Exploring Cambodia's bloody past

We - Annie, Maria, Neil & Jess and myself - had arranged to meet at the guesthouse restaurant for breakfast and then to visit some of Phnom Penh's more depressing landmarks. Having rented a tuk-tuk driver for the day for US$10 we set off.


The Shooting Range

The first stop was at a shooting range where Neil and I shot a magazine each with an AK47 for US$30. It was a lot louder than I expected and packed one hell of a kick that gave me a sore shoulder by the time I'd finished with the magazine. It was the first, and I hope the last time, that I ever hold and shoot a gun loaded with live ammunition.


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Choeung Ek (The Killing Fields)

Next we arrived at the 'Killing Fields' just outside Phnom Penh. The first thing that you see on arrival is a massive white stupa that is filled with the recovered skulls of the victims of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime. There has been nearly 9,000 bodies exhumed from 86 mass graves, whilst 43 graves remain untouched. Following the path that winds it's way through ditches that you know were the mass graves of thousands of men, women and children was a truly horrific experience that left me feeling numb.


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Toul Sleng Genocide Museum (S.21)

The Toul Sleng Genocide Museum was formerly a school that was turned into a detention centre by the Khmer Rouge and renamed Security Centre 21. It has been left as it was found by the liberating Vietnamese forces. The classrooms are divided into cells which contained a solitary rusting bed in the middle and a photo on the wall of the dead body that lay on it and the fourteen bodies that remained are buried in what would have been the school playground. Another block contained the mugshots of the prisoners - men, women, children and babies. Of the estimated 20,000 prisoners that were 'processed' at S21, only 7 survived.

There was also a very moving photo exhibation, "The Ghosts of Toul Sleng", in one of the blocks, that consisted of photographs taken of the reflections in the glass cases of the mugshots. The effect of which is that it appears that the victims mugshots are reflected onto the walls and doors of the buildings. It's a very moving 'tribute' in an extremely depressing place.


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The Orphanage

We finished off by going to one of Phnom Penh's many orphanages. Before arriving we bought a 25kg sack of rice, a mound of bananas and some crayons and colouring books. The orphanage was situated amongst derelict buildings and housed more than 100 children. Their aim is to teach the children and to train them in kickboxong and traditional dancing so that they stand a small chance of 'surviving' when they are older. For the second time on my travels I've realised that children don't need expensive toys and gadgets to be happy.

It was a very humbling experience, and there were finally a few smiles after an otherwise thoroughly depressing day.


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That night Gaby arrived with Chris, an American from Colorado, and they booked themselves into our guesthouse. We all went out to dinner at 'The Flying Elephant' where I had chicken stuffed with cheese served with a cream and mushroom sauce that was absolutely delicious.

After dinner we went to the Same Same Bar for a few beers before bedtime, only to find Mr. B, our tuk-tuk driver from earlier that day there. So we had a few glasses of Snake Whiskey as well. I didn't stay long as I had to be up early the next morning for the bus to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam.