Cambodia

As is the trend, this update is quite overdue. But, c’est la vie. The past few weeks in Cambodia have been quite interesting. Crossing from Laos and settling into the town of Kratie, on the shore of the Mekong, for a week gave a few chances to get out and see things thanks to a motorbike rental. Heading north, me and two others made our way through villages of small thatch huts, stopping to briefly see the rare irrawady dolphins and then, at a temple, spent about an hour chatting with local children who had a few words of English to share. I bought a coconut treat from one of the girls, and we all had fun trying to converse and share information and laughter. Time in Kratie also included heading over to a small island in the mekong where I rode a bicycle around the island, seeing many locals and getting to share a couple sentences with a few of them. Some good photos were had and I really enjoyed mingling with locals. Sitting at the ‘Red Sun Falling’ restaurant and watching amazing sunsets filled some time, and then off to Phnom Penh. Funny enough, as Marius and I arrived and walked into a hostel, we ran into Ed and Fritz who I had spent a few weeks with in the north of Laos. They were now accompanied by a wonderful Swedish couple, Christoffer and Ida, and the six of us shared time in Phnom Penh and still continue to do so, at least until we part ways in a couple of days.

Phnom Penh was okay, a big asian city, but the time there was most notable for our trip to S-21, the prison/torture centre used by the Khmer Rouge during the mid to late 1970s, followed by heading out to the ‘Killing Fields’ where many of the executions of people took place. The Khmer Rouge period is too complex to go into much detail, but in sum it was a radical socialist government determined to turn Cambodia into a socialist agraian society and in the process of doing so ended up killing, through famine, executions, etc., a quarter of the population of Cambodia. To say they were brutal is an understatement. The Killing Fields is but one of the sites in which this happened, and although they now have a museum there the site is still very connected to its past... while walking along a dirt path there my friend Marius found some teeth.... they haven’t dug up all the bodies, and when it rains, or the roots of trees continue to grow, etc., bodies and body parts come up from the soil. Pieces of clothes are everywhere as they make their way to the surface. Among the physical elements still remaining is a tree where the Khmer Rouge would swing babies (holding them by the feet) against the tree and then throw them into a pit. A dark period in their history, but one that has a legacy in which the Khmer (Cambodian) peoples really seem to enjoy everyday life, laughing and playing.

Now I sit at Koh Ru, a beach shack bar and bungalow on an island (Koh Russei) an hour off the Cambodian coast (Shinokville), also known as ‘Bamboo Island’. The island is pretty much deserted. There is an open-air bar/restaurant, constructed in the shape of a circle with a large conical straw roof, and along the beach there are 10 bungalows and one straw-walled ‘dorm’ with a tatch-roofed area to hangout in hammocks, along the most picturesque of sandy beaches. Three dogs, one cat, and a bunch of chickens and goats (including a massive beast named Rambo who is unlike any goat i’ve ever seen) complete the picture. There’s a small military outpost on the island, too. Here at Koh Ru the kitchen staff are local Khmers, and the bar/bookings/misc is taken care of by a staff of six or so westerners (primarily Aussies and Brits at this time) who have stayed on to work for a while. Each day a boat leaves with departing people in the morning and returns in the afternoon with new people and daily supplies for the bar. There’s no power other than a generator that gets turned on at 6pm until midnight or so, so the day consists of sitting around in hammocks reading books, swimming, strumming guitars, etc. Needless to say, then, that it is a very peaceful place, although in the evenings there is plenty of drinking and loud music. Oh, and at night you can swim with the phosphorescence, your every movement in the water accompanied by the lights of the little plankton or whatever they are... it’s like sparks shooting off from your body, very cool. The staff here are quite nice and over the past few days i’ve gotten to spend some good time with them, sitting at the bar/counter working on my photos (and getting to recharge the computer batteries at night when the power comes on). This is paradise while it lasts... the Cambodian government has, starting this december, leased out the island to a big French company for 99 years to build a resort, so the wood and straw buildings will be flattened and all of this will come to an end.

Okay, now i’m continuing this blog update while on the bus, having left the island for the mainland (Shinokville) and heading up to Phnom Penh in order to pick up my passport (currently at the Thai embassy to take advantage of their free visa program before it runs out in two weeks), and then to head to the Thai border in order to get a new visa and return to the island, although I might head with my friends for a week in Bangkok first.

And, that’s it for now.

Cheers, Ryan.