Summary
We decided to take a short trip to Cambodia and
cover all the 'must see' tourist attractions, including Angkor Wat,
Security Prison 21, Choeung Ek (Killing Fields), Silver Pagoda, and many
other temples. We had also
heard that you can shoot some heavy artillery in Cambodia so we thought
we might give that a try. We spent one day in Phnom Penh, the
capital of Cambodia, visiting the Khmer Rouge genocide-related
attractions from the 1970's, and visiting
the shooting range. Then we flew to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat
and many, many other temples/ruins. The extremely hot humid
weather made the touring somewhat painful, but overall we enjoyed
Cambodia, though the Khmer Rouge experience was somewhat sobering.
Facts
Currency: riel (r4,000:US$1)
Language: Khmer, English
Population: 2M Phnom Penh, 12M Cambodia
# ATM's: 0
Landmines in place in 1980's/today: 14M / 4M
Internet connection speed: none
English speaking TV channels (in hotel): 5
(1 movie channel)
Religion: 90% Buddhist, 10% Hindu/other
Time difference:GMT +7:00 (11:00
hours ahead of Atlanta)
Driving lane: right side
Temperature: 106°F (feels like XXX°F with
humidity)
Detail
We did not know that much about places to visit in
Cambodia, except what we had read in our travel books the week before in
Bangkok. Because we only had time to see the 'must see' spots, we
were happy to arrange a package tour for our time there. We
quickly realized (and remembered) that Cambodia is a war-torn country,
with millions of landmines waiting for victims, but is seemingly recovered
from its most recent
disaster of the Khmer Rouge genocide in the 1970's. Even with this
terrible history the people of Cambodia were friendly, and the country
welcomed tourists.
Phnom Penh
We first flew to Phnom Penh, the capital of
Cambodia, and visited the Silver Pagoda and neighboring Royal
Palace. Since diplomats were working in the palace so we could not
get in -- not sure we missed much, though. The Silver Pagoda is a
temple that has a sliver plated floor, and serves as the private temple
for the King when he is in town. We spent a bit too much time (45
minutes) on the grounds of the pagoda given what little there was to
see.
Pol Pot/Khmer Rouge
Although we remembered hearing about the child
rebels in Cambodia in the 1970's neither of us had remembered the
details. In 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge communist rebels stormed
into Phnom Penh and began killing all government workers, professionals,
teachers, police, intellectuals, and destroying all existing
infrastructure. His goal was to return Cambodia to an agrarian
society. Pol Pot recruited and trained children as soldiers and
they killed their parents and families in the process. He set up prisons as
detention centers and torture areas before
sending the people to the killing fields. It is believed that Pol
Pot was responsible for killing between 1-2 million Cambodians during his four
year reign. Some
of the information we read stated that the US supported Pol Pot as the
lesser of two evils -- although he was communist, he was not
expansionist and only killed those within his own country.
Security Prison 21 Museum
We visited the museum of former Security Prison 21, known as
S21 to the Khmer Rouge 1975-79. This place was a holding and
torture center for prisoners on their way to Choeung Ek, the most famous
of the killing fields. The building was a school before Pol Pot came to
power, and he had converted all the classrooms to cells and torture
chambers. Some of the cells had been left in the exact condition
in which they were found in 1979. There were large photographs on the walls showing
the bodies that were found in the specific cells. The torture
chambers on the first floor each had only one victim but the victims were all
mutilated and then killed on their beds as the Khmer Rouge fled the
city, so the
pictures were quite gruesome. Our guide, Bunley, was a young child
living with his family in Phnom Penh, when the Khmer Rouge took over in
1975. His family, along with most of the other inhabitants, fled the
city as Pol Pot entered, and traveled for six months with little food or
work looking for places to hide. He later learned that his dad had
been executed in a remote village as part of Pol Pot's genocide.
It was pretty interesting to get the first person view of the times.
The Killing Fields
After the S21 Museum, we went to see the
most famous of the Killing Fields, Choeung Ek. Because of the many
pictures we had seen, we had expected to see piles of bones spread
across vast areas. However, those pictures were been taken at the
time the area was excavated 1980, so now there were just pits
showing the mass graves where the bones were found, as well as a
monument filled with thousands of the skulls which were found in the
graves. We thought a
sign at the Killing Fields represented the Cambodian view of what Pol
Pot had done: "They wanted to transform .... people into a group of persons
without reason or a group who knew and understood nothing, who always
bent their heads to carry out Angkor's orders blindly. They had
educated and transformed young people and adolescents whose hearts are
pure, gentle, and modest into odious executioners who dared to kill the
innocent and even their own parents, relatives, or friends....They had
burnt the market place, abolished the monetary system, eliminated books of
rules and principles of national culture, destroyed schools, hospitals,
pagodas, and beautiful monuments...."
Large Weapon Shooting Range
While on the Palace on Wheels in India,
we had heard from a friend that we could get access in Cambodia to pretty much any
large weapons we wanted to shoot. When we were in Bangkok planning this trip, we asked about whether this was true, and the local guide said
that we could look into it while we were there. Bunley, our
Cambodian guide in Phnom Penh,
said that there used to be three areas to shoot large weapons but the
government had shut down all but one. We drove 30 minutes outside
of town, asked directions several times, and ended up at a shooting
range with many people/spectators standing around. We got out of
the car a man approached us and directed us to sit. He then brought us a 'menu' of weapons listing the
options and cost. We were quite surprised at the high cost, but
figured you only get this opportunity once. Of course we skipped
over the common hand guns and rifles that we have access to the United
States.
We viewed the large weapon options, and from the many
fully automatic weapons and rocket launchers, we chose to shoot a K50
fully automatic Tommy Gun, an M60 fully automatic large caliber rifle that
you have shoot with a tripod, a rocket launcher/bazooka, and to throw some
hand grenades. We negotiated a price a bit lower than what they
wanted (of course, it still cost 1,400,000 riel!) and then learned that we
had to travel to a different range to shoot the larger weapons. We
were told that it was only 20 minutes away as they filled the trunk with
the small arsenal. After 50 minutes of driving, we (along with 5 men
who "work" at the range) arrived in the
middle of nowhere, and began our experience.
The men first set up a target 100 yards away in the bushes and then
loaded the M50 on the ground. We took turns laying on the ground and
shooting the fully automatic rifle. A simple pull of the trigger
would rattle off 10 bullets with a flurry! It was quite hard to tell
if we were hitting the target since it was so far away, but the thrill was
awesome. The 150 rounds we paid for went very quickly. Next,
Dan shot the Tommy Gun at the next target, and the 30 rounds we paid for
went in a single pull of the trigger! From the 50-75 holes in the
target, we felt like we did pretty well, given how much the gun moves in
the fury of firing.
Next, we moved to another area
of the field, where one of the men had set up a target on some trees 150 yards
away. They gave Dan the rocket and bazooka and explained how to
shoot it. They helped with targeting for such a distance, but then
let Dan go at it. As he pulled the trigger, a huge rush of sound and
air with the rocket swept past his face. Then the smoke from the
rocket engulfed him and clouded him in front and behind. As he
looked up over the smoke he saw the explosion 170 yards off.
Unfortunately, he missed the target, but the sound and site of the
explosion was very cool. The whole experience was exactly as you see in
the movies, but with more smoke, and more adrenaline. Next, Kristen walked with the range
guides to throw a hand grenade. We were quite disappointed that they
would not let Dan go with them to capture it on camera -- they said it was
not safe to be near the explosion. Unfortunately, after practicing
the throwing technique, Kristen threw the grenade and it popped like a
firecracker, but did not explode. It was a dud! To make up for the dud, they offered to let us throw
some "practice" grenades back at the other range, but at that point we
were done with the long drives!
Siem Reap
After our one very-full day in Phnom Penh, we flew to Siem
Reap to see Angkor Wat. We had two days to stay in Siem Reap, and saw the famous Angkor
Wat and tons
of other temples. According to our guide, the town entertained
500,000 tourists last year, almost half of all tourists that visited
Cambodia. Although the town still looks like a very small remote
town, there are a few large hotels, and even a StarMart (gas station/quick
mart).
In and around Siem Reap, there are hundreds of temples
built from 800-1300 AD during the Angkor era. Many of the
temples are in ruins, some are restored, and some are still in good
shape. We were amazed at the lack of restrictions on access to the
temples -- tourists are allowed to climb all over any part of the
structures if they wish. According to our guide, all the temples
were built by 'volunteers', no slaves -- when pressed about how the
required skilled workers could 'volunteer' the many years required and
still survive, our guide suggested that the king would support them.
Angkor Wat
The most famous attraction is the temple of Angkor Wat, a
huge set of structures surrounded by a large 100 foot -wide moat, creating
a large island The large outer stone gate,
which is accessible across the stone causeway over the moat, surrounds
the vast inner land of fields and trees. Once through the gate, you
can see the temples of Angkor Wat. The stone path continues across
a thousand feet of fields, past two partially restored stone
structures that are believed to be libraries, past two small ponds, to the outer temple. The outer temple is more of a covered
corridor hundreds of feel long on each side of the square. On the
entire length of the stone wall are very detailed bas-relief carvings,
depicting religious stories and battle scenes from the period. Because Angkor Wat was built over a 37 year
period, different parts of the carvings represent different time
periods. Our guide insisted on walking down two entire corridors and
explain the stories represented in the carvings. We mostly just
smiled and nodded, not understanding much of his narrative. (see Language Barrier
below).
From the corridor, we entered a smaller open stone area,
in which stood another huge stone temple. We climbed (quite
literally) the very steep stairs to enter the temple. Of course,
there were more carvings and and statues, although many of the statues had
been defaced or stolen. After entering another large open area, we
climbed another even steeper set of stairs to the top most temple.
From this vantage point, we had a great view over the front gate area of
Angkor Wat. We were impressed that they had built the three levels
of the enormous stone structures to such a great height.
On leaving Angkor Wat, we could see an amazing sunset
through the trees along the side of the road. Because we planned to
watch the sunset from a temple on the hill (most of Siem Reap is very
flat), we did not bother trying to take any pictures. The next
morning, we went back to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise from behind the
towers of the temple. Hundreds of tourists gathered inside the outer
gate and waited for the sunrise. Because we were entering the rainy
season, much of the early sunrise was hidden behind the clouds on the
horizon. Also to our misfortune, our view of any sunset the next
night was also hidden by the clouds.
Other Temples
Over the rest of the first and the entire second day, we
went to many less-significant temples. Partially because many of the
temples were in ruins, looked very similar, and our inability to
understand the
explanations by our guide, and partially because of the state of our
interest level at this point in our trip, we did not appreciate the many
temples. Just for the record, the sites we visited included the
ancient city of Angkor Thom, within which are located the temples of Bayon
and Baphuon, the elephant terrace, royal palace, Banteay Kdei, Lolei,
Preah Ko, Phnom Bakheng, Preah Khan, and Ta Phrom.
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The skulls at the monument at Choeung Ek, the killing
fields, in Phnom Penh.
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