Running Amok - 6 senses of Cambodia

I was thinking how there was so much that I hadn't included in my posts about Cambodia so I thought I'd put together a summary using the five senses - and one more. This is more just for my own info.

Firstly, a quick photo of a great waitress we had once. She was wearing all black so John convinced her to add a yellow napkin as a sash and she became a Tigers supporter!

Sight

Some of the sights of Cambodia are classic Asia – fishermen casting nets from longtail boats on the calm waters of the Mekong, smiling faces of kids and enough strange fruits to keep you guessing for weeks.

Some sights are unique though, such as the red/orange dust that coats everything, every day. No person, animal or piece of clothing can escape its clutches. It coats plants, umbrellas and rooftops. It hangs in the air, ready to pounce. It invades, settles and stays. And, as if that wasn’t enough, smoke is omnipresent. There is no rubbish collection outside major cities, so all rubbish is burnt. Plastic is one of the main targets and toxic fumes fill the air from countless fires across the country. The smoky, dusty haze hangs low in the red sky everywhere.

Sound

The chanting of the monks, similar to the Muslim call to prayer, would be emotive if it wasn’t forced upon everyone by loudspeakers. I think Buddhism is a wonderful religion, however playing it on a loudspeaker means it invades people’s lives. Surely it's better if they choose to let it in. Local music is everywhere and usually played with the volume turned up. At least they’re not night owls as a rule and the music is turned off at a reasonable time.

Along the Mekong, the sound of cicadas lulled us to sleep every night. Gekkoes call from the ceiling. Dogs rarely bark because they are free to roam where they want. They are the friendliest dogs we’ve ever seen – a reflection on how they’re treated. No dogs are barking in back yards like they do at home.

Touch

Our constant companion is the feeling of sweating. Water runs in rivulets down our backs and we wear bandannas when cycling to keep it out of our eyes.

The beds are quite hard but masseurs are everywhere and can soothe your sore limbs for the price of a drink at home. They’re generally very good.

Taste

OMG – the food is amazing! I love Asian food at the best of times but this has exceeded my expectations. Cambodian food is a lot like Vietnamese. Flavours are sweet, salty, sour and spicy. Nothing is plain. Crisp, fresh vegetables and green papaya are loaded with spices, peanuts and herbs to make salads. Fish caught fresh from the Mekong is a staple and rice accompanies everything.

A specialty is Fish Amok where fish is cooked in a glorious mixture of coconut and spices and the result is so delicious that even me, the non-fish eater, loves it. Noodle soups are a staple but we often found it too hot to want to eat them. There are all sorts of curries that taste far better than anything I’ve ever made and enough fried rice and noodles to keep anyone satisfied.

Smell

The smell of a curry placed in front of you at the end of a long day is unbeatable. Lemon-grass and what we call Vietnamese mint are smells I adore, however there are many not-so-enticing aromas. Piles of rubbish lie rotting near markets and the stench of fish paste is just as bad to me. The acrid stink of burning plastic is common.

Emotions

Technically, this isn’t one of our senses, but it’s the emotional turmoil that strikes me most about Cambodia. One minute we’re admiring a beautiful temple, the next minute we’re learning about the horrors of the Khmer Rouge. I think the impact is so obvious because the war was so recent. We've met a number of beautiful people then learned their terrible family history. One young lady's mother was three years old where the Khmer Rouge came. They took her from her family and she worked for the next six years collecting animal dung. She survived, but never saw her parents again.

It astonished me that, during the Khmer Rouge times, such beautiful people could have been so horrible to anyone, let alone their own people. They targeted the wealthy and the educated. These people were the enemies of their brand of communism. Anyone with glasses was arrested on the presumption that you must be educated or wealthy to afford them. They tortured these people to find out who their family members were so they could kill them too. They had a saying that to remove the tree, you must remove the roots as well. If a man was, say, a doctor, they will kill him, his wife and all his kids. It was truly shocking.
Yet now, these people are among the friendliest we've ever met in the world. It's all so hard to understand.