I think out of all the places possible to visit in SE Asia, Cambodia interests me the most. I love history and this place is full of it, all be it the most recent a pretty bloody brutal one.
I'd booked in at a hostel in Phnom Penh, recommended to me by my Danish friends I had travelled with in Myanmar. The only problem was that I booked this while still a little hungover in Surat Thani and when I got there I realised I'd booked it for the wrong week. So I found the nearest bar with wifi, had a beer and chose somewhere else to stop. I booked into a hotel which was reasonably cheap and still very central and then attempted to find the place. In theory the city should be easy to navigate because it has a logical system with regards the numbering of the streets. However, for this to work you need to have street signs and this is one thing it is clearly lacking. I bimbled around from bar to bar attempting to communicate with the locals, in order for them to direct me but struggled. In the end I gave up and jumped on a tuk-tuk and let the driver work it out. I then popped out for a bit of dinner and soon realised how bloody annoying these tuk-tuk drivers are. I covered the distance of about 400m to get to a restaurant and literally 8 of them offered their service. Now I appreciate everyone has to make a living but this is just ridiculous. Surely if you want some sort of taxi, you look for it. It was a reoccurring annoyance for me over the next few days. Their relentless harassment really tested my patience!
There were two main things I wanted to see when in Phnom Penh. The Choeung Ek Genocide Centre (killing fields) and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. That first morning I began with the genocide museum. Now probably through ignorance I didn't know much of the atrocities that occurred in Cambodia. I had heard of Pol Pot and knew he was one evil b****** but that was about it. So I didn't really know what to expect. In the past Tuol Sleng was a secondary school. However, by 1975 Pol Pot had converted it into a prison called "S-21". The place where classrooms once stood were converted into individual cells with some floors being used for mass detention. Thousands of people were killed here during the Khmer Rouge regime, up to 20000 reportedly and when trying to understand exactly who was being killed and exactly why, it's pretty unclear. In the early days it appeared to be those associated with the previous regime, Lol Nol. These included government officials, academics, doctors, monks, students and teachers who were all executed due to the paranoia of the threat of some sort of coup occurring, against the current regime. But when you are wandering down the rows and rows of pictures of the victims, all of whom had their photo taken prior to torturing and execution and when you read some of the accounts from survivors of some of the other 150 execution centres, it's quite evident that the killing was not just targeted at these. Many accounts I read were from peasants living in a rural environment, with probably minimal knowledge of the politics. I think once the killing machine of the Khmer Rouge got rolling and gained momentum, anyone was a target. And the ruthless thing was, you weren't executed by yourself. Your whole family would be brought in, including children... Just in case they grew up wanting to seek revenge. Evidence of the manner in which people were tortured are still at the old prison now. This included routinely being battered and then tortured with electric shocks, hot metal instruments used to burn, hanging (the gallows still stand in the yard now). Some prisoners were cut with knives or suffocated with plastic bags. Other methods used for making people confess were pulling out fingernails while pouring alcohol on the wounds and also waterboarding. Females were sometimes raped, had hot clamps attached to their nipples while having scorpions put on them... The list goes on. All absolutely barbaric. And all undertaken to induce some sort of ridiculous confession. Out of the estimated 20000 that entered S-21, only 12 survived. They survived due to particular skills they had such as being able to fix machines or being talented artists. The place is a pretty haunting place. I'm not sure if the stains on the floor in the cells are just dirt but I'd put money on them being blood, after all a lot of blood had been spilt in this hellhole over a relatively short period of 4 years or so.
It really was a right eye opener. Naturally when you're wandering around you are wondering just how this happened. My parents were young adults when this occurred, it really wasn't that long ago and that makes it even more real. And I know similar atrocities have happened since in the likes of Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo (the list unfortunately goes on) which are actually much more recent and it really is just mind blowing how it happens. It surely doesn't just take one evil person for this to occur, yes perhaps one to be the spearhead and enforce the ideology, but it probably takes dozens in fact hundreds to be behind it all and carry it out and it really does just make you question mankind as a whole. During the tour of the prison you learn about a particular situation in which a few Swedish officials visited Cambodia at the height of the regime and they were convinced nothing untoward was happening and even convinced the international community of this. They really had the wool pulled over their eyes. You like to think a similar situation like that wouldn't happen in this day and age, with social media having such a huge influence in the manner in which it covers world news and events. (I knew of poor Cilla Blacks death as soon as it happened, whilst lying on a beach in Koh Tao). It's a different world we live in. And for any negativity ever directed at this "digital age", I'm sure the Khmer Rouge would not have been able to undertake the level of atrocities they did, if it happened now. I hope so anyway, although North Korea is a perfect example of how counties can hide from the rest of the world I guess and who knows exactly what goes on out there. Anyway, I digress. It was a very harrowing morning spent there, it's a must for anyone when in this country, even if you have no interest in the history. By even having a brief understanding of it all I think you will appreciate and therefore get to know the Cambodians a lot better. I hope so anyway.
After leaving the Genocide Museum I immediately went for a large gin. I then spent the afternoon bouncing around the city drinking in various bars talking to both locals and many tourists. I hit a skybar and enjoyed a martini and some grilled prawns. This bar provided me with a great view of the city. By the end of the day I was a little merry. On the way back to my hotel I tried a new tactic with the tuk-tuk drivers. If they asked me if I wanted one I just started singing and they really loved this. I sang the Pogues and then they'd sing some local song. They'd have a sip of my can and then I'd move on. I'd finally cracked how to end the harassment... A little song and sup of a beer and we're all happy.
The next morning I was up relatively early. I was jumping on a bus at 1345 which would take me down to Sihanhoukville which was on the coast and about a 4 hour drive away. So I had the morning to visit the killing fields at Choeung Ek which was about 10 miles or so from Phnom Penh. It is one of the many mass killing sites in Cambodia, with an estimated 9000 bodies being found here after the fall of the Khmer Regime. Today it's a memorial with a Buddhist Stupa taking centre stage. The stupa holds about 5000 skulls within, which itself is an eery sight. This is where people would end up after interrogation. Execution was, as can be predicted, ridiculously brutal. To save ammunition they would kill people with poison, sharpened bamboo sticks or just batter them to death with a spade. Children would be killed by having their heads smashed against the trees there. Often people would have to dig their own graves and due to the fact they were already suffering heavily, these graves were subsequently quite shallow. As a result after heavy rainfall, it's not a uncommon occurrence these days to have clothes and bones appear on the surface of these killing fields. Fortunately I did not witness this. It really was a grim place though yet incredibly thought provoking. I think I've probably painted a relatively clear picture, if not brief, of what happened out here during the brutal and sadistic regime of the Khmer Rouge between 1974-1979. So I'll end it with this now, it is estimated that around 2 million died as a result of all of this. Numbers fluctuate between 1.5 and 3 million but still. This was out of a total population of around 8 million in 1975....
I have just arrived in Sihanoukville. The weather is horrendous, it's thrashing it down so I'm not sure how long I'll stay here for. Beaches aren't as appealing when having to wear a rain coat.