Learning about the Khmer Rouge
Trip Start
Nov 24, 2011
1
15
36
Trip End
Nov 24, 2012
Where I stayed
What I did
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
So this is the part of the trip I had been dreading the most. Learning about the Khmer Rouge and discovering what happened.
So we arrived in Phnom Penh at around 2pm...we used a different company to get back out of fear us foreigners would be booted off. So we got to Phnom Penh and checked into the Velkommen Backpackers. Great little place! We got a private room with the most ricketty bunk beds, but for 3 quid a night you can't really grumble! So we had a fairly early night but managed to find a tuk tuk driver who would take us to the killing fields and the museum in the morning.
So the next day we got up early all prepared for our busy day of learning. We got picked up at 08:30 by our fabulous driver and headed off to the killing fields. A tuk tuk is by far the best way of getting there! Cheap and you get a great breeze! So we arrived at the killing fields and got given an audio tour guide. Now the killing fields is just one of the many killing fields that were there during the Khmer Rouge. This one in particular was where over 17,000 people were killed. According to the Khmer rouge if you had soft hands, wore glasses or spoke another language you deserved to die. The Choeung Ek killing field is now a memorial site and it has a Stupa in the middle. This Stupa is a big monument and inside it are the bones of the people that have so far been found buried. One of the graves in particular is heart-breaking. It is next to the killing tree and apparently is where the soilders would throw babies against the tree to kill them. The whole thing is extremely painful to find out. On the other hand I think it serves as a VERY important reminder that it shouldn't happen again! It has happened far too many times now! Education is clearly the only way that will help prevent it happening again.
So from a remarkable experience of an all to recent history we hopped into our tuk tuk and went to the S.21 Genocide Museum. This used to be a high school but during the reign of the Khmer Rouge it was converted into a prison. It was so strange walking around knowing that at one point children were taught in those rooms...Most people who went into the S.21 prison did not come out again...only 7 actually survived. The museum is a complete eye opener. It has pictures of the torture people experienced...and from fellow Cambodians!!! That's the strangest part of it. The torture was being done by their own people to their own people...
So anyway from there we went (albeit a little blue) back to our hostel and then went off to the National Museum...what a load of rubbish! Don't get me wrong it had some lovely stone carvings in there that they had removed from the Temples at Angkor Watt...but a part of me was wondering what the hell would be left at the Temples as they seemed to have taken it all!
So from there we went over to the Royal Palace. It was beautiful. Within the palace was the Silver Pagoda. It is a temple and houses the Emerald Buddha...only a tiny thing! And the floor is paved with silver tiles...which need to be reset as you can feel them wobbling! But a truely stunning place!
So after an EXTREMELY busy day we went back to our lovely hostel and got ourselves ready to get the hell out of Phnom Penh and head to Siem Reap. Whilst I very much enjoyed the museums and learning I intensely dislike all the bars with ladies gyrating. Too many I am afraid! The whole place seemed a little seedy to me.
So anyway we booked ourselves a bus and we head off to Siem Reap tomorrow morning so we can go see the Temples of Angkor Watt...VERY EXCITED!!!
Speak soon
love u xxxxxxxx
