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Nabeel Farah

CAMBODIA MUSINGS

CAMBODIA

 

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

The bar seemed ordinary enough at first glance, nothing unusual about
rolling across dirt roads and past fortified checkpoints to partake of one 's favorite libations. And so it was that I began my visit by having pint of
Angkor
beer with my former colleague and now Pnnom Penh expatriate, the illustrious Alexander Lemon. Nothing strikes the casual
observer as unusual about the menu until one gets to the heavy firearms section. Yes, not only can you imbibe the local brew, you can also brush up on your armor piercing bullet technique. It reads like a fine wine listAk-47’s,M-60’s, hand grenades, rocket propelled grenades, and on and on. And so for a not so nominal fee, Alex and I tried our hands at Mikhail  Kalashnikov’s great harbinger of peace, the tried and true AK-47. As an aside, Alex relates that a local minister of the Cambodian People’s Party recently banned that time honored tradition of annihilating live cows with rocket propelled grenades (apparently this rather obscure form of leisure was particularly popular with Japanese backpackers).

The city of
Phnom Penh
is an interesting juxtaposition of striking
poverty and splendid opulence. Grand 19th century French colonial
mansions manned with armed guards sparkle against the backdrop of
sweatshops, slums, and refuse laden dirt roads. Wild dogs forage for
food while the appendage challenged beg for money. Indeed the intrepid backpacker must take care to avoid unexploded landmines that still litter the country. As such it is advisable never to wonder off well trodden paths and roads on the outskirts of cities. Even up until 1991 before the United Nations took over,
Cambodia was a bloody civil war zone. Furthermore, chilling reminders of Pol Pot’s brutal regime are everywhere. Almost anyone you talk to in Cambodia has had a relative killed by the Khmer Rouge. By 1979 when the Vietnamese came to liberate, Phnom Penh
was virtually abandoned thanks to Pol Pot’s agrarian delusions. A visit to Tu Sulong Prison Museum provides a graphic glimpse into the horrors of the Khmer Rouge.

On to
Angkor
Wat

And so I bid Alex adieu and headed north to the city of
Siam Reap
near
the temples of
Angkor
Wat. Getting there was not without excitement.
Cambodia doesn’t exactly have a world class FAA and this is why they can sell tickets for the aging dinosaurs they variously describe as planes. The particular plane I took is a Chinese knock off of an old Russian Plane called the Yakovlov. To its credit it did land safe on the way there despite the rain (although on the way back it died on the tarmac, so all the passengers had to wait for another plane to be flown in from Phnom Penh).

 

Anyway, to articulate the sheer grandeur and immense scale of the temples of Angkor is well beyond the scope of this letter if not impossible. Suffice it to say they were simply amazing. The temples
were discovered by a french explorer in the 1870’s half swallowed by
the jungle. Built between the 9th and 14th centuries, the enormous temples
burgeon high above the jungle thicket. Trekking through the enormous
temples by foot and motorcycle is an exhilaration I have seldom known.
The fickle Khmer rain occasionally ameliorates the sweltering heat. One
almost expects to see
Indiana
Jones traipsing through the ruins.
Gargantuan centuries old tree roots meander through the ancient
temples, having long ago pushed 2 ton slabs of finely decorated sandstone aside like building blocks. The vistas from the soaring towers at sunrise
defy description. 

Well
Cambodia
has been quite the experience but now its off the land of
the rising sun.
Japan
!

Cheers,
Nabeel