Sunlit nights: The dark side of Cambodia

What struck me as amazing about Cambodia was the stark difference between two of its historical events - the golden Angkor era and the bloody Khmer Rouge regime. The temples of Angkor and other areas speak of the wealth and prosperity Cambodia had once enjoyed. The architecture and carvings are complex and magnificent, the cultural heritage glorious. Several hundred years later, the Khmer Rouge came into power and laid a nation to ruin.

About a fifth of its people are said to have died, in the terrible effort to build a society devoid of trade, culture, education and freedom. Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge, was greatly influenced by the tribes of the north-eastern jungles and their way of life. Their subsistence came from the forests and from agriculture, and he envisioned such a future for the whole country. People were driven from the cities to live and work in rural areas, while educated and intellectual people were imprisoned and tortured until death.

Khmer Rouge
Tuol Sleng prison (codenamed S-21) in Phnom Penh was the most feared of all prisons. 12,000 people were held captive, tortured into confessing false crimes and implicating others as spies. Only a handful are known to have survived S-21, mostly saved if they had a particular skill. It is now a museum which holds memoirs of the people who stayed and died there.

Barbed wires stopped people from jumping to their deaths

Inmates of S-21, young and old alike

A famous painting that symbolizes the Khmer Rouge

Torture instruments

The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek are not far from Phnom Penh. After inmates of S-21 had been tortured, they were sent to be executed at Choeung Ek. A loudspeaker blasted music every night to muffle the screams of the dying. Even today, the rains sometimes wash up bone fragments of the buried.

The Bones Monument, which holds skulls and bones of the Khmer Rouge victims

Choeung Ek was earlier a Chinese graveyard

The loneliness and silence of Choeung Ek accentuate the horrors of the blood regime

Prayers of the living

The immigrants
Over three decades have gone by since the Khmer Rouge fell, and a nation which was once the most powerful kingdom in the region, is in the grips of poverty. Though the government seems to be doing some work to improve social services, there is a long way to go. A large number of its population comprises Vietnamese immigrants, who came over during the long years of war between the two nations and the US invasion of Vietnam. Many are also Cambodian re-settlers from Vietnam who came back to their country during the bombings. Without an identity, many of these people lack decent facilities and are deeply mistrusted and marginalized by local communities.

An abandoned Vietnamese fishing settlement

Children in a Vietnamese village

House for drying tobacco

Religion and culture
Buddhism is the predominant religion here. For some poor families, becoming a monk provides a good way of getting an education. Monks may go on to take up other occupations or remain as monks. I had a memorable visit to a school run by an ex-monk behind the Lolei temple in Roluos, Siem Reap province. Young monks and village children are taught there, and tourists often go to volunteer as teachers. Old women sometimes become nuns after the deaths of their husbands.

A local guide told me that 80% of the revenues from ticket sales to Angkor Archaeological Park go to a private family, while the rest are given to the temples for maintenance and paying workers' salaries. I do not know how correct this is, but does not sound entirely unbelievable. And it does not seem right that any group of people should benefit from national monuments and a UNESCO world heritage site, which are visited by thousands of tourists every year.

Phnom Penh, the capital city, left me in some disbelief and laughter. In few other places have I seen such a mix of rich and poor, old and new. While aggressive motorcycle and tuk-tuk drivers call out to you desperate for fares, fancy and expensive cars are a fairly common sight! Pretty colonial houses and towering skyscrapers are never far from each other. There are cute French and Khmer cafes with delicious cuisines, alarmingly polluted streets and cheap crowded markets, malls and loudspeakers blasting pop songs and Gangnam style.