There’s a Time for Leisure and a Time for...

“Sok sabai jie te” my friends!

Hello again from Phnom Penh – Cambodia’s capital – where I’ve been for the last three weeks! A month and a half have passed since my last update from Vietnam and a lot has happened in the meanwhile, so let’s not waste too much time and get it started with!


Although I was really enjoying my time in a remarkably beautiful Vietnam, in the back of my head I was already preparing for my Legal Internship which would start mid-May in Phnom Penh (PP)… So I got myself a new tailor-made suit in the UNESCO-city of Hoi An, travelled southwards, spent a few days in Saigon – nowadays ‘Ho Chi Minh City’ – explored the majestic Mekong-Delta by scooter and crossed the border to the city which would become my home for two months…

Right before starting to work in May, my parents would come and visit me in Kuala Lumpur for two weeks, so I wanted to arrange as many things as I could beforehand. A few things were on my list: ‘Meeting my future boss at LAC’, ‘Finding a room for two months’ and ‘Changing my shorts and flip-flops for clothes suitable for work’ were some of them. One-by-one, I sorted these things out and on the 29th of April, I was ready to take off for Kuala Lumpur, the city were I had started the second part of my trip a few months earlier…

In my experience, if you have been somewhere before – even if it’s only for a few days – you get around much easier, so I found my way in this (still) super-modern city within no-time. This came in handy when my parents arrived the next day at the International Airport, because before we knew it we had changed from the 1-hour shuttle bus onto the commuter-train and we were checked in, into our hotel. We hadn’t seen each other for about nine months, but at the moment that we saw each other’s faces again it seemed that I had left home only a few days before :-)

We would have only two weeks together and because we wanted to see as much as possible, we had made a rough and quite tight schedule which meant that we would fly already on the next day to Sumatra – the world’s sixth largest island – and home to some of the most endangered animal species on earth! Our first stop would be at the main attraction of this otherwise pretty much underdeveloped island: Bukit Lawang, in the North-East. Sumatra is of course well-known for the Sumatran Tiger and its nephew, the Rhino, but also for what is perhaps the most amusing animal of the jungle: the Orangutan and Bukit Lawang is the starting point to find this animal!! After a bumpy ride, cramped in a mini-bus with our backpacks loosely tied to its roof, we arrived in a little paradise. Situated on the edge of the rain forest and close to the main entrance of the National Park, our guesthouse provided us with a so-called ‘Jungle Bungalow’ and served us perhaps the best food that we would have on our entire trip. The next morning, our guide would ensure us a ‘meet-and-greet’ with our Jungle-relatives and after nearly one hour of hiking through the dense jungle, we already spotted the first semi-wild Orangutan, high up in a tree. During lunch, we got company of a so-called Black Gibbon, which was simply hilarious to watch. Although our assistant-guide only just survived an attack on his backpack (filled with bananas!) by an angry mamma-Orangutan, it was a truly special experience.

Next stop: Java! Unfortunately, our ‘Java-adventure’ didn’t start very smoothly… on the morning of our flight from Sumatra to Java (by the way, we all love AirAsia: it’s just like Ryanair and maybe even cheaper!), my passport got stolen on a public minibus in Medan, the capital of Sumatra. Well, so there you go: always reporting to ‘Base Camp’ that everything’s going just fine, that I face no problems whatsoever and that I take very good care of my belongings… and then this happens. For those of you who believe (like I honestly did myself) that this will never happen to you: I really didn’t notice it happening! I was making small-talk with a local who was sitting next to me on the bus and he had just explained to me how to get from the bus stop to the Airport. When we arrived there, I moved from my seat and bended over to get my backpack and – having reflected on what happened – that’s when he (the ‘friendly local’) must have quickly opened the pocket of my trousers (which was locked with buttons) and taken my passport out of it… I was astonished!

Un-fortunately, this meant that we had to spend our first day in Jakarta criss-crossing this metropolis by taxi: going from the Netherlands Embassy to the Ministry of Immigration, back to the Embassy, quickly to the shopping mall to get the right pictures done and back again to the Ministry… Fortunately, I had already – by coincidence? – applied for a new passport at our Embassy in Kuala Lumpur just a few days ago because my old passport (the stolen one) was full. This meant that I only needed to get a so-called ‘Emergency Passport’ and a new Visa for Indonesia… Enfin, I was happy to have my parents with me in this situation and after one day of bureaucratic hassling and with my new passport securely hidden away (!), we were on the (rail-)road again, enjoying a stunningly scenic train-ride all the way across Java – from Jakarta in the West to Solo in the East. Sitting in a very comfortable air-con coupé, we crossed big rivers and watched undisturbed locals working on endless rice paddies with some majestic volcanoes in the background… wow!!

Indonesia just calls to be explored more thoroughly and I already put it on my future travel-list, since there is just so much more to explore. During our short stay, we have only got a little taste of this country, but it tasted good :-) Indonesia has thousands of the most beautiful islands, it has an extremely rich cultural heritage, it is a great place for both the ‘adventurous traveller’ and for the ‘comfort-traveller’ and it is home to some of most amazing nature and wildlife on earth… to be continued :-P

Only half-way the trip with my parents and we were back again in Kuala Lumpur. Since we all wanted to see more of Malaysia (“Malaysia, truly Asiahaaa”), we decided to fly to Penang, a small island on the West-coast which could offer us both some culture and colonial history and at the same time enough opportunities to recover comfortably from our adventures in Indonesia. It turned out to be a good decision and we spent our time by exploring the historical centre of Georgetown, going to the beach in Batuh Ferringhi, having (very) nice food and refreshing good memories in Little India. Unfortunately, all good things will finally come to an end, even in Asia… and since we had only one night left in Kuala Lumpur, my father decided it was time to splurge for once and he had booked us a very-very-comfortable suite in one of KL’s more expensive hotels, with a view of the landmark Petronas Towers! Not at all representing the average standard of comfort of our trip, but nonetheless a very nice conclusion of it!


Alright, I may have postponed it for as long as I could, but the ‘serious part’ (Part III) of my trip was just about to begin: a two-months Legal Internship in PP… Not knowing what exactly to expect, but well-confident in my spotless new Vietnamese suit, I met on Tuesday (Monday was the King’s birthday, so no work) with my new boss, a Cambodian lawyer working – inter-alia – with the Cambodia Tribunal. The ‘Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia’ – ECCC – as it is officially known had captured my imagination for a while, since it fits exactly in my field of interest on the concept of ‘Transitional Justice’. As many of you may know, I wrote my Master’s Thesis on ‘Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa after the Apartheid-era’ and the ECCC is just another form of transitional justice. One of the first positive things I found out was that I would be working very closely with the UN-sponsored ECCC!

The ECCC and its whole process are endlessly complex, but I will nevertheless try to explain you something about the most relevant issues. One of the ‘special features’ of this Tribunal is that it explicitly provides a role for the victims of the infamous Khmer Rouge regime, during which an estimated 2 million people died an unnatural death. It was decided that the ECCC would only focus upon some of the crimes committed by those ‘most responsible’. This comes – at least until now – down to five accused persons: ‘Duch’, the director of the biggest Security Center and sole accused person in Case 001 (verdict soon expected), the right-hand of Pol Pot (who is already dead for a long time), the former Chief of State and the former Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Social Affairs (Case 002, Trial-phase to start end of this year). Victims can be admitted as ‘Civil Parties’ with all rights included. This could give them the official recognition of their sufferings and possibly even some form of compensation. My boss is one of the most active Cambodian Lawyers.

I have been working with him for three weeks now and except for being introduced to many new colleagues, running from one office to the other to get all kind of paper-work done and learning about the whole process, he has involved me with basically everything that is on his mind at the moment. That is of course what I was hoping for and during the last few weeks, I have been attending various meetings, I have been working together closely with many of his international and national colleagues, we have worked at the ECCC itself many times and just today, I have been on my first ‘Field Trip’ to one of the Provinces. Going to remote places, meeting the most interesting and colourful people, seeing and hearing how locals are still affected by this extremely violent period in their lives, hearing what they think about the ECCC and realising how far away the whole process and all those white people (‘barang’) working in their law-offices in Phnom Penh actually are from their everyday life… well, let’s just say that these are exactly the experiences I was hoping to find during my internship and I wouldn’t have want to miss them!

Six weeks of not writing any updates on the site and this is what happens: there’s just too much to tell :-) Let’s cut it a little short now: apart from my internship, life in PP has been treating me well so far. I guess I got lucky with a good room and nice room-mates: there’s one Law-student from Lyon, an entrepreneur from Paris and his Cambodian friend, a volunteer from London and a night-editor of a big news-paper from South Carolina. Of course(?), I rented a ‘moto’, which is not more than a manual-gear scooter, but which is more than convenient to get around the city and I also got myself a membership of a rather ‘poche’ Fitness-centre with swimming pool at an expensive hotel which is not far from my place. So, you don’t have to worry: I will probably have quite a good time the remaining five weeks of my internship, during which I will try to make the most out of it. And then, yes then…, mid-July…, I will meet up with my brother in… Beijing!!!


Looking back with a big smile, having a good time at the moment and having perhaps even better things to look forward to: is this all one could wish for?!

All the best from PP and I hope to hear from you again soon,

Marijn