Phnom Penh is cool. Cambodia is already noticeably different to Vietnam. Let's get the negatives out of the way first; it is much dirtier, with rubbish strewn everywhere and RATS (I saw 2 within 3 hours of arriving in the country);
the roads are less developed with potholes everywhere; it is more expensive (but still incredibly cheap); and it is extremely humid. The positives, however, are numerous; I found the people to be friendlier; it is more commercially aware and developed (although sad for the traveller, this is great for the locals), with plenty of upmarket shops and restaurants to be seen; and the currency is much easier to understand, with 4000 Cambodian Riel equating to $1 (vs. 33,000 Vietnamese Dong equating to £1).
The long:
Tuesday:
Raj and I got ourselves organised for the day and headed out to meet our driver for the day's activities. We had booked the guy who dropped us off the previous night as he was a couple of dollars less than if we had booked through the hostel and seemed really lovely. We climbed aboard our tuk tuk and set off to our first stop, the Killing Fields.
There is not much to "see" at the Killing Fields, but with the aid of an audio tour you are taken step-by-step through the horrors that took place on the ground that you are standing. The audio tour takes you along a route, marked 1-19 and, at the press of a button, explains what that particular signpost or area signifies.
It was soul destroying hearing what went on, and it beggars belief that anyone could actually support Pol Pot's vision or wish to join the Khmer Rouge. I do not understand how anyone could ever kill a person they do not know, let alone innocent people of their own kind. I also don't understand how his army could kill people in the manner that they did, with complete brutality and zero signs of a heart.
It is unbelievable to think that those living close to the Killing Fields were totally unaware of its ongoings, as the Khmer Rouge disguised the cries and shrieks of humans with music blared from loudspeakers held in the (anything but) "Magic Tree".
It wasn't until after Pol Pot's regime had been defeated that a farmer happened to dig on the land for potatoes, finding instead bones and pieces of clothing en masse.
It was then that an investigation began and the area was excavated, unearthing mass graves containing hundreds of bodies.
The audio tour allowed you to listen to personal stories of victims of the regime, as well as members of the Khmer Rouge and their regrets. This I found particularly difficult to listen to, as families were seperated, never to see each other again; women were raped; those forced to work tortured if they did not meet a daily quota, yet simultaenously starving to death with no possible way in which to have the strength to complete their tasks. One particular story was told by a woman who had an 8-month old baby, who had been made to work in the fields all day so that she was only able to feed him at night, yet she was so starved and weak that she could not produce any milk with which to feed him, so she watched her baby starve to death. However, the most horrendous thing that I heard that day was regarding the "Killing Tree". When the Fields were examined, one tree was found to be covered in an enormous quantity of blood and brain matter, which, for a long period, the investigators could not explain, until they connected the tree to the mass grave discovered not 2m away, containing the bodies only of children.
It was deduced that the Khmer Rouge must have swung children by their limbs, smashing their bodies into the tree, and then flung them into the depths of the neighbouring pit. I simply do not want to accept that human beings are capable of this kind of heinous act, yet clearly they are. Both Raj and I got very choked at this point and decided to sit by the lake for a little while and reflect on all that we had heard. It's a lot to take in.
I loved the fact that visitors have left their friendship bracelets hanging around the mass graves, on the Killing Tree and on the Spirit House.
It's proof of the good sides of human nature, and the love, care and empathy that we can have for those that we never even knew. The Killing Fields are now an incredibly peaceful place and, if it wasn't for the continuous unearthing of more bone and cloth fragments during the wet season, and uneven land as a result of bodily gasses having expanded and swelled in the earth, one could quite easily mistake it as a place of natural beauty.
The Memorial Stupa that has been built to commemorate the innocent lives lost is of a beautiful design, inbuilt with statues of animals that have deep meaning for Cambodians.
It pains me to try to imagine what occurred there and Raj and I left with heavy hearts, but grateful for a deeper understanding of the extreme Communist regime that once gripped Cambodia.
Just to lighten the mood, we went straight from the Killing Fields to "Tuol Sleng Prison", originally a school, which Pol Pot transformed into his largest secret prison and ordered the murders of thousands of innocent Vietnamese. Anyone that was a City dweller or suspected of opposing his outlook was sent to the prison to be interrogated/tortured, and killed. Prisoners would be accused of being KGB or CIA spies, and would be beaten until they admitted to being so, often being made to incriminate their loved ones as being the same before finally being put out of their misery.
The prison consisted of 4 buildings, in which classrooms on the first floor were divided into individual cells, whereas the ones on the second floor were used for mass detention.
"Building C" was the most high security, surrounded by thick barbed wire so as to prevent prisoners on the higher levels from committing suicide. This is probably when I realised the extent of how f***** up Pol Pot was.
The entirely impossible rules that Pol Pot required prisoners to abide by if they wished to avoid torture/execution, number 6 being the most horrifying of them all.
It was incredibly sad to see the mugshots of hundreds of innocent, deceased prisoners, taken on their arrival, and the photographs and paintings of their dead, beaten bodies.
Pol Pot's army were particularly fond of 1 torture technique, named "the Gallows", which involved hanging prisoners upside down by their feet until they fell unconscious, and then dunking their heads into a jar of smelly, filthy water, normally used as crop fertiliser. When the victims awoke, the interrogation of their uncommitted crimes would continue.
^ Really look at it, it is truly amazing.
It would be awful, yet beyond interesting, to be Pol Pot for 1 day, to try to gain some insight into the monstrous workings of his brain. I cannot believe how long he remained in power and that he was internationally recognised as the head of Cambodia even after the defeat of the Khmer Rouge. What the f*** world?
Anyway, having had a very dark 2 days history lesson Raj and I actually decided to do something a bit cheerier and headed to the Central Market for a snoop around.
It was utterly enormous, selling everything you could possibly imagine.
I left with a belt and some fresh fruit (lychees are a new thing), as Raj and I ran through the pounding rain to our tuk tuk. We then began a wild goose chase to find me a spa that did eyebrow and eyelash tinting, as I was getting seriously depressed by my daily albino-intensifying appearance. Having driven back and forth across the city and visited 3 different spas, I was almost about to give up, but having located one more name on Google, I asked Raj if she minded giving it 1 final go. She did not. Thank God. I HAVE EYELASHES AND EYEBROWS AGAIN. Hallelujah. Honestly, I cannot find words to adequately describe my happiness at having facial features once more. We bounded home across the potholes in the dark to our hostel, mentally exhausted from the day's activities. We generously tipped our lovely driver, who we had chatted with in depth throughout the day, and headed straight to the hostel restaurant for some much needed grub. I ordered ginger chicken and asked for LOADS of vegetables. My wish was granted and I was served one of the nicest (and healthiest) meals I have had since arriving in Asia, which I was pretty chuffed about. It also cost $3.
After dinner we spent some time organising the next parts of our trip, as I had decided to change my plans and go to Koh Rong, a remote idyllic island in Cambodia, for a few days, instead of rushing my way through the country in order to make the Full Moon party in Thailand. I booked my bus for the following morning and we were all set to leave reception when a girl came in telling the staff that her bag had just been stolen by some motorcyclists. Worst nightmare. The girl had been wearing it across her body and the thieves had driven up behind her silently, grabbed a hold of the strap and begun driving full pelt, pulling her neck, resulting in her smacking her head on the pavement as she fell down and they sped away with all of her prized possessions. Her arms and back were burnt from being dragged on the gravel and she was clearly in extreme shock, switching between detached talking and sobbing. It was really upsetting to see her in that state but did bring home the fact that it really can happen to "you", even though you never think it will. I am leaving the city tomorrow but will remain on super alert for the rest of my travels. I still can't comprehend such nasty unconscionable behaviour though. My main question from my experiences over the last 2 days is, how do people live with themselves? On that note, bedtime.
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