Hello again! We’ve been out of blog action for a wee bit as internet in Cambodia turned out to be pretty slow going… That said, there wouldn’t have been a great deal of time to write anyway, given the things we’ve had to cram into a very small time. Lonely Planet talks about Cambodia being a place of contrasts and that is probably a good place to start – the Khmer people have been through a peculiar brand of horror which I really couldn’t conceive despite the rather disturbing cinematic education that is “The Killing Fields.” Spending even the few days that we did there, however, and it’s just not possible to be unaffected by the magnitude of the loss suffered under Polpot… I don’t know a great deal about mass psychology but evidently noone has been left untouched.
What makes it at once heart-warming AND heart-wrenching is extraordinary resilience, optimism and humour of the Khmer people. Whether it be tour guides with ‘missing’ uncles and brothers or the crippled victims of land-mines with little or no state support selling guidebooks, it feels like you are somewhere almost everyone has the RIGHT for a chip on their shoulder and, strangely-beautifully-soulshakingly, noone seems to carry one. So yes, we have seen the Killing Fields and S21 and the photographs of the victims and it is an exceptionally nightmarish story but I'd rather talk about the Khmer people who are, in a word, humbling.
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