Realise Cambodia.
Trip Start
Jan 02, 2007
1
24
31
Trip End
Ongoing
Battambong, Cambodia
Sunday, April 29, 2007
My introduction seems a bit negative, but I think its more a frustrated response to my memory lapsing over what I remember to be an amazing time, writing this allows these memories to find some fluidity but its amazing how fast things are going now. Despite having over a month left its definetly beginning to feel like were nearing the end, I remember our first day in Delhi like it was five years ago, like I was sixteen or something, confused and bewildered. Cambodia has been the perfect way to round the latter stages of the trip off, were so much more relaxed than India and have only just began to acknowledge how fortunate weve been to have so much time off to see all the things we have. As a result, my mind also is so much more relaxed, which shocks me, I thought at this stage Id been drowning myself in anxiety to the fact I have to concentrate on some angle of employment when I get back. But travelling through India and now Cambodia has given me perspective on what things actually matter and deserve attention, worrying about excelling within some half-hearted career path definetly does not. I think Im saying this in light of what Ive experienced and learnt about Cambodia more than anywhere else, Ive never felt so emotionally involved with a country's history, the suffering people have endured here is indescribable and no less apparent today. This country's infrastructure has been set back to before the war began and can be seen through the shattered lives of all the families that have splintered out of the bloodshed.
Siem Reap was a beautiful introduction to Cambodia's ancient past but I think Battambong really got us thinking.
We arrived in Battambong destroyed by the perilous boat trip down the river, scenic as it was we were happy to be transported to a place recommended by the guide book, a comfy room, cheap and central. We passed out on the bed, fan on full, blasting out air, attempting to breath some life into the room, that was being ingested by the peak temperatures of Cambodias most sweltering month.
We woke up late that evening about eight and tucked into some food at a local Khmer restaurant, tried a few local dishes, Lok Lak and Amok, which we were disgusted by in Siem Reap but given another chance, it was beautiful and tasted completely different to the first time. This place coupled as a cooking school and for eight dollars each we both headed there the next day to learn a few tricks before a guided trip into the countryside. We made three meals each, Lok Lak, Fish Amok, Tom Yam soup and were taken to buy all the ingredients from the local market beforehand, as local as they get this rivalled India for smell, one moment incredible, the next foul, from herbs to fish heads, incence to chicken guts. Nat was struggling a bit, I felt queezy, fishy guts everywhere, live fish even spluttered out of there shallow tanks, squirming across the market floor to escape, only to be lobbed right back in, descaled alive, deboned nearly alive and cleavered, dead.
The cooking was loads of fun, I was all over the place which upset me and humoured the chef who frowned upon my feeble use of the huge cleaver we were given to cut garlic, lemongrass, galangal and other brightly picked veg we sliced into the pan. After this we went with the two guesthouse moto drivers out in the countryside to explore local villages and get a bamboo train, a makeshift pulley, made from bamboo and wheels that hijacks the state railway to ship locals from place to place. It sounds dangerous, it is a little bit because these are used lines, but were no talking the Waterloo, just a basic, old, single colonial railway with a kilometer of sight to any oncoming trains ahead. It was fun, bumpy but fun and the whole day had been one of the best, the countryside was beautiful, so to its inhabitants and it was all enhance on the back of a motorbike with a 360 degreee view of the whole thing.
Next day we went out in the morning with the same guys on a day trip, starting out up a dusty highway with the Sun, bigger than Ive ever seen it rising up behind us, we stopped at the foot of a hill and were faced with a hundred ancient steps up towards one of the old Angkorian temples of the area. After clambering up in the mid thirties heat that melted through a haze of leafy shadows, we finally reached the top, drenched and exhausted. A few local kids guided us round the few temples and desecrated idols that lay bare the scars of the Khmer rouge infiltration. The view went on for miles, plains to mountains to towns to villages and back again, Cambodia in full view, shrouded by perfect morning light, a rare thing in what has been a consistently overcast week or so.
After this, Seth, one of the drivers, a design undergraduate and perfect speaker of English guided us around the Killing caves of Battambong province, a few hollow skulls cracked, bludgeoned or pierced by bullet holes lay heaped in a glass box as memorial to the victims, but still didn't communicate the sheer numbers that perished here. To get their you descend down some tattered steps lined by old flags that flaunt dull colours in the wind. At the bottom is the cavernous hole where thousands of people, many buddhist monks, were struck with hammers and flung to the bottom to starve or die of injury.
Throughout the day Seth talked to me and Nat about what his family went through during the height of the regime and the postwar famines. He's 23 and lost a sister from starvation, his family resided in a dug out for a large period of his childhood but is lucky to have a brother who now works in a bank that can support his family well he works to go to Uni. The case is that for most young people, education is substituted by the need to provide for the family. Despite Seth having a brother who can fully support his family- although his wage is just 300 dollars a month -and having an education it will be difficult to find much employment in Cambodia. He was a really bright, sound guy and knew exactly what he wanted to do and what was needed but had no way of aquiring funding. It was weird to meet someone around our age, with similar aspirations and ambition, here, now, in 2007, to be completely effected and determined by the devastating impact of a civil war, with loss to his family and opportunities.
The next day me and Nat visited an orphanage that housed about sixty kids, most were enslaved within the sex industry, more young boys than girls, others had families that couldnt afford their expense or had no option but to despose of them. It was another frank reminder of a country that is only just starting to recover, some of their stories were horrific, some had left the orphanage to foster families only to be stolen back and put to sex, boys and girls as young as 5 or 6, in other local orphanages, kids had been stolen directly by paedophiles who came bearing gifts and money. We bought some schoolbook, balls and things beforehand and chatted to the kids directly but it was even more heartwarming to see a place like this operational with concientious, intelligent staff and good facilities.
That night we had drinks and food with Seth in a local Cambodian place where he ordered us an array of pretty disgusting food, chicken innards, meaning everything else that we at home didnt eat, lungs, intestine, heart etc. frogs legs fried with pak choi in spicy sauce and finally but probably the most edible thing, boiled eel soup. It was a culinary experience, Nat hardly touched the chicken which meant out of politeness to Seth, the waitress and Cambodian culture I devoured what I could. The thing is, it wasn't terrible, but completely marred by the images that poisoned my imagination, my mind leaped with every hard chew, I invisoned what it looked like as i was ripping through heart, cringed at bursting flesh and worst of all I remembered the local market days before, the flies, the smell, the carcusses!
The frogs were mediocre to bad, full of bones that you are supposed to digest aswell, the eel, nice to try, not to continue, especially after the prior courses that I think made my bowl feel very depressed and unwilling to partake in any other weird eating experiences. Dining in a local haunt, surrounded by Cambodians beneath a magical electrical storm was enough but it was most fulfilling learning even more about what its like for someone like Seth, who has ploughed out a life from a country of setbacks.
That was Battambong. The local guys we met gave it depth, the town itself is absolutely beautiful, but was made to feel more like home than a destination and on account of what Seth shared with us and our experience at the orphanage, it further enhanced our perspective on life from the other end of the poverty line.
