The Killing Fields

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After a few short (6 hour) bus rides and a short stopover in Ho Chi Minh City, we had crossed the border and entered Cambodia. The landscape did not change dramatically, but the roads certainly did. The only good road is the one to Phnom Penh and Siam Reap, and even that leaves a lot to be desired.

We found PP to be a nice, but unremarkable place to visit. The Royal Palace was beautiful, with well kept garden and perfectly maintained buildings, although your considerable entry fee ensures it is kept that way.

The Wat Phnom Pagoda was not at all inspiring and to get to it you have to run the gauntlet of beggars who line the walkways. Cambodia’s lack of support for the poor, elderly, disabled and deformed is apparent as begging is much more intense and insistent that any other Asian country we have visited.

Our only real reason for visiting PP was for the sobering experience of visiting the killing fields and Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (known back then as S21 - short for Security Prison 21). Hiring a tuk tuk for our one full day in town, this is what we set out to do.

These two sites are a legacy of the Khmer Rouge regime. Their leader, Pol Pot, was basically the Hitler of Cambodia, killing millions of his own people in a ruthless quest to create a single peasant class throughout the country. This ruthless dictatorship lasted from 1975 to 1979 and managed to destroy families, entire communities and even cities, throwing Cambodia into turmoil that would take a long time to recover from.

S21 was a school converted into a detention centre where men, women and even children were brought to be tortured before being sent for execution. It was a thoroughly depressing place and you leave in confusion as to how human beings can do such horrible things to each other, but with a much better understanding of what Cambodia has been through.

After being interrogated at S21, the prisoners were taken to the Choeung Ek extermination center, better known as the killing fields, fifteen kilometers from Phnom Penh. Here they were killed by being battered with iron bars, pickaxes, machetes and many other makeshift weapons.

The bodies were dumped into large holes, creating one of the largest mass burial grounds ever unearthed. The site itself was a little bit of a letdown with huge signs telling you what used to be there. They hope to recreate the site as it was, but obviously haven’t got enough funding yet.

It was still very shocking to see the unearthed graves and the tower of skulls which is the centrepiece of the entire site. It was a very saddening day, but one that left us feeling that we had in some small way paid our respects and would leave Cambodia more educated.

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Photos

Chan Chhaya Pavilion
at the Royal Palace

Juxtaposition
This French-style building looked a bit out of place next to the Cambodian architecture. Apparently a gift from Napoleon.

Palace Gardens
These were the best maintained gardens we came across (well you'd hope they'd do something with the exorbitant $8 entry fee charged).

Praying for individuality
Their prayers have yet to be answered!

Gotcha!
Got to love the shutter speed of the SLR. Nothing can escape it!

Rub my belly for good luck
A monk lured us to this elephant and then tried to cajole some money out of us for the privilege of a tummy rub (the elephant's, not the monk's).

Wat's up doc?
Wat Phnom

S21 School turned Prison
A bleak and depressing place.

A gruesome way to die
This was a pick-axe to the head, one of the many types of fatal skull wounds found on the victims. Victims were seldom shot as bullets were viewed as too precious for this purpose.

Victims
From 1975 to 1979, an estimated 17,000 people were imprisoned at S21, and of these there were only seven known survivors.

Holding cells
The classrooms were converted into tiny makeshift prison cells

Memorial at the Killing Fields
This housed the skulls of the thousands of victims whose bodies were unearthed from mass graves here.

No one was spared
This tree sums up the depths to which the regime sunk.

Piled high
Nameless skulls

Let us pray
that the victims found peace in death that they were not allowed in life.

Comments

[Berchik of Sharon]

Gruesome and sad.
Somewhat sad that you guys were exposed to such morbid and sad experience, glad that you shared your view on life on how precious it is. Love..... Berchik

[Jeannie]

depressing... :-(
This blog brings back that horrible depressing feeling ...a sad and helpless kind. Alex and I visited Phom Penh in Jan 06 and we stayed at the Boddhi Tree Hotel. It's that cafe with nice leafy trees directly across from Toul Sleng!! At first we thought we were rather brave, but after our visit, it just got scary. (I'm spiritually chinese after all and all I could think of was the millions of angry lost souls across the street from me).