Among the Khmer Ghosts

The city used to be referred to as “the Pearl of Asia” in times gone by, and it has a long history as bloody as it is rich in heritage. When I visited in 2008, I recall noticing the broken spirit of the people, the many amputees, poor children and cramped housing as well as the distinctive stench of a major city that lacks infrastructure. Before you even hear the stories,
see the pictures or visit the scenes of the most atrocious human behaviour, you can sense that there is something troubling the inhabitants of Phnom Penh. It was when I took a guided tour of the Tuol Sleng
Genocide Museum that I could begin to understand
the reason for all of the broken smiles. The museum is actually a former school which the Khmer Rouge turned into S-21, the notorious torture prison. For a handful of dollars, I got to secure a guide that would walk us around the prison and informed us of various significances. I soon found out that the most significant element of this tour was the fact that my guide had lost half of her family in the very rooms she now guided tourists and backpackers through. We couldn’t help but ask question after question as she spoke of times when a child could be executed for reading at an advanced level for their age, or simply for wearing spectacles! The questions stopped very suddenly when our guide began to display tears brought on by reliving those painful memories. This prompted me to think “surely you should be doing something else with your life, for the sake of your own sanity”. Of course I didn’t divulge this observation to anyone at the time. I simply made my way around the rest of the site, thanked and tipped our guide and jumped on the auto rickshaw back to the blissfully ignorant quarter of the backpacker lodges and cheap bars. I had two fellow travelers with me and we rode home in complete silence!


It took the site of Angkor Wat a few days later, bathed in all the glory of an exotic eastern dawn, to make me realise that these people, the Khmer people, would rise and rise again for theirs is a heritage that invokes such pride in its owner that they cannot help but rise from these ashes. The ancient city lies just outside Siem Reap and possesses grandeur beyond my descriptive skills. The 19th century French explorer Henri Mouhot wrote the following entry in his travel diary which brought the temple to the attention of many western countries.

“One of these temples—a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michelangelo—might take an honourable place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome, and presents a sad contrast to the state of barbarism in which the nation is now plunged."

The Tomb Raider movies featuring Angelina Jolie were filmed in and among the sprawls of Angkor Wat and her subsequent adoption of a Cambodian orphan has lead to satiric T-shirts being sold with the Hollywood actresses’ picture accompanied by the text “Hide your kids! She’s coming!” Cruel, I know, but you have to admit that it displays the entrepreneurial spirit and sense of irony needed to make money - At least when trading with westerners.

Today, Angkor Wat takes centre stage in Cambodian efforts to draw tourism and investment to the country. So much so that it features on the national flag. I remember my mood being altered gradually for the better as the day went on, for we had to retreat to Siem Reap’s “Pub Street” after the relentless sun positioned itself in centre stage of a clear blue sky. As I drank my glass of ice cold Angkor beer in the shade of a canopy at a bar called Angkor Wot? (An ingenious double entendre, I’m sure you’ll agree!) I saw the hustle and bustle of a community that made itself readily available for the west and felt that things were on the up. Sadly, that means it won’t be long before the first McDonalds or Starbucks opens up around the corner and gradually deteriorates the current generation of a country with the richest of lineages to lose.