I am definitely not in familiar territory any longer. Case in point--the Cambodia visa on arrival process. I step up to the counter to offer my documents and passport photo when I see one laying on the floor and think I've dropped it. Only after the photo is in the official's hand do I realize the face in the photo is not mine! I attempt to correct the mistake but he waves me away to the next station. I try again with the next official but he says it's ok and requests the $20 fee. The photo does not appear in my actual passport and the visa is granted. My customs card is never taken. I decide not to worry about it and exit the airport. Outside, Laura and I are immediately offered rides to the town center. We agree on a price of $2 for the 20 minute ride to Tat guesthouse.
Scenes from a tuk tuk ride--Dozens of mopeds vie for position. There is no apparent limit on how many vehicles can cluster in a single lane; the result is a herd of tuk tuks, mopeds, cars, and bikes moving together. Many of the mopeds have multiple people on them, as many as four on a single machine! Our driver makes one stop for gas. He calmy walks across four lanes of oncoming traffic to the gas station for a bottle of gas and back, never flinching! Laura and I have not yet achieved feat--we still flail and run for our lives.
Tat's guesthouse is run by smiling, fifty-ish, raven haired Tat. Tat speaks good English (French too) and is almost constantly followed around by her excitable orange dog. She is extremely helpful, initiating the process for our Vietnam visas, pointing us in the direction of tasty, cheap food, and arranging our bus ride from Phomn Pehn to Siem Reap. Our large bed sits on an off-white tile floor. We have a wicker bookshelf, wood vanity, and a small television mounted on the wall. Our window is framed by gold curtains and overlooks a series of corrugated metal rooves of shantys below. The room costs a budget-friendly $3.50. The only problem is the bed has a few fleas jumping on it. We spray the sheets with DEET and it's much better.
Our first Cambodian meal is at Vihear Sour Restaurant just down the street from our guesthouse. It appears we are the non-locals in the joint and there is only one other female diner. Laura orders a "small"Ankor beer that turns out to be a pitcher! Whenver we take a single gulp, our waitress refills our glass to the top. My fried eel is tasty but I feel guilty eating it as a woman with black teeth begs nearby. I offer the food to her but she does not take it.
The next morning we wake up early and catch a tuk tuk to the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek. I am somewhat familiar with the history of the place. Choeung Ek (and many other places in Cambodia) was the site where the Khmer Rouge massacred more than 200,000 people in an effort to cleanse the Cambodian population of anyone they deemed an intellectual (or "new" people) and therefore a theat to their vision of an agrarian communist society. Their methods of murder were many and varied. Soldiers bashed babies heads against tree trunks. Tools such as machetes, axes, even garden hoes were used to blugeon victims to death in an effort to save costly ammunition. A sign by the "Magic Tree"details how a large speaker was hung here to drown out the screams of prisoners. The memorial stupa is a glass case filled with the skulls of victims. Plots of mass graves surround it. A nearby building offers further information. The killing was arbitrary--someone wearing glasses might be an intellectual and therefore killed. Often, entire families were killed to prevent a member from exacting revenge. When I see the remnants of baby clothes salvaged from the fields, I find it difficult to hold back tears.
Although emotionally drained, we decide to make a stop at Tuol Sleng. Tuol Sleng was originally a high school converted into a prison where people were interrogated before meeting their demise in the Killing Fields. Now it houses The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. The building is straight out of a horror movie. Barbed wire surrounds the perimeter, photos of emaciated victims line the walls, and rusty iron beds with pieces of shackle sit on the orange and white tiled classrooms. Upstairs, the movie "Bophana" tells the tragic story of the fall of Phomn Pehn to the Khmer Rouge thorugh the eyes of a mother who's son and daugher in law were eventually executed. Paintings by Vann Nath, a former inmate, depict the many types of torture performed in the prison, including water boarding, ripping off finger nails with pliars, and electric shock.
The atrocities the Cambodian people suffered under the Khmer Rouge are so far from my reality they are difficult to comprehend. As I climb into a tuk tuk, I glance once more at this building that was host to so much torture. I feel an ocean of gratitude for my life.
Scenes from a tuk tuk ride--Dozens of mopeds vie for position. There is no apparent limit on how many vehicles can cluster in a single lane; the result is a herd of tuk tuks, mopeds, cars, and bikes moving together. Many of the mopeds have multiple people on them, as many as four on a single machine! Our driver makes one stop for gas. He calmy walks across four lanes of oncoming traffic to the gas station for a bottle of gas and back, never flinching! Laura and I have not yet achieved feat--we still flail and run for our lives.
Tat's guesthouse is run by smiling, fifty-ish, raven haired Tat. Tat speaks good English (French too) and is almost constantly followed around by her excitable orange dog. She is extremely helpful, initiating the process for our Vietnam visas, pointing us in the direction of tasty, cheap food, and arranging our bus ride from Phomn Pehn to Siem Reap. Our large bed sits on an off-white tile floor. We have a wicker bookshelf, wood vanity, and a small television mounted on the wall. Our window is framed by gold curtains and overlooks a series of corrugated metal rooves of shantys below. The room costs a budget-friendly $3.50. The only problem is the bed has a few fleas jumping on it. We spray the sheets with DEET and it's much better.
Our first Cambodian meal is at Vihear Sour Restaurant just down the street from our guesthouse. It appears we are the non-locals in the joint and there is only one other female diner. Laura orders a "small"Ankor beer that turns out to be a pitcher! Whenver we take a single gulp, our waitress refills our glass to the top. My fried eel is tasty but I feel guilty eating it as a woman with black teeth begs nearby. I offer the food to her but she does not take it.
The next morning we wake up early and catch a tuk tuk to the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek. I am somewhat familiar with the history of the place. Choeung Ek (and many other places in Cambodia) was the site where the Khmer Rouge massacred more than 200,000 people in an effort to cleanse the Cambodian population of anyone they deemed an intellectual (or "new" people) and therefore a theat to their vision of an agrarian communist society. Their methods of murder were many and varied. Soldiers bashed babies heads against tree trunks. Tools such as machetes, axes, even garden hoes were used to blugeon victims to death in an effort to save costly ammunition. A sign by the "Magic Tree"details how a large speaker was hung here to drown out the screams of prisoners. The memorial stupa is a glass case filled with the skulls of victims. Plots of mass graves surround it. A nearby building offers further information. The killing was arbitrary--someone wearing glasses might be an intellectual and therefore killed. Often, entire families were killed to prevent a member from exacting revenge. When I see the remnants of baby clothes salvaged from the fields, I find it difficult to hold back tears.
Although emotionally drained, we decide to make a stop at Tuol Sleng. Tuol Sleng was originally a high school converted into a prison where people were interrogated before meeting their demise in the Killing Fields. Now it houses The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. The building is straight out of a horror movie. Barbed wire surrounds the perimeter, photos of emaciated victims line the walls, and rusty iron beds with pieces of shackle sit on the orange and white tiled classrooms. Upstairs, the movie "Bophana" tells the tragic story of the fall of Phomn Pehn to the Khmer Rouge thorugh the eyes of a mother who's son and daugher in law were eventually executed. Paintings by Vann Nath, a former inmate, depict the many types of torture performed in the prison, including water boarding, ripping off finger nails with pliars, and electric shock.
The atrocities the Cambodian people suffered under the Khmer Rouge are so far from my reality they are difficult to comprehend. As I climb into a tuk tuk, I glance once more at this building that was host to so much torture. I feel an ocean of gratitude for my life.
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