Amit Says

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This is a special "Amit Says" entry, because he has some things to share with you people. So, Amit says:

Chap I: The motorcycle entry

Ok, motorcycle is an overstatement; this two wheeled vehicle was 4-speed, 100cc engine stunted cousin of a motorcycle, we will call a "moto". Shugi and I decided to spend a day in Pnomh Penh before heading up to the temples at Angkor. There isn't a whole lot to do in Ankgor if you be fastidious and STD free so we thought to visit the killing fields and the famous S-21 school turned prison of the Khmer Rouge regime. It would have made sense to hire a moto-driver to take us, but I had heard that one could rent motos for 3$ a day so of course that was the most adventurous, "cool" thing to do. We went over the rental place to test drive some motos; I felt a little shaky riding around the block with traffic swarming around me but was ready to give it a shot. Shugi on account of a self diagnosed "vestiblular problem" decided to pass and we would ride tandem. This ended up being the smartest move we made. After we'd settled into our guest house it was past noon and we were both getting pretty hungry. Shugi suggested we eat and then go, I said how bout we find a place along the way, but we were hungry so Shugi's suggestion prevailed. Five minutes later we were about to head out and I said, "well lets eat," and shugi replies, "how bout we get something on the way." This is the first example of what I can only describe as synergistic stupidty-- the worst idea always won out. No we didn't happen to have a map to the klling fields or specific directions and the map we did have had an arrow in the southwest pointing to "killing fields" somewhere off the map. That much information plus a remark in the lonely planet guide that there were "signs" was enough for us to go on so we took off. Shugi was the navigator as I was trying to get the hang of the moto and stop it from stalling or snagging on gear shifts. We drove southwest away from the city center and away from english speakers. As the paved, congested streets of the city gave way partially paved, partially dirt roads we came to a fork in road and we naturally bore to the right. After a while things were becoming more and more sparse, the buildings giving way to shacks which gave way to fields and emaciated cows we thought something might be off. We stopped by a tin roof shanty with a guy selling gasoline out of 2L soda bottles who had no idea what we were talking about, but one or more out of a combination of words we blurted out, including "killing field", "pol pot", "prison" struck a spark of recognition and he pointed us back the way we came-- wrong fork. Back at the fork again we were starving so we started looking around for a place to eat. There were quite a few luncheonette places. The first one I didn't even go into because Shugi ran out exclaiming, "it's like someone shat everywhere." The second place we made no headway since the only word we had in common with the restauranters was coca-cola, but we couldn't communicate that we wanted cold ones. I even tried to pretend I was cold and shiver while pointing to the bottle; no dice. The third place we were greeted by a naked baby running at us and smell (according to shugi's sniffer) of formaldehyde; we ran away. Finally we got some beef and shrimp fried rice at the final place. Heading down the left fork in the road we again had buildings turn into fields and skinny cows. Finally we got to a turn in the road and seeing no signs continued on, but at this point the partial paved road also had transformed into an all dirt sprinkled with gravel at times road. A pair of Khmers on a similar moto drove up to us asking, "where are you going?" Again we tried the magic words, "killing fields" and their faces lit up, "Ah, you want to go shoot guns, killing... Come with us." So after convincing them we really were not interested in shooting guns we tried the other word, "prison" and they led us back to the turn we had forsaken and pointed us in the right direction.

Chap I.II: The killing fields

I was a little nervous going into the killing fields. I'd heard about the "mountain of skulls" shrine built to remember the genocide. It was all a bit weird that we were being charged admission to go look at excavated mass graves and bones. As we walked up to the 7 story stupa, taking off our shoes a tanned Khmer held out some incense sticks and intoned in a sing songy voice "to pray for all the people that died." Of course we made the donation and stepped into the stupa. There filling the stone structure was a glass and wood case like a giant version of something you might keep knick knacks in going to the very top. It had glass shelves every few feet with skulls, some neatly arranged, others piled on top of one another like a half-organized, macabre collection. There was barely a couple of feet between the case and the wall requiring one to crabwalk around it face to face with thousands of eyeless sockets. Spiders with long legs had built webs connecting a zygomatic arch here to a lacrimal bone there. The floor beneath the case was a hamper of torn, dirt stained clothing that had come out with the excavation and, according to the sign, been "de-odorized in 1988." It was hard to imagine the faces once built upon those skulls. All i could appreciate was a mandible, a sphenoid, a temporal (sometimes with a telling hole). As we walked around the grounds it was hard to appreciate what had happened there. The excavated pits of the mass graves were like pock marks on the earth's surface, but the earth had done its best to hide them beneath grass and funnel webs, and butterflies like a woman covering her face with Foundation. A fence surrounded the place with little children holding on the links looking in at us. They laughed and made motions of taking pictures with their fingers. The saddest feature of the place was that it had become a tourist attraction with the death of 10,000 serving the living Khmers with admission fees and donations for incense. The only tears shed were by obviously foreign women overwhelmed by the bleached multitude of skulls.

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