The plan was to return back to Thailand straight after visiting the temples of Angkor. Having already been issued my bus ticket to Bangkok, I felt it would be a pity to leave Cambodia so soon. The landlady told me it would not be a problem to issue another ticket to Phnom Penh instead and refund the difference owed.
She called the bus company and the matter was solved just as fast as I had a change of heart. Glad I was staying in Cambodia, at the same time I felt sad to leave Siem Reap and the people at the Bou Savy who made it all the more rewarding. Waiting for a lift to the bus depot, I thought the Indian and Danish couple would make it in time for breakfast. Unfortunately they didn’t, content at least we bid farewell the night before and with the memory of a great experience at Angkor.
A massive traffic jam caused by an accident on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, delayed arrival to the capital by an hour or so. Thankfully there were no serious injuries despite the vehicles sliding off the road and into a rather deep ditch.
Psar O Russei and Boeng Kak were the areas in Phnom Penh my pocket could afford me to stay. Chilling-out in an accommodation along the shores of Boeng Kak lake was a tempting alternative than lodging around a chaotically busy Psar O Russei. All the same I wanted to reside in the centre, booking a room at The Capitol, a detrimental lift-less seven storeys up.
Providing coach service to major destinations in Cambodia as its main business activity, in addition to the hotel, Capitol organised sightseeing tours of places of interest in Phnom Penh. Notoriously known as The Killing Fields, I jotted my name down on a sheet of paper at the desk for the next day’s tour. The clerk informed me that three people are the required minimum for the tour to run.
The following morning, I went to check whether the tour was still on and since there was only one other name listed, it was regrettably called off. I hung around the ticket office looking out for the person whose name was on the sheet. Noticing someone a little hesitant, I went over and asked if he was the person whose name was also on the list. Confirming he was, I told him the tour was cancelled, but also about another viable option to visit the memorial.
Offering an assortment of products and services from the acceptable to the downright illicit, a number of locals hang around in the vicinity of every guesthouse. Agile and responsive, taxi and moto drivers are the largest group moving rapidly all over to meet the demands. In no time, we agreed with one of the moto-drivers to take us to The Killing Fields at Choeung Ek. In this part of the world, it’s normal two people were riding pillion. Being exceptionally skilled motorcycle drivers, it’s not uncommon to see someone driving by balancing a family of five while sending a text message or delving through a take-away meal.
Located roughly 15km southwest of Phnom Penh, it was a relief to escape the anarchy engulfing Psar O Russei and cruise along the road to Choeung Ek on an old but trusty Honda Dream Econo-Power. Passing through the main gate, we were swept by a sense of solemn atmosphere. In these grounds, the Khmer Rouge saw to the execution of around 17,000 men, women and children throughout the years 1975 – 1979.
Choeung Ek is nowadays a place of peace and quiet, the silence broken by twittering birds or the pure laughter of children playing outside the main entrance. It was hard to imagine the time when the cries of pain were so piercing, a loudspeaker mounted on a tree was used to muffle the clamour of people being senselessly slaughtered. By this means, suspicion from farmers and country folk nearby were thwarted by the monotonous indoctrination blaring out from the loudspeaker.
Towering over the disinterred graves, the stupa (Buddhist monument) holds in the region of 8,000 skulls stacked on several shelves rising right to the top. On close inspection, a number of skulls bear witness to the fact that in order to save on ammunition people were bludgeoned and bashed to death.
Belonging to some of the unfortunate ones massacred at Choeung Ek, I found the pile of ragged clothes strewn at the base of the stupa as profoundly distressing as the broken skulls. Stripped of their dignity by extreme torture, the clothes seemed to be the last thing that made them feel human before being unjustly put to death.
Set around graves and walkways, the signposts read like a horror story, except nothing is fictitious in this account. Pol Pot, Blood Brother Number 1 of the Khmer Rouge wanted to erase history by declaring "Year Zero" and consequently create a new social order. Blindfolded and terrified, Cambodians from all over the country arrived by the truckloads from Tuol Sleng prison in central Phnom Penh. In the initial stages of Khmer Rouge control, the trucks turned up two or three times a month and prisoners executed without delay.
As the regime’s paranoia intensified, drop-offs became more frequent resulting in a dramatic rise in executions. Some were detained for a day or two until it would be their turn to have their lives snatched away without remorse.
Pieces of cloth and human bone poke out from the desecrated ground, a stark reminder of the terror unleashed at Cheoung Ek and other killing fields around the country.
In one of the mass graves, the exhumed victims were found to be decapitated, and in another, the victims, all women and children were found stripped. A shed used for storing knives, hatchets, shackles, clubs, shovels and other tools, brought to mind the vicious sadistic methods by which prisoners were executed.
If anything was compelling regarding the brutality of the Khmer Rouge, then the Chankiri Tree against which young children and babies were battered to death had to be it. What wrong could young children and babies possibly have done to deserve this appalling way to die?
All of a sudden, I felt my throat drying up and retreating to a quiet spot behind some trees, I broke down in tears. I could not understand how someone can reduce a baby’s tender body to pulp and laugh while they carry out this unspeakable act.
It's because evil lurks within us all that man can be taught to repeal their sentiments of revulsion when they crush the life out of poor innocent children. To this extent is the predicament of humankind, to conceive something as horrible as the Chankiri Tree.
And it did not stop there. The ultra-fanatical beliefs of the Khmer Rouge brought death and destruction to an estimated two million people dragging Cambodia down an apocalyptic nightmare. Pol Pot’s obsession, like that of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Franco, Idi Amin, Pinochet, Saddam Hussein and many others, ushered an era that was written with the blood of those who given a choice wish they were still living.
Reuniting around two hours later, walking out did not feel the same as when we first walked in. Overwhelmed by sentiments of confusion and sorrow, I was lost for words. How could this tragedy be allowed to happen? How come no one has been held responsible when everyone knows who the perpetrators are?
I learned later that back in 2005, the government leased the site of Choeung Ek to be managed by a Japanese company. Relatives of those who died here are justifiably incensed that the government is cashing in on their loved ones. It is outrageous and deplorable that the clothes and the bones of the deceased are being marketed to generate profits. From an outsider’s point of view, one can only sympathise with the relatives for being put through this unwarranted suffering.
On the way back, the moto-driver tried talking us into going to a shooting-range in the vicinity of Choeung Ek so we can have a crack at firing M-16 or AK-47 rifles.
However neither one of us felt like proving just how macho we can be. Trying his best to sell the experience of firing a rifle, commission or not his idea was never going to catch on.
Unperturbed by the refusal, the moto-driver still attempted to get his hands on a few extra riels. Upon arriving at Psar O Russei, he tentatively asked for a higher price than what was originally agreed. He tested our memories but unfortunately for him we passed the test. In the end we laughed it off and went our separate ways. Before the reality had sunk in, the shocking reality concerning Choeung Ek that is, I was relieved to head out of Phnom Penh, the city where fact can sometimes be stranger than fiction.
