Phnom Penh, Cambodia

The riverfront area of Phnom Penh

The city of Phnom Penh is situated where the Tonle Sap River runs into the Mekong River.  The Tonle Sap River runs out of the Tonle Sap Lake, which is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia.  It provides fish and irrigation water for half the population in Cambodia.  During the rainy season, it is home to a very strange phenomenon - as the water level of the Mekong River rises, it backs up the Tonle Sap River, causing it to flow backwards, back into Tonle Sap Lake!  During this period the lake surface increases from 1,000-1,200 square miles to 3,800-6,200 square miles, and its average depth increases from 6 feet to more than 33 feet.  An unbelievable 20% of the Mekong’s wet season flow is absorbed by the Tonle Sap Lake!  After the rainy season is over, the water level of the Mekong falls and the lake drains back into the Mekong.  This process creates a unique habitat for birds, snakes, turtles, and fish.  The area was declared a Unesco Biosphere Reserve in 2001, but that may not save it from the twin threats of upstream dams and rampant deforestation. 

Cyclos!

We stayed close to the Tonle Sap River area of Phnom Penh and enjoyed sitting on the riverfront, watching it slowly flow by.  The riverfront is a vibrant area, with lots of restaurants, bars, and hotels.  There are organized aerobics in the larger areas, complete with a loud sound system so everyone can hear.  It looked like fun, especially the younger folks who were doing boy-band-type synchronized dancing.  Large groups would gather to watch them.  We ended up staying on “Bar Street,” which is the street with all the bars on it, go figure.  J  We had a balcony and enjoyed people-watching on our street.  The riverfront area was ripe with the usual suspects, child sellers and beggars of all sorts.  This was the first time I’d seen a cyclo, which is a guy on a bicycle, with a seat in front who peddles people around town.  I loved watching them pedal by, as they had a special rhythm all their own.  We took our first cyclo ride in Phnom Penh, and I loved it!  It’s a slow, easy way to travel.  We also took our first moto ride – a guy with a scooter will take you where you need to go, you share the seat with him.  Daron and I both fit on the seat behind the guy, no problem.  We’ve seen scooters carrying way more people than you could ever imagine, many times whole families.  Women ride on the back side-saddle, sometimes even while holding babies.  One of our favorite things to do here was to watch the traffic.  There are way too many vehicles, but somehow it all flows and works out.  It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.  No stoplights or stop signs and yet everyone is able to get where they need to go.   

Daron at the Royal Palace

While in Phnom Penh we didn’t just zone out on the traffic; we happened to fit in a few sights too.  We visited the Royal Palace, which was impressive, as well as a couple of markets and a mall with a roller rink on the top.  We also fit in a trip to S-21, or Tuol Sleng Prison, which was used during the dark days of the Khmer Rouge.   Of its 17,000 residents between 1975 and 1978, only seven survived.  Anyone who has seen the movie “The Killing Fields” will have a taste of what went on during that time.  Since I’ve been in Cambodia, I’ve read a lot about that era (wondering how this could have happened in fairly modern times), and it seems that no one person or event allowed Pol Pot and his regime to come to power; it was a complex combination of happenings that gave him an opportunity to take over. Pol Pot was actually educated in Paris, where he developed his Marxist views, which developed into extreme Maoism.  The Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975 (two weeks before Saigon fell), and immediately ordered all of its residents to evacuate the city under the pretense that the U.S. was going to bomb it.  They told everyone they could come back in three days, which was a lie.  Many evacuees (sick and elderly) died during those three days.  Basically everyone was marched out into camps in the countryside where they had to work like slaves for 12-16 hours a day.  Pol Pot wanted to restructure Cambodia into a peasant-dominated agrarian cooperative.  1975 was Year Zero.  The first to be executed were members of the old government, then anyone who was educated or had a professional job.  Monks were next.  The rice that everyone worked so hard to grow and harvest was being sold to China for munitions, rather than being used to feed the populace.  Many people starved to death or died of disease if they weren’t executed.  Families were split up, with many children being brainwashed and turned into child soldiers for the Khmer Rouge.  The stories were terrible; not one family was unaffected by what went on in the country at that time. 

A school becomes S-21 Prison

Pol Pot wanted to get the Mekong Delta area back, as it used to belong to Cambodia at one time, so he invaded Vietnam along the southern border.  In 1979 Vietnam launched a full scale offensive and defeated the Pol Pot regime in two weeks.  Phew!  I wish I could say the trouble ended there.  A new government was set up, but the Khmer Rouge ran to the jungle where they caused problems (civil war, attacks on tourists and civilians) up until 1998, when they were finally defeated.  Pol Pot died that year too, officially from a heart attack, although some think he was poisoned.   While we were in Cambodia, the trials of some of the major players during the dark days of 1975-79 were just beginning.  I’m not sure why it took so long to bring them to justice. 
  

Not your regular transport vehicle!

It’s amazing to think that any Cambodian my age (or even a bit younger, since I would have been 7 when Pol Pot came to power), lived through that terrible time.  Such a tragedy could not have happened to a nicer people – the Cambodians are so quick to smile and are such sweet people.  It’s heartbreaking to imagine what they went through.  It was definitely a giant step backwards for their country – but from what we’ve seen they have persevered and are bouncing back, better than ever!