Wednesday

We had a early rise at our hostel, I had some lovely pancakes and bacon for breakfast and we both grabbed a pulled bbq pork roll to takeaway (best food I'd had for a while). It took an hour on a tuk tuk ($15 there and back - everything is in American dollars in Cambodia) and we arrived at Cheung Ek Killing field. The tour itself was well organised with good audio description which you could play at
Your own pace as you walked around.

We were educated about Pol pot, the leader of the communist Khmer Rouge group. Pol pot gathered people for this political movement by gathering uneducated young people living in Cambodia who only
ever knew agriculture as their life. He wanted to socially engineer a classless peasant-like society and so began taking well educated people or anyone of class to torture and murder. He began his movement in Cambodia in April 1975 to 1979 where there were masses of murder of people, including a famous singer and an actor and also 9 westerners. Listening to the audio tape it was sad to hear that most people were most upset by the fact it was their own people doing this to them, speaking their own language and living in the same country and I thought about what it would be like for this to happen in Britain.
Pol pots seemed to be insane and despite his regime he also killed 150 of his own people in the regime through paranoia of them being against him. There was a special pit for these people who had all been be-headed. The hardest part for me was firstly the tree which they killed babies by holding their legs and smashing their heads against the tree while The mother wAtched, then beating the mother naked
Next to the tree and pushing her back into the mass grave behind her with baby on top. The first lots
Of people who found this place said reminents of hair and brain were still on that tree and I thought about the horror of those innocent lives taken.

The second part I found hard was listening to the music they played at night to drown out the screams of the murderous beatings. I can't listen to traditional Cambodian music the same again now. It was like a woman singing high pitch wailing sort of song with all the chiming music in the background. It sent an unsettling shiver through me.

There was also a detention centre called S-21 nearby where torture took place before they were brought to this place under false belief that they were being transported to a new home, but instead it was a mass killing ground. Lauren and I decided not to visit here as I'd seen a programme on it on television and neither of us wanted to see the images of torture.

The whole experience reminded me of my sixth form trip to Auschwitz, where surprisingly I was a lot more emotional than I was here. I think it's because here it was so peaceful it felt like nothing had ever happened. The locals who worked here were smiling and chatting comfortably, there were animals around and loads and loads of butterflies which made me wonder if they were the souls of those lost here. Aside from the bones and teeth which were still coming up from the ground (as it had just been rainy season there were a few of these around), and also strips of cloth which were used as blindfolds,
You wouldn't have known the place had been hell not that long ago. The memorial monument with all the skulls in was powerful, but Lauren and I said it was hard to attach faces, lives and personalities to the remains. It was sad that Pol pots was never brought to justice in his life. He grew old, had 2 wives and enjoyed knowing his grandchildren before dying in his 70's. I'm confident his soul will be brought to justice though. I was glad we had visited and paid our respects and we headed back to the hostel.

Later on that evening we headed out down to the river to do a sunset cruise. We hopped on board at 5pm with a can of Angkor beer and some crisps and the next hour was a lovely skyline to watch the sun go down. I thought about the last few times I was on a similar boat. The first being when I went to Paris with my sister, not long after I'd had a lot
Of change in my life which at the time I was struggling to deal with but had a lovely break with her sipping a glass of wine on the river sight-seeing. The second was when Nick took me to Bath for the weekend not long before I came away. We'd cruised along the river there in what felt like was going to be the last of the British sunshine and talked about the kind of home we'd like one day. I was then filled with warmth knowing these two would be joining us in 3 weeks time.

Lauren and I then found a great little restaurant called 'Hummus' doing middle eastern food. The local staff were super friendly (waiter a bit flirty but funny) and the atmosphere of the small place was great with the best red wine we've tasted yet. After a really lovely meal, we headed back and went to bed early - thankfully the girls in our room were very quiet and quite reserved in themselves anyway. The whole hostel was a relaxed place. The only time I wasn't relaxed was when they messed up my laundry and lost a top and a dress. They were found 20 minutes later though so it was ok....

Xxx