Why Buddhism Is Not For Me.
Imagine the sound of the world's worst pub singer in a search for enlightenment after 10 pints of Guiness accompanied by his best mate on the bongos. That's the sound of the monks at 6.00 am this morning. I'm not convinced that this is likely to bring me inner peace. Nevermind a state of Nirvana, I am now in a state of extreme agitation and decide I might as well get up. Hommmmmmmmmmmm!
Today we say our fond farewells and our au revoirs as we leave Battambang for Phnom Penh. Crazy has arranged a taxi for us. If this sounds a bit extravagant for a 4 - 5 hour journey, the cost works out at less than a tenner each; not much more than the price of a taxi home from town after a night out.
I realise early on in the journey that this is probably the only road between Battambang and Phnom Penh, Cambodia's first and second cities. For such a strategically important road you might expect it to be well maintained. Not a bit of it. After a while the road deteriorates markedly. It is littered with potholes, not the type you might expect after a particularly bad winter back home; no, the type so big you might expect to disappear down one at any moment. Clearly our driver who has shown signs of impatience and an eagerness to get us to our destination in record time will have to adapt to conditions. He opts for the Playstation approach. In order to avoid the hazards he zig-zags across the carriageway, treating oncoming vehicles as fellow competitors. And he is clearly determined to win through to the next stage. To succeed as a driver in this situation all you need are nerves of steel and a horn. As a passenger, the belief in a beneficent god and a reserve pair of underpants helps. Sitting behind the driver I determine that the ploy for overtaking is to look for the merest hint of a gap and go for it. And if there is no gap pull out anyway in the belief that one will appear. I recall Crazy telling us that life expectancy in Cambodia is 45 and reflect that I am on borrowed time...
I realise early on in the journey that this is probably the only road between Battambang and Phnom Penh, Cambodia's first and second cities. For such a strategically important road you might expect it to be well maintained. Not a bit of it. After a while the road deteriorates markedly. It is littered with potholes, not the type you might expect after a particularly bad winter back home; no, the type so big you might expect to disappear down one at any moment. Clearly our driver who has shown signs of impatience and an eagerness to get us to our destination in record time will have to adapt to conditions. He opts for the Playstation approach. In order to avoid the hazards he zig-zags across the carriageway, treating oncoming vehicles as fellow competitors. And he is clearly determined to win through to the next stage. To succeed as a driver in this situation all you need are nerves of steel and a horn. As a passenger, the belief in a beneficent god and a reserve pair of underpants helps. Sitting behind the driver I determine that the ploy for overtaking is to look for the merest hint of a gap and go for it. And if there is no gap pull out anyway in the belief that one will appear. I recall Crazy telling us that life expectancy in Cambodia is 45 and reflect that I am on borrowed time...
You might call that last paragraph Gallows Humour. In all seriousness I have no idea how we made it to Phnom Penh. As if to emphasise how we had ridden our luck, as we drove through the city we had a puncture and had to hire a tuk-tuk to take us the last 100 yards to the hotel.
After settling into our rooms (kettle, cups and saucers, English tea - how civilised!) we decide we need some down time. So it's off to the Genocide Museum.
The museum is on the site of a Khmer Rouge torture camp known as Section 21, previously a school, which they seized on taking power in November 1975. I won't go into the appalling details here but one statistic stands out: of more than 20,000 documented prisoners only 14 survived, of whom only 2 are alive today. And we had the opportunity to meet them both after our tour. Chum Manh and Bou Meng somehow managed to avoid the slaughter as the Khmer Rouge murdered any remaining prisoners when the Vietnamese liberated the city. Bou Meng was able to avoid the worst of the torture due to his skill as an artist and he was commissioned to draw flattering portraits of Pol Pot. It seems incongruous that these brave men regularly return to the site where they suffered and witnessed the suffering and torture of others, but they rely on the proceeds of the autobigraphies they have written to get by. The place that almost destroyed them now sustains them in their old age.
It is now dusk and we return to the hotel which has a rooftop restaurant overlooking the noisy, crowded bustling city. We had been warned to be wary of the city at night. A meal and a few drinks on the cool terrace looking out on the madness below is a great way to end the day.
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