The Killing Fields

---

March, 8th - March, 10th

During the three years, eight months and 21 days of the Khmer Rouge regime soldiers committed many atrocities but the most depraved in my mind is taking babies by the legs and smashing their tiny heads against a tree before throwing the bodies into a mass grave. The tree still stands in the Choeung Ek Killing Fields and is no longer stained with blood just as the graves where more than 8,000 bodies were discovered now lie open and empty. Well mostly empty. As we walked around the Killing Fields we saw pieces of bone protruding from the ground and bits of clothes worn by the victims. It is a heartbreaking place and it is astonishing to think that all this went on within Simon’s life time. But of course genocide is still happening today in little heard of corners of the planet yet the world seems unable or unwilling to do anything about it.

We spent a sobering day exploring the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum which is also known as S21. Under Pol Pot from 1975 - 1979 the Khmer Rouge banished people from cities and sent them to work on the land in the hopes of creating a classless society. Professionals and educated people were taken to prisons where they were tortured or were bussed out to one of the many Killing Fields where they were killed before being thrown into mass graves. It is estimated that about 1.5million people, that’s around one fifth of the population, were wiped out by the Khmer Rouge.

Today at Choeung Ek there stands a stupa filled with 8,000 skulls or victims found in the vicinity and countless bones laid out on different levels depending on the ages of the victims. As sobering as it is to stare at skulls it is the piles of clothes dug out of the graves that personify these bones and make them human.

S21 used to be a school but was taken over by the Khmer Rouge to be used as a prison. The steel frame beds and shackles that chained prisoners are still in the torture rooms and there are graphic images of the people who were held in the rooms. It is a bleak place and there are bloodstains on the floor and walls. The instruments of torture used are also on display as well as gory paintings of them being put to use.

There are also rows and rows of photographs of the unfortunates that found themselves at S21. They range from babes in arms to elderly people. Only 12 people made it out of S21 so we were basically staring at the faces of the condemned. Who can imagine what was going through their minds as these pictures were taken? Our tuk tuk driver accompanied us around S21 and told us how his parents were killed and he was beaten before being sent out to the fields.

It is inspirational that the Cambodian people are so friendly and welcoming after all they have been through. Everyone we spoke to knew someone who was killed by the Khmer Rouge yet they carry on. It is this spirit that endeared the Cambodians to us and we fell in love with the people and their optimism.

We stayed at the California 2 hotel and found it to be a great place from which to explore the city and as a bonus it also had a flat screen TV and wifi in the room. The traffic in Phnom Penh is just as crazy as everywhere else we’ve been in Asia and there is one particular junction we had to cross that was most perilous. It was kind of a three-way junction and had vehicles coming at us in all directions. It’s amazing how the drivers always seem to miss pedestrians and that we haven’t seen any crashes because there just appear to be no give way or any other road rules.

Phnom Penh has many great eateries and bars, perhaps the most famous being the FCC club where we spent a most enjoyable evening in the colonial style upper floor bar. The Green Vespa is also very good for food and much to Simon’s delight even served Strongbow.

With the mercury rising we decided to head to the coast for a few days and got a seven hour bus ride to Sihanoukville.

---

Photos

The killing tree
Babies were smashed against this tree before being thrown into a mass grave

A mass grave
The earth is still littered with remnants of clothing and bones of the victims