Day 74 - 05th September
So we arrived in Phomn Penh after an eventful night on the VB bus. The drop off in the centre of town was into a square of Tuk Tuks, salesmen and women and buses, speeding by. Lots going on and lots to be excited about for the weekend.
We jumped on a $4 Tuk Tuk to our hostel and arrived at 11 Backpackers Hostel. It was right in the heart of central Phomn Penh and I was looking forward to seeing the reactions of the other three when we reached the dorm rooms.
After a spot of breakfast, mine was an awesome Snickers pancake, DK went to meet some old school friends whilst Abigail, Dan and I went to Tuol Sleng (S21) - the facility that housed over 14,000 prisoners and only a shocking seven survived!
It was very emotional and looking at the faces of past, beaten, battered and bruised, you couldn't help feeling disgusted by members of our race. How people can do this to others is beyond me. The Pol Pot regimes were cowardly, callous and just pure evil.
There are no photos because I couldn't bring myself to show them on this blog.
One photo I am happy to share is of this man, Mr Bou Meng, who saw his wife tortured and murdered here, all of which he witnessed. The courage of this man is commendable and I'm proud to show him on this blog.
We all were subdued, as Jordy, Sèbastien and I had been after the museum in Ho Chi Minh. We left the prison to go forty minutes to The Chuoeung Genocidal Center or one of the Killing Fields.
This tour came with an audio guide so the experience was heightened to explain the atrocities committed on the site. Children were torn from their mothers and their skulls crushed against the 'Killing Tree'. Women were worked like animals from 4am to 12am without more than one meal a day so they couldn't feed their children properly; many were raped before being killed. The men were no different.
The shallow impressions in the ground that looked like shell craters were their eventual graves. Bodies were tossed their and DTT was added to cover the smell of decay. The level of mass murder here was unbelievable.
The most chilling story I heard on the tour was the re-telling of the night time killings. The Khmer Rouge (Pol Pot's men) would play loud music from the 'Magic Tree' and turned on a generator to mask the screams of their victims. When they did a reconstruction, the hairs on my neck stood up.
At the end of the tour, I visited the Memorial Stupa, which housed 9,000 skulls and the ways in which they had been murdered - bayonet, bullet, axe and so on. Looking at these skulls was surreal. It felt like I was looking at movie props.
I came away feeling guilty. I don't know why, maybe because the western world had not stepped in or maybe because the killings were so savage, I really don't know, but the trip back to Phomn Penh gave me plenty of time to think.
In the afternoon, Dan, Abigail and I chilled out with some cocktails and burgers. It was nice to relax and reflect. We spent a good few hours, letting the world go by.
We found the Phomn Penh night market setting up for the evening and wandered around in search of a bargain for Abigail. We failed!
Back at the hostel, we found a smiling DK, who had been out with his friends and had enjoyed a great day. He topped his day off by beating Abigail at pool!
We went to the Noodle House for dinner. I had a Khmer red curry before attempting to find the Night Market again. Our excursion took us around the streets of Phomn Penh, with very little looking like the market. It took me half an hour before I worked out that we were miles away from it (I say miles, I mean 20 minutes or so) so we retreated back to 11 Backpackers Hostel.
It had been a long day, emotionally draining and I was looking forward to a good sleep. Within minutes, I was already gone!
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