Cambodia
Once when a woman was fishing in a river, she caught two skulls. Afterwards, she became pregnant and gave birth to twins, one Cambodian and the other Vietnamese. When they grew older, they took their mother to their hometowns from a previous life. They knew exactly where to go.
When in Cambodia, you’ll encounter fantastical tales that are told and retold in an effort to reconcile a past of unimaginable suffering. Visit the killing caves of Battambang, and you’ll see millions of bats exit at dusk, like souls in flight to another world. An old man guards the skulls who witnessed it all himself.
And speaking of old stories, the U.S. supported the deposing of Prince Sihanouk that led to Pol Pot’s brutal regime. Prior to that, indescribable harm was inflicted by the dropping of more than half a million tons of bombs over a decade during the Vietnam War, with the planting of millions of mines yet to be cleared.
The results of this horrifying legacy are everywhere around you, in a natural environment that has been completely depleted. In Battambang, a couple of mines blew up in the Sangker River in front of the hotel where I was staying, in a planned explosion. With all of the artists killed decades ago, a handful of boys that survived were schooled at Phare Ponleu Selpak – a circus with its origins in a Thai border refugee camp – and now have their traumatic creativity showcased in Romcheck 5 Art Space.
While most limit themselves to the temples of Angkor Wat, it’s elsewhere that you come to fathom the real soul of Cambodia. Edjais, the poor recyclers of Phnom Penh, toot their red plastic horns as they pass by. Exotically colorful neighborhoods cling to the periphery of encroaching Chinese development, stubbornly maintaining their street art fetish. Krama scarves tempt with their addictive allure, fake nuns offer you endless blessings, and chocolate starfish beckon from the beaches of Kep, where not far away, an old man still owns Mango Island.
It’s impossible not to love a country that has so much to offer while simultaneously having been through so much.
Here’s my photo essay on Cambodia.
