Buddhas and baguettes
Petroc Trelawny
Phnom Penh lies at the confluence of three rivers. The Mekong is the grandest, rising in the mountains of China, and passing through Cambodia before eventually disgorging its waters into the South China Sea. From a plane approaching the city, the river was the colour of burnished copper; at sunset it turns gold. By night, viewed from the balcony of a faux-colonial bar, it looks like a turbulent well of blue-black ink. Street lights in Phnom Penh are few and far between; there is little illumination for the water to reflect. It takes the beam of a ship’s lamp or a motorcycle headlight to reveal the hundreds of people sitting along the Mekong’s banks, picnicking and gossiping.
The French regarded Phnom Penh as a provincial city. Their Indo-Chinese empire was run from Saigon, 200 miles to the south. Cambodia’s role was to provide a steady supply of minerals and timber. King Norodom first signed a treaty with Paris in 1863 and the country was run as a colony for the next 90 years. French influence lasted until 1975, when the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot reached the capital, throwing out the last remaining planters, doctors, restaurateurs and hoteliers.
A 1960s high school is the most disturbing reminder of Pol Pot’s regime. Toul Sleng became his principal interrogation and torture centre, where more than 12,000 people were killed. Like the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge kept impeccable records of those they murdered, photographing every one of them. Now the school’s former classrooms are filled with boards displaying headshots of victims, many of them old women or young children. An open terrace running along the third floor is still strung with barbed wire, put up by the Khmer Rouge lest anyone should try to avoid torture by killing themselves. Despite repeated calls from the UN and other international bodies, there has still been no equivalent of the Nuremberg trials, or any sort of deNazification-type process in Cambodia. Several people I met explained there was no hunger for one; it would implicate too many senior figures in the present administration.
Speaking English is regarded as the way forward in the new Cambodia. Walking through the buzzing central market, two old men shouted greetings in French, clearing space for me to join them at their table. The youths sitting nearby looked on with an air of surprise, even gentle disdain, at the use of what they consider a dead language. And yet the influences of the old mother country are all around. Market stalls sell tasty terrines and pâtés; on Monivong Boulevard an elegant women dressed in silk clutches a hybrid version of a baguette as she journeys home on a cyclo. Later I sped through the streets on the back of a moped, holding tight to its young driver as we passed signs for the Lycée and Gendarmerie. We ended up at the 1920s Bibliothèque Nationale. When the Khmer Rouge arrived they destroyed most of its books. Its dedicated staff are working hard to rebuild the collection but at the moment the public reference section is distinctly eclectic, with such treasures as Who’s Who in Japan 1991–92, a complete set of Jane’s Weapon Systems, and the volume of an old Dictionary of National Biography covering Whichcord to Zuylestein.
Not far from the library is Phnom Penh’s art-deco railway station. Its half-dozen platforms are capable of handling dozens of trains an hour. In fact, there is just one service a day, the destination alternating between Sissiphon, near the Thai border in the north, and the coastal resort of Sihanoukville. The best way to get to Siem Reap, the town adjacent to the Angkor temples, is by boat. The service departs at seven in the morning; vendors at the docks sell sticky currant buns to provide sustenance for the six-hour voyage; on board a man with a Thermos flask offers glasses of strong Nescafé, sweetened with condensed milk. I was looking forward to travelling on the Mekong, but a closer study of the map revealed we were only to be on Asia’s great river for the very first stages of the journey, before breaking off into Tonle Sap, the great lake that provides Cambodia with its supplies of fresh water and fish.
The Angkor temples were built over 400 years, the first constructed in the 7th century. Later they were lost to the forest, many not rediscovered until the French started surveying the area in the 1850s. A causeway, flanked by statues of gods on one side, devils on the other, and a tall Victory Gate leads one towards the Bayon. Its 54 towers are topped with enormous images of the face of Lokeshvara, the Bodhisattva who delayed entry to Nirvana so as to help other souls search for salvation. Tall kapok trees grow out of the walls of Ta Prohm, creating peculiar angles and perspectives, especially in the afternoon shadow. Preah Khan started out as a palace, before becoming a monastery and a university, once employing 1,000 teachers. Many of the long passages leading to the Hall of Dancers and the central Sanctuary are blocked by fallen masonry. Edging around the rubble I found elegant libraries and galleries with elaborate vaulted ceilings, and carved figures in delicate stone frames. Nearby is Neak Pean, the royal spa, with steps in the shape of coiled serpents leading down into the bathing pools.
The Khmer Rouge maintained control of parts of Siem Reap province until the 1990s. Unexploded landmines and the occasional kidnap and murder of a Western visitor kept all but the most determined away from Angkor. As recently as 1998, armed guards were recommended for a visit to the relatively remote temple at Banteay Srei.
Now the region is safe, and Cambodia is determined to cash in. The Cambodia Daily reported one morning on the government’s aim to increase the current one million annual visitors sixfold by 2010. Mainland China is viewed as the biggest potential market. Several times, as I wandered around the sacred sites, the peace was shattered by the arrival of a Chinese tour group, their guide carrying a powerful loudspeaker to ensure his quick-fire commentary was audible to all. Angkor is a ‘must-see’ destination for European backpackers as well — though many seem to want to do little more than pose for a quick photo and tick the temples off on a long list of Southeast Asian attractions.
Thankfully, few of the tourists can be bothered to get up early. I was out of my hotel by 5.30 each morning, and was thus able to wander alone along the galleries of Angkor Wat, marvelling at the bas-reliefs of great battles and of Hindu gods sitting in judgment on the dead. As the sun rose, I climbed the steep, worn steps to the complex’s inner sanctum. When Angkor was consecrated in 1150, only the king and his high priest were allowed to enter; I shared the summit with a French couple and a wizened elderly woman soliciting offerings to the enormous Buddha of which she was custodian. Below, a pair of saffron-clad monks walked along a causeway into the forest, the mist evaporating around them.
It was only at the end of the day that I had close exposure to my fellow travellers. Watching the sun set one evening from the top of the 9th-century Phnom Bakheng, it was impossible not to be drawn into listening to the conversation of three English lads in polo-shirts discussing the easy availability of sexual services in Bangkok. As the sun dropped and the laterite stone turned from amber to grey, their discussion had moved to London lap-dancing clubs. ‘Spearmint Rhino ... now there’s a classy joint.’
Previous page
