Zigzagging Cambodia

The temples at Angkor Wat are magnificent in their massive scale and symmetry, a testament to God’s gifts to humanity of creative artistry and engineering skill. One needs to remind oneself that these structures were carved and erected over eight hundred years ago using thousands of human (probably slave) laborers sans modern construction tools or equipment and know-how. I wondered though, if today, anyone so committed to her/his faith and god(s) or God to undertake such an act of religious devotion as the Khmer kings Suryavaryam II and Suryavaryam VII were to theirs, would be ridiculed as a religious fanatic and shunned as a pariah. On the other hand, I’m reasonably sure a jubilant “live for the Yankees fan(atic)” (note how the term fanatic, used here, is not packed with the same condescending, pejorative ring as “religious fanatic”) celebrating after the franchise’s 27th World Series title, would be accepted as amusing. Why would that be? How are these not both a form of religious devotion? But I digress.

To avoid the possibility of being let down by seeing the smaller idols and temples after the piece de resistance, I saved the main attraction until last. To my amazement, this strategy backfired! I found the smaller, outlying relics far more interesting than the featured showpiece, which was, dare I say it, relatively disappointing. The stone carvings of the less prominent works displayed far greater intricacy of detail. Nevertheless, how incredible that any of these chiseled sandstone edifices are still standing after all this time, let alone that they’re recognizable. That said, Mother Nature is conspicuously and persistently clawing back to reclaim center stage. In some cases, even apart from this, the works are not, as it were, their old selves. Ancient Khmer Hindus had a penchant for decapitating the statues of Buddha, who was initially Hindu. Hence the head-chopping?

While these sights showcased the best of humanity’s gifts in shall we say, a constructive fashion, a visit to Cambodia also promises a glimpse of the dark, destructive side of humanity. I visited Tuol Sleng, better known as Security Prison 21 or “S-21”, the prison where Pol Pot tortured over 17,000 people he perceived to threaten him. From S-21 he transported prisoners to an extermination camp, a “Killing Field”, at Choeung Ek, just outside of Phnom Penh. In less than four years between 1975 and 1979, he constructed over three hundred of these death camps at which have been found over 19,000 mass graves containing the remains of as many as three million people (that "19,000" is no typo). How hard it is for me to grasp that this happened in my lifetime, let alone within thirty years of World War II. How was Pol Pot able to concentrate power so effectively? How could he evacuate millions from Phnom Penh to the countryside for extermination, with (seemingly) so little resistance? Choeung Ek is on a sleepy clump of swampy ground that is today, a very peaceful place. How ironic. Jarring though, is the memorial stupa (Buddhist shrine dedicated to the deceased) in which are encased for all to see, thousands of the human skulls unearthed here. This brought two things to mind: 1) what John Calvin had to say about humanity’s “total depravity”, and 2) an interview I saw of the actor John Malkovich (who, though very talented, gives me the creeps) in which he said he believed every human is capable of killing another—an inadvertent echo of Calvin? A visit to S-21 and Choeung Ek makes those guys hard to refute.

There is plenty of natural beauty in Cambodia, the swells of green- and yellow-hued rice paddies rolling beneath blue skies studded with puffy clouds backed by verdant mountains and thinner, wispy clouds. Gotta' be careful though. If, like me, your perpetual curiosity beckons you to investigate that less traveled way, don’t do it here. Land mines could be lurking anywhere in the shadows off the beaten track. Cambodians with stumpy or missing limbs bear silent testimony to this harsh reality.

In spite of all the contrasts, in the short time I’ve been in the Cambodia, what I’ve seen in the people evokes a sense of forward motion. As in India and Ghana, people have a sense of urgency about them. They seem to be hustlers, in the best (former professional baseball player Pete “Charlie Hustle” Rose) sense of the term. But they know how to laugh too. Tired of saying no to taxi or tuk tuk drivers whose services I don’t need or want, I’ve begun making these interactions a little more interesting by turning the tables on these transport hawkers. I respond by asking them if they want to take a walk with me—I tell them I’ll walk with them wherever they want to go. At first, many are puzzled. I continue, telling them I’ll give them a special price, just for them. Then I quote an outrageous amount. When they hesitate, I ask them why they don’t want to walk with me. Then they get it—and we both burst out laughing! I suppose that’s a constructive way of dealing with the wearying of taxi and tuk tuk driver querying.