The transition to Cambodia is so crowded with impressions and strong, but conflicting emotions, it is hard to put it into words or even to tease out some sort of chronology of events.
We knew that our first few days in Cambodia would be something of a roller coaster. We have only two days in Phnom Penh before moving on to what will be our home for the next month, in Siem Reap. In the two days we have, we plan to go to the Killing Fields, where the Khmer Rouge executed thousands of innocent people between 1975 and 1979, the Genocide Museum, where the Khmer Rouge detained and tortured thousands more - and to the cinema. And if that sounds odd, it shows 'The Killing Fields', an American film based on the true story of a Cambodian journalist who managed to escape the Khmer Rouge but who witnessed countless atrocities beforehand.
At the same time, it just so happens that there's a huge Water Festival being held in Phnom Penh, on the waterfront right by differences. Cue a carnival atmosphere, noise, jollity and fireworks.
"We will not" as I commented to M when we realised, "know whether we are meant to be laughing or crying."
As it happens, whatever it is we are expected to do, I do both at least once. On both days.
The prelude to all this is the boat crossing to Cambodia. We waste the first hour or so sitting inside the speed boat, watching the passing scenery gradually morph from Vietnam to Cambodia. There is no obvious difference and the only reason we know when we are in Cambodian waters, surprisingly early on our five hour journey, is that we dock briefly to get our visas. Whether we would have had a different experience if we had gone with a different boat, I don't know but there is no evidence of scams, bribes or other issues. In fact there is a collection box for left over Vietnamese Dong, donations to which go to the help and rehabilitation of those addicted to drugs. A fitting location for a drug related charity. I empty my purse into it, though the total sum is only small. Friendly dogs stroll around or chase each other companiably and when the customs officer checks my passport he looks up at me with an ever so subtle comic expression, and returns my smile. And you don't get that at Heathrow.
Back on the boat we venture onto the outside part of the boat and realise what we have been missing. Wind in my hair, river to either side, river spray on my skin and the movement of the boat providing natural air conditioning, I stare out at the jungle greenery, the pale cows, the odd wooden boat with whole families fishing and I feel exuberant and happy to meet Cambodia. Suarsedey Cambodia, I say. Cambodia, hello.
I am happy, daring and intrepid on the boat. I am relaxed and adventurous, upbeat and energetic. I am also being burned. By the end of the journey the sun has kissed my face into a brilliant red and I have resolved once again never to forget the sun lotion. It's a small (though unnecessary) price though and I still feel intrepid. In the right light I am swarthy.
Cambodia, when we reach it, is colourful and full of markets and street life, much like Vietnam, but with a few important differences. Firstly, Phnom Penh, despite being a big capital city, has an air of easy going. The speed of life, including that of the vehicles, is relaxed and noticeably slower than Ho Chi Minh city. Secondly, superficially, it would appear in some ways more advanced than Vietnam, with better road surfaces, good street hygiene and lots of intricate and breathtaking architecture. However, the people themselves give more credence to Cambodia's reputation as a nation struck by poverty. There are more beggars, more bare foot children and in the evening, when the street vendors pack up their stalls, a number of them proceed then to roll out their mattresses. The corner of the street is both shop front and home.
In general, though I find it difficult to explain it exactly, I feel an instant warmth towards Cambodia. I have expected Phnom Penh to be busy and crazy. I have spent time psyching myself up for it, knowing my innate tendency to shrink away from busy cities and long for open fields, farm smells and countryside. But though it is busy, especially during the Water Festival, it feels different, and something in me relaxes. The main thing I have to contend with is the heat. The end of the monsoon season, I expected, would lessen the humidity. Possibly. But it is replaced by an immense dry heat, equally hard to move in, equally likely to saturate clothing, though this time the saturation all comes from me. It's not in the air. It's in my skin. I swelter. And whinge a little. But Cambodia itself, I like. If it could please just turn the temperature down a bit.
We walk through the park near the Royal Palace, though it is closed for the festival. There is, already, a party atmosphere. Families sit on rugs eating picnics, the riverside is full of cheering onlookers as the various heats of the regatta unfold. I watch, with the sort of indulgent smile you wear when you're in another county, and it happens to be a country you like. A nine or ten year old boy stares intently just out of my immediate vision. I follow his gaze, casually. Just in time to notice the stick in his hand (a thin switch of bamboo I think) and to see him bring it down hard, his face full of concentration, on what I assume is his sister's back.
She cries, face screwed up in real pain and there proceeds a sadistic pantomime in which the girl cries, the boy swishes his stick, neck thrust out menacingly, the girl runs, the girl cries some more, a much smaller child toddles wailing behind, the boy flicks his stick in her direction, the girl runs, the toddler is herded and the boy follows, still swishing his stick until eventually all three disappear down an alley and out of view. No one else bats an eyelid. I don't know who the children were, whether rich or poor and whether the girls were indeed the boy's sisters, but either way, as I say crossly to M, if I see him again I'm going to hit him with a stick just to see how he likes it. M wonders, drily, how he would explain to my parents that I had been incarcerated in a Cambodian jail for hitting a Cambodian child with a stick. This is a reasonable point. And it isn't in any way representative of the Cambodian people I have encountered so far. But the image stays with me.
We make our way to the cinema, and settle into some cushions in the cool, dark room with a projector screen which functions as a cinema and which shows 'The Killing Fields' every single day.
The film, as could be expected, is sad and tense, and assumes some prior knowledge. We have some of this, having researched it earlier before we crossed the border, but even so, the tale of senseless massacre, of crazed politics and of large scale suffering without good reason, still leaves us with some questions unanswered. The biggest one being, "why?". We learn that the Americans dropped an entire plane full of bombs on a small village in neutral Cambodia, presumably either tactical or accidental as a side effect of the war with Vietnam. Why? We already knew that fighting with Vietnam had somehow crept over Cambodia's borders. Why? And that those unlucky enough to be captured by the Khmer Rouge were tortured and made to make confessions which even the Khmer Rouge cadres must have known were untrue. Why?
The bare facts are these. Following a period of unrest and great poverty, American bombing and fighting, the Khmer Rouge staged a coup against the reigning government. And the people, disillusioned and sick of war, welcomed them in as harbingers of peace. The Khmer Rouge were an extreme communist group who believed, broadly, that the country should be self sustaining, particularly by increasing rice production, that there should be a levelling of privilege, everyone having the same chances, the same money, the same opportunities. In the pursuit of equality and the distaste for the monied classes, the Khmer Rouge, with Pol Pot as its leader, revered the poor peasant farmers and hated the cities. Where this set of ideals becomes deranged is in the extent to which it is taken literally. The Khmer Rouge closed places of learning, hospitals and places of worship. They forcibly evacuated whole cities into the countryside. They, despite most of their leaders having been highly educated, often abroad, punished anyone who had been educated, spoke another language, had lived in the city, been a monk or nun, was foreign, had fraternised with foreigners or wore glasses. Why? The Khmer Rouge claimed that this was 'year zero' but still wrought a dark revenge on anyone who had fallen into any of those groups in the years preceding. This 'revenge' was essentially a death sentence. The Khmer Rouge used the now empty school and hospital buildings as bases in which to incarcerate these 'enemies', torturing them horribly to bring about their 'confessions' and then transferring them to what are now known as 'the killing fields'. What happened there should be obvious.
Hundreds of thousands of people died, either murdered or starved. There were forced labour camps which killed a lot of people through exhaustion or starvation and the country grew poorer and poorer as Pol Pot tried to triple rice production and put untrained labourers to work without food. He also, inexplicably, seems to have ordered the destruction of other crops. Why? Why? Why?
The film is of course harrowing and the atmosphere through it is of panic and confusion, with nobody ever being sure what is happening. True to life I suspect. The whereabouts and existence of the killing fields and torture camps were not known until some time after, and the UN still recognised the Khmer Rouge as the rightful leaders of Cambodia even after they had been overthrown and exiled. It's enhanced by the fact that the Khmer Rouge soldiers were largely children from poor backgrounds. Children can be easily indoctrinated, and can easily become drunk on power, as they naturally have so little. These children would also have been motivated by fear, the Khmer Rouge was not a force you could disobey easily. Fear makes people cruel. And sustained cruelty ceases, rapidly, to feel like cruelty. The sense of danger, panic and confusion pervades and is enhanced by a power cut in the middle of the film, which plunges us all into darkness. It's half frightening, given the atmosphere, and half a welcome relief. There's a fair amount of nervous laughter.
When we finally emerge from the cinema M uses the bathroom and I decide to wait for him outside the cinema. I want to check that Cambodia is alright.
It's more than alright. It's pumping. Music blares out from various shops, bars and restaurants, mingling with the jingles of mobile market stores, the excited chatter and laughter of children and the smell of heady fair ground style snacks and family picnics.
When we round the corner, still subdued and blinking from the film and its subject matter, we are greeted by something which jerks us, abruptly but kindly, back from the events of 1975 and into the carnival. The river is illuminated by a dozen huge floats depicting various pictures or motifs picked out in coloured lights. Some show a goddess, others dragons, snakes or temples. They float majestically along the river, spilling pools of coloured light over its surface which stretch nearly all the way to the bank. People clap, cheer, photograph or simply watch them. The feeling is both reverent and joyous.
I will probably not forget that first sight of the floats, seeing them as I did, through a blur of emotion. I was still blinking this country's horrifying history from my eyes as I tried to focus on its jubilant present.
It is important to remember and to honour the dead. It is important to learn from the history of past despots to try to prevent laying a path for another. But at what point should we stop characterising a country by its history?
"It is sad" our tuk tuk driver will say to us when we go to visit the Killing Fields, "but it was 35 years ago".
I think that we should never stop marking the memory of these things. We should visit the killing fields, the camp in Auschwitz, build and visit memorials of atrocities in Argentina, in Chile, in Rwanda, the War Remnants Museum in Vietnam. But perhaps we should also congratulate the afflicted countries on their recovery. On the work they have done to pick up the pieces. We should feel heartened by the good will of other countries who gave aid. And yes, Cambodia is still poor. I am not yet sure why or what its strategies are to change things. But it's a very different country to the one I have just seen portrayed on film. And is it perhaps possible that the more one talks about a country as being poor, the harder it is for it to recover? Especially where tourism is perhaps one of its brightest hopes for new industry.
Perhaps we should remember the past but note the present. Perhaps we should admire Cambodia's beauty and its easy spirit.
Maybe. Just maybe, we should celebrate a water festival.
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