The entry into Cambodia via the Mekong River was a great experience and walking up the jetty at the port in Phnom Penh started a whole new adventure. Still a busy town but far more cars than bikes. Cambodia is, it appears at first impression more affluent. Another little bonus for us that we missed in Vietnam was the return of the TukTuk. Not only do they have the traditional TukTuk we first saw in India but also a motorbike and carriage version which we were destined to try.
So the program of intensive touring started again. We really need to learn how to relax! We met our guide Mr Vann the TukTuk man at 8.30am sharp and off we went to S21 interrogation prison. It was used by the Khmer Rouge. Under their leader Pol Pots, and yes both Rach and I kept thinking of Paul Potts who won Britain’s got Talent, the regime terrorised and murders over a quarter of the population who disobeyed or threatened the communist rule. Only the uneducated survived. If you were a teacher, or if you wore glasses and just appeared educated you were considered a threat, taken to S21, tortured into false confession and killed. This genocide took place from 1975 to 1979 behind closed doors to the rest of the unaware world.
The intention of these blogs was not to teach, preach or do anything other than share memories but it’s hard to put across the feelings you get from visiting these places without issuing you the reader with historical detail. The prison was previously a secondary school, the classrooms crudely bricked up into tiny cells, and larger rooms with an iron bed where prisoners were shackled and tortured. Once the confessions had been obtained the prisoners were taken to the Killing Fields.
The monument above marks the largest of the hundreds of Killing Fields in Cambodia. It is about 20 km outside Phnom Penh and prisoners were brought here under cover of darkness. Told they were to be relocated they were checked in and taken to the edge of a pit where, blindfolded, they had their heads caved in by various weapons. It was felt that to use bullets was too expensive and noisy. In fact music and Communist rallying was broadcast loudly so anyone outside the commune would not realise what was happening. IT GETS WORSE.
It’s difficult to write this, let alone be at this point of the tour. It can only be described as purest evil. The Khmer Rouge were fearful of revenge plots against them in future years. To attempt to eradicate this problem the tree you see above was used to kill infant children. The children were swung by their feet, their heads hitting the tree until dead. They were then flung into an open grave next to their mother who had been killed the ‘traditional’ way. When this site was discovered after the downfall of Khmer Rouge, pieces of brain tissue and bone was found splattered into the tree and the bodies in the pit.
Asia and Australia 2020 