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Published: February 24th 2009
So this is the second half of our Cambodia blog - and slightly less cheerful than the first. As we said, this blog will reveal the darker side of Cambodia's history and was certainly a learning curve for us...As a topic we don't spend any time learning about in school, the Khmer Rouge genocide is almost hidden history in the west.
21st February 2009
Having arrived the day before on a karaoke singing bus, we - alongside Cliff - found a dodgy bed in the 'Blue Dog Guesthouse'. We were up at 9am for our first English Breakfast in months and then headed - hearts in mouths - to pick up our passports which we had sent on ahead of us from Siem Reap to get our Vietnamese visa. Amazingly, they were waiting for us and we were able to carry on with our day without any more worry! Aware that our couple of days here would be fairly traumatic, we headed for the infamous 'Toul Sleng museum' also known as the S-21 Genocide Museum. This building was formerly a highschool which was turned into a centre of detention and torture during the reign of Pol Pot and his political
Phnom Penh
Inside the cellblock at S-21party the Khmer Rouge. During the 4 years that it was open thousands of people were tortured here and then either died or were taken away to be killed (100 people per day at it's peak.) This was in tune with the regimes theory of rather having 10 innocent people dead rather than 1 guilty person free. Their targets (or the 'guilty') weren't restricted to men; their aim was to have a pure cambodia, eliminating intellects, farmers, former members of the government, foreigners as well as women and children. Over 2 million people died - 1 in 4 cambodians during this period. It was a very graphic museum as the regime documented and photographed many of their practises. One of the most bizarre things was how well they recorded their atrocities as without this many of the dead would still be unknown. At least families knew the fate of their loved ones - although only 7 people survived their incarceration. We felt that to truly understand Cambodia and it's people, this was one place in which we had to visit.
In stark contrast, that evening we went for a 'Seeing Hands' massage which is performed by blind masseurs as a
Phnom Penh
The memorial Stupa at Choeung Ek way of staying self-sufficient. It was amazing!
22nd February 2009
Aware that our time in Phnom Penh did not allow us to do it justice, we squeezed one more 'sight' in before catching our bus across the border to Vietnam. We woke early to take a rickshaw out to Choeung Ek Killing Fields. This is the place where, after being found guilty of whatever crime they had been arrested for, people were brought by the truckload from S-21 to be killed. Basically it is 129 mass graves mostly now excavated, where 17,000 men, women and children were found. Standing at the centre of these fields is a Stupa containing 9000 skulls found during the excavations.
Later that day we caught our bus to Ho Chi Minh City. The bus journey leaving Cambodia was distinctly less painful than when we entered!
And so later that evening, we arrived in HCMC...
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Steve
non-member comment
Sobering thoughts.....
I'm glad you visited S-21 these things need to be seen, not pleasant but very moving. Should make us all feel how very fortunate we are to live the lives we have! On a brighter note the hand massage sounds amazing, again what an incredible experience this country has given you and us the readers! Take care!x