The past few weeks had been such a flurry of activity that the realization of leaving didn’t hit home until Sunday night, mere hours before departure. And when we woke at 5am to catch our bus to Siam Reap it just felt like a continuation of the rush. But it was nice to catch up on sleep for the first few hours.
Crossing the border at Moc Bai / Bavet is like crossing from day into night. The vast differences the histories of Vietnam and Cambodia have left each country in are immediately apparent and nothing less than striking. Well-managed, fertile fields gave was instantly to fallow acres; manufactured houses—implying wealth enough to pay another person to build one’s domicile—were replaced with DIY homes; the intense population density of Vietnam contrasted with the sparseness of the Cambodian countryside.
Cambodia is at once a more bucolic landscape. Vietnam hasn’t invested much in highway side beautification and one’s viewpoint is limited to roadside restaurants, motorbike repair shops and the other forms of human occupation which inevitably spring up—unless prevented from doing so—along lanes of commerce. The commerce is much more limited in Cambodia and thus the views are better. Surely one of the most romantic images of southeast area the vast green and brown fields, crusted with palms, given way to generous slices of sky and clouds. I was reminded of how much I had enjoyed Cambodia.
Aside from the landscape, a major theme of Cambodian thoroughfares seems to be a frightening array of animals on vehicles—in various states of life and death). Aside from moments of morbid fascination this doesn’t hold much attention, so I settled into Jared Diamond’s “Collapse” for the duration of the ride to Phnom Penh. The TV on the bus played Charlie Chaplin films, the background music of which is quite pleasant. And they were significantly better the viewing option on our last trip to Cambodia: a collection of hideous youtube clips of masked men ripping tube tops off of women in public. One wonders who considered this to be suitable viewing material, but the wondering doesn’t last.
Cambodia’s capital has a peculiar grandeur to it. Once considered southeast Asia’s urban jewel it now resembles an unpolished ornament: having been through too much in too little time, and without the time needed to recover. We had an hour to kill before our bus to Siam Reap to we hired Sitaa to take us to a few spots of historic interest: the French embassy and the train station. Along the way we passed Ratana Nimol, whose sign read:
“Selling statues, monk’s robes and all kinds of ritual accessories”
The French embassy fascinated me because when the Khmer Rouge took control of Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975, a few hundred people remained trapped and isolated there—Cambodia’s version of the “Hotel Rwanda.” Francois Bizot—Cambodia’s Paul Rusabagina—documented their trials in his The Gate. In addition, the epic film The Killing Fields, includes numerous memorable scenes from this bizarre and tragic episode. There wasn’t much to see, though: just a thick white wall. Sitaa was perplexes that we weren’t going for visas.
Our second stop was Cambodia’s defunct train station. One of the accomplishments of the brutal French colonization of Cambodia was the line which stretched from Phnom Penh to Battambang and then into Thailand. How I wish that line still existed! The station is in a state of decay and decrepitude. No one cared about our trespassing and we snapped a few photos of the railway carapaces, which looked like they had been bombed. I entered two of the passenger carriages. These photos will speak to their conditions.
They were being used as both homes and toilets: vagrants lounged and it all stank of filth as piles of human shit laid about. I didn’t linger.
The vitality of s train station can represent the vitality and social health of a country. I believe this to be true because trains can, if desired, be a remarkably leveling and egalitarian force. India's train station is testament to that: anyone can use it and nearly everyone does. In two months of riding trains throughout India I saw the poor and the wealthy of Indian society in passenger carraiges. The trains are, for the poor, effective, speedy and affordable means of movement. Without them, India's poor would have significant difficulties getting around the country--the trains are a form of liberty of movement.
Thus Cambodia's passenger trains are deeply depressing. They were in operation, barely, until a few years ago. That means they survived, somehow, the civil strife of the French colonial period (which was more peaceful in Cambodia than in Vietnam), the Civil War of the early 1970s, the Khmer Rouge revolution, and the period of Vietnamese occupation and control. Now, with Cambodia more "stable" (the term is used loosely but, comparatively, it is true), independent and wealthy than it has been in decades--that is, when one would expect it's trains to be rehabilitated--they've met their death.
One the ride back we passed a John Deere tractor store. It was beguiling to see such an iconic image of Midwestern America, and Wisconsin particularly, here in Cambodia. We also passed a massive monolithic piece of architecture, described by Sitaa a “government building.”
Near the central market some cops flagged us down. They started yelling at Sitaa who responded in Khmer—I think to the idea that we were late for our bus and in a hurry. The cops weren’t having it and he started to pull over. As he neared the curb, he jammed the gas and swerved around the last cop, who pulled his club out and took a few fruitless steps in pursuit; Sitaa drove us off, laughing hysterically as the cops’ expense! We joined him. It was a small moment of triumph over corruption and he endeared himself in our hearts.
The bus ride to Siem Reap was wouldn’t merit much mention except that they were playing Michael Jackson videos, which was pretty awesome. Eventually they switched to repetitive Khmer karaoke, so I took a nap and read Diamond. The sun set and I was reminded again of how stunning Cambodia is: I’ve never seen sunsets like these. Kelly and I stared out the window, content, happy, unemployed for the next three months.
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