The next day began slowly – as hangovers tend to do – yet
this one never fully set in, thank God. Funnily enough we were in no hurry to
be going anywhere but nevertheless had made plans with our taxi driver the day
before and needed to keep to them. Ten O’clock rolled around and we lazily
wandered downstairs. The difference in humidity between our room and the
hallway was incredible. We’d had the air-conditioner on overnight and it had made
the room quite pleasant. The moment I stepped out into the hall however, I was
instantly reminded of what country I was in – the difference was literally that
extreme.
We found the driver right where he said he’d be, piled into
his INCREDIBLY clean Toyota Camry and headed off. This is where I noticed the
first of many differences between Australia and Cambodia. There probably are,
but it seems like there are no discernible road rules in Cambodia. It is the
most intimidating thing when you come from a country has such structured laws
and harsh penalties for breaking them and go to a country where people
basically just do what they want.
The driver nudged his car out into traffic – didn’t give
way, just… went. There was this odd ebb and flow to the traffic; it never truly
stopped and never really got going. People were honking all around but it
wasn’t an angry thing like it is in Australia. It’s not like a:
‘Hey,
tosser! You did such-and-such wrong!’ kind of thing.
It’s more like a:
‘Here I
am!’ kind of thing.
Everyone is just letting everyone know where they are and
if possible to move over just a bit to let them through. It’s such a radically
different system from what I was used to but for the most part – oddly enough –
it seemed to work.
The amount of bikes – bicycles, motorcycles and tuk-tuks –
was incredible. They were EVERYWHERE! And when they weren’t on the road, they
were parked en masse up on the sidewalk. Everyone uses motorbikes to get around
and I could completely see why. They’re small, light and nimble. They can
travel routes that cars just can’t. However – like we saw – they’re easily
knocked over, which is a bit of a hazard. It didn’t stop people from piling
onto motorcycles two or three at a time. It was a regular occurrence to see a
man driving a scooter, his wife on the back and their toddler just standing at
the man’s feet. If that happened in Australia, it would cause chaos! We pour so
much money into child safety equipment and awareness, so to see something like that
and so frequently is quite an eye-opener.
The drive opened up Phnom Penh – the perpetual construction
work (that didn’t quite seem to be getting anywhere); the piles upon piles upon
piles of telephone/ electrical wires that snaked from post to post just metres
off the ground; the unnerving chaotic nature of it all. Slowly, the traffic
began thinning out and it became apparent that we were reaching the outskirts
of the city. Slowly the grime of the inner CBD was replaced by the grime of the
countryside trying to work its way inward. I loved this. This was exactly what
I came to see – a world that was so radically different from the one I had just
left. It was also quite intimidating for that very reason.
We reached the countryside and the driver managed to open
the Camry up. Country driving seemed to have its own set of rules as well;
bikes ride on the side of the road, cars honk at the bikes for them to get out
of the way and the biggest thing on the road gets right of way – at least
that’s how I saw it. The car began to slow and we saw the walls of what we had
come to see – The Killing Fields. Stay with m, it gets a bit morbid from here
on in.
The driver parked and let us know that he would be waiting
for us on our return. We moved through the gates and received a map and little
plastic headsets with audio tours programmed into them. The aim was to move
around a route dictated by the map and to enter a number into the headset that
corresponded with a particular area of the journey. I had initially gone into
this place with the mentality of
‘It’s
part of the country’s history; might as well see it.’
I wish I hadn’t been so blasé
about it. As we were slowly moving from point to point as advised on the map,
each tale we were being told brought us right back to Earth, reminding us
exactly what this place was and how utterly despicable human beings can be.
I think one of the big misunderstandings – at least it was
for me – was thinking that this particular area was the only one of its kind in
the country. In fact, these grounds were just one of HUNDREDS where people were
brought and brutally murdered in cheap and undignified ways. During the
seventies, a cruel dictator named Pol Pot took power, saying that he planned to
unify the country, that everyone was going to be ‘equal’. It was quickly
obvious that the man was no more than a power-hungry dictator who slaughtered
tens of thousands during his four years in charge. He simply took out anyone he
thought would be competition or a danger to his cause. He basically determined
what would be a threat on a second-to-second basis. These could range from
people from his own military that disagreed with him, to doctors, lawyers and
other educated people, right down to ‘intellectuals’ which could simply be
people that wore glasses. It was also described that Pol Pot would kill entire
families so there would be nobody left to take revenge. I think the thing that
blew me away the most was that this didn’t happen hundreds of years ago – this
happened within the last 40 years.
The ‘Killing Fields’ were where people were brought in the
dead of night in trucks and beaten, hacked or slashed to death. In the early
days of Pol Pot’s regime, it would maybe happen once or twice a month. Towards
the latter days, it was a nightly event, with some people being put in
blacked-out buildings overnight to await their execution the next day. I’ll
just repeat for emphasis that this particular site was just one of hundreds –
HUNDREDS – where this happened.
Rain peppered us as we followed the trails and listened to
horrible stories of the precious few people that managed to survive and the
horrible hardships they had to endure to do so. We saw giant depressions in the
earth – the sites of excavated bodies now filled in due to the movement of soil
thanks to the rain. In some areas, the constant shifting of the soil brought
bones still yet to be found to the surface. There were boxes of rags and bones
that were still being discovered to this day. At a lookout over a lake, an old
and weathered femur lay discarded. At the centre of it all stood a giant temple
– a memorial to the fallen. Inside the temple are the skulls found by teams
during the countless excavations simply stacked on top of each other. The
building is huge. The monument is staggering.
Ian and I left the area quite shaken up, more than I thought
I was going to be. I didn’t think the experience would be so personal, so
touching. I think the inclusion of the individual stories of survival really
drove home the true nature of what had happened. We stepped back through the
gate and the soundtrack instantly changed. Gone was the backing track of
crickets chirping, back in place was the hustle and bustle of the constant
snaking traffic and people living their lives just metres away from the site
where these horrible atrocities occurred.
Ian and I stopped for a quick bite to eat at one of the
local vendors before we piled back into the drivers’ car and made our way to
the second destination – the shooting range. We had begun feeling more like ourselves
when the food hit our stomachs, and more so with every extra kilometer we put
between us and the Killing Fields.
We tracked along the long, twisting roads until we found a
non-assuming dirt track, bordered with an overly decorative gateway. The driver
aimed the car for this particular road and the hairs on my neck began to stand
up. There was no reason for this in the end, but at the time I just couldn’t
shake the feeling that this was the moment in the horror movie where the two
naïve tourists in the strange, foreign land were dragged away, never to be seen
again. I was nearly right too, but for a different reason than you might think.
The driver got lost.
The further down the dirt road we went, the wetter we
noticed it becoming. There were huge sections of the track that were just
literal sludge, but on the driver went – slowly & carefully, but quite
obviously lost. It was only after we’d made our way through at least the third
mud pit that the driver pulled up to one of the shanty houses on the side of
the road and asked for directions. The people obliged the driver by pointing in
the direction we’d just come. Up until that point, I thought the driver was
quite competent – I certainly wouldn’t be able to drive in those traffic
conditions. Off road however, he seemed a lot less knowledgeable. This was
immediately apparent when he attempted a three-point turn on an embankment, nearly
bogging the car and only succeeding in bringing us to the bottom of it –
although we were now facing the right way.
We slowly made our way back through the mud, the car sliding
wildly as it lost traction. Ahead lay a patch of mud that we’d made our way
through before and for the life of me, I can’t believe we didn’t get bogged on
the first try. The driver approached cautiously and slowed down where I
would’ve sped up. We entered the swampy mess at less than walking pace and
within seconds, the car slid to a halt. We were going nowhere. Ian and I looked
at each other nervously smiling – it was a VERY long walk home.
After ten minutes of a ‘drive-reverse-drive-reverse-repeat’
regime, the driver got out to assess the situation. The front wheels were
bogged down in water and mud – it lapped at the underside of the car. He
frowned and Ian and I remained helpfully silent. We watched as the driver
worked to wedge slate stones under the tyres to attempt to add traction for his
regime. I say attempt because it never worked. Not once. We were well and truly
stuck. The driver shrugged and sighed. He looked at me in the back seat and pointed
to the front of the car.
‘You
drive?’ he gestured. ‘You drive. You drive, I push.’
And that, dear reader, was how on my second day on holiday,
I found myself behind the wheel of a car bogged over axle-deep in muck in the
countryside of Cambodia. You couldn’t have wiped the grin off my face if you’d
tried. Gone were the ill feelings from before. Ian and I actually kept
repeating the situation out loud, neither one of us believing what was
happening. But it totally was. And we were drawing a crowd.
The driver was true to his word, he assumed a position at
the bonnet and gave me the signal to let rip in reverse whilst he pushed with
all his might. The only problem with that scenario was that the driver was not
a particularly muscularly gifted young man. To call him the personification of
a twig would not be entirely inaccurate. So he strained at the hood whilst I
dipped my toes to the floor, the two of us getting quickly nowhere. That was
before reinforcements showed up.
The crowd had tired of our non-changing routine. Four or
five men stepped forth and joined the driver at the hood of the car. There was
this fantastic moment where this man who had no teeth but was quite happy
chomping on his cigarette walked towards us with this ‘right, this is boring,
let’s get it finished’ kind of look on his face and rolled up his sleeves –
despite him wearing a singlet. We all worked in unison and by that I mean I
again pushed my foot to the floor while five or six men did all the work at the
front of the car and Ian filmed it all. Nevertheless, it did the trick and the
car rose from the stinking, foul mud! IT WAS FREE!!! Carefully, I drove back
around the puddle (the route we probably should have taken in the first place
instead of heading straight for the middle of the giant muddy hole in the
ground) and a great cheer rang out among the locals. However, the cheer was
mine alone. Everyone else kind of just… left…
The show over, we all resumed our places – the driver and
the tourists – and before long, we were at the shooting range. The car slowed
to a stop and we jumped out – happy not to be stuck in the mud this time. We
were greeted by one of the men who had helped us free the car. He was a warm
fellow, a huge smile plastered across his lips, trying valiantly to speak
English. I say that as if I was doing a great job of speaking Cambodian.
Regardless, he drew us inside and another man sat us at a table and dropped a
laminated piece of paper in our laps. On this piece of paper were pictures and
names of weapons and the price tags attached. The guns ranged from pistols to
shotguns, bolt-action rifles, assault rifles, grenades and ever a freaking
ROCKET LAUNCHER! They were quite expensive at $40-$45 a pop, so we each picked
three.
I chose the Glock 98 (one of two handguns they stated were
available), the AK-47 (the most recognizable gun in the world) and the behemoth
– the belt-fed light machine gun – the M60. You remember THAT scene in Rambo?
The shirtless Sylvester Stallone goes on a rampage with the gun at his waist
spewing forth molten lead death while he screams in the air? Chyeah. THAT gun.
Ian chose the same pistol, a shotgun and the AK-47 as well. Once we were inside
the shooting range (just a very long, dark hall) the workers wasted no time in
getting us kitted up. I went first with the AK-47, single shots first before a
few bursts at ‘full-auto’ brought my fun to a jarring halt. Ian shared the same
experience. We both stared at each other between weapon changes, eyes wide,
grins bigger than they should ever have been able to be. This was basically
completing the fantasy I’d had since I was young – to just go nuts with these
things (in a controlled way, of course).
Next, they pulled out a pistol and began readying it for my
use. I’m not a huge gun-nut, but I knew straight away it wasn’t the Glock I’d
asked for. Nevertheless, I took it in my hands (I think it was a KSY for those
of you keeping track out there) and took aim at a few cans that had been laid
out for me to lay into. Four out of the seven cans later, the gun clicked empty
– the magazine had run dry. Ian was next to take hold of the handgun, squeezing
off round after round, even holding the thing side on – ‘gangster style’ – for
a round. Finally, the door swung open and there she was. Cradled in the arms of
a huffing Cambodian, was the largest gun I’d ever seen – the M60.
The bullet belt was oiled and loaded into the gun. The
sights were set (although I was just firing at a wall) and I was shoved behind
the weapon, my shoulder rammed into the stock. My fingers curled around the
handle of the gun cautiously, wary of the power that I was about to unleash and
– I’m not afraid to say it – pooing myself a little that this gun might
misfire, explode and kill me. Not afraid enough to stop though. My free hand
was directed against the stock of the gun and finally, the gun was cocked. I
was given the order to shoot… and…
*CLICK!*
I stepped out from behind the gun, confused. The men quickly
stepped in, charged another bullet into the chamber, the unused one flying
freely to the ground. I was directed back into the same position and…
*CLICK!*
I was beginning to sense a pattern here. Ian and I giggled
nervously while the men once again worked feverishly to load another bullet
into the chamber. I jumped back behind the gun, finger squeezed the trigger
and…
*CLICK!*
I let out a sigh. This happened at least twenty times, I’m
not even exaggerating. When at last the bullets finally flew, they flew two at
a time and then the gun jammed again. But when they flew…
*FWOOF!
FWOOF!*
GOOD GOD THE NOISE! But the best was yet to come. Toward the
end of the ammo belt, the gun seemed to ease up, so I began getting more
bullets during each spray.
*FOOFOOFOOFOOFOOFOOF---CLICK!*
(Re-chamber)
*FOOFOOFOOFOOFOOFOOFOOFOOFOOF---CLICK!!!*
The adrenaline rush was one I have never had before. The
rhythmic clunking of the gun against my shoulder mixed with the fire spewing
from the barrel, the smoke clogging the air and the thick smell of gunpowder
and grease was… I’m sorry to say… FUCKING AWESOME! Sadly, the gun eventually
ran dry and that was me done. But as far as I was concerned, I could die happy.
Ian stood up to the plate next, expecting a shotgun to
appear. Instead, an M4 Assault Rifle was produced.
‘Shotgun
broken! No good!’
Ian didn’t seem to mind as he let rip with automatic gunfire
downrange.
*BRA-A-A-A-A-A-P!!!*
But as before, it wasn’t long before the gun ran dry and
quicker than we would have liked, our fun was over. We exited the range and
took position near a gun rack, each taking turns posing with an array of
weaponry for photos. We used the devastating Russian-made PKM (the M60’s
match), Vietnam-War-Era M16’s and AK-47’s. Boys with their toys. Even our taxi
driver got in on the action. It was awesome. Keep in mind the guns were not
loaded at this stage. Probably could’ve got messy had they been.
AND THATS WHERE PART 2 ENDS!
Stay with me for more exciting escapades my dear sweet limited audience, coming to you whenever I have wi-fi.
Follow the link to part 3:
http://ponderingoblong.blogspot.com/2013/06/2013-world-trip-part-3.html
Follow the link to part 3:
http://ponderingoblong.blogspot.com/2013/06/2013-world-trip-part-3.html
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