The Heart of Darkness
Trip Start
May 07, 2003
1
41
65
Trip End
Sep 05, 2005
Phnom Penh,
Cambodia
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
01 Monks on da beach
. Here, the insane becomes normal and the immoral, acceptable. This is the darkness and Cambodia knows all about the real dark side after decades of war and the unimaginable evil wraught by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in the apocalypse of the late 70s.Pol Pot, in my limited experience and opinion, was the most evil and insane man ever to have walked the planet. After fighting for years in the jungle, his communist rebels took the country by suicidal force and instigated a society without class, and without rights; people had only the right to work. To work extremely hard in the baking sun and lashing rain, living without shelter and little food or clean water. The entire country became a radical, highly secretive worker-peasant co-operative, basically a farm. Money, communication, education, religion, music, proper food and work, that most sacred Cambodian instituion: the family, and even love, were abolished and outlawed by threat of death. Kampuchea was sent back to year zero, the stone age. All that existed were workers, peasants and soldiers, period. The cities were completely evacuated and everyone was sent to the "Killing Fields" to toil and die. If you were unable to work to support "the Revolution", you were of no use and faced execution. Many were simply executed anyway, for crimes such as having an education or being able to speak a foreign language; even having lighter skin, soft hands or wearing glasses incriminated you to hellish months of torture and a brutal end, usually bludgeoned to death, falling onto the heap with hundreds of other corpses in a mass grave
02 Shay and Shane in Eden
. Over two million, maybe up to three million people, over a quarter of the total population were wiped out by the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pots worst legacy is that because of the fact he obliterated all the intellectuals, doctors, scientists and artists in the country, it has left a huge vacumn in society, underneath its all rotten, corrupt as hell. It is slowly being filled but maybe by the wrong people, it's easy for anyone with a decent head on their shoulders to make a quick buck here; while most locals live in abject poverty.We visited the Tuol Sleng S21 Torture Museum in Phnom Penh. It's a sad, sad place. There in the torture building there were large rooms with wire sprung beds, leg irons and chains, pictures of the mutilated dead as they were found when the Vietamese discovered the place. Here people were lashed with electric wire, held under sewerage water, toes and fingers lopped off with bolt cutters, women had especially bad treatment with breasts and nipples removed, genital mutilation, gang rapes and sexual brutality were common. Many were brought in for being in love or in their view having "immoral relations". First of all a confession was illicited, the initial one always differing greatly from the one they gleaned after months of torture prior to their untimely deaths. By that time they had tortured most victims into implicating, their families and friends to have worked with the CIA and their enemies (the rest of the world)
03 Firedanca
. They were then obviously all killed too. In the Khmer Rouge's view, these confessions justified their reason for the executions. Among the 1000's of photos of the dead you can see in S21 (all were recorded), there were many many children and women, old people and people that looked like they were mentally deficient.We took a moto thru the chaotic muddy streets of Phnom Penh to the outskirts of the city where all but 7 of the 19,000 prisoners (only 7 survived) of S21 were actually executed or dumped in the death pits. These death pits were small, real small, yet hundreds and hundreds of skeletons were found in each one in 1980. There is now a tower of some 9,000 skulls as a reminder to Cambodians and the rest of the world, THAT THIS SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN. Did anyone really understand what happened here? Did anyone know it was happening at the time? If they did, it's unforgivable.
As for Phnom Penh itself, the city is mad, wierd, ugly, beautiful, full of contradictions. Dozens of brothel shacks full of seedy women line the streets of the dodgier parts of the city, while round the corner you will find grand mansions, millionaires palaces and posh developments. There is much new building going on. One new shopping centre currently under construction promising designer boutiques and chic restaurants sits on one side of the street while across the road you can get laid for a dollar
04 Serendipity Beach
. Small children can be bought for a little more so I understand, I've seen the horror of it with my own eyes from the back of the motodop, while the driver told us the sorry tale. Indeed, just before I walked into the internet cafe but two minutes ago, a little girl with a tiny baby begs for money and tells me "Nim Yam", which as far as i know means blow job. Raw, black, stinking, frothy sewerage is pumped into the open air and irrigates vegetable patches and rice paddies where children play and work. The city is beautiful though in it's own way, and infinetely interesting. Here you can actually be witness to society without real law or morality. The centre is even pretty along the riverside with vintage colonial architecture and the lovely Grand Palace and Pagodas. I'd like to say the the future looks bright, at least they've stopped the killing; but unfortunately, the current goverment is driving the country into the ground. Hun Sen the Vietnames imposed dictator is apparently the seventh richest man in the world, while his subjects have to degrade themselves so utterly to afford to eat. After the Khmer people having gone thru so much hardship, they want things to be good again, they all strive and work hard, they yearn to learn and most speak amazing English for having no education. After being abandoned by the rest of the world for so long, maybe they deserve a helping hand eh? Not much chance of it from the powers that be I guess, but there's a load of volunteer oportunities here...
