Only a fraction of detonated landmines are displayed at the Landmines Museum

The people are friendly and smiling, but Cambodia is still very much on its road to recovery from a turbulent and tragic recent history. Colonized by the French in the nineteenth century, invaded by the Japanese during the second World War, and occupied by fighting French, Ho Chi Minh and Viet Minh armies, Cambodia only got its shaky independence in 1954 under Prince Sihanouk. Seeing the US as a threat to national security, Sihanouk broke diplomatic relations and allowed communists to use Cambodian territory in their war and the 1969 USA anti-communist carpet bombing raids in Cambodia and Laos followed. A year later, a successful military coup led by the head of the Cambodian army ousted the Prince who from the safety of China, broadcasted to citizens to fight back alongside communist Vietnam and Chinese troops. With the help of allies from Thailand, South Vietnam and the USA, the Cambodian army kept the communists armies at bay but an indigenous allied force called the Khmer Rouge comprising mainly of jungle rebels and loyalists to the absentee king was becoming a stronger force.

When the allies pulled out of Cambodia in 1975, the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh from the Cambodian army, victoriously marching through the streets promising peace. During the next four years, the Cambodian people suffered under the leadership of the communist dictator and Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot. He created an agrarian society in which the whole population was relocated and forced to work in a Maoist, peasant dominated cooperative that brought the country back in time 400 years. Even the calendar year was turned back to zero. Educated people were considered the enemy and were mercilessly tortured in the many killing fields around Cambodia. The members of the defeated Cambodian army who were promised a new way of life were herded into trucks, taken into the jungle and brutally murdered. Between the years of 1975 and 1979 it is estimated that two million people died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. The Vietnamese finally drove the Khmer Rouge to the Thai border, but for twenty years guerilla warfare continued and those responsible have yet to stand trial for the mass genocide.

Tuol Svey Prey High School

Sitting at the confluence of three rivers, the city of Phnom Penh is a blend of beautiful (albeit sometimes crumbling) French colonial architecture and run down shanty towns. The charming riverfront district is lined with palm trees and cozy cafes, a city of great excess that satisfies the needs of a large expat population but where the homeless wander the streets. In a busy neighborhood, in the center of Phnom Penh, the Tuol Svey Prey high school was transformed by the Khmer Rouge into a prison to detain and torture over 18,000 prisoners over a four year period. It is now a museum which displays torture devices, untouched blood-stained cells and the meticulous record keeping of the Khmer Rouge. We walked through old classrooms where thousands of photographs line the walls taken of prisoners before and sometimes after their deaths. Particularly disturbing to me was one where a woman cradling an infant is photographed in profile with a tear rolling down her cheek. The contents of the museum and the somber expressions on the faces of its patrons stood in stark contrast to the laughing group of men playing a game of volleyball in the courts behind the school and the smiling drivers waiting at the exit, eager for their next fare.

As if having to live through the horror of the Khmer Rouge reign wasn’t enough, the people of Cambodia still have to face daily the reality of living and working in a minefield. Walking past huge stacked piles of detonated grenades, pineapple mines, anti-tank mines in the Landmines Museum at Siem Reap, I can only begin to realize what effect the ones still out there can have on a country where only fifteen percent of its inhabitants live in the cities. The founder of the museum, Aki Ra, was orphaned at the age of five by the Khmer Rouge and forced to work in their army. He learned how to lay mines, shoot guns and make bombs before he was ten years old. Now happily married at thirty three, his goal is to rid his country of the landmines which still claim an average of ninety victims per month. He takes into his home many young landmine victims and orphans like him, educating them and helping them to grow up independent.

Local kids at the Bayon Temple

Driving past a few large scale landmine warning advertisements the next day in our respective tuk tuks, we headed to Angkor Wat and its surrounding temples to see the handiwork of Cambodia’s ancestors. From what looked like a pile of rubble from a distance, the Bayon Temple ended up being a jewel up close. Dozens of enormous faces made up of giant jigsaw blocks of stone glared down at us from every direction as we made our way up to the third level. Playing an instrument in one of the temple ruins, a man missing both his legs sat with a hat in front of him. We gave him a couple of dollars and when we rounded the corner, another man with only a stub above where his knee should have been crouched in front of us.

Angkor Wat itself is not only the biggest, but by far the best preserved of the temples around Siem Reap, and every square inch of the sandstone has been carved, depicting stories of ancient Khmer history. It is little wonder that the majority of tourists congregate here. If you are able to climb the three flights of extremely steep stairs to the top, you may be able to evade most, until you have to wait in line to take the only safe staircase down. While the Bayon and Angkor Wat show the genius of the ancient Khmers, Ta Prohm shows the power of nature in slowly reclaiming man’s finest accomplishments. Giant roots have toppled its strongest walls and trees have sprouted from underneath the ancient building’s very foundations scattering intricately engraved rubble everywhere.

Karli and I are swarmed by young salespeople

Traveling in Cambodia seems to be a series of endless moral dilemmas. In a country where there is no social support, many victims of landmines end up on the street begging for money. We were angry with ourselves for buying from a bookstall when there was an amputee selling the book we wanted out of a basket. Groups of children spot us from a mile away, their pleas for money and food becoming louder as we walk on. Is it any better to buy them food than give them money? I want to do what is right, but no matter what I decide to do I end up thinking I’ve done the wrong thing. One night we ate at a restaurant that trains former street kids in the hospitality industry. Several other businesses around Phnom Penh are also run by aid organizations to help raise funds for their social programs. Maybe giving a bit of cash to people on the street can help them in the short term, but supporting trustworthy aid agencies can do more for them in the long run.

If the passage of time can cause nature to take over the majestic architecture of the past, maybe time can also heal the wounds of this recovering nation. Despite all of the horrors that life has thrown at them, it is amazing to see everybody smiling. People like Aki Ra who remove landmines without proper equipment or funding and other people who make it their business to help people in need make me feel good about the future of Cambodia. Also, with the incredible gift of Angkor Wat from their ancestors, comes an exploding tourism industry that so many can benefit from.

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