Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
PP is the capitol of this beautiful country. I'm not gonna lie, my knowledge of cambodia was pretty slim a year ago...heck even one week ago I was learning new things about this country that I feel like I definitely should have known about. Hopefully some of you already know some of the history. If not, let me fill you in.
We left Ho Chi Minh in the morning and took a bus to PP. It was actually incredibly comfortable and quite a good experience (wish I could say the same for all these other bus rides!). The further we got from HCMC, the more beautiful the landscape got. Especially once we hit the cambodia side, it was all green and open sky and honestly the most beautiful clouds I've ever seen. Traveling to SEA (southeast Asia) during the wet season obviously has its drawbacks...but it is so easy to entertain yourself on a long bus ride when you find pictures in the clouds. So after 7-8 hours of sitting on a bus, going through the border, sitting on a bus...we arrived in PP. At the bus stop we share a taxi with a guy from Germany named Andi who ended up staying at our hostel was well. PP wasn't what I was expecting...but then again I didn't really know what to expect. It seemed kind of hard to find local foods because everythig just seemed very western. Which in a way is nice after being in china for 4+ months without as much western contact (western food and stores yes, people no). That first night we walked around one of the wats and had dinner on the river walk. The whole night I was trying to mentally prepare myself for the next day.
Phnom Penh is well known for its history during te Khmer Rogue ruling following the civil war in Cambodia. Happening roughly 30 years ago, this is all such current history that just hasn't been talked about back home. Millions of people died during the time, the goal was to start over at year zero by eliminating all intellectuals, religiuous figures, past government officials, and any family members or people who posed a threat. If you spoke a foreign language, you were a target. If you had higher education, a target. And where were these people sent? To prisons where they were ruthlessly interrogated, lived in dire conditions, and then sent for execution. The most famous of these prisons is in PP and it had been turned into a museum of remembrance. Not far from the prison is a killing field where they were all sent for death. It is the largest killing field in Cambodia. On the second day, I visited both places.
We started at the prison, known as S21. It's location was a former high school, classrooms were turned into torture rooms, libraries into prison cells. One thing that is somewhat unique of this genocide are the records kept of all the prisoners. Each prisoner was photographed, hand written confessions of their "crimes" were found. And the prison was kept mostly the same when it was converted into the museum. The interrogations rooms still hold some of the devices and beds used for torture. The wooden and brick cells are still in place. Countless boards displaying tr pictures of the victims line room after room. Here you can see the faces of men and women, the young and the old. The grounds also contain the graves of the last 14 victims to die at the prison as we as the skulls and bones of some of the victims.
Regardless of how much you prepare yourself to go to a place like that, there will always be something that makes you stop in your tracks. When you see a woman holding her newborn baby awaiting certain death, a little bit of your inner light fades. When you learn about the foreign victims of at S21 (from India, Australia, France, the US...) you have to shudder because you had no idea. When you read the autobiographies of the victims that were required upon entry to the prison, your heart just kinda stops. I wasn't prepared when I read the testimony of an American victim and saw the words Anaheim, San Diego, UCSB. How could something so tragic be so close to home and not mentioned in our schools? It really does make you take a step back and wonder about this world we live in. How there can be this capacity of hatred in a person, how one can justify the most ruthful actions.
After visiting the prison we started the short journey to the killing fields. The location isn't all that large and you are given an audio tour device at the entrance. I went through alone, going from place to place and just listened to the haunting story of what happened there not so long ago. Many of the original buildings were torn down shortly after the overthrow of the Khmer rogue so many places we're just marked off by signs. This is the type of thing I feel I can't go into much detail about. Walking through the killing fields is more of an emotion that you have to feel yourself. It's nearly impossible to describe how I felt as I walked past mass graves of 600+ people and how you could find bones sticking out in some areas still...brought closer to the surface after recent rain. It's hard to describe the sensation of losing all feeling as you stand before a tree that was used to smash infants into so that they could easily be discarded into the pit right next to it. The whole time you feel angry, sad, confused and scared. And then when you go into the stupa and see row after row of skulls you just feel defeated.
I don't regret going to these places. I do regret that things like this exist in our world. My eyes have been opened onto the harsh realities of what happens all over the world. It is a truth that you can't take back and a stripping of innocence. But I think it's something that everyone should do and go see. It's something that you won't fully understand unless you see it for yourself. It may be painful, but open your eyes.
