04.01.2017 - Jordan

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Even if prostitution, poverty and demanding tuk-tuks pilots striked us the first time, obviously there are other things to remember.

Heat, as said in the previous article, is suffocating. It's easily 30 degrees, and this, early in the morning. Even if we are in the most agreeable period of the year! Besides, it might influence Cambodian productivity and their way of living: workers on sites under construction start early in the morning, or even work by night on some buildings. Also funny to see: local people settle hammocks everywhere to rest. They even install it in tuk-tuks, thanks to the metal structure!

Pleasant things we didn’t have in South Korea: fresh fruits, at a reasonable price. We can enjoy mangoes, bananas flowers, avocados and dragon fruits, usually in milkshakes. Moreover, it's really Christmas for us: food is cheap (a dish at a neighborhood restaurant is around 2/3 dollars). But above all, we found French products! After our four Korean months, we enjoy being able to find any kind of industrial cakes brands and wines from our country! This is probably linked with the fact Cambodia was a French colony until the beginning of last century. Thus, many buildings or important places have French or French/Cambodian names. By the way, Cambodian alphabet is really beautiful and completely different from what I knew so far. For me, it looks like calligraphy, with many embellishments

Last point, on which we have learned a lot while visiting S21 museum: how the country felt into misery in the 70’s because of the Khmer Rouge. Khmer (the term is commonly used to define the Cambodians, even if they are not all from a Khmer origin, and that there are some in the surrounding countries).

The Khmer Rouge party took power, and installed a communist system, while purging Cambodia from elites and intellectuals. Finally, they ended without any doctors, engineers, artists and other jobs considered as ‘new'. This paranoid regime interrogated and tortured people in order to make them confess non-sense crimes (spying, CIA links, putting love before his faith in the communist doctrine). Approximately 2 to 3 millions people died, in prison or in the fields, which is about 20 % of the country. Even in the Khmer Rouge party, purges were common. Nobody was out of danger: real sadism. (We recommend you to read more on this dark part of Cambodian history)

Since then, the country tried hard to stand up, and for 5/10 years it works pretty well, but the political situation is still unstable. (Funny anecdote: even in the museum, the books are copies of the originals!)