The Top Thing to See in Phnom Penh

by Georgia Hase (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

I didn't expect to find Cambodia

My Dad always told me not to look at car crashes. That if I did, I might see something I’d never be able to forget. I never asked him what he saw, but when brake lights flash red and cars slow to a crawl, my head turns the opposite direction of everyone else’s – I don’t look. The noise in Phnom Penh buzzes against my ears like the mosquito in my hostel bedroom; loud and incessant. It bursts with horns and whistles and squealing breaks. There are rickshaw drivers lining the street outside the hostel, each trying to shout louder than the other. One driver is leaning his elbow against his horn, another has speakers strapped to his rickshaw, the music vibrating the metal frame. The drivers see me pause outside my hostel. They see my backpack, my water bottle, the “Top things to see in Phnom Penh” leaflet that is wilting between my sweaty fingers. They’ve been looking for someone like me all day. The horn-happy driver gets to me first, asks me where I want to go. A group of girls join me and, after bartering a pound off the price, we climb in, smiling at our haggling skills. Our driver says he’ll wait for us, so we leave him in the dusty carpark, other drivers calling out in greeting when he beeps his horn. I slip on the earphones the woman at the desk gave me. They muffle the sound of the world. I walk away from the girls and follow the signs outside to a field where the yellowing grass and orange sand thirst for the rainy season. I can see other tourists silently walking and, even if I wasn’t wearing earphones, I wouldn’t hear a single camera click. I press number one on my device and a peppy American voice fills my ears. She tells me about the Khmer Rouge who ruled Cambodia forty years ago. How the regime targeted anyone suspected of connections with the former government, intellectuals; anyone with glasses and soft hands. The voice tells me to proceed to number two. It tells me that this field, this field that looks like any other, houses the remains of millions killed in the genocide. How many of those killed had to dig their own graves, but being so weak, they couldn’t dig far. How every rainy season more of the field is washed away, and more skeletons are unearthed. The voice tells me to look down. I look down and see a half-buried skull staring back at me. I dig my nails into the flesh of my palms, the pain helps when I see more and more bones. They all are stained the same orange as the sand. As I walk, I wonder how many bodies my feet are passing over. Then I reach a tree; it’s beautiful, covered in bands and bracelets and ribbons. I feel relief, until I press the next number and the voice says: The Chankiri tree; here infants of adult victims were killed by having their heads bashed against the trunk. I look at this tree, I look at the Killing Fields, I look at the displayed remains of those murdered here. I look when all I want to do is look away. I think some things need to be remembered. Our driver greets us with a long beep of his horn. We don’t smile when we get in this time. On the way to the next “top thing to see”, our rickshaw begins to slow. Our driver swears, then swerves through the braking vehicles. The girls’ heads turn left, mine turns right. I hear them gasp, ask the driver why no one is helping him. I hear him say it’s because the man has a bike, it means he is poor and won’t be able to pay the hospital fees. That's why nobody will help him. Our driver presses on his horn, ending the conversation. The girls look back at the man, and I do as my father said. I don’t look at what seems to be, for my companions, the real ‘top thing to see in Phnom Penh’.