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Phnom Penh, Jan. 29-31: Our van is air-conditioned, with cold bottled water and a friendly guide and driver. We don’t worry about ice in our smoothies, so we get to drink them cold: fresh mango and raspberry, passionfruit, banana, and pineapple. We score a lovely Thai massage, and each morning wake up to cappuccinos and croissants. I even get to swim laps in a long narrow pool (a photo of which I swear I’ve seen in a documentary). Like our other hotels, this one is 4-star (not 5), but it feels special. A grand old mansion with high ceilings and a five-story mahogany spiral staircase, it housed the US Embassy, I’m thinking in the 60s and 70s, and our insignia is still over the front door.

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This is where our experience diverges. Cambodia is the Wild West. The currency is “riel,” yet everyone uses dollars (even though there is no U.S. bank here). There’s no such thing as a driver’s license, so you see children driving children on motorbikes. School is not compulsory and only 35% of the Khmer can read and write. Until very recently, farmers made up 85% of the population, with  an average lifespan of 60. In the last ten years, five-star hotels and vacant apartment towers loom over a hodge-podge of streets with small, locally owned shops and restaurants, massive electrical wires overhead, and a few modern storefronts (Nike, Starbucks). Don and I stayed put in our hotel for dinner because we didn’t want to hassle with pickpockets.

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Everything in Cambodia is for sale. So far the highest bidder has been the Chinese, who are running roughshod over the culture. Even small villages have become sites for new factories (mostly clothing) and slow-moving cement and diesel trucks clog the highway. More people are employed, yet this shift is hardly a boon for the local economy. The pay is abysmal ($170/month in a country that is getting more expensive all the time) and workers suffer with breathing problems from the chemicals they inhale all day. Wanuk (our 28-year-old guide this morning) told us that his friends pay $40 a month to live with four or five others in a single-room house. Moreover, employment opportunities are not available across the board. Often the Chinese bring over their own workers and do not employ Khmer. When in Cambodia, they eat Chinese food only and stay in Chinese hotels.

Our guide Sing went on and one about the corruption in his government: “in Vietnam, dirty money is passed under the table; in Thailand, it’s passed across the table; in Cambodia, dirty money IS the table.” Millionaires buy VIP treatment with a title worth $500,000. There are 700 Cambodians on that list. The Minister of Justice, together with 19 other leaders, is a billionaire whose take-home salary is just over $1000/month. Driving in from the airport, Sing pointed out a couple of South Korean and Japanese-owned properties, but I don’t see how they even get a foothold. Development mostly stops at the city limits. Today it took us 5 hours to drive 230k on the pock-marked, two-lane road that connects the capital to the coast (built by Americans in 1955). It is full of trucks and motorbikes that our driver kept passing, sometimes by wedging in-between our lane and an oncoming car. Next month, China begins construction on a straighter, faster highway.

Phnom Penh is a sad and scary place. For 2 ½ weeks, Don and I have travelled one day to the next, not knowing what to expect aside from the general itinerary we carry with us. Under Phnom Penh, it notes “trip to the Killing Fields and Genocide Museum (S-21).” S-21 is the prison that used to be a school; it sits right in the middle of the city. Here, the Khmer Rouge tortured detainees for confessions anywhere from 1-6 months, including VIP party “traitors.” The genocide began when Pol Pot ordered residents of Phnom Penh to leave the city under the pretense that it was going to be bombed by the Americans. In three days, soldiers ransacked it, stealing anything of value. Pol Pot originally got the country people on his side by telling them that the educated had conspired with the South Vietnamese during the War. Between 1975-79, the Khmer Rouge would go on to murder 40% of their own population, just under 3 million people. They killed whole families to prevent revenge. Consequently, 70% of today’s population are under 30 years old and only 3-5% are over 60. The South Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in 1979 to end the conflict and stayed until 1989. I am desperate to read more about this and talk to Dad about the American response to it (under Jimmy Carter). Why did Pol Pot address the UN and why was his government recognized as the “true” one for 10 years!? The Internet here is heavily censored, so I will have to wait.

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There are no words for what Don and I saw at the killing fields and the detention center. The intensity and scope of the torture, cruelty, and degradation devastated and terrified both of us. We were incredulous to learn that the country is still being led by many of the exact same people who were in charge during the Pol Pot regime (1975-1979). They simply changed their names. This is a chilling fact, one I can’t wrap my mind around. Our guide Sing describes his government as a tiger that will re-awake. He believes there will be a revolution in his lifetime and that it could be a repeat of Pol Pot. Several of the masterminds were educated abroad; Pol Pot wanted at one point to be a Buddhist priest. At the end, only five stood trial for war crimes, and the only convicted woman had a degree in Shakespeare studies from the Sorbonne. The current 67-year-old king is the son of Sihanouk, who died in 2012, and worked closely with Pol Pot. Inside the walls of the Royal Palace are flowering white frangipani trees and meticulously kept stupas (ornate burial sites for cremated ashes). It is a place straight out of “The King and I,” with lavish displays of gold buddhas, silver-tiled floors, and jewel-encrusted cigarette cases, palanquins, and wedding costumes.