Off East

Kampong Thom is a small town on the East Side of Tonle Sap lake, about half way between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. Most visitorstend to miss most of the towns and villages in this part of Cambodia as they take the express bus between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap which takes about 6 hours. We didn’t really fancy doing the journey in one go (Cambodian roads are even worse than Vietnamese roads!) and we wanted to see some of this part of the country so we decided to break our journey in Kampong Thom.

After a bumpy three hours on the bus (with the Killing Fields being screened for the passengers?!) we alighted at Kampong Thom a bustling but dusty market town. We were supposed to stay for 2 nights but the hotel had cocked up and only booked us for one night, so after a slight detour to check out another place to stay for the 2nd night (grim) we arrived at our hotel to find that we had a really lovely typical Cambodian bungalow surrounded by trees and flowers and birds. It was so peaceful!

We borrowed a couple of bikes and set off along the river to take in the Cambodian countryside. It was, very, very hot again and as Cambodia hadn’t seen any rain for over 6 months, everything was totally scorched. The red soil was red dust and the fields were empty. With thin cattle grazing on the non-existent grass, it looked like what I imagine Africa looks like and I could suddenly see how the country could have had a drought that killed 1000’s of people only a matter of years ago.

The river was about a quarter of it’s normal height and people were trying to pump water up to the river bank so that they could water their crops and have water to bathe in. In the rainy season conversely, the rivers usually flood and their is so much rain that the majority of rural Cambodian houses are built on stilts, to protect their property. This shady space under the house was now being used by most families as somewhere to hang their hammocks and escape the heat or to tether their livestock. Most houses had either a pig or a cow and for most families this will provide their livelihood. It really is subsistence farming.

We cycled around the town and were met with curious waves and glances by the locals – I don’t think they see many tourists in these parts! Again, I was really surprised by how many buildings appeared to be occupied by NGO’s and international charities providing a variety of different healthcare/education services. Kampong Thom (like most of Cambodia) is still incredibly poor and due to it’s relatively close proximity to Vietnam was bombed heavily by the Americans for years and years (a chapter in the American Vietnam war that no-one ever really talks about) and was also a Khmer Rouge stronghold until the late 1990’s. As a result there are many orphanages in the area. The children either orphaned as a result of landmines still in the fields, or simply abandoned by their parents in the hope that they might have a better life in an orphanage than the one that they would get at home.

Back at our hotel, I got chatting to an American lady who turned out to be a Doctor working for a charity in the town. Her charity (which she was funding herself from fundraising by running marathons etc) was trying to set up a clinic at a local school to ensure that the children could receive basic health care. Healthcare is not free in Cambodia. This is a major problem for the majority of people who are simply unable to raise the funds to pay for medicine, doctors fee’s, operations etc. If you earn only $2 a day, how are you supposed to find the $’s to buy medicine for your sick child? Likewise, if you are ill and you cannot work, you don’t get paid. This is the vicious cycle of poverty that we saw all over Cambodia; in stark contrast to a very small proportion of the population who are very, very wealthy.

The Doctor had been working with a local orphanage and they had invited her and her medical students to the orphanage that evening where they were going to perform a series of traditional Cambodian (Khmer) dances to say ‘thanks’. She invited us along with her. Having never been to an orphanage before, let alone a Cambodian one, I didn’t really know what to expect. When we arrived, we were met by the Director and his staff and by loads of gorgeous happy and healthy looking kids. The Director of the orphanage was a lovely man and very humbly admitted that the orphanage had won ‘Best Orphanage in Cambodia’ several years on the trot.

The children and young people were aged between 18 months and 21 years of age. Their circumstances were all different but a high percentage of them had been brought there by their parents in the hope that they’d have a better life. They lived in comfortable houses with a ‘mother’ to keep an eye on them and lived like a family unit. They received an excellent education in English and French and some of the students had even gone onto to study at University. The orphanages’ existence is totally dependent upon donations.

The older children performed a series of traditional Khmer dances which were more or less wiped out (along with most Khmer art forms) during the Khmer Rouge regime. During the Khmer Rouge regime dancers, musicians, artists and writers were particularly despised by Pol Pot (the Khmer Rouge leader) and were killed in their 1000’s taking most of Cambodia’s culture with them. As a result, there is a real desire in Cambodia to retrieve these arts and reintroduce them as part of every day popular culture.

It was a really interesting and humbling evening and one of mixed emotions. Whilst it was so sad to see these young people without their families, it was comforting to see that they had a safe and secure place to live, but also saddening to think that many, many children all around Cambodia wouldn’t infact be as fortunate as these orphans…