Then en-route, we had a tyre blow-out which went with a huge bang but one of the locals on board was soon clambering under the bus, jacking it up (with people still on board!) and then changing the wheel at the roadside. The tyre that blew out had a huge hole ripped out of it so I guess we were quite lucky.
Six hours later, I arrived at the guest house to be told that they’d forgotten to book me in(!) so I stayed in another one just across the road which on the whole turned out OK. Funny really, as frustrating as things can be out here, you just become accustomed to expect the unexpected and you just smile and deal with it. You should never kick up a fuss out here (a cultural no-no) and besides, things usually work out. Sadly though, some do still forget to leave their western ways at home.
Anyway, think of a city - terrorist attacks, muggings, knife-crime.. I’d heard stuff about Phnom Penh being lawless but actually these things only come to mind when I think of London. As I wandered the streets of Phnom Penh I felt less threatened than in London. Actually, there is a real friendliness from the locals as you greet them in their language as you wander the wide tree-lined boulevards admiring the French colonial architecture.
Phnom Penh was smaller than I’d anticipated and I’d say that you can walk most of it in a day. The waterfront is particularly nice as you take in the refreshing breeze from the river which you can feel as you approach it from the city. The first notable landmark I came across was Diamond Bridge (below), where over 350 people lost their lives in a stampede during a Buddhist water festival in November last year. It was eerie standing on the same spot where so many had perished but it was an opportunity to pause for thought and pray for those who were lost and for those still in hospital.
I continued on my way along the waterfront and chose to sit down at Sisowath Quay, facing the water for a while and to take the opportunity to pray quietly. As I sat, I was approached by a young woman, unkempt and speaking very broken English. She sat down beside me and for the first time on the trip, I was physically offered drugs; she took out a plastic packet and discreetly showed it to me. I guess I should’ve known that this was going to happen at some point and so after my obvious declination, we then had a very interesting conversation albeit in my very broken Khmer and her smattering of English.
I just felt such pity for her; her face was drawn and she seemed to have an underlying unhappiness. I told her that she didn’t need to do what she was doing and that Jesus loved her and that He had a better plan for her life. But at this point (and for my own safety) I wasn’t hanging around. It was wise to move on so I stopped briefly to chat with a security guard and then made my way back into town, praying for the girl as I went.
However, my main purpose for visiting Phnom Penh was to understand more about how the people suffered under the Khmer Rouge’s regime of extreme communism. During this time in the seventies, the people of Phnom Penh and other large towns and cities were evacuated to the countryside to carry out forced labour. The educated of society were imprisoned and executed; you didn’t have to be particularly well-educated but if you, for example, were a local government officer or even merely wore spectacles then you were on the Khmer Rouge’s hit list.
Many people were held in the S21 prison in Phnom Penh (pictured above, which was ironically a high school formerly) where they were tortured. It is now a museum but much of it is exactly as it was left. As you walk into each cell, all they contain are a single metal bed and the implements of torture that are still there after all these years. There are photos on some of the walls showing some of the victims just after they had been tortured in the very room in which you are standing. They were beaten, water-boarded and electrocuted for ‘confessions’ of crimes against the state.
Many died there but many were blindfolded and then transported by truck the 15km to the Killing Fields of Cheung Ek where they were mercilessly beaten to death and buried in shallow graves. No-one was exempt; men, women and children were all killed. Excavation in recent years has enabled some of the people to be given more dignified burials but many of the human remains are now on display inside tiered glass cabinets (pictured above)in a stupa built as a memorial to all who lost their lives. As the years and subsequent monsoon rains pass, the site gives up more and more of its grisly past as more remains and pieces of clothing are brought to the surface.
As I walked the grounds, I remembered that a friend had previously visited the site and had mentioned the prominence of Ezekiel 37 5:6: 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’” Indeed, there are many sites such as this all over Cambodia, some still being discovered today. Millions died due to Pol Pot's extreme idealism - they innocently followed their dictator's order to be lead into the countryside to become 'New People' but instead were to be slaughtered or to die of malnutrition, disease and from utter despair. Sometimes lessons from history are never learned from but hopefully this will be something never to be repeated.
So in conclusion, I valued my time in Phnom Penh; I loved walking around in the heat of the day taking in the atmosphere, witnessing the grandeur of the Royal Palace, the spiritual significance of Wat Phnom and the crazy markets where you can buy pretty much anything.
It was hard to imagine the streets being so empty after the initial evacuation by the Khmer rouge 30-odd years ago but now, as this city aims to retain something of its glorious past in the days prior to its troubles, it is now building upwards to accommodate those entrusted with the economic growth of its future.
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