Kiwi journalist on a priceless experience in Cambodia

Michael Fox won an Asia:NZ scholarship as a graduate of the Massey University School of Journalism to go on an internship at the Phnom Penh Post. Now a Fairfax Media journalist, here is Michael's report of his stint in Cambodia in April and May 2009.

Cambodia is a both a land of brutality and promise.

It shines a light on some of the world’s social problems – inequality and unbridled growth with scant regard for human, social or environmental consequences.

It bears the scars of war, fanaticism, cruelty and what happens when the rest of the world turns a blind eye.

As the historian John Tully noted, it is a misfortune for a country to be known primarily for a brutal history but so it is for Cambodia and the country is working to shake its tag as the home of Pol Pot, the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng.

Today it has shown remarkable resilience and it is hurtling into the 21st century.

I arrived in Phnom Penh after several days in Thailand - being my first time overseas my mind was reeling.

After the expanse of Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, I arrived in the Cambodian capital’s airport - not dissimilar in size to a local dairy.

After a customs official decided he was going to charge me a few extra dollars for the sake of it I knew I was in for an interesting stay. That wasn’t helped by being soundly ripped off by the first couple of tuk tuk drivers before I wised up and decided that whatever they tried to charge, about a third of that would be the going rate.

Caked in sweat, slightly disoriented and batting off drug dealers and persistent drivers, it took a while to sink in where I was.

It wasn’t long until I began to settle into what turned out to be a hugely rewarding experience and I started at work the day after I arrived.

The editorial team at the paper was happy to delegate work to the newcomer and receptive to my story ideas.

They trusted me with some pretty sensitive stories and were happy to show me around.

There were several assignments and stories which were particular highlights.

One was tracking down three villagers in a hospital in Siem Reap after they had been shot by police after a land dispute.

The hospital was what I’d heard hospitals were like in developing countries but I was still shocked at what I saw. Two of the injured men were on mats on the ground surrounded by some very sick looking patients crammed into corridors in the stinking heat. Doctors were hard to find.

Sitting on the floor with the men, surrounded by curious locals, I had a translator who could barely speak English which made the interviews more difficult than normal.

Unable to figure out how to get their full story, I ended up recording the interview on my dictaphone while struggling to explain to the interpreter what I wanted him to ask. I then emailed the file to the head office to be translated.

Another work highlight was being sent to a village about 20 minutes from Siem Reap where a “robber family” had reportedly killed 100 people and buried them in their backyard. I hired a tuk tuk driver to act as a translator and he took me to the house, down a long dirt road far off the main road. The house was a tin building in a large barren compound, surrounded by a high wire fence. Blood was still visible on the ground and the wall from where the murder had taken place. Locals who had also heard the talk were making the same journey en mass.

While it turned out to be a rumour, and only one person had been killed there, it had been an unnerving but valuable experience.

Perhaps the biggest professional highlight was the day and night I spent at the site of the border dispute with Thailand.

Following two days of shooting where several Thai soldiers were killed, I was sent to Preah Vihear. The journey on pot-holed roads took the better part of two days, first travelling from Phnom Penh north to Siem Reap, further north to Anlong Veng, where we stayed the night, and then on to Preah Vihear the next day.

The two countries, Thailand and Cambodia both claim a small section of land near the Preah Vihear temple – awarded to Cambodia in 1962 and made a World Heritage Site in 2008.

We were unable to get to the base until the day after the shooting but the experience was a good one.

Sambath, the local journalist who I had travelled with, and I arrived in the morning and had to take scooters up the steep slope to the military camps.

At the top was something pretty foreign to me as a New Zealander.

Machine gun nests, AK47s and sand bagged trenches littered the plateau, rocket launchers leaned against walls unattended while armed soldiers who spoke no English lounged around in hammocks.

The clash between the old and the new here was pronounced. The soldiers on the Cambodian side were camped around Preah Vihear temple – a 900 year-old monument built at the height of the Khmer empire. Atop a vast plateau with views stretching for miles back into Cambodia and over into Thailand, it was reportedly perched there so that visitors to the ruler at the top were overawed by the occasion.

In the preceding fire fight, three Thai soldiers were killed, a marketplace was completely destroyed by shelling and the temple damaged by Thai bullets.

After Thai leaders came over for peace talks, I crossed back to Thailand with a delegation to where their soldiers lived in similar, if slightly more organised looking conditions.

It was here I ended up on my own. My translator followed one group of people while I followed the other.

It wasn’t until about 200m down a track getting further and further away from Cambodia that I realised I was on my own following a group of Thai soldiers without my passport.

I fast tracked back to Cambodia and sanctuary, through the Thai front line and across the demined path. I still haven’t told my mum.

On the same trip I travelled further along the border to near the Cambodia-Thailand-Laos tri-border as part of a field trip with representatives of a conservation project between the three country’s governments and some private groups.

As I waited in a small village at the intersection of the two roads, I’ve never felt so out of place. I was like a circus freak – a foot taller than everyone else, pale(ish) skinned, and not being able to speak with anyone made it difficult to order any food or drink. Having run out of clean clothes as I could only carry with me what I could fit in my back pack, trying to buy a clean shirt proved fruitless too.

The Khmers are also not shy about staring and are well-known for making foreigners the butt of their jokes. There isn’t much you can do but smile back and keep walking.

It was obviously a weird experience going from an area where Thais and Cambodians were shooting at each other to another area 17 miles away where they were working together.

While the field trip was aimed at extending a cross-border conservation project for another year, on arrival we instead discovered the Cambodian army were building a military base there. This made an interesting story but was the most difficult in terms of having to negotiate the political sensitivities and some pressure from my hosts.

I spent a lot of time also on the business desk where I learned about the issues a developing economy faces and writing stories ranging from trademark infringements to covering a report which labelled Cambodia the third most unstable country in the world.

That caused quite a stir, prompting letters from Cambodian officials and the ambassador to London. It certainly wasn’t what I expected after my first day on the job.

It was a challenge dealing with a pretty solid language barrier and different cultural norms and I was surprised at the reluctance of some to speak with media for fear of some sort of retribution.

Perhaps the lightest, but most terrifying moments came on the roads.

After a short stint in Cambodia you learn to appreciate road rules. Traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, the give-way rule and seat belts reveal themselves as true blessings.

In my time in Cambodia I was honked at, swerved past, almost run over and driven into the path of an oncoming concrete truck by an unrepentant tuk tuk driver.

A six-hour trip from the capital Phnom Penh to Siem Reap to cover a couple of stories revealed a whole new side to the game of dodge the oncoming death trap. It was no surprise to learn that Cambodia has one of the highest rates of road fatalities in Asia.

Kids play fight on the side of the roads, a mere push or a shove away from certain death.

An endless procession of villagers cycle along the side of the road, aware of the vehicle coming up behind them only by the incessant honking of horns - quite possibly the biggest necessity in a vehicle in Cambodia, and indeed in Thailand and Vietnam also.

Some vehicles are so poorly lit that what appears to be a motorbike coming towards you, can often turn out to be a Khmer tractor hauling a wider load tan you’re prepared for.

The median strip is a guide more than a rule and drivers, well my driver at least, seemed to prefer to spend as much time on the wrong side of the road as possible.

Children ride on top of loads strapped to the back of utes that would be considered outrageous hazards in New Zealand. Some passengers, who are left with no choice as the back of the ute is overloaded, as is the roof, are forced to ride nonchalantly on the bonnet of the car hurtling down the motorway.

Marauding cows cross the road at will. One unfortunate milky-white bovine had the misfortune of crossing the road ahead of an oncoming ute. The vehicle struck the cow so hard it completed a 180 before landing on its back. It got up and limped off nursing a presumably smashed leg.

There is much to dislike about Cambodia.

Corruption and impunity are endemic. Brutal crimes are rife and the street is littered with beggars with missing limbs and deformities, the result of landmines and battlefields and poor maternal health.

Yet there is also much to love and admire. The people, while undoubtedly out to make a quick buck, are relentlessly positive, quick to laugh (albeit often at your expense), loyal to their families and attempting to get on with their lives.

Their tenacity and resolve is admirable when only three decades ago was one of the world’s worst atrocities.

While I was there the Khmer Rouge trials were on and I was uniquely privileged to speak with Cambodians about their experiences and their opinions. It is one thing to know about what happened from 1975 to 1979 but it is another thing to hear people talk about it happening to them.

Meeting photographer Al Rockoff, who was in Vietnam during the war and Cambodia when Phnom Penh was taken by the Khmer Rouge and other foreign correspondents was a great opportunity to discuss the life of a journalist in those areas, was also a valuable learning curve.

On both a professional and a personal level the experience was priceless and I was disappointed to leave.

I think that any young journalist who has the opportunity to go to Cambodia on an Asia:NZ scholarship would gain valuable experience and have their world view altered by working at the Phnom Penh Post.

I took in as much of the country as I could in the short time and also managed to visit Thailand, Laos and Vietnam though not for as long as I would have liked.

I learned about a new culture, how vast Asia is – and how different it is from country to country, something I probably didn’t appreciate enough before hand.

It made me feel pretty guilty about knowing only one language and has forced me to look at taking up a second.

It also showed me what options are available to a journalist who is willing to get out and find stories and make things happen and reaffirmed my opinion that it’s the greatest job around.

So thanks to the Asia New Zealand Foundation for the opportunity – something I would highly recommend to any young journalist.