photos of Phnom Penh

photos taken from our tuk tuk journey through the outskirts of Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh 08.03.10 - 10.03.10

Although Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia, it's actually quite a small city. This probably comes from the impact of the mass genocide that was inflicted on the country's population by Pol Pot's regime in the late 70s. The city still has a few remnants of old French colonial buildings from the 1940s that have been left to rack and ruin. They were no doubt occupied by aristocrats before the Khmer Rouoges took over the city but were deserted as the armies bombarded the civilians and the destruction of a country and it's population began. The central area sits on the banks of the Tonle Sap River which flows alongside the giant Mekong and the Sisowath Quay is currently being paved and cleaned up as it's a focal point for the city, looking back on the Grand Palace and National Museum. We visit the museum in the 36 degree heat and get to see some of the more accomplished statues that were missing on our tour of the ancient city of Angkor. A lot of the heads of the Hindu gods which were gone at Angkor appear here on pedestals, some most probably looted at some point or other. It was exciting to see an example of the gold and gem 'jewellery' which was embedded into the stone carvings at Angkor. Once upon a time every statue and stone portrait in the place was adorned with a gold headress, earrings and necklaces. It must've been fabulous!

more photos of Vietnamese floating village- Kompong Chhnang

Kompong Chhnang 06.03.10 - 07.03.10

Kompong Chhnang, not to be confused with Kompong Cham, Kampong Thom or Kampot(!), is a small town on the southern banks of the Tonle Sap and we stop there on our bus route to Phnom Penh via Battambang. When we arrive in the town we are greeted by some moto drivers who offer to take us to a guesthouse. We think it'll be a bit of a squash on the bikes with our big bags but they manage to fit one on each in front of their seats and we hop on the back. It's the first time I've been on a scooter in ages and I'm a bit apprehensive of falling off. But, since there's no alternative transport option, we have to take them up on their offer. It turns out to be a very fortuitous decision however because, after dropping us off at a decent hotel they offer to pick us up the following morning to take us on a tour of the countryside, which is the reason why we've come here. We hastily accept, knowing it's our best option, there aren't any tourist facilities here in Kompong Chhnang, and arrange for them to pick us up at seven. On first impressions the town is poor and it's made unpleasant by the litter covering every pavement and gutter. People live amongst this mess of plastic bags and general waste. They eat just off the street in their shophouses and their kids, often barefoot, play in the surrounding tip. It's shocking but, looking closer, you realise that people do look after themselves and work very hard to get by. It's very sweet how the babies and children seem to love waving and saying hello to us. They call to us from across the street until we turn around and wave back. And they're all so cute. The next day we're picked up by Sari (my driver) and Chenun (Greg's) and taken to the outskirts of town where the rice paddies begin and, sure enough, people have already arrived to begin a day's work on the fields.

lotus' thriving in the rice paddies

Then we're whisked off to the port in the town where a multitude of wooden boats are weaving their way up and down the river, some overcrowded with passengers perched on every available surface. It's a busy place and we're offered a paddle through the Vietnamese floating village which sits just off the quay by one of the resident girls in a traditional straw hat. We wade through the rubbish piled up on the shoreline and gingerly sit ourselves down on her wooden boat, ready for her to gently paddle us around her village for anhour or so. It's a fascinating watery warren of 'streets' with floating wooden houses and families going about their normal morning business- eating, swinging their babies in hammocks, watching tv, preparing the fish freshly caught to be dried, doing laundry and other chores.

All with the only method of transport to get around being the little wooden rowboats moored up outside their porches. Some houses had more mod cons than others and some were wooden as opposed to palm leaves. Electricity cables dangled off precarious bamboo canes leading from the shoreline. It was a veritable community with families living close to one another and calling out to each other as they passed by on their rowboats. The children attended a floating school which we noticed had a catholic cross on the side. The children and babies again were very excited to see us and included a new sign in their greeting- a blown kiss in our direction! They would run round the side of their house verandah and try to get us to take pictures of them by striking poses.

We had to accept of course. The adults went about their business but some did smile at us, obviously realising that their interesting way of life was what intrigued us to come and visit them. We felt extra privilieged to be able to be so up close and personal because we spied tourist boats which skimmed past the outskirts of the village, not able to come up the narrow waterways. They were probably on cruises heading up towards Siem Reap. We paid our oarslady a nominal fee of $7USD and jumped back on land. Our moto boys took us next to the outlying villages where many families produce pots made from local clay and supply the entire country with them, to be used as stoves, water containers and general storage. We got to see a young girl handmoulding the clay in the first stage of the process and have a look at the firing kilns built in their gardens. It was a very rural existence with pigs in a pen, chickens clucking around and the majority of work done under the stilted house itself. This area is shaded and we've found it's used for most activities because of it's convenience. Some of the locals thought Greg very handsome with his blond hair and cowboy style hat and they had our drivers translate this. People are 99 times out of 100 very courteous and want to smile at you and make you feel welcome. We've seldom experienced any hostility at all. And given that we obviously represent the west with our expensive cameras and obviously our light skins, it's testament to the warmth of the Cambodian people that they treat us so well when they could so easily dismiss us as more farang come to gawk at them and their country. Our moto drivers, Saria and Chenun, are amazed that we're so old and don't have children yet. They're both younger than us and have two children each, their wives at home in the villages caring for them. My driver keeps apologising for his english, saying he's only learning but, all I feel is embarrassed I don't know more Khmer. We've had a lovely time in Kompong Chhnang and it was made all the more enjoyable because of our moto drivers who sorted out onward bus tickets to Phnom Penh for us and organised one of their friends, a tuk tuk driver in the city, to pick us up from the station.

photos from a Cambodian rural life

Life after a Cambodian Landmine

This is an excerpt from a leaflet given to me by a street vendor, Tok Vanna, in Siem Reap when I bought a guide book from him. 'Tok Vanna is a 41 year old Cambodian with a wife, two children and a job as a street seller- but like thousands of other Cambodians, he has been badly disabled by one of the many landmines littering the country. He told the BBC's Kate McGeown his story. It happened in 1998. I was a government soldier in command of three or four men near Bauon Village, in the western province of Battambang. It was a mad time. There were three separate resistance groups- the Khmer Rouge, supporters of King Sihanouk and those following (former premier) Son Sann. I didn't actually want to be a soldier. In fact only about half of us wanted to do the job- many people were forced to fight against their will. On the morning of the accident, I'd been training new recruits on jungle warfare techniques and survival skills. I was taking a break from training when it happened. I went to get some food, but there was thick foliage all around us, and I had to clear a path to get through. I bent over to pick something up in the way- how was I to know it would go off? I don't remember much else after that. When I woke up, I looked down and saw that both my hands had gone. I wanted to kill myself- take away my own life. There was no future for me. What could I do? How could I get a job, get married, support my family? How could I even eat? There was a grenade in a bag attached to my waist. It was there from the training exercise earlier. I arched my body round and tried to reach it. I wanted to pull out the pin, but my friend saw me just in time and took the grenade away. I was taken to a government hospital in Phnom Penh, where the authorities paid for my treatment because I was a soldier. I didn't have enough to eat though, and my family had to send me food parcels. Gradually, after the pain subsided, I stopped wanting to kill myself and dared to think about having a future. I was in that hospital for nine months. When I eventually left I was too embarassed to go back to my family and let them feed me and pay for me. So I stayed in Phnom Penh and became a beggar for over a year. I was very unhappy during that time. My mother eventually came to the city to find me and she took me home and looked after me. But I had to go back to Phnom Penh for more treatment on my arms, and I used up all my money on hospital bills and ended up back on the streets. This time an aid worker found me and brought me to Siem Reap. I was given a job working with Rehab Craft Cambodia (run by and for Cambodians with disabilities), selling local crafts and gifts to tourists visiting the temples at Angkor. Life was beginning to get better- I got married and now have two children. But I really wanted my own business, so in 2000 I gave up my job with the charity to set up my own stall selling books on the streets of Siem Reap. I'm very happy now I have this job. Life is worth living again. But there are many others who are still suffering as a result of the landmines, both here in Siem Reap and throughout Cambodia.'

We learned that there are still approximately three million landmines scattered across the Cambodian countryside. When they were laid there was no map made to show their whereabouts so they could be anywhere from the side of the road to someone's back garden or farmland. This has resulted in countless accidents with the local people being critically injured, having limbs blown off or, worst case, killed. We visit a Landmine Museum set up by Aki Ra, a former Khmer Rouge soldier who now works tirelessly to deactivate the mines and clear the land so that it's safe for people to use. He knows how to disarm the devices by gently clearing the land around it and performing a controlled explosion. He's notified of potential dangerous areas by locals who have suspicions or, have unfortunately had a run in with one. On display at the museum are a multitude of different kinds of devices he's uncovered and disarmed, including, worryingly some huge rockets, five feet long, which have most likely been dropped by the Americans and failed to go off. Some of the landmines are very small, the size of a can of coke, and some have target areas that can reach up to 250m with a 25m radius proving fatal to the victim. In the museum there's information on the Ottawa Agreement which requires countries, when they sign up, to cease all use and manufacture of landmines. Horrifyingly the US, China and Russia are among a few who haven't signed up. The US insist that their offensive strategies in Korea require the continued use of landmines. We come to the conclusion they must be a very effective way of preventing the enemy from sneaking up on you. Aki Ra has been through a lot, soldiering for both sides and himself laying a lot of the landmines he now attempts to clear. He doesn't want to dwell anymore on the horrors of the recent past and instead wants to look to the future of a safer, more prosperous Cambodia. This is a characteristic common to the current population who must've witnessed much tragedy and loss. The country is up and coming now, and although it's still very dangerous to stray off the road in case of landmines, there's a growing wealth surrounding tourism and the majority of people seem to be getting back on their feet. There's still a large deficit in the numbers of children attending school, it's not compulsory, and we see a lot of young ones involved in street selling to tourists mainly. And the social care system is non existent so people with disabilities have no help. There's a lot of evidence of humanitarian projects funded from outside the country, including clean water pumps installed in villagers houses and orphanages being set up and paid for mostly by generous benefactors. It's a completely different country to the one we've just come from- Thailand, it's bigger and better neighbour, as the Thais like to think. Cambodia, as a nation, has been historically bullied for centuries, by the Siamese on one side and the Vietnamese on the other. They fight each other for control of Cambodia's lands and the native people suffered endlessly as the armies of the two countries raped and pillaged their way through the kingdom. It was only really when the Cambodian royalty called on the French empire, who'd previously shown interest in the country, to protect them from being overthrown and losing their lands, that they managed to retain their sovereignty and hold on to the country. However, the fact that the French heavily taxed the population and introduced harsh regimes of punishment for criminals and other human rights abuses cannot be forgotten.

more photos from Angkor