Cambodia
May 27, 1997 to June 1, 1997
For more than 20 years, there has never really been a good time to go to Cambodia. However, over the past two years, a relative semblance of normalcy seemed to have returned, and the pull of the ancient city of Angkor was strong. But because it still wasn't really that safe, we didn't stay for long, and in total were there for less than a week. Angkor was probably the "single best" experience of the trip. At the other end of the spectrum, Cambodia's recent history--which still dominates how Cambodia is today – is mind-numbingly horrible.
It turned out that we got in and out at a good time. On July 7, a little over a month after we were there, the country’s relative semblance of normalcy ended. Hun Sen, Cambodia's "Second Prime Minister," staged a violent coup against Prince Ranariddh, who was the "First Prime Minister." Insanity returned and things once again began to get worse instead of better. The following account was written before the coup.
If I Had a Rocket Launcher
Back when we started planning the trip, one of the things we knew we wanted to do was to try to get to Angkor Wat. At that time, the civil war was slowly dying out, but it still hadn't ended. When we left, we didn’t know if we would.
Once we were on the road, we heard that if you did it right, you could get in and out of Angkor reasonably safely. We'd looked into going from Bangkok, but the airfare was too expensive. Still, we felt that this was the time to go – we were close, we had the time, and with the plans the Cambodian government had to promote Angkor, it would probably become overrun in the future.
On a minibus traveling between Hue and Hoi An, Vietnam, we met Nick, who was an Australian who'd just come from Cambodia. Nick was a different traveler, but the type you run into every once and a while – he smokes too much dope and drinks too much and drifts through the world in a sort of a charmed way. He could probably walk through a firefight in Cambodia and emerge unscathed.
He also really liked to talk, and had lots of advice. Surprisingly, much of it was sensible, even though he admitted that he didn't follow any of it himself. For example, about Cambodia:
“If you see a political demonstration, quickly leave the area."
"Don't go out alone at night in Phnom Penh."
He also told us about a firing range and arms market in Phnom Penh. At the arms market, you could buy just about anything, including rocket launchers. At the firing range, you can fire M-16s, AK-47s, and sometimes rocket launchers. You pay for the ammo and the use of the weapons (alas, by the time we arrived, the firing range had closed). On this, Nick gave us the most unique advice we'd received on the trip: "At the arms market, they'll try to get you to pay 400 Riels (less than 20¢) for each round of AK-47 ammo, but don't pay more than 100." This information, of course, made Cambodia irresistible. How could we pass us a chance to fire rocket launchers? And would they take us out to the airport for target practice?
In addition to what Nick told us, Bob, another American, had more practical information. It was pretty cheap to fly to Phnom Penh from Saigon ($150 round trip), and that if you stayed on the beaten track that it was pretty safe. Bob was going, and we decided to go with him. Later that night, we were heading back to our hotel, and passed the Peace Bar. Nick was inside playing pool and he saw us walking by. He stumbled out to see us and quickly informed us that Hoi An was the first place in Asia that he hadn't been able to score any ganja. He'd been making up for it with alcohol.
We'd told him that we'd decided to go to Cambodia, and he asked what made us decide to go. Lauren blurted out, "It was the rocket launchers!" Nick said, "Oh man, I've got to stop telling people about those." Geoff added, "Where else can you blast away at some of the world's great antiquities with rocket launchers?" We left him sure that he thought we were American gun nuts heading to Cambodia to shoot off better weapons than we had at home. Although when we saw him again the next morning, he barely remembered.
A Less than Ideal Vacation Destination
Cambodia is a country that went insane and descended to the depths of hell. Between 1975 and 1979, the Khmer Rouge murdered between 2 and 3 million of its own people – approximately 25% of the population – and destroyed almost everything of value in the country, including its cities, schools, hospitals, museums, and religious and historic sites. The Khmer Rouge, under the leadership of Pol Pot, had a vision of a self-reliant peasant nation of farmers. To bring this about, they killed everyone who had an education or skill, and set out to destroy all the vestiges of a more intelligent past.
Today, the country is still struggling to recover, and some normalcy has returned. Pol Pot is, incredibly, still alive. He and the remnants of his Khmer Rouge are still active in the countryside. Active, that is, pursuing their war by attacking trains, planting mines, shooting boats. The new democratic government is more corrupt than democratic, and in many respects, Cambodia remains a country a war with itself. It's way to easy to imagine that Cambodia could turn suicidal again.
This recent history makes Cambodia a somewhat less than ideal vacation spot. But where else can you check into a hotel where rule number one is: "No firearms or explosives allowed in the room without prior approval of management." Or sit around drinking a beer and listening to shells exploding in the distance, experience military roadblocks up close and personal, and eat at restaurants crowded with soldiers armed with grenade launchers who are there to protect a government official?
Getting There
For a country that was such a mess, getting there was easy. We left Saigon on a 7:00 AM flight, landed in Phnom Penh an hour later, then to Siem Reap (the town near Angkor) 15 minutes later, at our hotel by 11:00 AM, and at the ruins by noon. Both the Phnom Penh and Siem Reap airports were small but modern and similar to small airports in the USA. There was no sense of danger or anything out of the ordinary, altough the landings on both flights were pretty rough. [However, that was short-lived as, a little over a month later, the the Phnom Penh airport was shelled and looted during the coup and is now in ruins. We're not sure what happened in Siem Reap but did hear that tourists were trapped there for a while.]
The Ancient City of Angkor
It's difficult to describe Angkor with words and perhaps the pictures will help. But the first striking thing was the immensity. The pictures usually only show Angkor Wat, and it's easy to get the impression that Angkor Wat sits there all by itself. But it doesn't. From the ninth to the thirteenth century, the Khmer were rulers of an empire that included Vietnam and much of Thailand and Angkor was the seat of the empire. It is over 1,000 square mile in size and was home to multiple capital cities built by different kings, temple complexes, other settlements, and agricultural areas. At its peak, it was inhabited by a million people and up to 100,000 people were involved in constructing each of the major complexes. Today, although much is in ruin, much is still standing.
Ankor Wat
The ruins and the remaining buildings made the risks of travelling to Cambodia worthwhile. The overall feel is similar to that of Greek or Roman ruins, but on a much larger scale and in a different style. Enough remains to give you a feel for what it must have been like, although you still walk around with a million unanswered questions. It’s one of the few places one the world where your imagination can't do it justice and it's even better when you see it. One evening, as we sat on some ancient library steps watching the sun set over Angkor Wat, we wrote postcards to friends at home stating with false bravado that "even if we don't get out of here alive, it was worth it." It wasn't completely true, but almost.
Of all the places we've been, Angkor is one that will always stand out. We also probably visited at a perfect time. For good reason, most people are still afraid to travel to Cambodia. If things stabilize to the point where they're not afraid, change will come fast. Now, Angkor just sits there in the jungle. You pay your entrance fee and then you go and do as you please. We walked among some of the world's most amazing ruins, and except at Angkor Wat itself, hardly saw another soul. If Cambodia stabilizes, it will become overrun and it won't be possible to let people roam around like we could. Already, huge hotels destroyed by the Khmer Rouge are being rebuilt and the writing is on the wall. But for now – and maybe some places are truly mystical – the magic of Angkor has survived the horrors of modern Cambodia and still sits there majestically in the jungle.
Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat is the largest temple complex in Angkor and its most famous site. It's huge, incredibly beautiful, and well preserved. The temple itself is one square kilometer and the entire complex takes up nine square kilometers. We were in Angkor for three days and spent each evening on the steps of an old library in the Angkor Wat complex, watching the sunset bathe the towers in the dying light. We sat there with Slacker Bob, had local vendors bring us beer, admired the view, and joked about opening the "From Here to Antiquity" café on the spot where we were sitting. There was a serenity that surrounded Angkor Wat that made the violence of Cambodia seem far away. While sitting on the steps, we could hear shellfire in the distance but even that did little to disturb the aura.
Ankor Wat
Ankor Wat Complex
Our beer girls
Ankor Wat Complex
At the "From Here to Antiquities Cafe"
Monks at Ankor Wat
Ankor Thom and the Bayon
Many or most of Angkor's kings built their own capital cities when the came into power, which is why there are many capital cities within Angkor. Angkor Thom was the last and longest lasting of all the capitals. Like Angkor Wat, it is also huge and encompasses nine square miles surrounded by massive walls and huge gates.
The centerpiece of Angkor Thom is the Bayon. From afar, The Bayon looks like a pile of rocks. Up close, it's a pyramid of towers, and each tower has a giant face carved on four sides. There were once 54 towers; 37 remain. When it was built, the central tower was covered in gold leaf. Like much of the rest of Angkor, the Bayon is huge, and it's believed that it took over 20 years to build. It's suffered greatly over time but is still one of Angkor's most impressive sites.
Bayon Temple
The Towers of the Bayon
Faces at the Bayon
Ta Prohm
Ta Prohm is a temple complex about one kilometer east of The Bayon. When Angkor was rediscovered by the French in the 1860's, the jjungle had grown back and covered many of the ruins. Huge fig, hapok, and banyan trees had grown on top of some of the buildings and walls, and their roots snaked down through the ruins. The roots had toppled many of the buildings, but in other cases the roots were what was holding them together. While most of the ruins were cleared of the trees and roots during restoration over the next few years, Ta Prohm was left mostly untouched as an example of how Angkor looked when the French found it.
Ta Prohm once housed over 5,000 people, and took 70,000 people to build. But the combination of the jungle and the ruins gives it the feel of a lost civilization, kind of like being in an Indiana Jones movie. Even if you're not Indiana Jones, the sprawling complex of standing and fallen buildings, intertwined with towering trees and massive twisted roots, still begs you to explore. We did a little on the first day, then went back to explore some more on the second day. We wanted to find some places we'd seen pictures of but couldn't find ourselves, so we hired one of the local guides who hang around all of the sites.
Ruins and roots
Lauren at Ta Prohm
With two local kids ahead of our guide, we headed off into the maze or ruins. The kids walked through them with the same reckless abandon that we had earlier. We entered a passageway and suddenly the kids started screaming and frantically running back towards us. Geoff looked up and saw a five-foot cobra rearing up at us! Like the kids, he turned and ran. Our unofficial guide, however, saw the cobra, grabbed a handful of rocks and charged into the passageway, yelling and throwing the rocks at it. Geoff looked back in to see the last three feet of the snake retreating out a doorway. Our guide was completely unfazed and assured us that it was now safe to proceed, saying "No problem. He bite, no die."
Amongst the ruins of Ta Prohn
Our guide seemed unrealistically at ease with the area. He was very agile, climbing over rocks and walls, urging us to follow him through a jungle path, but he walked with a limp and Geoff asked him about it. He told us he'd stepped on a mine while clearing wood in the same area where we were now walking. He pulled up his pant leg to reveal a knee that was a mess. But then he assured us, "No problem now, all the mines are cleared." We'd read earlier that this was believed to be the case, but just the same, Cambodia has the highest per-capita amputee population in the world. The Khmer Rouge had occupied Angkor during their reign of terror, and heavily mined the area. More than 40,000 Cambodians have stepped on mines and lost one or both legs. We believed that the mines at Angkor had been cleared, because the government desperately wants people to be safe there. Even so, we stayed on heavily used paths. In Vermont, we do a lot of bushwhacking. In Cambodia we didn't.
Wild Boat Ride #5
The most widely used ways of travelling between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh are by air and a five hour boat ride. Air is the only guaranteed safe way and the way recommended by the government and the guidebooks. But the boat ride sounded much more interesting. It starts near Siem Reap on the shore of Tonle Sap Lake and then goes down the Tonle Sap River to Phnom Penh. The guidebooks advise not to take the ferries because they sometimes got shot at, were overloaded, and are "an accident waiting to happen." But many people were now taking the boat, and it has been a couple of years since there have been any incidents. As one guesthouse put it, the fast ferries are now "the closest thing that Cambodia has to a safe boat." And since we'd taken boat trips in every country we'd visited so far, we needed the boat ride to keep the streak alive.
The trip started with an hour-plus ride in the back of a pickup truck. We got picked up at our hotel at 5:15 am, and then started picking up more people at other hotels and guesthouses. By the time we left Siem Reap and headed towards the lake, there were 21 people and their packs in and on top of a small Toyota pickup. Lake Tonle Sap, where we were headed, is a unique natural phenomena. It's huge (over 100 km long), but shallow. Its size shrinks and expands by huge degrees, from 3,000 square kilometers and only 2.5 meters deep in the dry season to 7,500 square kilometers and 6 meters deep in the wet season. Fishing villages on the lake are a combination of houses built on stilts and buildings on floats that they can be moved as the water rises and falls.
Houses along Lake Tonle Sap
For most of the year, water flows out of the lake down the Tonle Sap River to the Mekong River. Then, during the rainy season, the Mekong rises higher than the lake and the Tonle Sap River reverses direction. This process drains so much water from the Mekong that the Mekong almost never floods downstream from the Tonle Sap River.
We were there at the end of the dry season when Lake Tonle Sap was at its smallest and shallowest, and much of the road we had to travel was within the lakebed. The road was just a track, or sometimes a series of tracks, through the reeds. At one point, there were "Danger - Mines" signs along the road, and we hoped that we wouldn't blaze any new trails. We didn't, and after about 15 minutes we reached an extremely poor fishing village set in stinking mudflats along the short of the lake. Our ferry couldn't come up to this shoreline, so we picked our way over rickety wooden walkways out to longtails that ferried us out to the express boat. Where we boarded the ferry, there still wasn't enough water to lower the three 200 hp outboard engines, so one of the longtails towed the ferry out to deeper water.
After about 20 minutes, the longtail casted off, and our crew started and lowered the outboards. But there still wasn't enough water. They gunned the engines, we started to pick up speed, the bow rose, and the stern lowered and the props bogged down in the mud. This probably happens all the time, but they didn't seem to know what to do and tried the same thing again and again. At one point we had a fishtail of mud flying into the air behind the boat. Finally, they just kept the engines gunned and the props drove their way through the mud out into the lake. Apparently there are no rocks in the lake, and after 15 minutes we were in the clear.
Our overcrowded boat
Village along the shoreline
As we headed further into the lake, the shoreline receded. Even in its shrunken state, the lake was still large enough so that before long we were out of sight of land. As we blasted through the lake with the engines wide open, there were fish leaping through the wake into the air. Tonle Sap Lake is one of the richest freshwater fishing grounds in the world, and as the lake shrinks, the fish get packed together closer and closer. One 1860s account describes the progress of one boat actually being slowed by the density of fish. For us, the fish were no match for 600 hp, but they did seem to see us as a huge predator and leapt for their lives. Most were small, but some were two to three feet long, all jumping up to ten feet in the air beside and behind the boat.
After a couple of hours, we reached the southern end of the lake. The shore got closer and the lake got shallower and we entered a narrow channel demarcated by brush growing up out of the shallow water. On both sides of the channel, people were fishing in small boats or just by walking in the water dragging nets. We never slowed for them, and our wake washed over them and their small boats. Although we hoped they wouldn't, we could understand why irate fisherman sometimes shot at these boats.
Finally, the lake ended and we entered the river. All along were floating houses at the shore, and on top of the banks, houses built on stilts. Like at the village on the lake, most were made of reeds. The residents here were more incredibly poor people eking out a living from the river and the rice fields beyond.
Coconut vendor on the Tonle Sap River
Shortly before Phnom Penh, we had to stop for an Army gunboat moored in the river. Soldiers came aboard and walked through and around the boat. They never seemed threatening, and it seemed it was pretty routine, but they were serious about it too. We sat there and for our part, looked over the gunboat, which we could tell was also used by one of the soldiers as his home--his wife and daughter were on board and there was laundry hanging. There was also a rocket launcher that looked like it could fire about 30 shells at a time, and shells were stacked below it. Then we noticed that there were two toothbrushes hanging off the rocket launcher. This was comforting as we thought that if they used the rocket launcher as a toothbrush hold then they didn’t fire it very often. The checkpoint proceeded without any trouble, and fifteen minutes later we were in Phnom Penh.
Phnom Penh
As Lauren dryly noted shortly after arrival, "Phnom Penh is not a tourist town." It was once known as "The Pearl of Southeast Asia," but the war has taken its toll. During the war with the Khmer Rouge, its population swelled from 600,000 to over two million. Then, on April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge seized power and ordered every resident of the city, even those dying in hospitals, to leave the city within 48 hours. Phnom Penh then became a ghost town and until 1979, when the Vietnamese invaded and drove them from power, they destroyed most of the city's infrastructure. Today, a sort of a normalcy has returned.
Unfortunately, normal in Phnom Penh and Cambodia is not like normal in other places. In their "free" election, there was no clear winner, so there are now two Prime Ministers. Each appears to hate each other and has set up his own government. A shipment of arms was recently intercepted that was addressed to one of them. He said he needed them to protect himself from the other. The government is corrupt, and the city lives on edge. It's safe during the day, but you're warned not to walk anywhere after dark.
Still, enough of the city’s past grandeur has survived for it to potentially become a beautiful place again. But it seems likely that Cambodia that it will take a long time, if it happens at all. There is a significant amount of construction going on, including some huge new hotels, so some are optimistic. You want to hope for the best, but today Phnom Penh still looks like what it is – a city that like its people has been abused and neglected.
S-21 Prison
When the Khmer Rouge took over, they set out to kill every educated person in the country. Forst they ordered everyone out of the cities, then they then asked all the professionals to come back and go to work to help rebuild the country. When they got there, they were interviewed about their jobs were and co-workers were. The Khmer Rouge used this information to complile lists of the people they would kill. They first took many of them to Security Prison 21 (S-21) to torture them. After that, they took them to what are now known as the Killing Fields and killed them. Them clubbed them to death to save bullets and then buried 17,000 in mass graves.
Photo of tortured prisoner as the Vietnamese found him
Security regulations
Like the Nazis before them, the Khmer Rouge kept meticulous records of their prisoners, and photographed them before and after being tortured. The Vietnamese captured these records when they captured Phnom Penh in 1979 and turned S-21 into a museum to show the world what the Khmer Rouge had done and to help justify their invasion. Most of the museum consists of room after room of photos of the victims; people of all ages, many of whom were women and children. It was a heart wrenching place to visit, and from the looks in the victims eyes, you can see how many of them felt. Some were terrified, most were trying hard to be brave, some were defiant, and some exposed nothing. Everyone pictured on the wall was killed, most after being horribly tortured.
Photos of people who were killed
Sign describing the horrors of S-21
The Killing Fields
At the Killing Fields, which are about 15 km out of town, the sense of dread and horror increased. There are over a hundred mass graves of the 17,000 people they killed. Over forty containing the bodies 8,000 of the people they killed were excavated before they stopped to let the rest remain where they are. The ground is full of clothes, teeth, and bone fragments. As a memorial, there's a tall narrow pagoda containing 14 levels of skulls. This sounds gruesome, but instead, the sightless skulls staring out over the fields where they were killed conveys the horror of the place in a moving and strangely dignified way.
Memorial Stupa at the Killing Fields
After the Killing Fields, we spent one more night in Phnom Penh. The next morning we flew to Singapore. Never have we had a flight that made us realize how quickly planes can take you from one world to another.
Cambodia Postscript
On July 7, 1997, Cambodia's fragile peace was shattered when the "Second Prime Minister," Hun Sen, staged a violent coup against the "First Prime Minister," Prince Ranariddh. Fighting and looting was widespread, and Hun Sen is now consolidating his power over the country. Virtially all of Cambodia's foreign aid, which comprises half of its national budget, has been cut off, its recently approved membership in ASEAN has been put on hold, and much of the rebuilding that had started has been destroyed. The Cambodian people, who just want to be able to get on with their lives, have yet another government that will make them suffer even more. The following account is from the Beauty and Darkness: Cambodia in Modern History website:
"Long Live the Khmer Rouge: A Coup in Cambodia"
"On July 7, Hun Sen, the leader of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP), overthrew Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh in a brutal, bloody coup that may mark the end of hope for democracy in Cambodia. Two days of fighting left at least 58 people dead and hundreds wounded. Ranariddh's forces were overwhelmed. Even more ominous are indications that Hun Sen has adopted the tactics of the Khmer Rouge for dealing with dissent: More than 40 of Ranariddh's supporters have been summarily executed. Currently, the remnants of Raniddh's forces control a small corner of thecountry near the Thai border; scattered fighting continues, primarily in the area around the town of Samrong.
The atmosphere in the weeks prior to the coup was one of optimism. Rumors surfaced that Pol Pot, the head of the hated Khmer Rouge, had been captured, and would be turned over to the government to stand trial. The Khmer Rouge were defeated, consumed in the end by their own violence and infighting. But in a bitter twist of fate, killers have become a sought-after commodity in Cambodia. The remaining Khmer Rouge were a prize. Ranariddh, whose soldiers had been battlefield allies of the Khmer Rouge throughout most of the Eighties, seemed poised to absorb them into his ranks. Hun Sen, fearing the effect that this might have on his attempts to consolidate his power, moved to crush Ranarridh before the Khmer Rouge could join him.
In the days leading up to the coup, Hun Sen protested loudly that the Khmer Rouge were murderers, and that they should have no place in Cambodian politics. This is a admirable sentiment. But it is rather odd to hear it from Hun Sen, who is himself a former Khmer Rouge soldier. His defection from the Khmer Rouge came only when one of the many purges conducted by the Khmer Rouge came to focus on his own ranks. One can only assume that he had no particular objection to genocide, so long as it was not directed at him personally.
In the days following Ranariddh's overthrow, Hun Sen's soldiers have been hunting down supporters of Ranariddh's FUNCINPEC party. At least 40 of Ranariddh's political allies have been murdered since the coup. Several of the victims were apparently tortured before being murdered; four of the bodyguards of Nhiek Bun Chhay, Ranariddh's top military commander, were found with their eyes gouged out (Nhiek Bun Chhay narrowly escaped.). Former Interior Minister Ho Sok was shot in the head while in the custody of Hun Sen's military. Chau Sambath, an intelligence expert for Ranariddh, was "shot while trying to escape" according to one CPP account, and "committed suicide" according to another.
The United Nations, meanwhile, reported that several persons imprisoned in the wake of the coup had been tortured; they were beaten, forced to drink sewer water, and some had their fingers crushed in metal clamps. Thirty detainees were held in an unlit, unventilated cell roughly six feet wide by twenty feet long. In a haunting echo of the Khmer Rouge years, the CPP denied that FUNCINPEC supporters had been killed. They had, according to the CPP, been sent for "re-education." In the aftermath of these incidents, Amnesty International has issued an appeal to embassies in Cambodia to provide shelter to Royalist party members. Hun Sen's soldiers, meanwhile, celebrated their victory with a looting spree throughout much of Phnom Penh. Even hospitals were not spared. Soldiers stole medicine, beds, and blankets, leaving nothing behind for the care of the wounded.
Some scholars have promoted the idea that the core of the Cambodian People's Party was formed from the ranks of "good Khmer Rouge" -- a noble, caring group of kind-hearted revolutionaries who were oppressed by the evil "Pol Pot - Ieng Sary clique." Anyone who believes that this is so should be reminded that Hun Sen, the so-called "co-Prime Minister," held that title only because he threatened renewed civil war when he lost the UN-sponsored elections in 1993. Those who still harbor lingering doubts should view the horrifying aftermath of the Easter Sunday grenade attack on pro-democracy protesters in Phnom Penh, an attack that killed at least 18 people and wounded as many as 100 more. After the assault, Hun Sen suggested that the opposition leader who arranged the demonstration (and whose bodyguard was killed in the attack) should be arrested. When he finished blaming the victims, he suggested that the Khmer Rouge were responsible. In a sense, he is probably correct: When Hun Sen looks in the mirror, a Khmer Rouge soldier stares back.
It could be persuasively argued that all of Cambodia's leaders are unworthy of power. Until recently, one could have further argued that Hun Sen was the least reprehensible of the lot. That argument can no longer be made. The Khmer Rouge have been defeated. In their absence, Hun Sen has brought slaughter back to Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge are dead. Long live the Khmer Rouge."
(July 27, 1997)
Cambodia Map
Quotable Quotes
"If you like adventure and don't mind people waving guns in your face, this is the place to be."
– Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos Handbook, Moon Publications
"No firearms or explosives allowed in the room without prior approval of management."
– A sign posted on the wall in our hotel room in Siem Reap
"No problem. He bite, no die."
– Our guide at Ta Prohm after our encounter with the king cobra.
"No problem now, all the mines are cleared."
– The same guide, who walked with a limp because he had stepped on a mine in the area where we were walking.
"Danger - Mines"
– Signs with skull and crossbones that are posted throughout the Cambodian countryside.
"This is nothing, you should see how they travel in Laos. "
– A fellow traveler, as 21 of us rode in and atop a Toyota pickup truck with all our gear.
"If you see a political demonstration, quickly leave the area."
"Don't go out alone at night in Phnom Penh."
"At the arms market, they'll try to get you to pay 400 Riels for each round of AK-47 ammo, but don't pay more than 100."
– Advice from Nick, the crazy Australian
"Are they related?"
"No, why?"
"They have the same hair. They look like scientists."
– Exchange between a Cambodian kid and Lauren about Geoff and Bob, who hadn't had haircuts in a while.
Cambodia Links
For more information on Cambodia::
Beauty and Darkness: Cambodia in Modern History: Information on the recent history of Cambodia, as well as information for Cambodians living out of the country. A good source for information on recent developments relating to the coup.
Lonely Planet: The best online source about Cambodia for general information for independent travelers.