Great Places to Write (Part Two - In Cambodia)
Sunday, May 2nd, 2010
Visiting Cambodia is an intense experience, from the stunning temples of Ta Prohm and Angkor Wat just outside Siem Reap to the horrors of the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh. There’s a Foreign Correspondent’s Club in both Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, and both have stunning locations. But my favourite was the one in Phnom Penh.
The heat in Phnom Penh was brutal, but the FCC’s riverside view alone cooled me down. It would be very easy to let the horrors that occured in S-21 and the Killing Fields deeply affect you. To some extent, perhaps they should. After all, the whole purpose of visiting such places is to learn from what took place in them, so we can help prevent history from repeating itself. I spent a day touring the school-turned torture-camp-turned museum and the Killing Fields.
Going to the FCC that night pretty much saved me from nightmares. It’s a lovely, open, classy bar/restaurant (and hotel) with great views of the Mekong River. I didn’t get any writing done, but I did manage to assimilate the atrocities I’d learnt about without falling into the depths of despair at the nature of the human condition.
The FCC, Phnom Penh
Finally, this sounds terribly shallow, but there’s only so long you can spend wallowing in human misery; the following day we went shopping in the many little boutiques around the palace and waterfront. There’s loads of stunning places to eat and drink there, but the FCC was definitely my favourite.
Tags: Cambodia, FCC, Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, temples
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