Nightfall in Phnom Penh

To begin it’s pronounced Pa-nam-pen and if you pronounce it correctly and say it quickly it sounds remarkably close to the clichéd three-drum beat that might follow a bad joke on late night television.

“Make walks into a bar sideways…Bangkok!”

…Phnom Penh …

On the surface PP is not what I would call an atheistically appealing city. It sits on one of the world’s great rivers but outside the riverfront promenade there isn’t a great deal to point your lens at. But therein lay the appeal and mystique of PP. It’s raw and rough and ready. More than a few lines in the guide book were dedicated to its dangers along with the presence of child prostitution. While checking out hotel websites it definitely gave me pause to see “No sex tourists” disclaimers on more than one reputable hotel homepage. For the first time in my Asian experience guns became a real and potential threat. I never saw one but apparently the men wear them like we wear socks. Along those lines I did receive a handful of offers from guys on the street to “fire machine gun…fire hand gun???” Come on guys. You want me to get in your sketchy taxi, be driven to some random plot of dry earth well outside the city, and stand by as some even more random guy I don’t know puts live ammunition into an old automatic weapon? Maybe tomorrow. But this is Cambodia and for the right amount of money one could fire a grenade launcher if one desired (or so the rumors go). Phnom Penh will go down as my least explored Asian city. And I’m OK with that. I always felt misfortune was just around the corner and I wasn’t about to play into its hands by checking out the local this and that.

Tom logged two nights in PP, Meghan and I four. When I think back to my time five distinct places will always come to mind.

1). Poolside at Le Royal Hotel. After one night at the Hotel Cambodiana, a PP landmark and perpetually frozen in 1977 architecture and décor, Tom upgraded to what he is labeling a top contender for Favorite Hotel in the World – Le Royal Hotel. An undisputed Grand Dame of Asian hotels, Le Royal has been the lodging crown jewel of PP and Cambodia since the days when peace and opium ruled the day. The marriage of swaying palms, turquoise blue water, and the light yellow building façade created the feeling this could be some turn of the century imperial outpost in a remote and epic corner of the British Empire. Is this Cambodia or Northern Africa? Traveling with Tom O’Neil – he sniffs out the finer things in life.

2). Killing Fields. About thirty minutes outside the city center, down a nondescript dusty road off a nondescript two lane highway is the site of Choeung Ek, the final resting place for some 20,000 innocent Cambodians executed at the hands of the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s. All that stands today is a monument containing the remains of 8,000 victims and unearthed shallow graves.

3). S-21 (Security Prison 21). Located in central Phnom Penh the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is a chilling example of the Khmer Rouge’s systematic effort to transform Cambodia into a peasant dominated farming cooperative. A converted high school, S-21 was a prison and execution camp like some 300 similar sites scattered across the country.

4). Foreign Correspondents Club. Occupying three floors and some of Phnom Penh’s most attractive real estate overlooking the Mekong, the FCC is a bar-restaurant-hotel that transports you to another place and another time. When you sink into that tall leather back chair, a frosty glass of Angkor draught in hand, and the breeze blowing through the open air second floor balcony that separates you from the chaotic street level realities below…you quickly forget where you are and when you are and romanticize about what this wet sanctuary for foreign journalists must have been like during the decades that preceded its ascension to what it is today: third world watering hole perfection.

5). Elephant Traffic Jam. I’ve seen a great many things in SE Asia but it’s been a long time since anything has stopped me cold in my tracks. This got it done.

When the time finally came to commence the 36 hour return trip to Manhattan Tom finished his final Angkor draft, said goodbye to the FCC, wished us well, and gracefully disappeared into dusk regally seated in the back of a tuk tuk. I would watch my brother ride out of view from the FCC’s balcony. There is only one Tom O’Neil ladies and gentlemen. And I’m fortunate and proud to call him my big brother.

And just like that three became two…

And two would head to Bangkok to close a circle they began 48 days earlier…

Angkor Wat

The temples of Angkor Wat are the stuff of Indiana Jones. The complex is vast, the temples numerous, and the ease with which one can escape the crowds to find solitude among temple rock and tree root is fist-pumpingly simple. Tom, Meghan and I attacked the temple circus via bicycle and checked off all we felt compelled to see in the course of a day. I returned the following morning alone for a stellar sunrise and a second helping.

The three of us agreed that Lonely Planet got it wrong in the case of Angkor. They suggest one could spend one week visiting the temples. Tom spent six hours. Temple fatigue is a very real thing in Asia. I met a guy from Holland who was hospitalized for TF. To a large extent if you’ve seen one you’ve seen a thousand. Unless you have an understanding of its theology or history, temples all very much look, feel, and speak the same. Then there is Angkor. The sheer size and complexity of these temples built 800 to 1,200 years ago is astonishing. Must see before you die? No. Must see if you’re in the neighborhood? Absolutely.

Siem Reap certainly has a party element to it and for three nights Meghan and I acted as yes-men to Tom’s holiday wishes. Cocktail? Sure. Cocktail? Sure. Cocktail? Sure. And yes I did put down not one but two AJ Tomb Raider inspired cocktails at the Red Piano bar. Tomb Raider cocktail? Cointreau + lime juice + tonic. So it’s like a cocktail with training wheels.

(The overly friendly management couldn’t process that Tom might not be interested in a non-English speaking eighteen year old Khmer beauty queen.)

Following three days in Siem Reap we hired a taxi for the drive to Cambodia’s capital. Tom enjoyed shotgun and a refresher course in the Game of Inches that is third world driving. After four hours of uninspiring scenery we were reacquainted with an old friend – the Mekong River. And there on its banks is what Steve Bowman once described as “probably the scariest city on earth.”

Its place in Indochina’s history is exotic, romantic, and grizzly all at once. Its reputation commands respect. The capital of Cambodia – far and away the rawest city I’ve encountered in Asia. It’s Phnom Penh. Ever heard of it? Didn’t think so.

Two Faces of Cambodia

At about 10am on Tuesday January 12^th I bent down and clawed at runway asphalt. It would be my last moment on Vietnamese soil. Twenty three days is what Meghan and I spent in Vietnam. I was sad to say goodbye as Vietnam had played host to the greatest moments of Meghan and my time together, but given the excitement of what lie ahead one can pause for only a moment before the excitement of the future carries you onward with wide eyes and wide smile. And carry on we did…to the Kingdom of Cambodia.

I’m going to board another plane tomorrow morning on January 19^th and leave Cambodia after only seven days. Having jumped from temple hunting and pool lounging in Siem Reap to fancy cocktailing and gut wrenching history lessons in the ultra raw capital city, I haven’t clawed at this country the way I’d have liked. I haven’t gotten particularly dirty with it or gotten under its skin the way I did in Myanmar or Indonesia. I had a holiday in Cambodia, not a lengthy swim in its deep in. Therefore I feel it would be premature and arrogant to draw any real conclusions about the essence of this country, its people, or its future. So instead I’ll cut to what I can draw upon – my visceral response to this place and its people.

Cambodia. Close your eyes, whisper the word, and tell me you don’t have some immediate reaction. A mental image. A gut feeling. Something must come to mind. Be it Martin Sheen cruising up river in Apocalypse Now, dense jungle canopy, human skulls, empty white beach, or temples… Whatever it is something is bound to appear on that white mental canvas when Cambodia escapes your lips. I know I had an image locked in my mind back in July when I first researched the Kingdom. But whatever image or impression or feeling I once held upstairs has long been replaced with a collage of unforgettable images.

The history of Cambodia is out there for the taking. Look it up online, rent a film, or pick up one of the countless literary works that focus on the genocide committed against the Khmer people between 1975 to 1979. What you’ll learn is that somewhere between two to three million Cambodians ultimately perished under the direction of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime during the 1970s. It’s a history of unimaginable human suffering that ended not so long ago. And on every face old enough to have endured that chapter of history, you can’t help but empathize for the mental scars and anguish they must carry around with them.

For me it’s been tough to separate the horrific history from the colorful experiences that unfold each hour. The sheer awesomeness of a place like Angkor Wat is dulled by the knowledge that tens of thousands lost their lives in shallow graves in every corner of the country, including Siem Reap. For me it’s a feeling that’s been impossible to shake ever since I landed. It’s a feeling that has lingered unsettlingly over every meal, every drink, and every interaction.

But that’s just me and my reaction has been influenced by all I’ve seen and experienced over the last four months. Who knows how I’d response to this country if I spent a month here and really dug in. If I found complete immersion here instead of in Myanmar? If this was my opening chapter in SE Asia and not it’s last? Who knows? I’ll never know. What I do know is that my intuition and instincts have kept me safe and served me well thus far. And both have been off the charts in telling me to respect Cambodia, protect that which I hold dear, and watch my back.

Adam Pennella told me a long time ago in Bali that his boss described the island of Java (Indonesia) as “the most haunted place on Earth.” Adam couldn’t elaborate on what exactly his boss meant, but after spending seven days in Cambodia I now understand. I can’t articulate the feeling. I can’t draw a picture or put it in words. I just feel it. Cambodia is the most haunted place I’ve ever been.

But there is another side…and it’s a bright side. Despite the struggles the people are warm. The people are friendly. The people smile. The people have hope for their future. And then they have temples…

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The Two Faces of Cambodia. The two faces of what man is capable of…