Phnom Penh

I am going to write about my new home even though I have not really come to understand it yet.  Flying in from Singapore, the plane circled the city and I got a great view of its entirety.  Somehow ever since I've landed I can't seem to orient myself.  For instance, I am sitting here on my balcony and am looking south but I could swear I am facing north.  Every time I go out I try to get the main streets down but I am still not able to find my way around very well.   Because I don't have a car or a moto (I might buy one) I rely on the tuktuk drives to get me from here to there

      Phnom Penh has about 2 million people  and is located on the Tonle Sap River which is a branch of the Mekong, infamous in the Vietnam War.  Vietnam is close and can't help think of the war and all those unlucky soldiers fighting in the cities and rice patties.

One of the many pagodas called Wats

I had heard that the Cambodia people (Khmer, pronounced Khmi) had a nice nature and I have found that to be true.  Except for tuktuk drivers always asking to take you some place, everyone greets you with a nice smile.  Very few poor, begging people, most people are on the go and busy.  The street are crowded with motos and tuktuks and big expensive SUVs, the most common is the Lexus.  In the back of a tuktuk it is a riot to see all the bad driving, cutting each other off and doing things never done in the US.  But traffic moves, maybe at 20mph, and those large intersection without a light don't get blocked up.  I have not yet seen anyone get angry, yell or pull a gun in traffic.  One of the teachers said that Cambodian believe in good Karma, so it is not worth being nasty. 

A view of the river from the Foreign Correspondent Club

The Genoside Museum

With this said, on Sundays I have been going to a service and walk past  Toul Steng Museum, the genocide museum.  In the 1970s, after the US pulled out of SE Asia, Pol Pot, Blood Brother #1, came to power with the Khmer Rouge.  They were communists who felt that Cambodia should become an agrarian society with no money or class or status.  In the Year Zero, the Khmer Rouge emptied out Phnom Penh and the other cities and moved everyone to the country side.  Over 3 million of its 12 million people were killed or starved to death.  Anyone with any education was put to death.  Wearing glasses was enough for a death sentence.  Outside of Phnom Penh were the killing fields where thousands were killed.  Just like in Germany, the Khmer Rouge kept meticulous records of who they killed.   A terrible time and so different from what I see in the Khmer personality.  There is a movie The Killing Field that shows this period.  I have not been to Toul Steng yet or seen the movie   Sometime in the late 70s the Vietnamese invaded and drove the Khmer Rouge to the country side.  Pol Pot is dead and some of his generals are now on trial.  For the last 30 years the country has been on the rebound with all the construction I see from my balcony as proof.  

My street, I don't think it has a name

     Homes here are back from the street a little but instead of a front yard, there is a gate almost to the street.  They are metal with big locks, gated houses.  Everyone keep their cars and motos inside the gate, if you have many cars, part of the first floor is for car parking.  In my building sometimes there are two cars, a Toyota sedan and a big SUV and they take up half of the first floor.  When they are not there he family puts a couple of tables out and eats there.  No grease or oil on the floor, it is shinny tile, immaculately clean.  In fact although the streets are pretty dirty, the homes are very clean.   
      So that's my new town, about as different from New Lebanon as can be.  I am trying not to miss all those things about home that I love and look forward to getting to know Phnom Penh and
                                                                                   Cambodia better.