The Killing Fields

**This post may be distressing for some. It has some pretty horrific descriptions and a couple of graphic in it**

This morning's activities were interesting but quite depressing. I learnt a lot but it was so sad to see the horrible atrocities humans can commit. We were picked up by a bus from our hostel at around 8:45. There was about 10 people in our group, but we only really did the journeys together as the rest was more of a self-guided visit.

Our first stop was at S21 prison within the city of Phnom Penh, where we did a self guided audio tour. S21 is a former school transformed into a prison by the Khmer Rouge. During its four years of operation it held about 17,000 prisoners in total, of which the majority where Cambodian, but held about 1250 at a time in either tiny single cells or in mas detention cells with up to 60 other prisoners, all shackled together. Most prisoners were held for 2-3 months, before meeting a horrendous end.

Outside the first building we came to as we went in were 14 graves of the last prisoners that were held at the prison. They were murdered as the staff fled as Vietnamese troops defeated Pol Pot. These prisoners were unable to be identified due to the way they were killed. Their bodies were cremated and the simple concrete graves were erected in memory.

The prison had been preserved as it was left. We wandered through the first building that had metal beds with shackles attached to them. Outside the front of this building was a wooden frame that had originally been used by school children for playing and exercising. During the years that the buildings were a prison it was used as a torture device. Prisoners were hoisted by their bound wrists until the passed out, and then they were lowered and dunked into one of 3 large concrete jars that were filled with human waste and dirty water until they came round. This procedure was repeated several times.

We wandered through the other buildings. There were hundreds of photos of the prisoners and there were many instruments of torture displayed. There were single cells for prisoners who were being interrogated and big cells for those who weren't. The buildings looked so ordinary from the outside but held such a horrible history. Methods of interrogation where perfected and routinely applied until innocent people 'confessed' to their crimes. Woman and children weren't immune from this either. And the next stop of the trip was even more depressing.

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On the bus to the next stop we watched a documentary of the so called killing fields. Essentially the best and brightest Cambodians, anyone who had the potential to start a uprising, were rounded up and murdered. As many as 300 killing fields were discovered all over Cambodia. We visited the Cheng Ek killing field, the largest. As many as 20,000 people died here. For the first few years 50 - 70 people every couple of weeks were brought on trucks bound and blindfolded during the night to be executed. They were told they were being taken to a new home. During 1978 it was around 300 a day.

As many as 129 mass graves were found in 2.4 hectares at this site. The largest held 450 bodies. Bone fragments are still being uncovered today. Bullets were seen as too expensive to waste on executing these victims. Instead they were taken to the edge of a large pit blindfolded ad made to kneel. Then using a multitude of different weapons they were beaten about the head or hacked to death before being pushed into the pit. One particularly disturbing point of the visit was at a large tree where it was reported that babies were held by the legs and swung against the tree. The tree was reportedly found covered in bloods and brains. It was heartbreaking and shocking how people could do this to others. Around 1 in 4 Cambodians were killed. It was reported that no family remained untouched. The killing field these days is so green and peaceful it's hard to comprehend, but as I walked around I could see fragments of bones sticking out the ground.

In the centre of the killing field centre was a monument to the victims. Inside it contained around 9000 skulls, across ten layers, many bearing signs of the method used to kill them.

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We left the killing field centre in quite a sombre mood. As you can imagine it wasn't exactly a happy place. But hopefully it can serve as a reminder and warning so something like this never happens again.

We returned to the hostel around one and spent a couple of hours relaxing. We got changed into more conservative clothes and got a tuktuk to the royal palace for a slightly less depressing visit. We wandered round the ground and building. There were some very fancy buildings and statues. We then went for an early dinner before heading back to the hostel to shower and pack.  

Phnom Penh Walking Tour

Today we walked our feet off. We had a bit of a lay in and headed out around 9:30am to do a self-guided tour of the landmarks of Phnom Penh. We walked probably around 9km on total. And it was around 35° today. We sweated a lot and I got sunburnt. And we have to go back to some places tomorrow!

The first thing we saw was the independence monument, which wasn't particularly remarkable, followed by a statue to the late king Norodom Sihanouk, who died in 2012 aged 89. We wandered along past the Cambodia Vietnam friendship monument and along to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. We had trouble knowing which was which as there only seemed to be one complex on the street but they seemed two distinct building on the map. Additionally the National Museum was marked on the map as next to the Royal Palace and it didn't seem to be. We were however informed by the many many tuktuk drivers who asked if we wanted a ride that the Palace is shut until 2pm. And it was only around 11. So went and had a five minute sit down on the river front across the road, which was not that picturesque  (we saw a rat!) before continuing on to the market which was a fair walk from the Royal Palace area. On the way we stopped for a drink and sat there outside the shop for around 20 minutes trying not to melt.

The market was in an interesting building,  with a dome shaped roof in the centre and then four corridor type things coming off the middle. The stall in the centre mainly sold jewellery whilst the ones in the corridors sold clothes. Outside there were more stalls,  mainly selling glassware or kitchen items. Lauren bought herself a bracelet and I got a new pair of flip flops to replace both the flipflops I already had and the birkenstock type white sandal things that I've already had to superglue once.

After we left the market we tried to find the nearby Sorya shopping centre. We walked in circles round the area the shopping centre was marked on the map before eventually finding it. It was a bit of an anticlimax as it was beng renovated and it only had about shops and 5 restaurants. Nevertheless we bought a drink and sat on the bench to cool down.

By the time we left it was almost 2pm so we headed back towards the royal palace. On our way we stopped off at OunaLom pagoda, having a look at the inside and outside. It was quite a beautiful building. The temples/pagodas here seem to be a bit fancier than the ones in Vietnam.

We then headed to the palace. As we went in we saw signs saying no shorts or sleeveless shirts, which of course both Lauren and I were wearing. A couple stopped us and told us, having attempted to get in themselves, that you had to lay to buy a tshirt and pay to buy trousers, before paying to be allowed in. We don't actually know whether this was the palace or pagoda we were trying to get into, but either way we decided it wasn't worth it, and that we would come back tomorrow fully covered. We headed back to the hostel, slowly dying from exhaustion and heat, arriving back around half 3.

Around 5:30pm we went out for dinner and decided just to go to the first acceptable place we saw. Lauren had carbonara and I had pork satay and rice which was really nice. It was such a huge portion I couldn't eat it all.  As has been the norm throughout Vietnam, despite ordering together and sitting on the same table, the meals came separately. Lauren almost finished hers before mine arrived. It's a strange thing to happen when you're used to the English way of doing things. We went back to the hostel via a shop after dinner and just collapsed onto our beds.

The Royal Palace (potentially)

Mural inside the OunaLom Pagoda

Crossing into Cambodia

Today we didn't really do much. We got up late and packed our stuff, checking out of our hostel at around 11:20am. We were collected from our hostel at around 11:45 and walked over to the bus station where we got on a bus headed to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.  It was actually a very comfy bus which we were delighted about as we had to spend a long time on it. The seats were spacious and comfortable and there was little leg rest that popped out when you pulled a lever. The bus was no where near full and we were able to recline our chairs back.

The bus departed at 12 and it took two and a bit hours to reach the border. We had all given our passports to a dude on the bus soon after departure, and Lauren and I had paid $35 for a tourist visa. When we got to the border we all had to get off the bus and go to a border patrol desk, where they already had our passports. They were checked and we were waved through and given our passports back. We assumed that was it, as we now had Cambodia visas in our passports but the dude from the bus asked for our passports again. He didn't really speak English so we just gave them to him. We then saw him give them to a man who also had the bus company shirt on, who then got on a moped and biked off. We were a bit concerned as we were ushered back on the bus and the bus departed. However the bus only drive about 100 metres round the bend where we had to get off again, and it soon became clear that that was probably the border leaving Vietnam and this was the actual Cambodian border. We saw the guy on the moped as we entered the immigration office and he gave us our passports back. We then had to queue up to go through the border patrol, where they took everyone's fingerprints and stamped passportd. Once we were through we got back on the bus and off we went, passports in hand. It was actually a really simple process and the bus dudes took care of everything for us, such as getting Cambodian visas and exit cards for Vietnam, and the journey was comfortable.

The journey took around 7 hours in total, including two stops. Just as we arrived in Phnom Penh it started raining. We got off the bus and immediately headed to a cash point, which gave us American dollars and then we got a taxi to the hostel. We then just spent the evening showering and relaxing.