Phnom Penh, Cambodia

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I arrived in Cambodia on the Sunday afternoon but spent that lounging around the pool in the guesthouse I was staying at. Coming from Hanoi it was alot hotter here and the sun was shining! Cambodia is a pretty amazing place and Phnom Penh even more so. During the Khmer Rouge rule, Phnom Penh was evacuted by its residents as a result of Pol Pot wanting to return the country to 'Year Zero' and destroying everything which went against his wish. Pol Pot sought a return to an agrarian economy and therefore killed many people perceived as educated, "lazy" or political enemies. Many others starved to death as a result of failure of the agrarian society and the sale of Cambodia's rice to China in exchange for bullets and weaponry. People did eventually return but it was only in the mid 90's when the city started to emerge from the shadow of the Khmer Rouge. The city takes its name from the Wat Phnom Daun Penh (known now as just the Wat Phnom or Hill Temple)

The best way to get around Phnom Penh is by tuk-tuk and I hired a driver for the whole day for US$12. Everything in the main parts of Cambodia is priced up in US$. The ATM's even dispense dollars. You have to be careful though because no shops, bars or restaurants will accept any notes with even a tiny tear in them.

My first stop for the day was a very sobering one. Cambodia obviously has a very sad history due to the atorcities carried out by Pol-Pot and the Khmer Rouge. The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is a museum on the site is a former high school which was used as the notorious Security Prison 21 (S-21) by the Khmer Rouge regime from its rise to power in 1975 to its fall in 1979. The five buildings of the complex were converted in August 1975, four months after the Khmer Rouge won the civil war, into a prison and interrogation centre. The Khmer Rouge renamed the complex "Security Prison 21" (S-21) and construction began to adapt the prison to the inmates: the buildings were enclosed in electrified barbed wire, the classrooms converted into tiny prison and torture chambers, and all windows were covered with iron bars and barbed wire to prevent escapes. From 1975 to 1979, an estimated 17,000 people were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng (some estimates suggest a number as high as 20,000, though the real number is unknown).

The chief of the prison was Khang Khek Ieu (also known as Comrade Duch), a former mathematics teacher who worked closely with Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot.

When prisoners were first brought to Tuol Sleng, they were made aware of ten rules that they were to follow during their incarceration. What follows is what is posted today at the Tuol Sleng Museum; the imperfect grammar is a result of faulty translation from the original Khmer:

1. You must answer accordingly to my question. Don’t turn them away.
2. Don’t try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that, you are strictly prohibited to contest me.
3. Don’t be a fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.
4. You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
5. Don’t tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution.
6. While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.
7. Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting.
8. Don’t make pretext about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your secret or traitor.
9. If you don’t follow all the above rules, you shall get many many lashes of electric wire.
10. If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.

Out of an estimated 17,000 people imprisoned at Tuol Sleng, there were only twelve known survivors. Only four of them are thought to be still alive: Vann Nath, Chum Mey, Bou Meng and Chim Math, the only woman among the survivors. All three of the men were kept alive because they had skills their captors judged to be useful. Vann Nath had trained as an artist and was put to work painting pictures of Pol Pot. Many of his paintings depicting events he witnessed in Tuol Sleng are on display in the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum today. Bou Meng, whose wife was killed in the prison, is also an artist. Chum Mey was kept alive because of his skills in repairing machinery. Chim Math was held in S-21 for 2 weeks and transferred to the nearby Prey Sar prison. She may have been spared because she was from Stoeung district in Kampong Thom where Comrade Duch was born. She was also distinguished by her provincial accent during her interrogations.

The buildings at Tuol Sleng are preserved as they were left when the Khmer Rouge were driven out in 1979. The regime kept extensive records, including thousands of photographs. Several rooms of the museum are now lined, floor to ceiling, with black and white photographs of some of the estimated 20,000 prisoners who passed through the prison.

Walking around the museum you do get a sense of the suffering the prisoners wnet through. This was a brutal regime who had no compassion or thought for human life. It is a harrowing place.

After the museum my driver took me to Choeung Ek, the site of a former orchard and Chinese graveyard about 17km south of Phnom Penh, is the best-known of the sites known as The Killing Fields, where the Khmer Rouge regime executed about 17,000 people between 1975 and 1979. Mass graves containing 8,895 bodies were discovered at Choeung Ek after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime. Many of the dead were former inmates in the Tuol Sleng prison. Today, Choeung Ek is a memorial, marked by a Buddhist stupa. The stupa has acrylic glass sides and is filled with more than 5,000 human skulls which you can see. It truly is a sad place.

In the afternoon I took a ride to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. The Royal Palace of Phnom Penh, Cambodia is a complex of buildings which are the royal abode of the Kingdom of Cambodia. Its full name in the Khmer language is Preah Barom Reachea Vaeng Chaktomuk. The Kings of Cambodia have occupied it since it was built in 1866, with a period of absence when the country came into turmoil during and after the reign of the Khmer Rouge. he Silver Pagoda is a compound located on the North side of the palace complex. It features a royal temple officially called Preah Vihear Preah Keo Morakot but is commonly referred to as Wat Preah Keo. Its main building houses many national treasures such as gold and jeweled Buddha statues. Most notable is a small 17th century baccarat crystal Buddha (the "Emerald Buddha" of Cambodia) and a near-life-size, Maitreya Buddha encrusted with 9,584 diamonds dressed in royal regalia commissioned by King Sisowath. During King Sihanouk's pre-Khmer Rouge reign, the Silver Pagoda was inlaid with more than 5,000 silver tiles and some of its outer facade was remodeled with Italian marble. These are all very impressive buildings and great for photographing.

I had an early night as I was heading up to Siem Reap the next day which meant a 6hr bus trip!

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