After the Khmer Rouge had extracted the forced confessions of their prisoners at S-21 they sent them 15km north of the city to be executed. The extermination camp is known as the Killing Fields of Choeng Ek. The audio guide provides a chilling insight into the events that took place here and includes personal testimonies of people who suffered under the regime. One of these tales is particularly poignant for us and is from a mother whose baby was born during the period of her enforced labour in the fields. Without adequete nutrition she was unable to provide for the baby who died. She still grieves for the loss of her child who would have been the same age as our friend Crazy.
The remains of nearly 9,000 people have been recovered here but many more victims still lie in the ground. The policy is not to disturb the site any further and not to remove any items that are uncovered by the tropical storms that occur during the rainy season. Consequently, as you walk around the site you may witness the disturbing site of clothing and often teeth that have found their way to the surface. But this is today a tranquil place and plays an important part in, as the Guidebook says, 'keeping the memory of the atrocoities committed on Cambodian soil alive and is the key to building a new strong and just state'.
Just one concern about a very informative and insightful if unsettling experience - the site has been privatised by the government and presumably therefore is run for profit. This shows a typically callous disregard for the welfare of its citizens and effectively sanctions profiteering from genocide. Can you imagine Auschwitz-Birkenau being sold to the highest bidder?
Skeletal remains often rise to the surface of the mass graves
On a lighter note, these lads appear at the perimeter fence to show us a couple of fish they've just caught. 'Hey mister you take picture look, 1-2-3 SMILE! One dollar!' Cheeky young scamps. (Yes of course I paid)
To compliment the morning's events we take our lunch back in town at the Foreign Correspondents' Club where the journalists in the Killing Fields film were based and where much of the footage was filmed. This is a throwback to a bygone age, of Boys Own adventures, of derring-do; very colonial, very 'Our Man In Phnom Penh'. T is inspired and reckons he might have liked to have been a foreign correspondent. Well he's got the hat, that's a start...
After tiffin we take a late afternoon consitutional along the waterfront promenade, hobnobbing with the natives and taking tea at the Titanic Tearooms alongside the river. We walk around the French Quarter and reflect how little of the French legacy remains in the country. A lot has happened since they left town. Independence gave rise to a corrupt monarchy which gave rise to a corrupt military regime which was replaced by extreme communism which has produced an unsatisfactory benign totalitarian state. You have to ask what these lovely people have done to deserve so many varied forms of mis-rule.
We look out on the confluence of the Tonle Sap River and the Mekong as the sun sets and we hatch a plan to one day travel up the Mekong in search of Marlon Brando's insane renegade rogue Colonel Walter E Kurtz (Cue 'The Ride of the Valkyries'...)
We tuk-tuk back to the hotel in the dark as the locals head out for the evening.
Phnom Penh motorcyclists: Born To Be Wild
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