Cambodia

Many Cambodians we met look forward with optimism despite the challenges.

We spent about 3 weeks in Cambodia. It’s a country with a grand ancient history, grim recent history and very cautious optimism (and some pessimism) about the future. We learned a lot which gave us pause to be thankful for our lifestyle and opportunities in the US! We don’t pretend to have any broad understanding of Cambodia. In this blog we are just writing some things we learned when we were there.

A collage of photos of Cambodian people, which we feel conveys the resilience and gumption of the people, is at the end of this post. 

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.History

The people of Cambodia carry a heavy burden as they move forward.

The recent history of Cambodia is very complex. Much of the recent history is influenced by interventions from Cambodia’s neighbors, as well as the big guns of the world including Russia, China, and the USA. From about 1965 until 1999 there were terrible things going on in Cambodia. We are not going to attempt to record the details here. This web site provides a brief history of Cambodia.

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Ancient history – Center of a great empire

One of the many temples. This one is Bayon.

At one time the area that is now Siem Reap was the center of a great empire.

Temples are really the reason we came to Cambodia. Angkor Wat in particular is famous. But the entire country side is littered with them. The Khmer civilization during the the Angkor period from 800 to 1300 A.D. included lands in what is now South Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and even Myanmar. It was a very advanced civilization with a series of about 1,000 kings, each of whom built temples,

Strangler fig trees enveloping the ruins.

reservoirs and health care systems to prove their kingliness / godliness. Many of the temples are incomplete because every time there was a new king he started a new one from scratch! Angkor Wat is the most famous, but there are many other temples in various states of ruin and restoration. We particularly enjoyed seeing the ones where the giant strangler figs have roots that are growing in, over and around the stones. They sometimes cause the building or wall to fall apart, but occasionally bind it in place.

Plentiful fish from Sonle Sap Lake fueled the Khemer Empire.

The empire was powered by both plentiful rice resulting from their sophisticated irrigation systems, and plentiful fish from the huge fresh water lake. They needed plenty of rice and fish – Angkor Wat was built over 40 years, from 1012 to 1052 by a million people.

The people of Cambodia are justifiably very proud of their ancestor’s accomplishments.

A slide show of our favorite temple pictures is at the end of this post, below the collage of pictures of people.

 

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The People

Pots, Pans, and a dog in a cage on a motorbike

All the people we have met are friendly, helpful, and they smile easily as they go about daily life. There are markets, motorcycles carrying almost anything you can imagine, people growing rice, building houses, minding their families, selling things, repairing things, lots of people in the streets because the businesses are all inside/outside. People living their lives. Hopefully enjoying many of the good things in life.  A collage/slide show of the people is at the bottom of this post.

War

A sign from a Khmer Rouge Prison spelling out the rules. Number 10 says, “If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either 10 lashes or 5 shocks of electric discharge”.

From about 1960 through about 2004 Cambodia has been torn by war. This reached an apex from 1975 to 1979 when the Khmer Rouge created their own holocaust, killing about 2 million intellectuals, doctors, policemen, anyone who wore glasses, and anyone who hinted at resisting them. They moved everyone from the cities out to the country where many starved. One result of all this war is that the country has very few intellectuals, teachers, doctors or older people. Another result is millions of land mines scattered across the countryside generating a continual stream of amputees as well as land that cannot be farmed.

A related topic is the USA’s action in Cambodia. When the Vietnamese moved the Ho Chi Min trail into Cambodia, the USA carpet bombed the areas of Cambodia where they thought it ran. And then for some reason we don’t really understand, the US bombed Phnom Penh. Several Cambodians said the bombs caused incredible horror, yet they don’t seem to hold it against Americans.

 

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.Remember the domino theory?

Domino Theory. Credit: GlobalSecurity.org

A number of Cambodians said that they worry that their country is being taken over by Vietnam. We won’t go into all the reasons here, but it is interesting. Remember the domino theory which was the rational for the Vietnam war? The theory postulated that if we did not stop Communism from advancing in Vietnam it would advance to take over all of SE Asia. Based on our conversations with Cambodians, it now looks like there was something to that the domino theory.

Corruption

We had two experiences that suggested to us that involving the police in a situation costs a lot and does not help resolve anything.

Our friend Jim told us that when he had to return to the US for a month or so he lent his “moto” to a friend. When he returned, the friend refused to return it. Jim went to the police and requested their help. They asked for the equivalent of $600, which Jim paid. But then nothing happened. Eventually Jim had to re-possess the moto on his own.

The other experience we had with the police was when we were riding in a van as part of a tour. A lady driving a nice Mercedes rear ended us fairly violently. She and our driver got out, looked at the damage for less than a minute, returned to their vehicles, and drove away. There was no exchange of contact information, and certainly no asking the police for a police report. We asked our guide about this and he said it is always best to not involve the police.

We heard many stories about corrupt officials at higher levels using their positions and power to build their own wealth.

Cambodian weddings.

Wedding Tent before the guests arrive.

Wedding Guests Marching to a wedding at 7:00 AM on a Saturday

Our friend Jim told us that weddings are the biggest expense for families in Cambodia. A dowry may be $5,000 equivalent, and the wedding party costs are about the same. This is a big deal considering that the average annual income is about $1,000. Here we have seen several wedding “chapels”. Generally these are outdoor affairs where there is a tarp tent cover around a large area, and then lots of colorful fabric creating the “walls” of the wedding chapel. Peek in and you will see colorful furniture, often plastic, and people dressed in very fancy, shiny, colorful clothing. Music of course. In fact the little resort we stayed at in Battambang was near a wedding chapel and there was music going all the time. We were told that they have 3 weddings per day there.

Photos of the Cambodian People are below here. Click one to see a slide show.

Below them there is a slide show of favorite photos of the Khmer temples.

2 Monks

Girls watching a woman making waffles

Loaded moto

It’s a wonder what can be carried on a motor scooter

Taking a bull to market on a Japanese Water Buffalow

Motorcycle towing a Full Load

Driver of a Japanese Water Buffalo towing wood

Father Daughter

Cambodian pick up truck equivalent

Taking coconuts to market

Walking home from school

Woman going to the ditch for water

She purchased a drink on the way home from school.

Talk n Drive

Man in white robe

Ladder on motor scooter

3 monks by the river

Man and woman fishing

Coconut sales person

Durian for sale.

Girl with red scarf

Bags of charcoal pulled by motor cycle

Bicycle repair shop

Egg Delivery passiing Charcole Delivery

Favorite photos of temples

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People we met in Cambodia and their Stories

Expat Jim

When we were in Thailand we met an expat named Jim who lives in Cambodia. In Cambodia Jim exposed us to many things we would not have discovered on our own.

Jim’s a retired school principle who currently lives in Cambodia. He’s been working as the English language coordinator in an elementary school for 4 years or more. He came to Asia with the intent to volunteer somewhere, and almost instantly found this NGO funded school. It was a good match so he looked no further.

The library at the school where Jim volunteers

Jim took us out for a tour of the school and the village it serves. He explained to us that there are a number of problems with the public schools. Many children cannot afford school even though it is technically free. But they have to buy uniforms, supplies, and pay the teacher for extra lessons in the afternoons. The teaching day is just the morning. Not enough can be taught for the students to pass their tests, and the teachers will not pass them unless they pay the teachers for extra tutoring. It is necessary to pass to move up. When they get to the point of taking the high school exam, they have to pay the tester to pass them. They also pay to prepare for the exam. Recently the government decided the corruption in the system was mostly the kids cheating, so they proctored the exams, disallowed cell phones etc. That year the pass rate dropped from 87% to only 20%.

This translated poem is an example of English Language Skills

English is not taught generally. One person told us that it is hard to learn English, even when classes are available because English teachers usually don’t know much English; their skill level may be as low as just knowing how to pronounce the letters of the alphabet. We learned that the children are not taught in school about their countries’ recent turbulent history. Science is taught by the instructor reading text and the students memorizing it – there are no demonstrations, discussions, or hands on experiences.

Of course a big part of the education challenge is finding teachers because almost all of the educated people were killed during the Khmer Rouge era.

Bottom line: Kids are not really learning, the system is geared so they have to “pay to pass”, limited material is taught and the standards are very low. The result is a population unprepared to either power an economy or assess what is happening in their country.

Touring a local village

Some of the kids in school live in these houses, that are built by squatters over a drainage ditch.

Jim took us on a tour of the village served by the school. Parts of the village looked even poorer than places we saw in Africa. In one area we saw a slum of squatters living in temporary dwellings built over a dirty gully which had standing water in it. We saw people in various states of dress, mostly doing nothing because there is nothing they can do. Garbage was around everywhere (no place to take it to), naked babies (one woman handed Char her naked baby to hold, which she did a little reluctantly), and very cute smiling kids, who you know  would not have much future. These people in the squatters area of the village clearly did not have access to things like

Char holds a baby

dental care, medical care, mosquito nets, or electricity on a regular basis. They did have some hand water pumps which were donated. (Jim said sometimes people steal the pumps because the metal is valuable).

Many people were very small. We were told that undernourishment is a major contributor to this. Jim pointed to a girl and asked us to guess her age. We said 5. Jim said she was 10.

We passed a nice two story house and asked Jim about it. He said that the house is owned by a tuk tuk driver who speaks English, so he can give rides to tourists who will pay much more money than locals. Tourists will pay $2-3 for a ride that would cost a local 20-30 cents. Evidently English is one of the ways that people can work their way out of poverty. Imagine!

Using the Arts to Expunge the Horrors of the Past

We  actually saw this particular moment in the Phare show.  It was dramatic. She shot the arrow to burst a balloon that represented the Khmer Rouge nightmare.

With Jim, we went to a circus event called “Phare”. It’s a little like a mini Cirque du Soleil. Evidently Phare was started by a man who realized how much emotional pain was entrenched in the people who were in the refugee camps near Thailand during the war years. Many of the children had started to dance, draw, and act sort of spontaneously. So he gradually formalized the activity, and now Phare provides employment, artistic training and funding for the education and training for dancers, artists and musicians. It also offers potential career possibilities to the performers.

What a performance it was! Super high energy, with great passion and feeling! The performers did numerous things demonstrating their flexibility, strength, agility, and balance as they told the stories of their history during the brutal Khmer Rouge era..

 

Romcheik Artists

Later, in a town called Battambang, we visited a brand new art gallery called Romcheik that shows works of 4 artists, all close to the age of our son Alex. All four had experienced horrific childhoods, and been sold by their parents to work in Thailand. Then they were expelled from Thailand, returned to Cambodia and taken care of by NGOs. Eventually this remarkable French man learned about them through a chance encounter with one of the boys, and decided to sponsor them. The boys and the Frenchman built living spaces where they could paint. When we visited they were just completing a very impressive gallery to showcase their work. The art is even more impressive than the gallery. It is strong, emotional, and well executed. We tried to help them out by posting their brochure on the web and getting them listed in Trip Adviser. The brochure is here.

Lucky

We hired a Tuk Tuk driver to take us around to some of the sites. He turned out to be so much more than a Tuk Tuk driver!

Lucky was born in a village during the Pol Pot (Khmer Rouge) era. When he was born his mother had no milk because she was starving. Each person got only a cup of porridge twice a day, and the porridge was very weak – only one kg. of rice was used for every 100 liters of water (2 pounds for 25 gallons). Several of his sisters starved to death and his brother was killed because he stole some food. His father was a policeman before the Khmer Rouge, so in 1978 they took him away. They told him that they were taking him to a meeting with the king. His father knew better but he had no choice but to go with the men. Lucky thinks they took his father to the killing fields – he never saw him again.

Lucky was the only one of his 7 siblings to escape the Khmer Rouge. He was the youngest. His mother put him in a hole in the ground each day when she went to work in the fields. That is why he survived, and that is why he is called Lucky.

When it was just Lucky and his mother, she escaped with him and they both walked to the Thai border. They walked for 2 weeks and finally found a refugee camp where they were taken in. He learned English there. He said he likes to talk to tourists to help them understand what is happening in his country.

A shrine in the killing cave that contains some of the skulls of people who were killed.

One of the places we visited was one of the many killing fields. This one was actually a cave. You could look up high and see a large hole in the top of the cave which was where they knocked people unconscious with a blow to the head, and then push the bodies down into the hole. Lucky told us he had heard about one woman who actually lived. She woke up at the bottom of the cave and was just strong enough to climb out to find help.

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Bats leaving cave at night

We went around to a bat cave on the side of the mountain opposite the killing cave. The three of us sat on a wall for about an hour watching the river of bats flowing out of the cave. There must have been a million or more. As we watched Lucky talked. A 20 second video is here.

Lucky was a monk for about a year. Many people were monks because it was about the only way to get any education. He had to memorize 5 books about Buddhism so that he could recite them word for word. Every night he would study by the light of burning incense. The incense only illuminated one or two words at a time. He felt this narrow focus helped him memorize the text.

Cat in a cage

Lucky told us how to make it rain – California listen! It was known that you should never hurt a cat because if you do the cat will find a way to make your life miserable – for example they might bring sickness upon you or your family. People used this trait to make it rain. You put a cat in a cage, and then throw water at it. The cat gets very angry at you and makes it rain so you will get wet and uncomfortable too.

Lucky also told us a story about a poor man who did not have gold with which to guild a Buddha statue, so he cut pieces of his own flesh off of his body and used the flesh to cover the statue. They say that he went to heaven.

And Lucky related this story from the time of the Angkor civilization.  A king’s guard grew watermelons. One night King Jayavarman VIII stole a watermelon. The guard did not recognize the king, and killed him. The guard became the new king because clearly he was powerful enough to kill a king.

Sarin

Char and Sarin

Our Angkor Wat guide is the principle of an 800 student school, and our transportation was the schools’ Tuk-Tuk. Why would a busy principle spend his time guiding a couple of tourists? He wanted to use the fee we paid for guide service and a tuk-tuk to help fund the school.

Sarin is the principal of the school where Jim works. His father was killed by the Khmer Rouge because he was a teacher. Sarin, too, grew up in a refugee camp where he was selected for a special program because he was so poor. The program involved being fed three times per day, which was the first thing he said about it! But also he was educated in various topics including English. He decided he wanted to give back to his community. Through his guiding he met the the people who started the NGO that provided start up funding for the school and helped it grow. It started small but now there are 800 students.

During the era of the Khmer Rouge Sarin and his family fled to refugee camps near the Thai border.

En-route, the family was told that they could travel cross country to a place where they would be transported to the USA, but they decided not to go because there was a rumor that people were being fed to crocodiles. Sarin wonders what his life would be like if they had ignored that rumor.

Sarin explained that in Cambodia Sunday is not a religious day. Religious days are on the full, new, and half moons. So a religious day may fall on any day of the week. People get up early, go to temple, and then they get on with their day.

Conversations with war veterans and a visit to two museums

In the war museum there are 4 veterans who work as guides. ALL of them had their right leg blown off by a land mine. One was in the Khmer Rouge. Another fought for the Cambodia Republic. Our guide joined the Vietcong side of the conflict when his village was burned by American bombs. It seemed like they all did what they needed to survive. One story he told was how he was in a skirmish when he recognized his uncle through the site of his rifle. He dropped his gun, overcome by the thought that he might kill his uncle, but his uncle continued shooting at him. His comrades asked what was wrong and he said he had a headache. They persisted because generally he was their best marksman, so he shot over his uncle’s head. Later he told his uncle “and they both had a good laugh”.

Aki removing a landmine

Regarding landmines, which we learned about at the Landmine Museum, there were probably 6 million or more landmines and un-exploded bombs dropped in Cambodia. So many, no knows where they all are. It is estimated that there are still 1-1.5 million and at this rate it will take at least 10 more years to get rid of them all. There is a remarkable man, Aki Ra, who as a soldier personally planted many. But his mission now is to try to make his country safe again. He started an NGO to work on landmine removal. He has personally removed something like 30,000 landmines. He knows how to deal with them safely. We learned that the land mines were designed to maim a soldier, not to kill him, because if you maim a soldier then 3-4 of his buddies have to stop fighting and assist the injured man.

Other Stories and “facts” from Cambodia

 

Lingas in Kbal Spean

A Linga is a cylindrical piece of rock which is said to represent the reproductive organ of the god Raja. On the mountain there is a waterfall. The water from this waterfall forms the river that flows through Siem Reap. 1,000 Lingas have been placed in the bed of the river above the fall, so all of the water throughout the valley is considered to be holy water.

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House on stilts

Why do people here build their houses up on stilts as high as they can afford, even when they are not in an area that floods? The reason is to keep the snakes from climbing up into the houses. In the rainy season particularly, the soil everywhere is very moist and the snakes want to be in dry places.

The Hindu god Brahma is responsible for creation, which you’d think would make him popular, but he isn’t. The problem is that he supposedly mated with his daughters and he lied. He used to have 5 heads but the other Gods cut off his top head.

Carving of the stirring of the milk legend, resting amongst the rubble, Prasat Beng Mealea

A very popular Hindu story tells how the Gods churned an ocean of milk into elixir. The elixir was a substance which, if consumed, made one stay forever young. Demons were on one side, Gods on the other. Vishnu was in the center. The tug of war continued for 1,000 years until the ocean of milk turned into elixir. Toward the end, they were grinding down into the earth. Vishnu manifested himself as a turtle, and the activities carried on on the back of the turtle in order to protect the earth. When the elixir arrived, Vishnu made a wind which blew the elixir in the God’s direction. Also, there were dancing ladies above them all which distracted the demons. While they were distracted the Gods drank all of the Elixir.

The king’s palace is in Phnom Penh. During Pol Pot’s occupation of Phnom Penh he put the King under house arrest and Pol Pot sat on the thrown for a week. After a week he got a stroke. We think our guide was saying that this was heavenly intervention.

Emerald Buddha in the King’s palace.

We went into a room in the king’s palace where they keep the kingdom’s riches. One item was a golden Buddha weighing 90 Kg, bedecked with numerous jewels. Another is the emerald Buddha. There is a collection of golden statues depicting events in Buddha’s life. The entire floor is paved in silver tiles. We understood our guide to say that there are 3,000 tiles, and each weighs a kg. We wondered at the apparent lack of security in this room.

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If a reclining Buddha’s feet are even with each other, then he is dead. If they are not then he is just asleep.

Long ear lobes mean long life. Our guide said we have long ear lobes. Now we just have to keep our feet uneven.

Experiences from Cambodia

The beginning of silk thread. Cocoons are boiled in water. Workers can extract the fiber from 8 to 20 cocoons and combine them into a thread.

We took a trip to a silk farm where we saw all the stages, from worms eating mulberry leaves, to cocoons to emerging, then how they take the cocoons and process the raw and refined silk (by boiling the cocoons in water and drawing out the threads) , dye it, and then make silk thread.  Then there is all the weaving on looms. It’s very intricate in some cases. There is a way that they block off color from dying the threads so that when they weave it in it will make specific patterns in the final cloth. A weaver will use 10 shuttles, each with a different pattern of blocked off thread. It is further complicated by the use of about 8 different devices that lift and drop sets of warp threads before the shuttle is thrown across.

Riding the bamboo train.

Riding the bamboo train. When a car came in the other direction, the driver had to disassemble the train

In Battambang we went for a ride on a Bamboo Train. It seems that during the colonial period the British installed a train of some sort. It fell into disrepair, and the villagers devised a way to make small bamboo platforms on top of the old rail car wheels. 4-5 people would ride on each one. They were propelled by a guy with a bamboo pole, poling along the old rail road bed. Eventually they figured out how to power them with lawn mower engines, and sell tickets to tourists. Generally two tourists and a driver ride on each one. What’s most remarkable is that when one “train” needs to pass another, the two drivers disassemble one of the trains, carry it’s wheels off of the rails, and re-assemble it on the other side. As you ride along at about 16 mph you stare at the warped and disjointed tracks, wondering when the contrivance will crash. A 30 second video is here.

Houses when the lake is low.

Lake Tonle Sap is one of the largest lakes in Asia. In the rainy season, the Mekong River flows in, the lake fills up, and the water comes “in” sort of running up river. In the dry season the water flows out and the water drops. Tons of fish grow in this lake – their protein is one of the reasons the Angkor Wat empire was able to grow so big. The interesting thing for tourists today is the people living in villages around it. People live in houses up super high on stilts. In the dry season they walk to them and climb up stairs to get to their house. In the wet season

A house the floating village

they boat to them and have a lot fewer stairs to climb if any. So their lives are dominated by the ups and downs of the water. Some people live in houses that the people move up and down depending on the water level. Sometimes they just abandon a house for the rainy season and move to another house. If you continue into the lake, you get to floating villages. These are mostly houseboats, not quite so fancy as in Sausalito, but houseboats none the less. We were told many Vietnamese live on them and fish. When the lake level goes up, the entire village of houseboats raise their anchors and move in a flotilla close to land, or even in among the flooded trees. When we visited they were far out in the lake as it is not really terribly deep. The day was very picturesque.

More photos of Tonle Sap are in a slideshow below.

 

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