Three Americans in Cambodia: from the 'bier to the 'bode

(This post is by the marvelous Maggie who made the trip to Kampuchea to visit with the elegant Ellen as was mentioned in my last post...enjoy her musings on the adventure!)

April 10 – April 20, 2014

It's hard to believe now, but just over a month ago Ellen and I arrived in Cambodia after 60+ hours of travel (only slightly disheveled from our experiences with the labyrinth of Bangkok's public transit system and navigating the border crossing from Thailand) and happily fell into Meghan's waiting arms. As we expected, though I remained somehow unprepared for it, the hot climate overshadowed most of our other immediate impressions including the new smells, competing sounds, and bustling crowds of Poipet, our first stop in-country. From Poipet we traveled south, directly to Battambang (where we spent two nights), then on to Meghan's site (one night), and finally landed in Siem Reap (three nights). Despite the climate culture shock (temps in the range of 90 degrees with high humidity), we managed to pack our days with a balanced combination of the must-see tourist destinations and some off-the-beaten-path excursions thanks to our all-knowing local Khmer guide, the habitual author of this wonderful blog. Note: although Meghan claims to not [yet] be fluent in Khmer, the official language of Cambodia, we witnessed her engage in friendly banter and flawlessly execute necessary transactions on a daily basis with the grace and effortlessness that she constantly emotes. Color me impressed.

The morning after our first night in Cambodia found us embarking upon an adventure outside the city limits of Battambang, a mid-sized township in the northwestern part of the country: a ride on the bamboo train. These rickety cars proved little more than bamboo platforms on steel wheels (with pillows to slightly cushion our weak American tushes, thankfully). The unique experience of seeing the Cambodian countryside via bamboo train, as profiled by the Wall Street Journal in this article from earlier in the year, is a thrilling ride of about 30 minutes and offers an open-air view of the surrounding province, including rice fields, grazing cattle, and rural homes nestled in densely wooded areas. From there we set off for a wine tasting at Cambodia's only (yes, that's right – the only one in the country) vineyard, and tuk-tuk'd out to the wat (temple), Wat Banan – 358 steps to the top!

Now, full disclosure: prior to the impressive and informative mini-history lessons we periodically received from Meghan about the country she's come to know and respect over the past 22 months, I possessed an extremely limited knowledge of Cambodia; i.e. only that which I found through a perusal of the Wikipedia page on Angkor Wat, the Lonely Planet's guide to Southeast Asia, and the scenes of the Khmer Rouge occupation in the 1970's as recounted by Vaddey Ratner in her true-to-life novel, In the Shadow of the Banyan. (A highly engrossing and beautiful read, for anyone interested. See the New York Times' review of Ratner's book here.) But even our very brief visit to Cambodia gave us a hefty taste of the rich history and culture that the country has to offer. The complex and varied social and political evolutions that Cambodians have endured are truly mind boggling. And although the tendency of outsiders is to fixate on the country's painful past, Meghan rightfully reminded us that the endurance and fortitude of the Khmer people should not be overlooked. Despite the tragedies of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in the 1970s (an era well within living memory), it is essential to acknowledge the strength of the country's citizens and recognize their resilience through a particularly horrific moment in history as a building block with which the country can continue to improve and heal.

As a Peace Corps Volunteer, Meghan is working to capitalize on the skills and strengths of the Khmer people in her community to create sustainable programs and systems that seek to provide an improved infrastructure which the community will maintain after she has left the country. Many of this blog's readers are probably familiar with Meghan's most recent project which deals with nutrition (the plague of malnutrition which commonly cripples Cambodians, especially factory workers, is also explored in this piece for the Washington Post, authored by a former Cambodian PCV). Ellen and I stayed with Meghan at her site for one night during our travels, and though we spent the least amount of time there of any of the places we visited, the village ultimately provided the most interesting and affecting experiences of our trip. Our time spent with Meghan's host family included preparations for her cousin's twelfth birthday party, sipping iced tea with her neighbor (a single mother who runs her own breakfast shop; a traditional Khmer breakfast usually includes noddles with a fish-paste sauce...not quite what the American palate is used to first thing in the morning!), and a short bike ride to visit with friends. We also toured the health center where Meghan works most days, and the school where her fellow PCV and site-mate, Emily, is a teacher. Frequently during our wanderings in the village we paused to socialize and exchange pleasantries with the locals through Meghan (our translator!); few of the townies we met spoke English. This practice is what we Kenyonites refer to as “Middle Path Syndrome” - a stroll down the village's main drag guarantees multiple encounters with friends, resulting in many leisurely chit-chats. Community building isn't a major offered a Kenyon (or any college that I know of), but it's a necessary skill that many students pick up during their tenure on the close-knit campus, and its staying power is tested as soon as graduates leave the classroom. Witnessing the enthusiasm with which Meghan greeted each of these encounters served as an impressive reminder of the work she's done to establish a bond with the Khmer community in her village, just as she did in Gambier – much to the joy of everyone around her.

After one last stop on the village tour - the crocodile farm next door to Meghan's host family's house (yipes!) - we hailed a taxi to Siem Reap, our final destination before heading back to the States. Perhaps the most tourist-oriented city we visited, Siem Reap offered plenty to do and see in three days. Highlights of the city included a rice wine tasting at Sombai (http://www.sombai.com/presentation/), wandering through the daily markets and the popular night market, attending a performance of the Phare Ponleu Selpak Night Circus (originally from Battambang), and getting dolled up for a traditional Khmer wedding photo shoot (just for fun – none of us is getting married quite yet!). We dedicated our final day in Siem Reap to an exploration of the ruins of Angkor, a highly impressive historic site which once encompassed the Khmer kingdom in the 12th century. Today all that's left are the temples, or wats, the most famous of which is Angkor Wat (Khmer for “City of Temples”), looming over the surrounding land by 213 feet at its highest point. One of the most popular wats in the temple complex, established as an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992, is Ta Prohm, a colossus stone construction in the depths of the jungle which has slowly been reclaimed by the forest's growth in the years since the decline of the Khmer empire. This particular temple is famous for its appearance in Paramount Picture's box-office hit, Tomb Raider, starring Angelina Jolie. Giant vines and impressive root structures strangle the stones of the temple, adding an intriguing atmosphere of destruction and a chilling sense of inevitable decline. The massive trees that grow in and around the temple are mostly silk-cotton trees and banyans, commonly known as “strangler figs.” The banyan is famously found in religious myths and other cultural creations, including a mention in the recent Young Adult hit series, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins; for those who have read the series, the lightning tree in the middle of the arena of the 75th Games is a banyan. (As a side note, this only serves to further my suspicions that Meghan – living among the banyans – is, in fact, Katniss Everdeen.)

Nearly 9,000 miles lie between Washington, D.C. and Phom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. As such, it's hard to visualize exactly why a country so far from our own, both physically and culturally, is of importance to a U.S. citizen. However, not long ago the fate of Cambodia was deeply connected to our own: consider this 2012 article from the Guardian (UK) on the importance of civil disobedience as a means towards social and political justice. The piece remains poignant in light of the recent 44th anniversary of the Kent State shootings (May 4, 1970) and its authors, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, remind us why the students who lost their lives that day chose to exercise their right to protest: four days earlier, President Richard Nixon announced U.S. plans to invade Cambodia as part of the bloody and largely futile struggle against communism in Southeast Asia. Although Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia have become popular tourist destinations for Americans in recent years, many of those who lived through the Vietnam War still feel its resonance too closely to brave a visit to these war-ravaged countries, largely due to an overwhelming sense of war guilt. The struggles of developing nations like Cambodia must not be overlooked by those who have played a part in their creation. We are citizens of the world before we are citizens of our countries, as volunteers and foreign aid workers like Meghan have admirably proven through their work with Khmer communities.

One of the greatest challenges that these outside volunteers and workers face is establishing programs and systems that are sustainable beyond their stay in the country, or even beyond their lifetime. They must seek to do as the familiar fish proverb asserts: “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Two years ago, the National Geographic profiled Aki Ra, founder of the Cambodian Landmine Museum outside Siem Reap (find the profile here). Ra's work is one of many projects currently established to help Cambodia recover from the on-going effects of the country's tragic past. It is programs like this one and Meghan's nutrition project with Peace Corps, which offer both employment and education to the Khmer, that give the country hope for reconciliation with the past and inspiration for the future.

For anyone itching to read more about traveling in and around Cambodia, Naomi Lindt of the New York Times does a much more eloquent job than I of describing the sights and scenes of Siem Reap in this article from the Times' travel section on 36 hours well-spent in the city.

Finally, if ever you find yourself considering a visit to Cambodia, my emphatic advice is this: do it.

mh#2