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The City
We arrived in the city not so fresh from our 6 hr bus ride from Saigon. The journey was reasonably comfortable and the bus had good A/C, leg room and even movies being played with English subtitles! The drop off spot was the office of the travel company, so luckily there were a horde of tuk tuk drivers on hand to take us to our hotel, but unluckily they were 'unionised' and none of them would undercut each other and do the trip for less than their establishe overprices rate. A 4 dollar ride later, we arrived at our hotel. Note, I mean literally 4 dollars- the USD is the preferred currency in the country, the Cambodian riel is only used for providing small change. Unbelievably, even ATM's dispense clean, crisp US dollars!
PP (as its known) is a beautiful city- slightly European in appearance (having big, boulevard streets and a grid system road layout) and I suppose looks a bit like a downmarket version of Saigon in parts, in other parts the slums and deprivation seems as bad as any we've seen in Asia. We were surprised to see however how many luxury cars there were around -
mercedes, BMW's etc - when given the city's history of the educated and ambitious being almost completed obliterated by the Khumer Rouge a few decades ago, the city seems to have made a very decent rebound.
When we arrived at the hotel it turned out that they had double booked our room. They didn't bother trying/ weren't able to call us because we had given them Ed's mobile phone number, which is a UK number. After a bit of negotiation we managed to get a similar room at the hotel for a small discount, but it didn't have A/C (I know, what drama!). A restless and hot night's sleep followed.
The Killing Fields
The next morning we found a tuk tuk driver to take us to the Killing Fields, about 15 kms out of town. Its literally an area of the countryside with a few small outbuildings on the permiter. We paid our fee and walked in, not really knowing what to expect.
The Killing Fields were a number of sites in Cambodia where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the totalitarian communist Khmer Rouge regime, during its rule of the country from 1975 to
1979, immediately after the end of the Vietnam War. At least 200,000 people were executed by the Khmer Rouge (while estimates of the total number of deaths resulting from Khmer Rouge policies, including disease and starvation, range from 1.4 to 2.2 million out of a population of around 7 million).
For further details, see this wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Fields For a location that was once the site for some of the most unimaginable human atrocities, it was now a very aesthetically beautiful field with trees and flowers. It isn't until you begin to walk through the landscape noticing human bones and articles of clothing coming through the now well manicured area that it begins to sink in what happened here.
The first thing you see is a large white concrete pagoda, which is filled of skulls - the skulls are separated into age groups starting at 3 months old. Dotted around are various other marked areas, where huts (used for storage of chemicals- DDT and other herbiscides were tipped on the mass graves to speed up decomposition) once stood. We were able to blend in with a group on the site that had a formal guide. He was
in his mid 30's and spoke excellent english. He described to us the day Khmer Rouge trooops came to his father's village in order to take his family away to one of the death camps for 're-education'. The soldiers were just teenagers, and before he was arrested his father was able to hide a knife in his clothes with which he struck one soldier in the neck, killing him. The other solider lost his nerve, and fled, allowing our guide's father to take his family from the village where they went into hiding. Soliders were also sent to the homes of all other members of his father's family- these family members dutfifully went with the soldiers and in turn they were all killed in various camps.
Huge pits around the site from which bodies have been recovered show the main areas where the people were killed and their bodies dumped in the mass graves. However, bodies were actually dumped everywhere and it has not been possible to recover them all and as you walk along the footpaths that criss cross the site, looking down at your feet you can see scraps of clothing, and small fragments of bones. One
Dutch lady picked up a human molar tooth she found at her feet. We were only there an hour or so, although it was a lovely sunny day, with a clear blue sky, the fields had a heavy looming energy about it that made it hard to relax.
S- 21
For the second half of our day we went to the S-21, the most infamous of the detention camps in the heart of the city. In a sick twist of fate, the building the Khmer chose to 're-educate' those sent there and the site of so many unspeakable acts was formerly a school, and looks like an abandoned school as you arrive outside. The building is a U-shaped 2 storey concrete construction and you wouldn't begin to suspect what went on there unless you were sharp enough to notice that the school yard has a gallows in the middle of it.
The upper stories of the building are filled with historic accounts of the Khmer Rouge period and we found them fascinating - particularly details like the fact that those that overthrew the Khmer Rouge in the early 80's were not recognised as the offical government of the
country for a few years due to the fact the Khmer Rouge had fought against the Vietnamese (the West obviously thinking that the 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' etc). The rooms of the ground floors have various displays - one of the mot upsetting being the rooms filled with hundreds of photos of the men, women and children who were kept in the S21 and most likely died in there. There were written accounts from the guards and some of the victims who lived to tell their stories. Many of the captors were local Cambodians who chose to be guards and implement the inhumane conditions because it was 'other them or us'.
See here for further details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuol_Sleng_Genocide_Museum After our heavy day of seeing the killing fields and S21 we were in need of a few beers and good company. Our chosen accomodation in an old colonial house a bit more than we normally spend so we were making a real effort to economise where possible. One night we decided to meet a couple we had met on a cooking course in Hoi An for dinner in the backpacker area. In the restaurant/ bar
where we met, while Ed and Matt got stuck into the Thai whisky (which isn't too bad) and coke and the girls chatted, a small boy came up to Kat begging for money and trying to sell her post cards. Kat told him that she wouldn't give him any money but was he hungry? He was a precocious young thing and immediately replied "I want chicken and chips". He had obviously done this before and was well known to the restaurant owner and a few minutes later was tucking into his preferred meal.
Another amusing moment occured when we were walking around one night not far from the National Monument. Like a parched man in a desert perceiving an oasis in the distance, Kat noticed the familar green, white and black logo of Starbucks on the side of the building. Barely able to contain her excitement, she ran up and found the place to be a rather strange boudoir/ restaurant looking place quite unlike any Starbucks she had ever seen.
While Kat puzzled this, Ed's legal instincts kicked in and he began reading the small print on the logo outside. It read
"Please note this shop is
not in anyway affiliated with Starbucks Coffee Inc but does serve genuine Starbucks ground coffee"......... Katherine's next Starbucks fix would have to wait till Bangkok.
We had booked a bus to Siem Reap for the next morning - Angkor Wat here we come!
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