Everything Grinded To A Halt
After a safe return to Phnom Penh and a very pleasant evening with Robin and Lea, it was time to say goodbye to the Swiss, as they would take a bus south in the morning and I would be running around in a museum somewhere. Unfortunately, what I got instead was a fever, chills, joint pains and an immense headache.
One night of that and a morning waking up with 39 degrees Celcius had me asking for a doctor. Too bad, because as previously mentioned, I had big plans for the day: passing by the Royal Palace, S-21 and the National Museum. Instead I crawled on the back of a motorbike and got taxied through Phnom Penh to a local 'international hospital', which was like a very big house and it had two receptionists that couldn't speak any English. They looked at me with genuine curiosity and gave me a piece of paper to fill, which turned out to be just a way for me to kill the time and avoiding conversation. It was a complicated form about vaccinations and things, so good on them for shoving it in my hands.
Enter dr. Gavin Scott who, as far as I can tell, has the perfect name for a movie character/superhero. He's tall, British, has an impressive combover and positive attitude. Educated in Manchester and living in Cambodia for a while now, he listened to my complaints, pushed me here and there, took my bloodpressure and listened to my breathing. Turns out that practically all tropical diseases start out the same. So whether you have malaria, dengue fever, typhoid or something else, the first day or two they all look alike. So a blood-test was going to have to clarify the situation and the result would be available after six hours. Taking my blood was somewhat more primitive that what I'm used to, but my veins are as fat as a gardenhose ('Doctor's delight!') so no problems there.
Total damage: 150 dollars.
Yes, you read that right.
50 Dollars for the consultation and 100 for the bloodtest. Doesn't matter from which direction you look at it, it still hurts.
On doctor's orders, I returned to my room and stayed there until the six hours had passed. Then it was back on the motorcycle, back to the house, back to the receptionists. Luckily, the doctor came in swinging the very second I put my behind on a chair, so the awkwardness was limited to the absolute minimum.
The verdict: A mild bacterial infection with unknown origin. Nothing that antibiotics and my white bloodcells wouldn't fix, so all I had to do was get me some of the former and I'd be on the road to recovery in no time.
In this video, I complain alot
Hell On Earth
The following day, after sleeping like a baby again, I hit the ground running and walked across town to S-21 or Tuol Sleng. This was a highschool at some point until the Khmer Rouge turned it into a deathcamp from 1975 to 1979. Words can't convey what I've seen today, neither can pictures. The experience was somewhat similar to the killing caves in Battambang, only here the instruments of torture are still here, the beds are still here and the photographs of the people that got imprisoned, tortured and died here, are still here.
At one point you walk into a room which has a rusty bed in it. On the bed lie rusted metal instruments and an ammo box for machinegun bullets. On the wall hangs the picture of a person who's been tortured to death. The picture was taken by the Vietnamese when they liberated Phnom Penh and entered S-21 for the first time. 14 People were found this way, tortured and killed off in a hurry before the Khmer Rouge abandoned the capital.
Around 20.000 people passed through S-21, seven were alive when the Vietnamese entered the compound and around 25 people were supposedly released. For the rest of them, it was a one way ticket to torture, starvation, false confessions and a brutal death. Every 'inmate' was photographed and had a file. These pictures are on display now and it's as if these people are staring at you from another world. Among them are childeren, elderly, disabled and full grown men and women. A bit further down the hall are more pictures, but this time of the same people, minutes after they died.
National Museum and The Royal Palace
Without boring you with the details, the National Museum was nice and so was the Royal Palace. The National Museum, an impressive building in its own right, houses some of the busts, statues and murals from ruins from all over the country. Among them the true Leper King, of which I saw the replica in on the Terrace of The Leper King in Angkor Thom.
The Royal Palace was quite expensive (6,25 dollars for foreigners) and my visit was drenched in liters of water. This had me running for cover in a place called the Silver Pagoda, deriving its name from the 5000 tiles of silver that are built into the building. Inside there is a Buddha statue out of Bacarrat crystal, and a golden one weighing 90 kg and is adorned with all kinds of expensiveness, making either one a perfect McGuffin for a heist movie, which may or may not involve a protagonist named Dr.GAVIN SCOTT, with intense performances by some Nicholas Cage type of actor. I'll write the music. Anyway, you heard it here first.
Kampot
A funny little place in the very south of the country, Kampot is famous for its pepper. Here I was just walking down the street, minding my own business when the Swiss showed up again. It ended in an evening tuktuk ride through the rain, playing pool (we sucked), a concert by a 'local' band with at least one Australian guy and a drummer that looked like he had been around since the States carpet bombed the Ho Chi Minh Trail. He looked like the perfect blend of John Hawkes and the hippie from That Seventies Show and actually played quite well. Among the songs played were Lovin' Spoonful's "Summer In The City" and Iggy Pop's "The Passenger".
The evening ended with me hopping into a tuktuk with four strangers, two of which had been had a little too much ganja exposure and saying goodbye - this time for real - to Robin and Lea, whom I'm very glad I've met and hope to see again some day.
Which reminds me, it's pretty much impossible to walk the streets in Phnom Penh without being offered 'some of the good stuff', which is actually a lot of the bad stuff and could get you killed by overdose or robbed, thanks to excessive stupidity. Small children also roam the streets in the capital offering to sell you books or flowers. Know that this is child slavery, so don't encourage it, if you ever come here.
Haircut!
After a safe return to Phnom Penh and a very pleasant evening with Robin and Lea, it was time to say goodbye to the Swiss, as they would take a bus south in the morning and I would be running around in a museum somewhere. Unfortunately, what I got instead was a fever, chills, joint pains and an immense headache.
One night of that and a morning waking up with 39 degrees Celcius had me asking for a doctor. Too bad, because as previously mentioned, I had big plans for the day: passing by the Royal Palace, S-21 and the National Museum. Instead I crawled on the back of a motorbike and got taxied through Phnom Penh to a local 'international hospital', which was like a very big house and it had two receptionists that couldn't speak any English. They looked at me with genuine curiosity and gave me a piece of paper to fill, which turned out to be just a way for me to kill the time and avoiding conversation. It was a complicated form about vaccinations and things, so good on them for shoving it in my hands.
Enter dr. Gavin Scott who, as far as I can tell, has the perfect name for a movie character/superhero. He's tall, British, has an impressive combover and positive attitude. Educated in Manchester and living in Cambodia for a while now, he listened to my complaints, pushed me here and there, took my bloodpressure and listened to my breathing. Turns out that practically all tropical diseases start out the same. So whether you have malaria, dengue fever, typhoid or something else, the first day or two they all look alike. So a blood-test was going to have to clarify the situation and the result would be available after six hours. Taking my blood was somewhat more primitive that what I'm used to, but my veins are as fat as a gardenhose ('Doctor's delight!') so no problems there.
Total damage: 150 dollars.
Yes, you read that right.
50 Dollars for the consultation and 100 for the bloodtest. Doesn't matter from which direction you look at it, it still hurts.
On doctor's orders, I returned to my room and stayed there until the six hours had passed. Then it was back on the motorcycle, back to the house, back to the receptionists. Luckily, the doctor came in swinging the very second I put my behind on a chair, so the awkwardness was limited to the absolute minimum.
The verdict: A mild bacterial infection with unknown origin. Nothing that antibiotics and my white bloodcells wouldn't fix, so all I had to do was get me some of the former and I'd be on the road to recovery in no time.
In this video, I complain alot
Hell On Earth
The following day, after sleeping like a baby again, I hit the ground running and walked across town to S-21 or Tuol Sleng. This was a highschool at some point until the Khmer Rouge turned it into a deathcamp from 1975 to 1979. Words can't convey what I've seen today, neither can pictures. The experience was somewhat similar to the killing caves in Battambang, only here the instruments of torture are still here, the beds are still here and the photographs of the people that got imprisoned, tortured and died here, are still here.
 |
| Some the victims |
At one point you walk into a room which has a rusty bed in it. On the bed lie rusted metal instruments and an ammo box for machinegun bullets. On the wall hangs the picture of a person who's been tortured to death. The picture was taken by the Vietnamese when they liberated Phnom Penh and entered S-21 for the first time. 14 People were found this way, tortured and killed off in a hurry before the Khmer Rouge abandoned the capital.
Around 20.000 people passed through S-21, seven were alive when the Vietnamese entered the compound and around 25 people were supposedly released. For the rest of them, it was a one way ticket to torture, starvation, false confessions and a brutal death. Every 'inmate' was photographed and had a file. These pictures are on display now and it's as if these people are staring at you from another world. Among them are childeren, elderly, disabled and full grown men and women. A bit further down the hall are more pictures, but this time of the same people, minutes after they died.
 |
| Barbed wire prevented the 'inmates' from killing themselves |
National Museum and The Royal Palace
Without boring you with the details, the National Museum was nice and so was the Royal Palace. The National Museum, an impressive building in its own right, houses some of the busts, statues and murals from ruins from all over the country. Among them the true Leper King, of which I saw the replica in on the Terrace of The Leper King in Angkor Thom.
 |
| National Museum |
The Royal Palace was quite expensive (6,25 dollars for foreigners) and my visit was drenched in liters of water. This had me running for cover in a place called the Silver Pagoda, deriving its name from the 5000 tiles of silver that are built into the building. Inside there is a Buddha statue out of Bacarrat crystal, and a golden one weighing 90 kg and is adorned with all kinds of expensiveness, making either one a perfect McGuffin for a heist movie, which may or may not involve a protagonist named Dr.GAVIN SCOTT, with intense performances by some Nicholas Cage type of actor. I'll write the music. Anyway, you heard it here first.
 |
| Silver Pagoda and flower |
Kampot
 |
| Kampot, with pot |
 |
| Tuktuk negotiations, Swiss-style (discount achievement) |
A funny little place in the very south of the country, Kampot is famous for its pepper. Here I was just walking down the street, minding my own business when the Swiss showed up again. It ended in an evening tuktuk ride through the rain, playing pool (we sucked), a concert by a 'local' band with at least one Australian guy and a drummer that looked like he had been around since the States carpet bombed the Ho Chi Minh Trail. He looked like the perfect blend of John Hawkes and the hippie from That Seventies Show and actually played quite well. Among the songs played were Lovin' Spoonful's "Summer In The City" and Iggy Pop's "The Passenger".
The evening ended with me hopping into a tuktuk with four strangers, two of which had been had a little too much ganja exposure and saying goodbye - this time for real - to Robin and Lea, whom I'm very glad I've met and hope to see again some day.
 |
| Darkness pool |
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| My five dollar room |
Haircut!
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