Kindness defeats the Killing Fields
Nigel Planer falls in love with Cambodia and its determination to escape the horrors of the past
I’m in a village square in the middle of Cambodia; a teenager is showing off his football skills among a group of toddlers who are chasing him around and trying to tackle him. He’s quite good, doing step-overs, keepie-uppies and fake shots. The only thing unusual about the scene is that the teenager is a Buddhist monk with shaved head, full saffron robes and flip flops.
Many young people become monks or nuns for a few years in Cambodia. It’s a way of gaining an education and going on to university. Of course they have to swear to obey the Buddhist ‘precepts’, such as no sex and no eating after lunch but, all in all, it doesn’t seem too bad a deal, considering that it’s not for life.
I’m in an out-of-the-way part of Cambodia, halfway up the Mekong river on the way to the riverside town of Kratie. I got here by what has to be the best possible method, a shallow-draft river cruiser, or pandaw. The good thing about going by river is that you can get to places that might take hours of uncomfortable road travel to access and so you see more of the people and real workings of a country.
Gentle breezes, the world going past, tantalising sounds from the shore and daily excursions from the boat make this a relaxing as well as an active trip. Not having to unpack every day is another bonus.
From the village square, we go out in small motor launches to try to catch a glimpse of the rare, freshwater Irrawaddy dolphins, up in the shallow water past Kratie. After half an hour or so of eyestraining, we spot a couple of them. There is much excitement and the motor launches all lunge forward in pursuit – only to scare the creatures off. Some of our group train their long-lens cameras, hoping to get a National Geographic-style picture – even though they look uncannily like a large sock filled with sand. It’s impossible of course, because the moment you spot one, it disappears, then pops up somewhere else completely unexpected.
Other excursions from the mothership included rides on cycle rickshaws through the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, and across rice fields in ox-carts, walking in villages and through markets, visits to family houses, to palaces and temples, visits by small boat to floating and stilt villages, and a peaceful sampan journey through the inland waterways of the delta.
There were a couple of day trips that weren’t so lovely but were nevertheless essential, in my opinion, to understanding Cambodia.
In the landmine museum outside Siem Reap, there’s a kid’s painting on the wall. It shows, at first glance, a lovely scene – rice fields, palm trees, blue skies and a lake. But down by the lake’s shore are mangled bodies of children, blood pouring, limbs lying nearby and families around them, all crying. Landmines are still a problem in remoter parts of Cambodia.
The museum was set up by an uncle-and-nephew team who fought on different sides during the civil war in the 1970s. They spent 20 years defusing landmines but they’re not allowed to do it any more, because their home-made efforts don’t meet international safety requirements. So they started the museum.
In the late 1970s, the Khmer Rouge and its child army, under Pol Pot, laid mines all across the country. Areas on the country’s north east border are still uncleared.
There’s a scene in Angelina Jolie’s 2017 film First They Killed
My Father, where Loung Ung, the little girl at the centre of the story, treads fearfully through a forest where she had been forced to plant mines. Loung wrote the memoir on which the film is based.
We visited the landmine museum on our way back from an even more gruelling trip to one of the infamous Killing Fields. I agonised about doing this one. It did not promise to make the holiday go with a zing. But in the end, I felt I ought to go – to bear witness, to show respect, and also because I’d feel cowardly if I chickened out.
It’s important not to forget, and the Cambodian people we met were keen that we should go.
It’s a horrible piece of recent
A TOWER OF SKULLS STACKED BEHIND GLASS – 5,000 OF THEM IN ALL
history. In just two years, eight-months and 20 days, the KhmerRouge managed to killmore thantwo-and-a-half million people –almost a quarter of the population .
At the KillingFields there is atower of skulls . They are stackedbehind glass ,5,000 ofthem – just a small proportionof the dead from this site alone .There are board walks across amuddy field where teeth , bonesand rags still lie .
Our visit also too kin theg rim Tuo lS lengS 21 detention centre , wherethousands of people were torturedand killed and where I me tone of theonly two survivors , the remarkablycheerful Chum Mey , an old blokewho was signing copies of his book ,Survivor . I know it sounds grim butsomehow the optimism , opennessand cheerfulness of the people wemet made this visit worth while . Yes ,perhaps they are putting on a braveface – they wouldn’ t want to de pressthe tourists – but most seemed finetalking about their families and theirlosses . The phrase that kept beingrepeated was ‘ So sad but we go forward now ’, and it was said with a smile.On the last day,we got up at4.30am to see the sunrise overthe massive temples at AngkorWat.There’s atleast a week’s worthof temples to see here and it’seasy toget ‘templed out’, so I would definitelyrecommend is TaProhm, known as ‘The TombRaider’temple–yes, the one where Tomb
Raider andpartsofRaiders Of The Lost Ark were filmed .
This haunting ruin has giant treeroots growing all over it , as if monsters from the deep invaded andbecamefrozen in time . Something beautifullycaptured in Angelina’ s mo vie is the fact that despite its involvement in the Vietnam War , and the later horror sof the Khmer Rouge , Cambodia is still one of the most beautifulcountries in the world , with some of the most charmingpeople.