Vietnam and Cambodia

Now that finals are done, I can start with the remainder of my blog posts!! And let me start off that I was so sleep deprived that I thought it was an hour later so I missed lunch and I missed taco day. TERRIBLE. (also, I'm sorry again for the grammar; half of this is from a paper I wrote and I just don't care.)

Vietnam was crazy, the rhetoric used was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. I was only there for three days because of my trip to Cambodia but I saw most of what I wanted to do. The first day, M and I went to go get dresses made and had a moto-taxi driver take us in a real taxi and proceeded to follow us into the shop. While taking our time picking out dresses, some how M’s phone went missing, discovered later to have been taken by one of the drivers as he pocket-dialed her father and he overheard people speaking Vietnamese. We each picked out three things, I three dresses, she two and a shirt, and we went back on our way to the ship to leave for Cambodia!

 Our flight was easy and short; our first stop was to an orphanage. Honestly, my heart wept for these children. They were all so happy yet had close to nothing. We were there for an hour and at first, none of the children came up to M and I. A few gradually came up to us and told us they could sing so we went back and forth singing songs we thought the other would know and finally settled on (vom.) Justin Bieber. They played a “game” that reminded me of Pie Pie Pie and then we called it a night. The girls were so sad to see us leave, I was speechless. We almost got left behind because they wouldn’t let us go. But off we were to our hotel.

The hotel was nice and that night we all went to a night market. There were Cambodian teenagers singing American songs in their native tongue, such as Beautiful Girls by Sean Kingston and Baby by Justin Bieber (he may be the reoccurring theme of this trip) and we all bought tshirts and DVDs to our hearts content.

The next morning we awoke and went to the Silver Pagoda and the Royal Palace;there was a foreign diplomat visiting so we were unable to get close to the place where we had wanted to. This is where the policies of the Khmer Rouge began to hit me; there was a room filled with Buddhas, many of them missing heads and faces. The Khmer Rouge set to abolish religion and would knock the faces and heads off of religious statues.

We then drove to the Killing Fields as I had to begin to mentally prepare myself for what we would witness. I was hoping our itinerary was wrong because it only granted us fourty-five minutes there. After visiting, it was obvious it was not enough time. I saw the pagoda and watched a movie and spent the last of my time reading what they had to say about the ECCC trials and the defendants. I was one of the last onto the bus and was itching to get off and read and see more.

-Plaque outside of the pagoda housing thousands of skulls and remains of victims at the Killing fields

Then began the journey to the Tuol Sleng museum (also known as S-21), the high school that was converted into a torture prison in central Phnom Penh. There are few times in my life where I’ve actually been speechless but I sure was here. S21 was unreal. I was completely speechless, taken aback by what I was seeing. Duch, the chairman, was so meticulous in his record keeping that it was no question what had transpired. Viewing face after face of innocent Cambodians made the situation so real, so tangible that I was standing in the same room as the people falsely accused of treason to the Party. In my head, I had argued with myself whether or not it was better that Duch had kept these records. Had he not, these people would have been anonymous, faces lost in a war. But with the pictures, files, and written confessions, their memory is preserved. Although it is a memory of their final days, it can bring a type of solace to their families. These are the semi-lucky ones, able to understand what had happened to their loved ones. Although the files themselves are filled with terrible things, their lives live on in reverence. I chose the ECCC for my presentation in my International Law and Conflict class due to my fascination and I was astounded by what I had researched. Pure repulsion does not begin to describe what I had found. The sick and twisted minds of the guards at S21 were astounding. When I was there, there were the final two survivors there. Although they did not speak English, one could understand the pain and suffering they endured. One man, Chum Mey, described to us their suffering using pantomimed motions; it was too difficult to watch this man reenact what he had experienced. Had these men not had skills deemed desirable to the Party, they would have suffered the same fate as their compatriots.

At S21, the Khmer Rouge had taken an ordinary, every day location and turned it into something evil. A school, a normal symbol of hope and the future, was changed into a torture center and prison. Normal exercise equipment had been given a new life as a “gallows” of sorts. The compound housed four buildings, each looking out into a beautiful courtyard, filled with palm trees and trees that had just began to blossom, but one had to look past this. This was not a beautiful place; this was a place where a country had turned its back on its civilians forcing them to suffer in unimaginable ways.

As I am a person who readily relates to other people, a self-diagnosed “bleeding heart”, S21 was difficult for me. From the time I stepped into the gates, my eyes started to well up. I was overcome with grief, anger, and other emotions. I am still unsure of what makes a group commit crimes like this, how they are deemed more superior in the eyes of a higher power to hold the fate of each life in their hands. There were so many innocent souls who came through this prison, abused by guards who were also, in a sense, victims. The Khmer Rouge took no prisoners; you were either with them or against them. The punishment was always the same: death. The cruelty shown by Duch and his crew of extremely young and naïve guards was evident in the museum, where the rudimentary torture devices were on display in cells. In certain rooms, you could still see the chalkboard. Having the two worlds collide in front of me, not in a book or movie, was astounding. It made it so true, so tangible, that it was hard to grasp. These three weeks later, I still find it hard to put into words exactly how I felt and what I saw there. There are places, and people, on earth where evil takes form and I am convinced that S21 and Duch are prime examples.

After the depressing, life questioning stops were over, we headed back to the airport for our flight to Siem Reap, the location of the ancient temples. We boarded and had a beautiful hotel. M and I were roommates again and we tried to open the doors to our balcony. We were literally trapped with everyone laughing around us. Our glass case of emotion was a real phenomenon, glad we got out of that safely. We all went swimming and followed it by a dinner with traditional dancing. It was so cool to see!

The next morning we woke up for Angkor Wat at sunrise. It was one of those days where sunrise doesn’t really happen and we’re just blessed with a sky that goes from dark to light reaaaaaal quickly. It was really interesting to see as we had two separate tours of the compound. It was upsetting to see how the Khmer Rouge had ruined so many parts of the structure, however, because many of the heads of the Gods had been cut off. 

We continued our visits to Ta Prohm, where Tomb Raider was filmed and drove past Bayon, Baphuon, Terrace of Leper King, and the Elephants Terraces. We started to run out of time so we were unable to fully spend our time at these locations but they were still gorgeous. Our flight back that night was fine. The rest of the time spent in Vietnam was filled with historical stuff. I visited the Cu Chi tunnels and had a terrible tour guide. Our group was slow to start as we were too busy eating and refueling to get going. We ran into a few more people and added them into our tour group. Our guide was supposed to keep the same amount of money per person plus bring us inside the tunnels. He decided to get lunch instead of coming inside to give us the tour. When at our designated dropoff spot, he demanded more money and had reneged on his former offer. After causing a scene in front of the Rex Hotel, we went our separate ways and I left to get ready for a mexican fiesta. 

Gallows at S21

Gallows at S21

Sunrise at Angkor Wat

Beheaded statute at Angkor Wat

A large group of us found a Mexican restaurant, which included fajitas, tequila, and later, karaoke. Highlights of the night: my new friend from England and I singing SuperBass, teaching a Vietnamese man how to salsa dance, and having my friend N not get in a cab because he thought it was full... Great all around night. I went to Ben Than market the next day, along with the War Remnants museum. I've seen enough pictures of Agent Orange victims to last me a lifetime, as well as heard enough anti-American propaganda. All in all, Vietnam was a great experience. But I liked Cambodia more. And I don't know if I'll ever go back. But itw as interesting all the same.