A day of remembrance

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Today we took a “thirty-minute ride” in a tuk tuk from close to our guesthouse to Choeung Ek, also known as the Killing Fields, and then the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum for $12. We had the slowest driver on the face of the planet, but we did arrive safely, so I guess that’s a good tradeoff.

It was $2 to get in and you can hire a guide there, but we decided not to and went first to their little museum. Here they had some photos on display of some of the leaders and gave a little background information on what had happened. They also showed a video that did about the same thing, documented the highlights of the region’s history.

After the museum we walked outside to where the memorial temple was and walked around that. It is full of bones and they are arranged according to type. The skulls are arranged according to age and gender and there is also a pile of recovered clothes at the bottom that they had recovered from the mass graves. I think a birds-eye view of this field would be interesting to see because what we walked around were literally just paths around the large holes that were the graves.

I’m not going to go into details, but basically people were brought here to be killed. The soldiers took the children and babies to a special tree to smash their heads and then throw them in a nearby pit and they especially wanted them dead because they wanted to prevent revenge. They had to build a little warehouse here too so that they could house the people waiting to die – they just couldn’t kill them fast enough.

On a lighter note, I tempted fate with three nearby geese. I didn’t know they hissed at you by sticking out their tongues and found this quite amusing and something worth replicating. All in all I’d say I won the standoff because they stopped charging and walked away. Incredible, though, because when one was charging at me with its neck down it didn’t even hesitate when I pretended to hit it. I probably could have picked it up.

Then we went to Toul Sleng ($2 to enter), the old site of S-21 which was basically a prison where they tortured suspected enemies of the regime. It was a school and when the city was evacuated they made some modifications that included barbed wire, and tortured people there. There are four buildings and you can see some beds in Building A and some pictures on the walls of some that were tortured there. The guards meticulously documented their prisoners, so in the next buildings there were hundreds of pictures of each victim, all with a number around their necks and in the mandated black clothes. In the last two buildings there were art exhibits basically. Some photographers had interviewed past victims and past supporters and you could read their stories there.

For dinner we tried Garden Bar in the Shade, but didn’t like it and went to Restaurant & Bar Terrace which is a really nice restaurant overlooking the water and floating restaurants (they are just big boats but they have food and a show). Nice as in lovely to be at, not as in fancy. The prices were standard and not too high so we ordered there. It reminded me of an American restaurant with free bread and butter to start with and very nice cushioned chairs. The service was great and everyone was really friendly. I’m glad we ate there!

I think tomorrow we’ll take a bus to Siem Riep and then to the 4,000 islands in Laos for the weekend. I’d like a rural place in Cambodia to visit and/or camp, but I just don’t know where to go and I don’t want to be in too much danger. I plan to ask in Siem Reap and see what I get because in Phnom Penh the woman kept suggesting day trips when I asked her. I’ve also been trying to get in touch with a man in charge of an orphanage there, but I’m not sure what will happen with that. I hope we get to go there.

Technical details
- I think their English is better here than in Vietnam
- I saw a restaurant called “C’est Wat”. Ha!
- They sell gas on the side of the roads in recycled pepsi and other glass bottles.

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Photos

the infamous tree
the darkened patch is where they hit the kids' heads. the tree has grown since then so it's a bit higher now

B
they built the walls so they could house many prisoners

tourist information center
the sign says "Mr. Public Toilet" because there's a public restroom there

lovely view...
of construction