Thailand 23: November 18, 2002

New, in the world of consular work: The other day Guillermo Vilas came to my visa window (quick, who can tell me why Mr. Vilas is well known?) to accompany his 19 year old girlfriend as she applied for a visa. A polite man, for a once-famous athelete, even though he was dating a woman 30 years his junior whom he claimed to have met in a shopping mall food court. Nevertheless, she got a visa (lots of previous foreign travel). A few instances of crying at my window, but nothing particularly shocking for a little while. On the American Citizen Services side, things have been quite hectic. Last week, I had the privilege of being screamed at by one of the internet's most prominent pornographers when he was told he would have to wait 10 minutes for a notarization. We continue to average about 2 deaths per week. They never get less sad. This week, a 21 year old, depressed over being taken by some local scams, climbed to the top of a 6 story hotel and jumped. A few days later a 27 year old died down south in Krabi. Both took their families completely by surprise. Inventorying their belongings, you see the books they were reading, music they were listening to, pictures they had taken, and journals they had written their experiences in. And then you get to go to the morgue to identify their bodies.

On a lighter note, I recently took a couple of Thai cooking classes. Because Thai food is so cheap, so good, and so readily available, I rarely cook at home. However, in preparation for our move to Uganda, where Thai restaurants might not be so commonplace, I figured I'd learn some basic dishes to remind us of Bangkok. Most Thai food is easy to prepare if you have the ingredients, so we're now going to begin to stockpile spices, sauces etc.

When our friends Darren and Victoria were in town last month, Liz and I bought our first real piece of artwork, an impressionist painting by a Vietnamese painter. After recuperating from the heart palpitations that came from spending two weeks salary on something to hang on the wall, we put the painting up. Now, I only need to worry about how to get it to Kampala in one piece.

While Liz was in D.C. recently, I spread my social wings as a man-about-town. My wild activities included going to a Thai-language movie (alone), cooking, reading books, and jogging in the park. However, one night, I accompanied some of Liz's work colleagues to a halloween party at Thailand's top business school. The nation's young elite was partying into the night, a few dressed in halloween costumes, and many drinking the ubiquitous sugary flavored whiskey drinks popular with the young crowd. A great local rock band was playing (one of the few, non-syrupy bands around) and many in the crowd were jumping around singing (this being Thailand, there was no mosh pit, though there was the occasional bump, quickly followed by an apology). Worn out by 11:30, I returned home to a well-deserved sleep.

I also had the opportunity to travel to Phnom Penh to visit an orientation classmate of mine and her husband. Phnom Penh blends some beautifully restored colonial era buildings with blinding poverty. The airport is modern and new. Half of the roads in the city (the capital of the country) remain unpaved. You can purchase better bread than in Thailand, yet you can also see children defecating on the side of the road. The people are friendly, yet taxis are so unsafe that the Embassy has set up a private shuttle. I noted many beautiful homes, but no attempts to create sidewalks, streetsigns, or traffic signals. People are willing to spend on themselves, but the government is unable to collect taxes for the common good. The riverfront area has been redone, with many nice restaurants and clubs, but upon entering the clubs, you still can read signs saying "no handguns allowed."

I spent a busy 3 days visiting the sights. The Royal Palace remained remarkably unscathed from Khmer Rouge rule. Its clean and uncrowded. Along the walls runs a pictorial telling of the Ramayana and I noticed a strong Indian, Brahman influence still lingering in the art of the country. The national museum has a large collection of Hindu statuary. While Cambodia, like Thailand, is a Buddhist country, Hinduism preceded it. Like the Roman Empire's conversion from paganism to Christianity, the great Khmer kingdom of Angkor was Hindu for centuries, before converting to Buddhism. We went for a drink at the Le Royal hotel, a beautifully restored hotel that had been the last refuge of expatriots when the Khmer Rouge moved into Phnom Penh 25 years ago. Now it serves those hard-working World Bank delegations on their trips to the country.

During my stay, Phnom Penh hosted the ASEAN Ministerial. The government spruced up the city, added one or two traffic lights on the main streets (leading to lots of confusion from Cambodian scooter drivers and pedestrians), and ratcheted up security. When I departed, I had to go through 3 separate metal detectors and my flight left 30 minutes early.

No trip to Phnom Penh can overlook the horrible legacy of the Khmer Rouge. We visited Tuol Sleng, the school that the Khmer Rouge converted into an interrogation center in the middle of the city. 10,000 prisoners went in, only 7 ever came out. The property still looks like a school, though the government does not have the funds to preserve the site or set up appropriate memorials. However, it does have a collection of the photographs the Khmer Rouge took of each new prisoner (like the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge regime thoroughly documented its own brutality). The photographs are so different, some prisoners smile, seemingly unknowing of their future fate, others wince in terror, a few (especially the women) show evidence of earlier brutalization, many are simply dazed.

The next day, my friend Tracy and I traveled to the Killing Fields to see where the Tuol Sleng prisoners had their lives ended. The spot is only about 10 kilometers outside of town and has become a major attraction for visitors to the city. Yet, no real road has been built. Instead, you have to endure a kidney-crushing, nausea-inducing journey up a dirt path that is more pothole than anything else. When we arrived at the site, our car was surrounded by children begging for money. The Fields themselves are surprisingly bucolic. It was a sunny day, with a light breeze and a few water buffalos wandered around as they walked to a lake to graze. It seems a perfect spot for a picnic if you can ignore the tower of skulls rising up 50 feet in the middle of the site. Most of the bodies have long been exhumed, but as you wander around the site, if you look down you can spot human teeth mixed among the pebbles on the path. Yet, many of the Khmer Rouge leaders still remain free and most of the actual executioners, in their teens and early twenties during the years of Khmer Rouge control, were absorbed back into Cambodian society. You wonder what your waiter or your cabdriver was doing 20 years ago.