Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
pilgrims pray for blessings and good fortune. Here lie the remains of long-forgotten kings,
alongside ornate reliquary houses and an urn said to contain the ashes of the Buddha. Srah
Po's own existence is far less charmed. With the assistance of foreign charities, evictees
have built rudimentary homes of thatch and corrugated iron. People have planted some
scrawny trees and collect water at newly dug wells—another gift from the NGOs—but
they live without power, drainage, or proper toilets. Stagnant water gathers in the gutters,
overflowing into rivers of mud and effluent in the monsoon season.
The biggest problem, however, is jobs. After the eviction, Phanimex officials handed
out starter-kits for a new life—basic building materials, small amounts of cash, and a few
sacks of rice—but people had few ways of sustaining themselves beyond that. At Borei
Keila, most of Srah Po's residents had lived off the city, selling noodles or fruit in the
streets or working as moto-taxi drivers. Some of the men have since returned to Phnom
Penh, where they scrounge a living and send a few dollars back home. Those who remain
have nothing to do but await NGO handouts and maybe sell some basic goods—dried
fish, prawn snacks, slices of sour green mango—that bring them a few thousand riels per
day.
Vich Kimen knew better than to protest. Two weeks before the eviction of Borei Keila,
he packed his things and left for the resettlement site. With the help of his children, Ki-
men laid down a slab of concrete, erected a roof of wood and corrugated iron, and re-
assembled the small barbershop he had run at Borei Keila. He installed a wooden door
and painted it dark blue. Inside he decorated the walls with photos of Cambodian fashion
models and a few of his own paintings: two raunchy nudes, and another of a scaly green
dragon and golden garuda flapping about a burning red sun. A small Sony TV and elec-
tric fan sit on his dusty cabinet, patiently awaiting the moment when the village is hooked
up to the power supply. “They're just for display,” he said with a wry grin. Unlike most of
the other families at Srah Po who fought the eviction, Kimen was one of the few to save
his possessions from the bulldozers. “I felt making demonstrations was hopeless,” he told
me. “When I saw the people burn tires and try to get compensation, I knew we wouldn't
get anything.”
The story of Borei Keila is the story of Cambodia's capital writ large. The housing com-
plex was built in the high noon of Prince Sihanouk's rule, to house athletes visiting for the
First Asian Games of the New Emerging Forces, or GANEFO, a showcase of non-aligned
solidarity that was held in Phnom Penh in late 1966. (The name Borei Keila roughly
means “sports center.”) Like the nearby Olympic Stadium, a modernist masterpiece com-
pleted two years earlier, it represented the future-leaning face of Sihanouk's Phnom Penh.
Its buildings were clean and symmetrical, set amid landscaped grounds and broad orna-
mental ponds, including a light-filled café, a gymnasium, and eight gleaming apartment
