Cambodia's history has two parts, as my journey through this beautiful country, and therefore also the journal.
first Part One: The grand old Khmer
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| From Cambodia09 |
I took the bus from Thailand to the border with Cambodia, which I had to cross on foot. On the other hand, I have hired three Japanese, a taxi to Siem Reap. I had actually 200 km gravel road expected, but the road builders were obviously very busy last year. Only at the river crossings we shot something through ...
Siem Reap is the city that blows life back into the nearby temple of Angkor Wat. They are comfortable by tuk-tuk (three-wheeled motorcycle with driver) available.
The temples were of the Khmer kings between the 10th va and 13 Century built. Its architecture and fine sculptures are unique and bear witness to the grandeur of the Khmer empire, which included in its heyday, large parts of Southeast Asia. Temples were often dedicated by the king's parents, according to its spirit bas-reliefs show the (former) or Hindu (younger) Buddhist figures and whole stories.
The Khmer came later in any case were under a lot of trouble in Vietnam and Thailand and its borders in the 19th Century schiesslich be secured only by a French Proktektorat to Cambodia does not disappear completely from the map. Also, the transport network has been expanded greatly at the time. After the 2nd World War II by King Sihanouk gained independence. Cambodia was bombed during the Vietnam War, as Viet Cong moved back here. Everything was littered with land mines. The temple had to be partly rediscovered again first in the middle of the jungle and were Archaeologenteams from around the world re-excavated.
second Part One: The grisly Khmer Rouge
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| From Cambodia09 |
After two days of temple visits, I went by boat down the river in the capital Phnom Penh. There I was expecting a completely different face of the Khmer.
The wealth of the ancient Khmer was based on its successful cultivation of rice and its export. Just then, a revolutionary group wanted back in the 70s. The 'Khmer Rouge under the leadership of Pol Pot came to the aid of the Chinese Maoists to power and revolutionized the Cambodian society. All were dispossessed and driven from the cities to the countryside to grow rice. There was neither owned nor education, nor family. Everything was collective agriculture assumed. Those who do not fit into the system (ie, a trail was of urbanity, education, foreign language, even wear eyeglasses) was brutally tortured and murdered. Together with the whole family.
In Phnom Penh, I visited a former school house, which was then transformed in 1975 in a torture hall. The descriptions of the methods that were nausea rise in me. The people who are lead by the museum usually the only survivors of their family who was tortured here.
Then I rode my bicycle to the 'Killing Fields', the place where the tortured were eventually executed. To save bullets cruel methods of killing were used. Children were nailed to a tree until their last heartbeat.
me Cold sweat runs down his neck as I go around this tree and children playing in the background, hear the singing of the nearby school. Cambodia is moving.
end of 1979, Cambodia was occupied by Vietnam and the continued reign of terror of the Khmer Rouge to an end. However, they were never really made the process and much remains unprocessed.
These 5 years of rule had carried off a third of the population, all academics assassinated, the traumatized survivors.
The tracks cross my way through Cambodia and over again.
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