OK, where to begin. Honestly so much has happened already that I'm in a bit of a fog. We flew from Cleveland to Dallas. From Dallas to Seoul South Korea and from Seoul to Phnom Penh Cambodia. All told the trip took about 28 hours. Since we left at 0230AM I couldn't sleep before we left so I had been awake for about 40 hours or so when we got here with the exception of a couple brief cat naps on the plane. Needless to Say Diane and I were both very tired.
Phnom Penh is quite a place. It's a huge bustling city of millions of people. It appears that nearly all business occurs on the street corner as the streets are lined with every kind of tiny shop and restaurant you can imagine. There is a heaviness here that is palpable. Its not just the heat and humidity. Believe me...ITS HOT! But I'm not talking about that kind of heaviness. Life here appears so hard. Few people have cars. Most ride motor bikes, often you will see people jammed onto trucks with every inch of space occupied, including the roof!
The traffic, well the only thing I can say about the traffic is that is crazy! There are no traffic lights to speak of and no discernible traffic laws. People go in every direction. Some cars have drivers on the left and some on the right. People think nothing of driving the wrong way down a divided road. Most streets have no lines but it wouldn't matter if they did. Often what should be two lanes of traffic becomes 4 and when that clogs up they simply pull up onto the sidewalk and keep on truckin'!
The poverty is pervasive. People's every waking hour is spent in a struggle for survival. Many beggars, some horribly disfigured, burned, missing limbs. Children roaming the streets, not in school with boxes of post cards trying to earn a dollar or two. What struck me today was the seeming pointlessness of their existance. These people go litterally from morning till late into the night on an endless quest for survival. People line the streets many doing meaningless menial tasks. For example you might see someone piling up small sticks into a pile. Seems normal enough, maybe like something you would do at home. Problem is the streets are litterally filled with trash. If there's a refuse removal system it appears totally inadequate as in some spots the trash on the streets is ankle deep. So piling up sticks becomes a somewhat silly task since there's no where for those sticks to go. Many people just sit on the ground or behind their booth staring off into space. No where to go, no help, no hope. It's very sad. In spite of all this I found the people to be very friendly. We accidentally walked in on a funeral while exploring (it was taking place outside too) I was taking pictures and a little woman walked up and poked me. She wanted me to take her picture, which I happily did. When I showed it to her she seemed so proud and happy.
We're eating good. Here's a couple pictures of breakfast. I had white noodle soup with beef
and Diane had Beef and rice. Strange breakfast huh?
After this we stopped at a place called the Russian market. Odd name since there was nothing Russian about it. It was indoors, very cramped and VERY hot. Still it was fun to walk around and see the vendors. Even here the children were always present trying to sell their small goods.
After this we went to Tuol Sleng. I'll write a separate post about this experience later as it's too much to go into now. Tuol sleng was a prison where the Khmer Rouge housed and tortured its political detainees. During the Khmer reign of terror or 20,000 people were housed at the prison. 7 survived. The pictures and descriptions of their "life" in the prison were excruciating to read and hear about. Interestingly 1 of those seven survivors happened to be there at the prison while we were there and we were able to take a picture
with him.
I wish that had been the end of this excursion unfortunately it wasn't After departing from Tuol Sleng we went to the killing Fields. The name is accurate. These were literally fields where they took the people and killed them and buried them. Most of the bodies were later exhumed from the mass graves by the government after the Khmer Rouge was defeated. but they never found them all and over the years as the rain erodes the soil the victims continue to literally wash up. The rag that you see in this picture is actually clothing attached to a body and it is half buried in the soil. This is the path we were walking on. Very grizzly.
During the course of the Khmer Rouge's reign several million people were murdered or starved to death. As I said, more later.
Our bus driver was incognito tonight so we had our first Tuk Tuk experience. Remember the traffic...yea, a tuk tuk is basically a flatbed with two seats pulled by a motorcycle. Very fun, but you take your life in your hands.
Its late, we're tired. Tomorrow morning we have a six hour drive to Battambang and then we'll finally go see the kids!
View from the top of Doi Suthep.
Ahhhh, yeah...
Balloon races at the state run orphan home. The home is in the background.
