Just Go Places Magazine Cambodia Cambodia | Page 14

Steve
McBride
In 1993, I was half way through 5
years of living in Sarawak,
Malaysia in Borneo. I had always
aspired to visit Indochina, and
so in July that year I travelled to
Bangkok to set up “base camp” for my annual 5
week vacation. My plans were somewhat dented
when the specialist travel agent on Silom Road

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advised that no visas were currently being issued
for Cambodia on account of the situation there. I
didn't even know what situation was being
discussed. As so often happens when working on
offshore oil rigs for long periods, there were often
gaps in my awareness of world news. In fact since
the previous year there had been some 20,000
troops of the United Nations Transitional Authority

pho t o : http s :// fli c. kr/p /6 vz w ZS

r ec o llec t i o n s

in Cambodia (UNTAC) present in the country to
maintain order before, during and after democratic
elections in May 1993. A high percentage of eligible
Cambodians participated even though the Khmer
Rouge (whose forces were never actually disarmed
or demobilized) barred some people from voting.
Never one to be deterred, I went to the Royal
Embassy of Cambodia and politely asked to speak
to the Ambassador. The staff found my request
somewhat humorous, but it soon dawned on them
that I was actually serious. After some time I was
permitted 5 minutes with the Ambassador during
which time I outlined my experience of growing up
in Belfast and thus was well accustomed to the sight
of guns and artillery. Unsurprisingly (at least to me)
I was granted a visa based on my assurance to the
Ambassador that if I travelled to Siem Reap then

I would only travel by air and not road (due to the
Khmer Rouge controlling much of that territory).  
A few days later, I found myself parked comfortably
at the bar of a makeshift Foreign Correspondents Club
in Phnom Penh surrounded by BBC reporters and
other world media. There was not another tourist in
sight. I actually relish visiting places with very few
tourists and minimal commercialism. Cambodia at
that time though was taking that preference to
extremes. The Ambassador had told me that there
were very few tourists in the country, probably only
10 to 20. I spent a full day at Tuol Sleng (the former
school used as a prison and torture chambers by the
Khmer Rouge, now a genocide museum) and visiting
the glass monument full of skulls out at the Killing
Fields. Staring solemnly at all those empty faces of the
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