School Field Trip!

Last Wednesday, 66 kids, my vice school director, two other teachers, and I took a field trip to Phnom Penh, so the students could learn first hand about their history. If they could pay the muy mun brahm (15 thousand riel, about $3.75), they could go. Not an expensive price to pay for all the places we visited, but the cost still prevented many from being able to go. Over the course of the day we visited the Royal Palace, the National Museum, The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, and a well-known pagoda and touristy area called Wat Phnom.

The day of the field trip, we met at my school director’s house at 6AM. I should have known that if we were “planning” to meet at 6AM, this meant that most of the kids wouldn’t show up until closer to 7, and we wouldn’t actually leave until 7:30. We filled three rented busses, squished two to a seat, and set off. I sat wedged between the driver, Ongkean (vice director), and his daughter, which offered a perfect view of every time on-coming traffic decided to veer into our lane at the last minute to pass the car in front of them…

Getting ready to go

Surprisingly still in one piece by the time we got there, we got off the now-stifling bus and started our journey at the Royal Palace, where, having already paid, we bypassed the lines of tourists and walked right in. We were given a guided tour, and while I only understood bits and pieces of it, the immaculate landscaping and golden-tiered buildings were enough to hold my attention.

Established in 1866 by King Norodom, the Royal Palace has undergone many renovations over the years, especially after the destruction it experienced during the Khmer Rouge.

Moonlight Pavilion, which serves as the stage for performances of traditional Khmer dance

It’s kind of hard to believe a place this pristine and lavish can be allowed to prosper in the midst of Phnom Penh’s general grime, but it’s sign of the wealth that used to be prevalent in Cambodia, and so not taken for granted by Khmer who appreciate any mark of affluence.

Stupa near the great halls

Outside the National Museum

Sprig of camellia blossoms handed to passersby in the museum. Think this is a lovely touch and American museums would do well to take a page out of Cambodia's book to breathe more life into museums!

a couple of my grade 10ers, outside the museum

After learning something about Cambodia’s preserved history at the Royal Palace, and the National Museum (home to Angkor-era attire of kings and queens and other artifacts from the time period), and stopping at Wat Phnom, Phnom Penh’s namesake, we made our way to Tuol Sleng, the museum that recognizes a part of history most Khmer prefer not to remember: the Khmer Rouge. During the Khmer Rouge, Tuol Sleng served as a prison for those accused of crimes against Pol Pot and his regime. Before it was converted for this horrible purpose, it used to be a school. During the Khmer Rouge, however, it was the brutal site of unlawful persecution, the handlebars of a jungle gym aiding in water boarding, classrooms transformed into rooms for interrogation and torture.

Holding cells for prisoners

Of Tuol Sleng’s 20,000 inmates, only 7 survived.

Tuol Sleng is not a place you visit more than once, and having been there already, I decided not to endure it again and met back up with the group afterwards.

It had been a long day, and we were all physically and mentally exhausted. Being near a body of water is always rejuvenating- we drove to the riverside and sat near the junction of the Tonle Sap and Mekong rivers, sipping on Fantas and letting the breeze rekindle our spirits. At this point I thought our trip was coming to a close, but we still had one more stop—Dreamland— a kind of amped up county fair trying to pass as an amusement park. 

The kids COULD NOT have been more excited about this… So we went, paid our 2000 riel (50 cents) to get in, and at the strict orders of the grown-ups to be back at the bus in FORTY-FIVE MINUTES, we frantically rushed around, trying to get our money’s worth. Now, in my eyes, this would mean going on as many rides as possible, stuffing ourselves with cotton candy and getting sick on the tilt-a-whirl. To my students, however, this merely meant walking around aimlessly, calmly absorbing the surrounding over-stimulation with a disinterested eye… I think this had more to do with lack of funds than anything else (you have to pay an additional 2000 riel for each ride), but it still totally surprised me and shook up any preconceived notion of how “normal” teenagers react to this kind of scene.

I’m blaming this (and poor textbooks and Jurassic Park reruns on Khmer TV) for why my dad asked me if there are dinosaurs in America.

A group of 10^th grade girls and I decided to see what the butterfly garden had to offer, which turned out to be not much: not only were there NO butterflies, but most of the plants were fake… And not one carnivorous plant in the room.

Anyway, as fun as it was to watch other people playing bumper cars and riding the Ferris wheel, we had to call it a day at some point. We loaded up the busses and started our journey home…