Cambodia Day 1 - Phnom Penh

Looking cool...

After waking up with migraines and sore throats from the paint fumes our decision to move hotels was very firmly justified and we didn’t waste any time in transferring before heading out for a day of activities.

With only one full day to spend exploring Phnom Penh we decided to get our fill of history and visit two of the most important sites near the city – Choeung Ek (better known as the killing fields) and S21, the primary school turned prison turned genocide museum.

Choeung Ek was a fair distance from the city so we hired a tuk tuk driver for the day to take us to both. We had contemplated hiring a scooter and doing it ourselves but as soon as we hit the road we were so glad we didn’t – it was pretty much dirt track with giant potholes the whole way, and it was so dusty our driver had to stop off and buy us some face masks for the journey!

The fields and lake

After about 40 minutes we reached our destination – neither of us were really sure what to expect from Choeung Ek, before it’s rather disturbing use in the 1970’s it had been a fruit orchard and that’s kind of what it looks like today. It’s a pretty tranquil spot and it was hard to imagine the horrendous things that happened there. During the height of Pol Pot’s paranoia of being overthrown millions and millions of people were sent to Cheoung Ek and other killing fields across Cambodia. Anyone considered to be a bit of a free thinker was rounded up, imprisoned and then shipped to the fields. Wearing glasses, speaking a foreign language or ‘having soft hands’ was considered reason enough to be incarcerated.

The Stupa at Choeung Ek

We were given audio guides to wander around the site with which were really informative, only also sometimes so harrowing that you kind of wished you didn’t know the kind of stuff that went on. One of the things that we both found really haunting is that even now after heavy rains the ground washes away and exposes new clothing and bones from the mass graves, so much that the volunteers go around and collect it all every week or so. As we were walking around there was so much of it just buried under the surface or caught around tree roots.

We’ve tried to make an effort in every place we’ve visited to experience a bit of the culture and history as well as the fun stuff, and much like the war museum in Saigon, whilst it was really interesting to visit Choeung Ek we both found it quite upsetting at points and needless to say we didn’t feel like taking too many photos, hence the absence of them from this blog.

Feeling a bit somber after our visit, we realised we’d been rather foolish to arrange to visit the genocide museum on the same day – but we’d already paid our tuk tuk driver for the afternoon so we headed there anyway.

Remembrance bracelets on the children's mass grave

We didn’t really think it was possible but we found the genocide museum even more disturbing than Choeung Ek. The Khmer Rouge transformed a primary school into a prison and torture chamber and it’s pretty much the same today as it was in the 70’s. They haven’t changed the décor, the wire frame beds are still in all the rooms and all the original torture equipment is still there.  They also have a mug shot of everyone who was ever imprisoned there and it was quite disturbing to wander around with thousands of eyes on you.

S21

We took a wander for ten minutes or so and then a guide mentioned to us that a video would be starting soon on the top floor of one of the prison blocks. Hoping for a bit of light relief in the form of a historical documentary about the prison or something similar we went and took our seats at the front of the room.

Unfortunately, rather than a historical documentary about the prison it was one woman’s harrowing story about her son and daughter-in-law during the Khmer Rouge, about an hour in and getting progressively less cheery we had a flashback to a paragraph we’d read in the LP about watching a two hour video at one of the museums and suddenly the penny dropped. We felt pretty bad for getting up halfway through but there was absolutely no way we could’ve lasted another hour with our sanity intact!

By this point we agreed we were pretty mentally exhausted from our day of sightseeing so we decided to head back to the bright lights of Phnom Penh.  Fortunately we’d already arranged to meet Chris and Holly for drinks, otherwise I think chances are high we would’ve curled up in a ball in our hotel room for the rest of the evening!

Cheers!

It’s also fortunate that Phnom Penh looks a lot prettier at night than it does during the day and the guys had managed to pick a pretty nice rooftop bar overlooking the river for our much needed happy hour cocktails!