After S-21 it was time to check out the killing fields, I met up with Tasso once again and we also went with a lad called Charlie and headed over by tuk tuk to choeung ek just outside the city. This area used to be an orchard but for around 4 years it was used as a place for execution.

This tour was a bit different as we had an audio guide instead, so basically after we got the ticket we got out own set of headphones and a remote. There are sign posts in the ground indicating when you should press the remote to listen to the next part of the tour which is actually pretty cool so you can take your own time and listen over the Same part if you missed stuff. Generally speaking there isn't an awful lot to see at the killing fields, much of the buildings that were there during the time were dismantled as the Cambodians needed the raw materials afterwards but its very weird seeing the land formations because there are so many ditches that were used for mass graves.

Some of the graves that would have contained 450 people, some just for women and children and some for Khmer soldiers that were killed because of pol pots paranoia so they beheaded roughly 150 of his own soldiers.

On the audio there are some witness accounts of what happened which when you listen to it sounds crazy. What would happen is that the prisoners being sent from S-21 to be executed would turn up at night blindfolded, at the height of this there were around 300 people per night. They were led to the edge of the mass grave and instead of shooting them which would waste ammo they would smack them in the back of the head with an axe or spade or machete. You can even see at the stupa with all the skulls the impact and fractures on the back of all the skulls.

Next to the grave for women and children is a tree that is covered in memorials which is called the killing tree. The only reason that they would kill children even if they were not guilty at all is because a family member of theirs had been killed by the Khmer Rouge and so for fear they would grow up and exact revenge they would kill the children but the thought that they would do this is sick.

To be honest there is not really any way of humanely killing a baby or child but what the Khmer Rouge did was awful. They would grab the child by the legs and throw its head full force off the tree, you just can't imagine it.

During the audio tour they also explain that because so many have been killed here and buried, a lot are apparently shallow graves too, some 8000 people were killed and still to this day when there is heavy rain some bones and clothes are brought to the surface by the weather, Tasso and Charlie actually came across a few bones, teeth and rags on the way.

There are apparently 20,000 mass graves like choeung ek but this is the most infamous one, most likely because its related to S-21 and the Capital, but also because of how preserved the mass graves still are.

At the end of the tour is a massive stupa, which is a memorial to the dead, basically inside the memorial is a square glass case that reaches a fair few metres high and on the very bottom is rags and clothes of the victims, and then the rest is roughly 5000 skulls, and when you get up close to look you can see where the pick axes have hit them, it's very harrowing and so weird to see.

Compared to S-21 there isn't as much to see visually, but to imagine what happened here and get an idea in mind of what it would have looked like it is just as vivid, also a very interesting and well documented tour, it definitely opens your mind to the horrors that this country has gone through but I think the fact they have preserved these two places is to show what damage can be done from political tyrants and the fact it is only 35 years ago makes it even more crazy.

My time in Phnom Penh wasn't all grim, it's actually a really cool city, I had a few nights out and met some cool people and had a great time but obviously this was going to have a profound effect on my time in the capital.