Thursday, April 07, 2005
Sihanoukville
I'm sitting at an internet cafe literally on the beach here in Cambodia (I can hear the waves lapping at the shore). Cool.
I rented a motorbike for the day ($4), and spent most of the afternoon zipping about the various beaches. As fortunes would have it, a Canadian fellow named Shane - whom I met playing pool at a bar in Siem Reap 5 or 6 days ago - was eating breakfast at my guesthouse this morning after I returned from a walk on the beach. He'd already biked around the island, so he served as a nice tour guide. The beaches are nice here, and of course they are full of funny little Cambodian kids peddling overpriced junk. But my skills of negotiation swindled 2 bananas with the purchase of my cambodian flag bracelet this afternoon from a 10 year old Khmer girl :)
Tomorrow I'm taking a snorkling tour of the islands around Sihanoukville.
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The Killing Fields and S-21 were remarkably moving places, but I can't say that I can really describe them. It's hard to believe that with all the horror caused by the Khmer Rouge, there has yet to be any sort of tribunal for the nation of Cambodia. I actually didn't take photos, but the job of exhuming the bodies is incomplete, and you can still see plenty of bits of bone and clothing in the dirt around the ditches that used to contain mass graves. It's really unspeakable what went on there.
I rented a motorbike for the day ($4), and spent most of the afternoon zipping about the various beaches. As fortunes would have it, a Canadian fellow named Shane - whom I met playing pool at a bar in Siem Reap 5 or 6 days ago - was eating breakfast at my guesthouse this morning after I returned from a walk on the beach. He'd already biked around the island, so he served as a nice tour guide. The beaches are nice here, and of course they are full of funny little Cambodian kids peddling overpriced junk. But my skills of negotiation swindled 2 bananas with the purchase of my cambodian flag bracelet this afternoon from a 10 year old Khmer girl :)
Tomorrow I'm taking a snorkling tour of the islands around Sihanoukville.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Killing Fields and S-21 were remarkably moving places, but I can't say that I can really describe them. It's hard to believe that with all the horror caused by the Khmer Rouge, there has yet to be any sort of tribunal for the nation of Cambodia. I actually didn't take photos, but the job of exhuming the bodies is incomplete, and you can still see plenty of bits of bone and clothing in the dirt around the ditches that used to contain mass graves. It's really unspeakable what went on there.
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What is troubling to me is that so few people even know what happened there. Perhaps our understanding of history would be better if WWII wasn't portrayed as the exclusive horror of the twentieth century. I don't know for sure. Just think how many people that participated in that are still walking free. It's really horrifying.
For those of you that aren't aware of what on in Cambodia, a google search for "Pol Pot" and "Killing Fields" should give you the basics. But a review of recent history, e.g. Rwanda, or the current situation in Darfur, makes it clear that "Never Again" may make a nice slogan, but it's certainly not a guiding principle in Western foreign policy.
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