Yesterday we hired another tuk tuk driver to visit the Killing Fields and S-21. I could get used to having my own driver. Beware Dad when I get home!!
First stop was S-21, a former school turned into a prison and interrogation base by the Khmer Rouge.
With its 4 separate blocks all with 3 floors and some of the balconies joining the different 'class rooms' covered with barbed wire so that prisoners couldn't jump over and kill themselves, it was quite a haunting place. Yet bits of the school remained. Blackboards were in some rooms and a climbing frame in the yard which had become a torture tool used to hang prisoners upside down until they passed out.
14 bodies were found when S-21 was discovered. They had clearly been beaten and tortured. All 14 were buried in the yard in front of that particular block but the cells they were found in had a photograph of how they were found. The steel mattress-less bed also remained with dried blood covering the areas on the floor which the photo proved had been covered in it. It was really chilling.
Other blocks were used for the prisoners to live in. The classrooms had been split up into tiny miniature cells by wood and bricks, barely big enough to keep a dog in comfortably.
The hardest part to take was that there didn't seem to be any logic to who was taken to the prison and interrogated. No idiotic beliefs and it wasn't opposition parties. A lot of intellectuals were targeted, even just people wearing glasses as they saw this as a sign of intelligence. But lots of people who had agreed to work for the Khmer Rouge and just ordinary farm workers were also targeted. If they wanted you then they had to take your partner and children as well to stop any future revenge acts coming from them. It was just so sad. Only 7 people survived visiting S-21. One of them was there signing copies of his book which I would have liked to buy but it was a little too much. His wife and some of his siblings were killed there though.
Our next stop was the equally sobering Killing Fields. Prisoners were taken there when they had finished being interrogated. It was basically a mass grave. The largest grave had 450 bodies in it. A grave of 150 was found of headless corpses and a grave of over 100 naked women and children. It was said that children were killed by being swung by the legs into a big tree that still remains there, the Killing Tree. Adults were told to kneel and hit in the head with a sharp object before being thrown into the grave. Others were just buried alive. Around 9,000 bodies were discovered on the site. I don't think there's much else to say is there?
Overall 3 million people were killed in the genocide around 25 years ago. We've been in Cambodia for a week now and I don't think I've seen more than 10 people over the age of 40. It's just unthinkable.
Today we had a lie in and had a look around the National Museum. Not much to report but it had some parts of temples and Buddha's from the Angkor area in good condition. It was just too hot today and I seem to have some form of food poisoning which I haven't enjoyed.
Tomorrow we're off to Kep. A small seaside town although it doesn't have much of a beach. It isn't that touristy and doesn't have any streetlights so I'm not sure if there'll be any internet. There is some cheap seafood though and it sounds like a nice little place to relax. We're both really tired at the moment, maybe with all the hectic cities since leaving Laos so it'll be nice to have some quiet time.