Phnom Penh is the capital city of Cambodia. The name means "Penh's Hill". The city was founded in 1434, at the spot where some Buddhist icons were found in a floating log.
The oldest structure in the city is Wat Phnom, which means "The Temple on the Hill". This was originally built to house the Buddhist images that were found in the log, and the city of Phnom Penh grew up around it. From the beginning, this was a Buddhist city. The Buddhist structures, that are shaped like a bell, are known as a stupa. The first three images of Wat Phnom are from Google Street View.
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https://www.google.com/maps/@11.5761424,104.9232926,3a,75y,156.27h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNO4hHfSJ-12jLN0gGmkiKvQhwFFG6rqPr6ODom!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNO4hHfSJ-12jLN0gGmkiKvQhwFFG6rqPr6ODom%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi1.209325-ya281.79462-ro-1.0887631-fo100!7i5376!8i2688
Not far from Wat Phnom is the Royal Palace. This was built in the Nineteenth Century. The first five images of the Royal Palace are from Google Street View.
https://www.google.com/maps/@11.5628701,104.9318915,3a,75y,98.45h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipONzU87U071ENpAlhDsJnewHaOz7QhlOPiasBCG!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipONzU87U071ENpAlhDsJnewHaOz7QhlOPiasBCG%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi0-ya348.61948-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352
Looking like a boulevard out of Paris, the Independence Monument, which ironically celebrates Cambodian independence from France, is linked to a statue of Norodom Sihanouk. This is the most prominent name in Cambodia since independence. Norodom Sihanouk had been king, prince and, prime minister throughout the country's post-independence history. The first four images of the Independence Monument and the statue of Norodom Sihanouk are from Google Street View.
https://www.google.com/maps/@11.5564065,104.9285978,3a,75y,270h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sDynWennePIctwE9lfml4sQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DDynWennePIctwE9lfml4sQ%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D52.667503%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656
Here are some scenes of the city, not far from downtown. The first three images are from Google Street View.
https://www.google.com/maps/@11.5644471,104.8940014,3a,75y,181h,87t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sBSDwTGQw7sxLfCxne224og!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DBSDwTGQw7sxLfCxne224og%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D181.5%26pitch%3D-3%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656
This is more of the city, south of downtown.
https://www.google.com/maps/@11.5378175,104.9168344,3a,75y,214h,87t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sPEkbzxmZ7Xgo9BlYax191A!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DPEkbzxmZ7Xgo9BlYax191A%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D214.5%26pitch%3D-3%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656
To the northwest of Phnom Penh, the great visitor attraction of Cambodia is Angkor Wat. It began as a vast Hindu temple, but had a conversion to Buddhism undertaken in the 12th Century. This is the largest religious monument in the world, and the towers represent mountains. The stories from the Hindu scriptures are carved in stone.
Some people see more possible meaning in Angkor Wat. It is a mystery why, unlike other Khmer temples, it is aligned to the west. The carvings in stone tell the story of Hindu scriptures but, unlike other temples, the story is told counter-clockwise around the temple, rather than clockwise. The towers that represent mountains, also appear to be aligned like the stars in the constellation Draco.
Indeed Draco is a circumpolar constellation, near the north celestial pole, and these stars rotate around the pole in a counter-clockwise direction, as the earth revolves around the sun from season to season. The constellations do move clockwise as the earth rotates daily. Also, of course, the constellations are seen after the sun has set in the west. The first six images of Angkor Wat is from Google Street View.
An image of Angkor Wat is on the flag of Cambodia. From the Wikipedia article "Flag of Cambodia".
Angkor is from the Sanskrit word meaning "city". Just as Wat Phnom is the temple of Phnom Penh, Angkor Wat was the temple of a great city that was named Angkor. The city of Angkor was the largest city in the world. It's residents were known to be masters of water management, and an abundance of rice was grown in the surrounding area to feed it's population. Angkor lasted about six hundred years, and was abandoned at about the time that Phnom Penh was founded, during the 15th Century.
But why was such a great city abandoned? No one seems to know for sure. Angkor Wat began as a Hindu temple. But we saw how Phnom Penh was a Buddhist city from the beginning, having been founded where Buddhist icons were found in a floating log. It could be that, as the country moved from Hinduism to Buddhism, it was felt necessary to abandon the "Hindu City", which had been Angkor, to start the "Buddhist City", which was Phnom Penh.
This logic would then help us to understand events in Cambodia during the 1970s, when the Khmer Rouge took power. When there is a new order to society, the city that represented the old order is abandoned. The Khmer Rouge emptied Phnom Penh, leading all of the people into the rural areas, in the quest for a primitive, rice-growing, purely communist society. Private property or religion was not even allowed to be mentioned.
These are the rice fields, and village, where Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge, was born. Maybe the difference in wealth between the city and the countryside was part of what not only led him to Communism, but also to the hostility toward cities. He had spent time in France, and elements of the French Revolution can be seen, as the reign of the Khmer Rouge began with "Year Zero". The first image is from Google Street View.
Have Bangladeshis noticed how in rural Cambodia houses are built on stilts to avoid flooding?
I once investigated what all great dictators might have in common. What I found is that just about all seem to come from small towns.
https://www.google.com/maps/@12.6940602,104.861009,3a,75y,244h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sl0OoK6qpTtDWkdWdVp-Q_g!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Dl0OoK6qpTtDWkdWdVp-Q_g%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D244.0126%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656
This is the nearest town to where Pol Pot was born, in Kampong Thom.
https://www.google.com/maps/@12.7120577,104.8880648,3a,75y,175h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sWI6rOsSngWHGB4gpkuwgww!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DWI6rOsSngWHGB4gpkuwgww%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D175.89607%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656
The Khmer Rouge had a policy of simply killing anyone who did not fit their vision of a Communist agrarian utopia. Being educated, or being able to speak French, or even wearing eyeglasses could get one killed. One story is that Pol Pot, in his student days, had been sent to France to study radio electronics. But he was unable to learn it, and returned to Cambodia with a hatred of anything modern.
While I was in high school, we didn't know that this former high school on the other side of the world was being used by the Khmer Rouge as an interrogation and execution center. Of nearly twenty thousand prisoners who entered here, only seven are known to have come out alive. About a quarter of the population of Cambodia would die between 1975 and 1979.
https://www.google.com/maps/@11.5496854,104.9174677,2a,75y,37.06h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1slRB3WQvCUKsWTAA6P7MbXg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DlRB3WQvCUKsWTAA6P7MbXg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D36.49307%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656
For Americans who remember the "Mayaguez Incident", The only military encounter between the U.S. and the Khmer Rouge, the following is a view of Koh Tang. This is the island where three U.S. Marines may have been left behind. The Khmer Rouge, shortly after coming to power, seized a cargo ship, which it claimed was in it's territorial waters. The U.S. launched an operation to rescue the crew, not knowing that they had already been released, and many Americans were killed in an accidental helicopter crash.
The coastal islands had been heavily fortified by the Khmer Rouge, but Americans were not the reason. The emergence of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, renamed Kampuchea, and the victory of the Communists in the nearby Vietnam War had coincidentally occurred at about the same time, in April 1975. Some of the coastal islands near the border of the two countries were disputed, and the Khmer Rouge had immediately fortified it's islands in case the victorious new government in Vietnam might try to seize the disputed islands. But what came through was an American ship. Four years later, it would be war between these two countries that would drive the Khmer Rouge from power. Image from Google Earth.
https://www.google.com/maps/@12.6940602,104.861009,3a,75y,244h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sl0OoK6qpTtDWkdWdVp-Q_g!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Dl0OoK6qpTtDWkdWdVp-Q_g%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D244.0126%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656
This is the nearest town to where Pol Pot was born, in Kampong Thom.
https://www.google.com/maps/@12.7120577,104.8880648,3a,75y,175h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sWI6rOsSngWHGB4gpkuwgww!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DWI6rOsSngWHGB4gpkuwgww%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D175.89607%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656
The Khmer Rouge had a policy of simply killing anyone who did not fit their vision of a Communist agrarian utopia. Being educated, or being able to speak French, or even wearing eyeglasses could get one killed. One story is that Pol Pot, in his student days, had been sent to France to study radio electronics. But he was unable to learn it, and returned to Cambodia with a hatred of anything modern.
While I was in high school, we didn't know that this former high school on the other side of the world was being used by the Khmer Rouge as an interrogation and execution center. Of nearly twenty thousand prisoners who entered here, only seven are known to have come out alive. About a quarter of the population of Cambodia would die between 1975 and 1979.
https://www.google.com/maps/@11.5496854,104.9174677,2a,75y,37.06h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1slRB3WQvCUKsWTAA6P7MbXg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DlRB3WQvCUKsWTAA6P7MbXg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D36.49307%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656
For Americans who remember the "Mayaguez Incident", The only military encounter between the U.S. and the Khmer Rouge, the following is a view of Koh Tang. This is the island where three U.S. Marines may have been left behind. The Khmer Rouge, shortly after coming to power, seized a cargo ship, which it claimed was in it's territorial waters. The U.S. launched an operation to rescue the crew, not knowing that they had already been released, and many Americans were killed in an accidental helicopter crash.
The coastal islands had been heavily fortified by the Khmer Rouge, but Americans were not the reason. The emergence of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, renamed Kampuchea, and the victory of the Communists in the nearby Vietnam War had coincidentally occurred at about the same time, in April 1975. Some of the coastal islands near the border of the two countries were disputed, and the Khmer Rouge had immediately fortified it's islands in case the victorious new government in Vietnam might try to seize the disputed islands. But what came through was an American ship. Four years later, it would be war between these two countries that would drive the Khmer Rouge from power. Image from Google Earth.
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