The Adventures of Brian & Julia

Trying to write about Cambodia is an impossible balancing act. Gloss over everything but the incomparable temples and lush, bucolic countryside, and you give the impression that this country is some hidden paradise, long insulated from the world. If you try and capture all of the tragedy, past and present, the depth of it overshadows everything else, and you realize how insulated the world has been from Cambodia.

We arrived in Phnom Penh in the late afternoon, finding the city a dusty facsimile of much of northern India; A mix of sand colored concrete and rusty Tuk Tuks, with crowded streets veering off roundabouts in every direction. We knew well before arriving that our time in the city would be devoted to some very heavy subjects.

Phnom Penh’s two major tourist attractions are dedicated to documenting and memorializing the genocide suffered under the Khmer Rouge in the 1970’s. Thousands of Cambodian citizens, of every social class and station, were tortured or murdered in Toul Sleng prison. Many more victims were sent to the infamous killing fields just outside of Phnom Penh. While most of the world’s attention was focused right next door on America’s war in Vietnam, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge murdered millions of their own people. There are plenty of better-informed articles about the Khmer Rouge to be found, so I won’t drone on about the specifics, but it really is an unbelievable story.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (or S21 as its better known) is a former high school that the Khmer Rouge turned into a prison and interrogation center. All of one wing has been preserved as it was when in use- four floors of large concrete rooms, with one iron bed frame in the middle of the checkered floor. As usual, the pictures tell the story better than I can in words….

Several of the large halls of the museum are filled with photographs of the prisoners, taken upon their arrival. Thousands of black and white faces, men, women and children, staring back out of death and the past with every expression conceivable. As one might expect, many of the faces showed people who were obviously terrified, confused or sad. Some were even happy (smiling, at least). To my surprise, however, most showed a more striking air- a clear, purposeful display of anger, resolve and defiance. But perhaps the most moving and thought provoking were the faces that showed no emotion at all, as if the subjects were sleeping with their eyes open. These were clearly the faces of people who had already suffered beyond their capacity of expression.

The vast majority of S21’s prisoners ended up at the killing fields, now known as the Choeung Ek Genocidal Centre. The site was originally no more than a few wooden or bamboo buildings, little of which remains today. Now, winding paths spider around a quiet, shady grove, full of flowers and butterflies, lily-padded ponds and a few huts and exhibit signs. At either side of these paths, there are dozens of craters where thousands of bodies were excavated from mass graves. In the center of the grounds, a temple houses in memoriam many of the remains removed from those graves.

Again, I think the pictures tell the story. These places were appallingly tragic, and I don’t want to dwell on them. It’s odd that such morbid and sad places are tourist attractions. You go hoping you’re taking away some new insight into the human condition, but you leave with a little less of your faith in humanity.

We had one more stop that day, and we were afraid it might be the hardest of all…

We asked our driver to take us to a nearby orphanage that accepts western visitors. After hailing a friend to help translate, he explained to us that we should not show up empty handed, so he would stop somewhere for us to buy rice. Shortly after, we arrived at Lighthouse Orphanage, and were given a brief tour of the simple facilities. It seemed rudimentary but adequate, at least in my estimation of third-world orphanages. They had several sleeping dorms, a simple outdoor kitchen, classrooms and even a computer lab. It didn’t take long to make friends, and I spent a couple of hours playing volleyball, taking pictures and getting climbed on like a tree by the kids. Julia played a game with the little girls that seemed simple but was apparently inconceivably complicated. It involved a rope made of rubber bands and jumping. That’s as much as we could figure out, and the girls were both amused and frustrated at our incompetence.

We left our donation of rice at the orphanage and headed back toward the city. We both felt a weight had been lifted; our overwhelmingly positive experience with the kids offset some of the sadness of everything else we had seen. Of all the places we’ve travelled, Cambodia is the hardest to sum up in a single sentiment. Civil war tore the country apart, and stifling poverty still mires most Cambodian’s lives. But now a booming tourism industry paints an optimistic picture for the country’s overwhelmingly young population. Fifty percent of Cambodians are under 22 – too young to remember the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge. While the Kingdom goes to great lengths to remember its tragic past, its new generations are poised for better days to come. But that’s the balancing act. Cambodia tempers its terrible past with its hopeful future.