Blood & Roses in Cambodia

Towards the beginning of our trip, I read the novel Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, a story about a future dystopia in which, as a character-building device, two of the main characters play a game called ‘Blood & Roses’. The game pits historic human-instigated atrocities against human-created phenomena.  After Vietnam, we spent a short five days (Feb 10-15) in Cambodia, but I can’t help reflecting how such a small country has at its core one shining example of each the Blood and the Roses.

Choeung Ek memorial

We started our journey in Phnom Penh, the capital city.   This was the site where the Khmer Rouge regime kept its headquarters and most infamous prison / torture chambers during their rule in the late 1970s.  It was previously a bustling city that became abandoned when the Khmer Rouge forced the population of Cambodia into the countryside in an attempt to create a self-sustaining, agricultural society with no religion, no currency, no education, and certainly no individualism of its people. During the rule, it is estimated that anywhere from a quarter to half of the Cambodian population was killed, generally after being tortured in ways you or I could never imagine, or died from, for example, starvation, malnutrition, or lack of medical care. We visited two memorial sites: Tsol Sleung, once the site of a school, was turned into a holding pen where thousands were tortured and killed during the nearly 4-year reign; and the Choeung Ek ‘killing fields’, where the atrocities were brought to life even more vividly.

I knew little to nothing about this regime before coming here, but I wanted to learn more.  After visiting these sites, Jason and I both read Survival in the Killing Fields by Haing S. Ngor, who was the main Cambodian actor in the movie The Killing Fields. The book was his autobiographical account of his experience during the Khmer Rule regime. It is at once a torturous love story, a tale of patriotism and defiance, a family drama, a heartbreaking and powerful excellent read. It gave me nightmares but I couldn’t put it down. If you have the slightest interest in learning about this slice of history, I hugely recommend it.

There is no way I can do the topic justice here, so I’ll move on – it wasn’t all doom & gloom in Phnom Penh, though, where we discovered the deliciousness of Cambodian cuisine in a half-day cooking class.   This one was a little more casual but even more hands-on than the one we took in Vietnam.  The first thing we made were deep-fried spring rolls with a chilli fish sauce. Then we got into the real treat of Cambodian food – amok. Amok is a dish made with a mixture of curry paste (we made yellow, then red curry paste), coconut milk, and a protein – anything from fish to chicken to tofu – put together and steamed in a cup fashioned from a banana leaf. We were surprised at how delicious the ones from our class turned out to be, and enjoyed others at restaurants during our time in Cambodia.  In fact, amok is probably at the top of our list of new foods we’ve enjoyed during our travels!

Jason handles the hot stuff

Smashing up my yellow curry paste

The finished product - amok! It is incredibly tasty!

At risk of making this the longest post ever, I’ll continue on to the ‘Roses’ of Cambodia – that is, the ancient temples of the city of Angkor outside Siem Reap.  Several dozen temples were built in various styles under the rule of about 20 kings, from around 800-1300AD. They began to be “discovered” in the mid 1800s by Europeans, and in recent decades have become the single reason many tourists come to Cambodia from all over the world. Rightly so! The temples, in various states of disrepair (some have been intentionally left unrestored), are a continuing testament to human ingenuity and artistry, Buddhist & Hindu devotion, and royal greed during the golden years of Khmer civilization.

Out exploring the temples

Angkor Wat - somehow we always manage to see important sights when they're covered in scaffolding

We made 3 trips out to Angkor from Siem Reap – two by bike (about 35 minute ride from our hotel to where the temples start) and one for which we did the usual thing and hired a tuk-tuk, which let us reach some temples that are simply too far to travel to by our own power. The first afternoon, we only had time to visit the famous Angkor Wat, the largest of the temples and, in fact, the largest religious monument in the world. On the second day, we made a full tour of the Grand Circuit (about 50km/31mi) on our bikes, enjoying the independence of seeing as much of what we wanted to, stopping to eat when we felt like it (which turned out to be for bowls of soup at 10am and 3pm), and feeling the satisfaction of being covered in red dust as evidence of the efforts of our literally long & dusty trail. Through our temple touring, a couple stood out as favorites of ours due to their uniqueness among the lot...

First, the Bayon, constructed of towers each with 4 faces looking out – creating a simultaneously humorous and disconcerting effect:

The Bayon from a distance

A few of the dozens of face-towers

Up close & personal

... and Banteay Srei, comparatively miniature to the other temples in scale, with detailed carvings that have weathered time because of the pink sandstone material used to create the temple:

Banteay Srei, made of pink sandstone

Incredible carvings

Monkey-human guards of the temple

While we are by no means experts in distinguishing one temple style from the next, we did quickly become expert at evading the admirably enterprising yet somewhat annoying vendor ladies who set up shop in front of each temple’s parking area.  Mostly they have on offer cans of soda and bottles of water, which can be necessary in the heat of a day’s touring, but not every 30 minutes. We did find the dialogue they seemed to have with themselves as they tried to get our attention pretty amusing:

You want cold driiiink, mister? Lady! You want cold driiiink? Maybe not now, maybe when you come back after?

Needless to say ‘you want cold driiink’ is now a phrase that creeps into conversation on hot days. Speaking of which, it must be 5:00 somewhere.