Cambodia Update

Day 35     Phnom Penh

Today we went to see S21 Tuol Sleng which was a high school before the regime of Pol Pot when it was then turned into a prison housing thousands of innocent Cambodians. The prison housed over 15,000 people during its time of operation and acted as a holding ground and torture chamber before they were sent to the killing fields. Only 7 people survived out of 15,000. Only 3 are still alive today and I met 2 of them at the prison. One pointed himself out in a picture and posed while we took photos and the other was just sitting quietly on a bench, when we went to talk to him he showed us a black and white passport style photograph of a lady. He did not speak English but we eventually worked out that it was his wife, then he pointed to the grave behind him, which is his wife's grave. This made me cry. It was really really sad. This man also was one of the few witnesses who testified at the Khmer Rouge trial to help get Duch prosecuted for genocide and crimes against humanity amongst other things. The prison has photographs all over the walls of the victims. It's very similar to Auschwitz except that they have the original torture weapons and artifacts just lying around in the prison cells and they have extremely graphic torture pictures on the wall and paintings by one of the people who survived of the torture which they endured. It was really disturbing and terribly upsetting. Next we went on to the killing fields. It's a very difficult place to be as it is a beautiful setting but the most horrific things happened there. As you walk along the pathways past the mass graves there are still teeth and bone fragments which stick out of the ground. The memorial building is a pretty building but when you look through the glass windows it's like a cabinet that stores the skulls and bones of those killed at the killing fields and so it's once again quite disturbing. Our local guide then showed us a photo of the man we had met earlier that day sitting by his wife's grave with another man. The other man in the photograph was one of Pol Pot's soldiers who was responsible for killing many many people (although he doesn't admit a number, apparently he regularly comes back to the killing fields to do press interviews and comes up with some rubbish that he only killed 5 people but he didn't know he was going to or something like that), the two sat next to each other in silence. I do not know how Bou Meng (the man we met) could sit next to a man who inflicted the torture he received and ultimately his wife too. The mood wasn't so good after today's excursion so we all went to the Central Market to do some retail therapy. It was really good. It's fun to bargain with them and they enjoy it too, I got some good stuff and this is where I bought Dad his Ray Bans! We then all went to have lunch together at a restaurant by the river and I had a burger which was really good - it was so nice to have beef after being in India for 2 weeks where there's no beef! We then met at this place called FCC which stands for foreigners country club or something. It was happy hour there and all drinks (even non-alcoholic for me) were half price which was good and I had an ice cream too. For dinner we then went for a meal at a local family's house. They have 30 people living in the house! The wife cooked us lots of food and many different dishes and it was actually quite amazing that I liked nearly all of it despite the fact that when I go to restaurants there's barely one thing that I would like! She cooked THE most amazing beef skewers, I had sooo many but they were sooooooooooo good! BYE.x