Phnom Penh - Killing Fields and S21 Prison

Phnom Penh...

The bus journey from Siem Reap was fairly easy. I, as usual, slept all the way. We arrived at the bus station outside of the city where we were pounced on by a million tuk tuk drivers. AAAARRRGGGHHH! We fought our way to a quiet spot beating off the drivers while we looked at the Lonely Planet to find accommodation. We gave in to a driver waving a poster in our faces with the details of a Guest House on the lake. No Problem Guest House, we agreed on a price for two tuk tuk’s and headed to our new home. It was a good choice. Shabby in comparison to the Hilton in Siem Reap but it had a good vibe and the surroundings were wonderful, not forgetting the FREE POOL in the bar!!! All of the buildings here are on stilts in the water, you could see the water catching the light through the cracks in the floorboards. The bar is in the perfect position for a beautiful sunset over the lake and with the comfy seats and the cheap Cambodian whiskey suffice to say we didn’t venture far on our first day in Phnom Penh.

We hired a couple of tuk tuk’s for our educational trip around the city. It was to be a hard hitting day of sad history. The killing fields of Choeung Ek was the first stop. There are 129 mass graves here where approximately 17,000 men, women and children were executed by the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1978. There is a massive monument at the entrance of the museum serving as a shrine to those who were killed, inside this memorial there are nearly 9,000 skulls which were excavated in 1980. With only a sheet of Perspex separating us from the skulls, we were able to see the horrific injuries to the bone. There were clear indents and cuts to some of them and one simple, fatal bullet hole to others. As we walked around the mass graves we noticed that we were walking on bones and bits of clothing left over from the excavations. It would have been too difficult to retrieve every remain from the ground. It was horrible to think we were walking on the graves of murdered families. Very sad.

The next stop was Tuol Sleng Museum. In 1975 Pol Pot’s security forces turned this High School into Security Prison 21, the largest centre for torture and detention in the country. Almost everyone detained here was later taken for execution at the killing fields. In the first room we walked into there was a rusty iron bed in the centre of a checked, tiled floor with shackles still in place. On the wall of the room was a black and white photograph of a victim as he was found in the bed years before. He laid murdered through torture and everything in the room was left in the position so you were able to imagine the scene. There were quite a few rooms similar to this one. With a photograph on the wall and a bed and the shackles. It was so disturbing to see. In the second building there were rows and rows of photographs of the prisoners taken on their arrival to the prison. In some cases there were before torture and after torture photographs. The thing that I found most disturbing in this museum of images, was the number of children detained here. Line after line of portraits of babies, mothers with babies, toddlers. It was sickening. In the next building there were makeshift cells used for detaining prisoners. Made from brick or wood these tiny cells were barely big enough to lie down in. In each cell was a set of shackles cemented to the floor where prisoners were kept from escaping and made uncomfortable. Dark and depressing, these tiny cells lined the old classrooms. It is hard to imagine the horror experienced in here.

We all knew it wasn’t going to be easy learning of what happened here in Phnom Penh but we were all glad we visited the museums and the city itself is lovely. Between museums we drove around little back streets and visited a wonderful market full of fake watches and dodgy Khmer food. After a long, hard day we returned to the guest house to sample one of Cambodia’s famous “Happy Pizza‘s”. Sleepy and giggly we soon retired to our pits. Ecto and Davey had decided to return to Bangkok the following day and leave Wilsy, Don and I to continue our travels to Vietnam. They packed their bag and we said our farewells, we will all meet up again before flying home from Bangkok in a few weeks.

The guest house where we were staying was hidden away down a little back street full of lovely cheap restaurants and pubs. Children playing and families selling fruit and veg outside their homes. Tuk tuks and motorbikes lining the streets ready to pounce on the westerners to get their custom. Every night the view of the sunset across the lake from the bar was beautiful. Little boats offering to take you on a paddle around while the sun was hanging low in the sky. Fishermen bringing in the nets and proudly showing us their massive catches. Phnom Penh is a wonderful city and Cambodia a beautiful country, but it’s time to move on. Next stop Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam.

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