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Phnom Penh. The Genocide Museum & Killing Fields
Entry 25 of 32 | show all | print this entry |
Fortunately I wake up today feeling considerable better than I did the day before. We leave our Hotel for Siem Reap airport. Our flight to Phnom Penh is at midday and should take us about one hour. All goes to plan and we are at our Hotel by late afternoon. No time is wasted and within 30 minutes of our arrival we are out on a Cyclo tour of the City. Phom Penh is a bigger and more populus city than Siem reap. It is a real experience travelling on the roads. After being in Australia for a time where there is so much space per head of population Asia is quite a shock to the system.
The people are generally friendly, although most of them are keen to try and sell you something. There are noticeable more beggars and street children in this city. It is estimated there are at least 20 thousand children living on the streets here. Our Tour company Intrepid advise us not to give money directly to any beggars or street children. The philosophy behind this is there are many organisations trying to get children off the streets and into schools. However the younger children in particular can earn good money begging on the streets so the families are sometimes reluctant to let them go to school.
It is quite hard to keep walking past them or saying no, especially as there are so many with missing limbs and other horrible deformaities and scars.
However a lot of the activities on our tours are run by charitable organisations that support the street children. Also our Tour Group as eat in many restaurants that support different charities. We have also bought from shops where the money goes straight back into these organisations.
Thursday morning we are taken by bus to the Genocide Museum. This was formerly a school before the reigb of Pol pot back in the late seventies. However Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge philosophy was to kill all the educated people within Cambodia. All the schools and hospitals were shut, the Police force murdered. The idea was that everyone would farm for a living, and as they were not educated everyone in society would be equal.
The Museum buidings were just one of about 300 locations like this in Cambodia which were used to detain educated people and their families. One wing of the building was used purely for torture. This was to extract information from people about their families, where they were living, hiding etc
We got to tour some of the prison cells, see some of the instruments of torture but by far the most moving experience was there is one building just full of the pictures of all the people that were detained there before being moved to the killing fields to be murdered. Every one was photographed and all their pictures are now displayed as a memorial to them. Although I had been warned about the place it does have quite an impact on you. The museum is packed with tourists but it is errily quiet as you move round the buildings.
We then are transported out to the killing fields. This is where the people from the prisons were transported to to be murdered. The central piece there is a memorial that has been built to remember the approximate 20,000 people that were murdered at this particular sight. The memorial contains 8000 skulls and boxes of other bones which were recovered from the surrounding fields. Bones are still being recovered as after the rainy season when the grounds are really soft some still keep working their way up to the surface along with clothing. There is still clothing sticking out of the ground around the areas that were marked as mass graves. It has been a hard day today. The coach journey back into the city was particularly quiet. We all say we are surprised by the affect it has had on us all.
The evening we go out again to another restaurant that supports a childrens school. We then find a nice bar and end up playing pool. We all end up having a bit too much to drink tonight and dont get back to our Hotel to about 02.00am. We are leaving Cambodia in the morning by boat. Most of us are agreed after yesterday we are ready to move on. Phnom Penh is very busy and I suppose could be quite depressing if you let it get to you. There are however lots of positive signs of growth in the economy and a stack of organisations that are doing great work to try and improve the lives of the people that live here and on the streets.....
Latest Comments (2)
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Re: Returning message (reply)
Apr 16, 2008 00:42 EST by graydominic4
Hi Norm,
I hope all is well with you and Chrissie. Glad you enjoyed the latest installment, I hope it wasn't too heavy but to be honest the last day of the tour in Cambodia was very sad.
On a brighter note well done with the trout !!! I always knew you had it in you, and will look forward to sampling it when I get home. 12th May is D Day !!!
Take care and love to you both
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Returning message (reply)
Apr 15, 2008 16:19 EST by norm49
Hi Dom,
well what can we say after your last entry, the only thing that I can say is that it was sad enough reading about it so goodness knows what it was like for you being there, let alone those poeple, if any that managed to survive or live through the slaughter.
On to brighter things, I've got a trout for you in my freezer, awaiting your return. Chris took me fishing last Friday. I cam... show all
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