Phnom Penh - a capital of wealth and sadness

I arrived in Phnom Penh in the afternoon and took a moto - standard 50cc Motorbike to the British run Mad Monkey hostel. The hostel was a great place to start my experience with really helpful staff and exceptionally tasty food both local and British.

I'm fast learning I don't need to tick all the boxes in a frenzy and broke my visit into two day events.

Day One - I set off to the Royal Palace to see what all the fuss was about. The Palace is a delight of clean lines and colour. Manicured gardens and Buddist Pagodas which remind you you're in Asia...ok so I am new to this forgive me! You can walk through many of the Palace buildings and see the throne including the many mirrors in the ceremonial hall. I had no guide to advise me on what this was all about, so lets just assume vanity! The Silver Pagoda's are within the Palace grounds and are featured by the silver flooring in the two pagodas to the left of the Palace quarters. Each silver panel is made of 5kg of silver and is rather impressive - if walking on mats covering them to preserve the silver counts - the effect is like walking on a tin roof with a prayer mat to keep you from doing a Jackson Pollock.

I dined out at a recommended cafe and took some delight in having a Wither Hills Sauv again on my travels. The local dish of Fish Amok was served in a coconut and I was joined for my feast by a young begger girl I had made a deal with the night previously to buy a braclet. We played a bit of paper scissors rock and I lost costing me the deal. She was sweet and became a fixture of my days being at every tourist sight after 11am (when school finishes).

I met Scott a volunteer for A New Day Cambodia which is where two of the Hostel restuarants waitresses have come from. These kids started off as rubbish collectors living on or near the dump. Now with the help of the ANDC they have been afforded an education and a clean living environment and rewarded with steady and profitable employment. The girls were brilliant and smiled wider than so many people I have met. Makes you want to join the mass NGO bandwagon or Hilux-wagon as the case is all over Cambodia! Scott and I had dinner for the next couple of nights. He was great company.

Day Two - **PLEASE NOTE THIS POST INCLUDES EXPLICIT DETAILS OF THE MASS CRIMES OF THE KHMER ROUGE REGIME AND MAY DISTURB SOME SENSITIVE SOULS**

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" George Santayana

flowers from an oil can at the
Prison seems odd

I headed out to the S-21 Prison Museum to see the trials and tribulations of the Khmer Rouge rule on the local Phnom Penh community. S-21 was previously a school, converted for torture during the 4 year reign of the infamous Pol Pot. During these years thousands of innocent victims were taken from around the country to the largest of the torture centres at S-21 to be told that they needed to expose their contacts. Many where peasant farmers and confessed to uncommited crimes attempting to avoid further punishment. The inmates were subject to torture for up to 2 months, if they survived they were then taken to a near by Chinese Cemetery where there tortured to death. The brutality of which seems far beyond my comprehension but for those interested in the gorey details try finger nail pulling being hung upside down until unconsious and then dipped in filthy water before further interogation. Every day. Living in a 1m x 2m cell and given little more than 2 spoons of rice a day to survive.

At the Museum you walk through freely the sites of these henous crimes and War Crime tribunal stories are highlighted for 5 remaining key members of the Khmer Rouge who are still alive including the S-21 commander and a female minister. All of which are elderly. The Commander of S-21 has been commited to 35 years in prison. I realise this is the rest of his life but it hardly seems fair to place the time of 35 years for thousands of people killed. Somehow the words "Life Imprisonment" just seem more relevant.

One of Seven survivors from the S-21 Prison

7 people walked out of Prison at the end of the Regimes hold. All had held positions of mechanic or painter for the General. One of which born in 1946 I met. He was gentle and smiled and wanted us all to understand his story. I unfortunately didn't have room in my bag for his book. He was a painter and had survived by painting images of Pol Pot for the General. If you consider art to be a matter of individual taste then this man has to be one of the most fortunate painters I have EVER met.

From the Museum I took a USD10 TukTuk to the site referred to as The Killing Fields about 10km from town. Previously a Chinese cemetery, Cheung Ek became the sight of great atrocities in the 1970's civil war under Pol Pot. Here I was given an exceptionally informative audio guide which took me slowly around the site and allowed me time to take in the surroundings for the terror that it once held.

Central memorial at the Killing Fields

The focal point of the Field is the central Pagoda. A 17 story high tower with the remains of many of the victims found across the fields. Each body part carefully examined, aged, gender defined and placed in sections as unknown victims of the war. Their bodies not together but the clothing remains on the bottom floor, skulls of the oldest to youngest from 1-10. Legs, arms and ribs together followed by all other bones, misplaced jaws and teeth to contain the entirety of victims.

The remains of a group of 100 soldiers from the Eastern part of Cambodia (near Vietnam)  were found to be headless and are included amongst the victims in the Memorial Pagoda. It is believed they did not follow the order of the KR and were subsequently beheaded. Their heads have yet to be located.

the skulls of some victims housed within the pagoda

As you walk around the grounds including a picturesque lake created to help the subsiding site from moving more remains into neighbouring farmland. Open tombs where the truck loads of victims were bought and buried together. Some still believed to be alive before a final dose of cyanide (as it was cheaper than bullets which the Khmer Rouge could not afford), are now pools from recent rain. The rain brings up more victims body parts and on my visit I very nearly walked on a tooth and a victims clothing. This is a cruel reminder of how dismembered the bodies where at the time of death. Most skulls included in the pagoda have obvious death inducing wounds or are simply crushed to oblivion.

What happened in the years of the Khmer Rouge is beyond my comprehension. I cannot compare this to any other experience I have had before - please note I have been in Auschwitz, Croatia, Serbia, Sarajevo and Mostar and for their part Israel and the Palestinian territories over the past 9 months. Unimaginable crimes against humanity happen all over the world. I don't pretend to comprehend them. But in travelling and experiencing the current day life of the people from these regions I learn every bit more how lucky I am.

Phnom Penh was an intensely sad experience but highlighted the truths of the past. A very recent past. Where a nation was divided and neighbours became enemies. The key things I learnt were about separation of families, men and women and how much of a grieving nation it still is. Despite their warm smiles they have long memories of a harsh and unfathomable war which took so much from them.

Thank you Cambodia for sharing your stories. I hope with time it will heal the wounds and no such horrors will happen to you people as you develop and grow.