Trip Report - Phnom Penh 2016

[paperboy]

im still on my travels, will arrive cambodia i hope next week after i get my ass to BKK first.
i will keep you informed, dont worry lol.

[bazzabear]

thanks paperboy looking forward to that. hey wish i was going next week too haha. dont forget want all the info thanks and enjoy the rest of your travels

[bazzabear]

sorry i am not up with all this modern jargon or that good with apps so how do i do a fake gps and what is a gps. i would love to browse before i go too. you can always tell me personaly if you wish . many thanks for your help guys much appreciated

[Nirish guy]

GPS - global positioning system ( satellite )- you know the same thing that gives the data that tells you how far guys are from you in Km when you're on the Grindr app that you said already use ?? And "fake" GPS is a programme you can install to "fool" your Apps into giving them a false GPS, thus letting you pretend / intentionally deceive people / the apps into thinking you're somewhere you're actually not, thus letting you see guys from where ever you want on the planet whilst sitting at home. But I've a sneaking suspicion you perhaps know all this already ? :-)

[bazzabear]

hey northern irish thanks but i can assure you i dont know about that . so thanks . i am always confused by all the apps and the jargon

[fountainhall]

Some reports like this one have mentioned the Tuol Sleng Museum in Phnom Penh. I do hope all those who visit the city will visit the Museum and the Killing Fields outside the city. They are far from pleasant sights and many cry. But I do think it's so important to remember everything this peaceful country went through in its relatively recent history.

Tuol Sleng Regulations
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Tuol Sleng "Hanging" Bar
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Killing Fields Monument
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The French and King Sihanouk are far from blame. But it was a CIA coup and then the undeclared war by the USA that was to result in the rise of the Khmer Rouge and the unspeakable genocide which then took place.

I recommend that anyone visiting should read two books - "Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia" by William Shawcross, one of the first journalists to enter the country after its liberation. In a later edition, Shawcross mutes his criticism of US actions, but not by much.

The second is the harrowing "The Gate" by Francois Bizot who was actually captured by the Khmer Rouge before being set free. He returned to the country afterwards. As a Buddhist who lived in Cambodia and had a knowledge of its society and values, Bizot has a vastly better understanding of the dark times he was witnessing than the American policy wonks in Washington and the generals who clashed fruitlessly with a culture totally foreign to them. Perhaps surprisingly, he developed a sort of friendship with the infamous Comrade Douch, a man who seemingly thought nothing of torturing his fellow countrymen with tremendous barbarity and yet conversely whose innocent desire was to see democracy established in Cambodia. Perhaps interesting that a desire by people who live in a different reality to impose their desires on peasants of several countries has over time led to some of the world's worst atrocities

The superb English translation was done by none other than John Le Carre. Not surpringly it reads like one of his best novels.

[FarangRuMak]

Re fountainhall trip.
Don’t omit Chairman Mao (Pol Pot’s mentor) from the rogues’ gallery.
It was in China under Mao that Pol Pot learned the art of genocide of one’s own people.
When Vietnam liberated Cambodia from the Khmer Rough the Chinese invaded Vietnam in revenge causing the death of 10’s of thousands.
There is of course another twist. The USA predicted that the Vietnamese would not withdraw from Cambodia after the liberation but they did.... and they didn’t.
They took control of a lot of Cambodian resources.
I’ve been told by friends in Cambodia that Vietnamese business interests hold a long lease on Angor Wat secured at a ridiculously low price price, for instance.
Angor Complex is a perpetual goldmine. Cambodian schools could do with some of that cash.
Nothing is simple in Asia.

[Nirish guy]

I do hope all those who visit the city will visit the Museum and the Killing Fields outside the city. They are far from pleasant sights and many cry.

And I was certainly one of the many. Man what a powerful and emotional place that was, you could almost feel the oppression and pain that had gone on there oozing from the brickwork.

My trip there along with the other must see places in P.P really brought it home to me about just how much PR and propaganda we're all fed by our OWN Governments as well the opposed side to get us to support their causes as when you seen some of the horrific pics on the walls and the deformed babies etc in the jars as a result of American chemical warfare such as agent Orange use and the use of napalm etc etc as well of course as the KR's crazed cruelty to their own people and the skulls ( as can be seen in FH's pic), SO many skulls, all just piled up around the place of course it really hit hard and left me quite shell shocked for the next few hours after I left.

So, when I say well worth a visit I mean it not in a light hearted "oh when there you'll really have to pop in and see" but more "you really SHOULD go and see what was carried out in the West's name too as by god we've a lot to answer for just as much as others have in terms of human suffering too".

[fountainhall]

I agree entirely that Mao played a role in the Cambodia genocide. I'm not so sure that Mao provided the model for that genocide, though. Certainly his crazy revolutions had mobilized the masses and then resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese peasants, followed by intellectuals, landlords etc. How much of a template this provided Pol Pot I don't know. But whereas Mao can be said to have had at least some good, if totally misguided, intentions, Pol Pot went much further. The genicide of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Chinese in Kampuchea, for example, was not a by-product of an attempt to develop the country, It was outright mass murder. And Mao, at least in part, recognized the importance of the family as a unit within the communes. Pol Pot was intent on the total destruction of that unit.

And yes, the Cold War and the historical loathing of the Vietnamese and Chinese led the latter to invade in early 1979. I remember that short war only too well. I arrived in Asia at the start of March in that year. Vietnamese air space was closed and so my Air France flight was routed around the south of Vietnam resulting in an additional hour on the flight - and an extra half bottle of wine!

Like all conquering forces, the Vietnamese took what they could from Cambodia. They do need to be given some credit, I suggest, for doing what no other country would do - get rid of the mad genicidal regime of the Khmer Rouge. Yet we also have to remember that Hun Sen led a Khmer Rouge brigade when Pol Pot seized power and remained as a Khmer Riuge leader until he fled to Vietnam 2 years later.

Indeed, nothing is simple in Asia.

[FarangRuMak]

Interesting details. You have been closer to the events than I.
Mao is a pet hate of mine I must admit. He deserves the title “The worst of the worst” in my view.
He was a repugnant person to start with, having no philosophy, no courage, no empathy, no allegiance with workers or peasants, no love for his (abanoned) first family, no patriotism ( he never lifted a finger to expel the Japanese), no human feelings (He denied permission to one former comrade to go to Moscow for cancer treatment) and he was carried in a litter during the largely fictitious “long march”.
He is unique among major despots in that he caused the deaths of tens of millions of HIS OWN PEOPLE during PEACETIME. His militias took the rice from the village stores at gun point and he swapped it with Russia for weapons. It is a historical fact the villages exchanged their children to be used as food during the ensuing famine.
Stalin at least fought a war against invaders before he turned on his own people.
Even in Mao’s old age he gave China one final nightmare-The Cultural Revolution. Students were told to turn on their teachers and they did so all over China. The first teacher murdered in her classroom was killed by female students. Provincial police tried to stem the growing horror but Mao explicitly told them to leave his Red Guards alone.
It’s estimated that 80% of China’s cultural heritage ( ancient books, art, music etc) was destroyed by his young thugs.
Mme Mao is wife and accomplice in destruction gave as her excuse “ I was Mao’s dog. I bit whoever he told me to bite”