My Most Awesome Day... Until My Memory Card Died

The Royal Palace is a complex of pretty wats, buildings and gardens, where the King of Cambodia still lives, although lots of guards and ropes prevent you from meeting him. However, much of the courtyard is still open for viewing, including gorgeous stuctures like Throne Hall and the Silver Pagoda.

For the most part, architecture looks more like the white and gold spired temples of Thailand than the stone complexes of Angkor, but with distinctly Cambodian touches, including the faces looking out from spires and a French-style building donated from Napoleon III. I loved the intricacy of the structures, from decadently carved doors to well-placed water lilies.

The complex was really pretty and definitely one of the highlights of Phnom Phen. Don't go in a miniskirt or tank top, though. Some dress code rules apply. If I remember correctly, admission is about $6.

The Khmer Rouge gained control of Phnom Phen in 1975, in the chaos of civil war and U.S. bomb raids relating to the war for neighboring Vietnam. They evacuated the population into the countryside, eliminated modern medicine and forced everyone into backbreaking yet horrendously inefficient rural work projects that plummeted the country into starvation and famine. Men, women, children and babies were systematically taken out to "killing fields" and forced to dig their own graves. "Lucky" people were shot, while others were bludgeoned to death to save bullets. Many were shipped off to prisons like S21, where they were accused of being CIA agents or subversive spies, tortured, forced to accuse others, and finally murdered in the killing field at Choeung Ek.

Today, the sun shines warmly over the open ditches that line the path made for tourists at Choeung Ek. Signs mark the graves -- a hundred women and children found here, 50 bodies there with no heads. At the entrance stands a giant stupa filled with human skulls of unidentified victims. To understand what happened here is devastating, to see it a bit surreal.

Now I'll voice an unpopular opinion about the Killing fields -- I don't think it's a must-see at all. I'm not the kind of person who needs to be see where something occurred or monuments to an event, to understand the wieght of those occurances. Just to give an example, I remember when I was 17, visiting the Vietnam Memorial with a students' program, where everyone cried, except me. But that's because the year before, I was cuddling up with my history book and delving into the Vietnam war, being very touched by photos of the burning monk and dying soldiers, while my classmates skimmed the chapter and breezed through the quiz like it was another chore. Similarly, I've been aware of what happened in Cambodia in the 70's for a while, and was very moved by the first full documentary I watched that really delved into the subject in detail. To me, the killing fields didn't offer any more information than documentaries or books on the subject. While the tower of skulls and rows of ditches may be jarring to some, in my opinion it would be more satisfying to donate directly to Cambodian charities.

I'm not saying don't go. Just that you don't need to if you don't have time, and that it will be more of a powerful exprience for some more than others. But in any case, read up on what happened and think about why it happened.

Other minor but controversial notes: 1. Choeung Ek is currently run by a private Japanese corporation. Personally, I'm fine with this as long as they're doing a very good job preserving the place at a pretty low cost ($2 admission), but some people take offense that the site of such a national tragedy is being run by a for-profit organization. 2. The path leading around the back of Cheong Ek doesn't lead anywhere, and seems to be there to trap tourists with cute kids that follow you and beg for money. It's up to each individual on how to feel about this.

I would definitely recommend going to the Genocide Museum/ S21 prison while in Phnom Phen, however. It's more informative -- you can see a photo exhibit, read quotes from survivors and guards, and watch a documentary as well as visiting the prison. Described in more detail in my next blog entry.