, once they were released.  They had become too used to being fed a free meal of fish by their guardians!

The 2 year old black asian bear loved the soft sweet coconut meat so much, he gulps it down squeaking as if it was mother’s milk!

Two year old elephant

50 year old elephant in Phnom Tamao

Zoological Rescue Park – sponsored amongst other charities by WILD AID

The Tonle Sap lake is the largest in Southeast Asia. It’s an incredible natural phenomenon that provides fish proteins and irrigation waters for almost half the population of Cambodia.  It has biosphere status, as it is one of the world’s richest sources of freshwater fish, as flooded forest during the monsoons makes a fertile spawning ground.  Sadly excessive deforestion, upstream dams of the Mekong river which feeds into it  and pollution by the Vietnamese boat people living alongside the lake threatens to bring destruction to the lake – a similar situation that marked the decline of the 600 year old Angkorian empire.

Freight delivery by boat is faster than by bullock and cart

This Fisherman is alongside the barge, on canal 15 leading off the Mekong River

‘Lonely Planet’ tells us that in 1997, the government officially made about US13 million from the forests, but illegal operations over the same period generated an estimated US185 million!  This is money that such a poor country can ill afford to lose, but with an endemic culture of corruption there is little hope for the forests, when the international community is unable to do much about it.  Thankfully the seeds laid by the huge trees which have been illegally logged will gradually grow new trees again over the next hundred or so years, by which time maybe illegal logging will be history!

25^th March 2006, I just picked up this report on BBC World news:

In recent years, the study says, China has emerged as the leading importer of tropical trees. The problem is that much of this wood is illegally sourced and may come from rain forests and other enviromentally sensitive areas.

The numbers are huge.

The study says exports of wood based products going from China to Europe and the US have gone up 900% in just eight years.

The findings are the result of five years of collaborative research by organsiations in the US, Indonesia and China itself.

An offshoot of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing contributed to the report

Other factors cited include a big increase in demand for wood products in China itself, and China's decision to impose a logging ban to protect its own forests.

That's led to more imports of illegal wood from elsewhere.