Day4 in Cambodia

Coming to the 2nd half of the trip, we finally left Siem Reap and headed to Phnom Penh. We booked our ticket from the hotel counter, costing 8USD. And we finally bade Siem Reap goodbye at 830a.m..

All the way to Phnom Penh, we saw flat lands. No paddy plants were to be seen as the harvest was over. We did see some live stocks, cow mostly. And well, they're all aneroxic.

We stopped by Kampong Thom for 20 minutes after being on the road for 2 hours. My butt was aching like mad, and the stomach wasn't comfortable, it might be from the eating too full before traveling on bus. The moment I stepped down from the bus, I puked. Nearly. The smell of fried insects, I forgot what you call it, made me felt like wanting to go as far away as possible.

So we walked further up the road, and came across the market. We just walked outside of the market, along the main road, to kill the time we've had in hand.

And our journey to the capital city continued for another 2 hours or so.

We reached Phnom Penh at around 2p.m.. Tuk-tuk drivers swarmed onto the passangers, offering the lowest price as possible. 2USD to the hotel. 3USD to hotel and around the city. 4USD to hotel, around the city, plus the killing field. We got ourselves quite some bargain no doubt. But mostly just shy-ed out when we said we're staying in Holiday Villa. "It's too far, 3USD." "Deal."

We headed to the killing field straight after. The trip to Choeung Ek Killing Field, on a tuk-tuk took about 40 minutes. It's located outside the city centre, that's why. I'll just let the photos do the talking. Also the essay found in the compound.

The Most Tragic
Even in this 20th century, on Kampuchean soil, the clique of Pol Pot criminals had committed a heinous genocidal act. They massacred the population with atrocity in a large scale. It was more cruel than the genocidal act committed by the Hitler fascists, which the world has never met.

With the commemorative stupa in front of us, we imagine that we are hearing the grievous voice of the citims who were beaten by Pol Pot men with canes, bamboo stumps or heads of hoes, who were stabbed with knives or swords. We seem to be looking at the horrifying scenes and the panic-stricken faces of the people who were dying of starvation, forced labour or torture without mercy upon the skinny body. They died without giving the last words to their kith and kin. how hurtful those victims were when they got beaten with canes heads of hoes and stabbed with knives or swords. How bitter they were when seeing their beloved children, wives, husbands, brothers or sisters were seized and tightly bound before being taken to the mass grave!

While they were waiting for their turn to come and share the same tragic lot.

The method of massacre which clique of Pol Pot criminals was carried upon the innocent people of Kampuchea cannot be described fully and clearly in words because the invention of this killing method was strangely cruel, so it is difficult for us to determine who they are for. They have the human form but their hearts are demon's hearts. They have got the Khmer face but their activities are purely reactionary. They wanted to transform Kampuchean people into a group of persons without reason or a group who knew and understood nothing, who always bent their heads and carry out Ankar's orders blindly. They had educated and transformed young people and the adolescent whose hearts are pure, gentle and modest into odious executioners who dared to kill the innocent and even their own parents, relatives or friends.

They had burnt the market place, abolisthed monetary system, eliminated books of rules and principles of national culture, destroyed schools, hospitals, pagodas and beautiful monuments such as Angkor Wat temple which is the source of pure national pride and bears the genious, knowledge an intellegence of our nation.

They were trying hard to get rid of Khmer character and transform the soil and waters of Kampucnea into a sea of blood and tears which was deprived of cultural infra-structure, civilisation and national character, became a desert of great destruction that overturned the Kampuchean society and drove it back to the stone age.

We headed to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum after that. It was one of the secondary schools in the capital, called "Tuol Svay Prey" high-school. After the 17th of April 1975, Pol Pot clique had transformed it into a prison called "S.21" (Security Office 21) which was the biggest in Kampuchea Democratic. It was surrounded with the double wall of corrugated iron, surmounted by dense barbed wires. The classrooms on the ground and the first floors were pierced and divided into individual cells, whereas the ones on the second floor used for mass detention. Several thousands of victims ( peasants, workers, technicians, engineers, doctors, teachers, students, buddhist monks, ministers, Pol Pot's Cadres, soldiers of all ranks, the Cambodian Diplomatic corps, foreigners, etc..) were imprisoned and exterminated with their wives and their children. There are a lot of evidences here proving the atrocities of Pol Pot clique: cells, instrument of torture, dossiers and documents, list of prisoner's names, mugshoots of victims, their clothes and belongings. We found the mass graves surrounding, and in particular, the most ones situated 15Km in the south-west of Phnom Penh, in the village of Chhoeung Ek, District Dangkor, Kandal Province. -quote

Quote: The Security of Regulation
1. you must answer accordingly to my questions - Don't turn them away.
2. Don't try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that. You are strictly prohibited to contest me.
3. Don't be fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.
4. you must immediately answer my question without wasting time to reflect.
5. Don't tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution.
6. While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.
7. Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting.
8. Don't make pretext about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your secret or traitor.
9. If you don't follow all the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire.
10. if you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes of five shocks of electric discharge.

I have no idea why they did this, mass killing their own people. It was a morbid afternoon, so to speak. And I'm never going back to that genocide museum again. It creeps me out. A lot.