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Skulls
Felt wrong taking this photo but felt it was required far full impact Got up at 9:00 and had breakfast. Then managed to organise for a Moto driver take me to the Killing fields outside of town then to S21.
It was a nice sunny day but by late morning it was already about 28degrees. On the ride down you learn that Phnom Penh is a stew of wealth and poverty. You're riding through colonial building with cloths boutiques on the ground floor one minute then shanty town then back to small country manors.
On the way down you get the option of going to a firing range. Stupidly I deciced to go. I mean your planning to spend the day by educating your self about Cambodias tragic past of genoside and you start this all off by having a go with the worlds greatest weapon of mass destruction a fully automatic rifle (aka AK47) - the irony.
The other problem is you spend alot of time haggleing for a good price as its very expensive and despite reaching a price your happy with you still fell like you've been ripped off. Fireing the gun in hindsite was sort of fun - loud, jammed a couple of times. Fully auto is
cool but the whole experiance all felt a bit wierd and wrong.
We got on our way and reached the killing fields of Choeung Ek. Rather like a theme park you start off by queueing to buy a ticket to see the net result of one of the worst genosides in human history (And very few people know which about it and alot go through most of life thinking that the holocaust was the last and only one.) Well, you entre the site and are confronted instantly with a huge white tower with shelf after shelf of skulls (8000) retreved from the fields. Alot have fractures and bullet holes. The rest of the site comprises of ditchs where many of the bodies were retreived and signs telling you where things were once located. Tool shed (tools were later used as bullets became uneconomical), acid barrel shed (to decompose the bodies and finish you off if you werent already dead), tree with speakers playing loud music to drown out the screams and a killing tree for babies and enfants. All a bit effed up really.
From there your taken to S21 back in town. This was a secruit prison
Killing Fields Stupa
houses over 8000 skulls (once was a high school) where people who supposidly threatend the regime were tortured and interogated (14,000 died and only 12 survived.) You can still see the bed frames which people were tied to and tools used for torture. There are also a lot of graphic photos. Its quite a big site and it requires a few rest stops (more mental and emotional then physical) in the courtyard below.
finaly the ground floor is made up of 14,000 mug shots of all the victums. Just room after room. There was an interesting one though and it would be interesting to know what this persons story is. A large photo of what looked like an american. Good looking chap and if the photo were taken out of context would be quite amusing as the guy had huge 70s perm and collar. BUT back in S21 its just another picture of another victum.
Its the only place where for a split second (but unfortunatly only a split second) I wanted to do something, become a politician, join amnesty internation (I dont know what) but something that ment you were in a position where you could try and help to make sure crap like this doesnt happen again. At 3:00 they were showing a documentary but I just wanted to leave really. But I hung around anyway to watch it. It was very interesting but I think I've seen it before, a long time ago.
To top this all off as you leave the site to get to your moto driver your confronted by the modern day horrors of Cambodia. The most aggrssive beggers ever (literally chasing you, shouting) with missing arms and legs (probably due to landmines) and one guy who had had half his face blown off by god knows what!!
Once back at the guest house your mentally drained. Had dinner. And sat and watched the new Will Farel film (which went someway to cheering me up) called blades of destiny - I think. Very funny, hadnt heard anything about it and didnt realise it was coming out or had come out (these dvd pirates dont hang about). Not as quotable as Ancorman though. I thought it was going to be a bit of a one liner with the whole male/male figure scating team but it wasnt.
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That film was out about a month ago in the UK. I thought the funniest bit was when they did the move where they both slide together - crotch first. There is nothing like a spot of mass genocide to get you in the mood before watching a Will Farrell film......