Rumblings of a marketing man on tour…

I promised myself two things.

1. I would read every word in every exhibit and look in the eyes of every photo of every man, woman and child on show.
2. I would not cry.

Knowing a guide would be great for additional information but would rush me round, I declined the offer and pushed on. Particularly as the cheeky bitch on the entry gate tried to charge me four times the going rate!

So, for now, I’ll start with the killing fields. About 20 minutes out of town in a tuktuk, the journey takes you through some of the real mayhem you expect to see in Asia. Stacks of pedestrians, motorbikes and tuktuks taking on drivers. Three or four generations of one family huddled together on a tiny little moped, two of them casually sat not hanging onto a thing.

Street stalls and vendors screaming and selling. Open sewers, rotting garbage, the elderly, the destitute, the wealthy all rubbing along side by side going about their daily business. Usually as loud as possible. And then we arrive.

A stark contrast to the calm, quiet, serene vibe found at the killing fields of Cheung Ek where many people from S21 were killed. There is a small museum building, a video, the central stupa and a few plaques on the way. Eerily quiet, the stupa with many skulls on show is surprisingly easy to deal with. Bones only represent what is left behind when we die. The real horrors for me lay in the museum.

Tuol Sleng (link and place not for the faint hearted),  is one of the most remarkable museums I have ever visited. This former suburban high school was turned into one of the regimes maximum security detention centres, where some 20,000 men, women, children (foreigners, Cambodians and even some Khmer Rouge themselves), were interrogated, tortured, maimed, usually before being shipped off to be killed at Chueng Ek.

There were four school buildings, each demonstrating the horror, pain and brutality the Khmer inflicted on their own people. The tiny cramped cells had a strange feel to them. I’d never understood the phrase ‘death hung in the air’ until today.

The larger cells for the VIP’s were even worse. A huge room, a small bed with a blanket and a tiny cushion. Instruments of torture still litter the rooms, the interrogation area outside still standing.

The rooms the museum has since turned into exhibit areas still have  prisoner cell numbers on the wall. No detail missed, no horror left untold. Barbed wire still surrounds the compound, and the balconies on the higher floors. Just in case the prisoners escaped, they couldn’t jump to their deaths. Just get caught in barbed wire and increase their suffering, prolong their slow protracted death.

The bit that really choked me was the photographs. Like the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge documented everything. Photographs on arrival, before & after torture, as well as the obligatory photograph to close the file upon death.

I kept my first promise.

I walked round the entire place slowly. I read every word and I looked at every photograph of every individual on show. What struck me was the look in so many of their eyes. Some defiant, some filled with hope, many even smiling as they were in front of the camera. Such a sad and tragic waste. Some really leapt out, whether it be their looks, their smile, their pained expressions. But the looks on the faces of those that were crushed?

Well, I’d like to think was not because their spirit had been broken, but because they could not understand how a fellow man (or woman, as they were guards too), could inflict such pain on another human soul.

I don’t know if I believe people can be born evil. But I know I would sooner die myself than take a baby by the legs, and break it’s skull beating it against a tree. That’s what they did. If you are killing, kill the whole family. If not, someone might just grow up and come and take revenge. Such unbelievable brutality.

It’s been a rough day, but I would encourage you to go if you visit Cambodia. If we don’t learn from these events, then I fail to see how we will ever evolve. Today, every photo that was there, I looked at. But for every photo out there I haven’t seen, for every soul that was touched by this brutal regime, I want you to know you are remembered, and in my prayers.

Iain didn’t keep his second promise today…

The rules at detention centre S21.

I am here...

So, Phnom Penh. An interesting place.

Was once a major hub in the region. And then various conquerers (and the evil KR), blitzed it. So, once more, it’s just on the cusp of growth with a burgeoning middle class and international money starting to flow in…

It’s a little manic (we’re not talking Mumbai madness), and the pace is somewhat quicker than sleepy Siem Reap.

Would have been better to start here and wind down in Siem, as opposed to doing it this way…

Tomorrow, the tick box tourism sites. The Palace (still used, only small sections open to the public), Museum, wander round the Mekong river bank (trendy cafe spot), and then the Killing Fields.

Am in two minds about this. I know the horrors this country has faced. And I nearly wigged out in a concentration camp outside Berlin, wasn’t pretty.

But, can’t come all this way and not do something like that, so onwards…

Am exhausted. Feel like a cheat going to bed before 11pm, but I am absolutely shagged, and my neck glands are telling me that the candle would like to be burnt at one end. At least for a day or two…

Hotel is ok. Tuktuk driver said it was very expensive, could take me somewhere nicer. I believe he was right.

It’s ok, but I’ll be complaining in the morning when I have the energy. Fridge isn’t working, floor needs a mop (it’s concrete), my glasses are chipped, and the electrics look more than a little shabby…

Still, beds comfy. Until tomorrow.

Iain is off to bed…

So, I make one out of my three cultured stops today. Sorry to report, the museum and art galleries fell to my pumpkin love…

So, I make the movie mall in the middle of the night market. An hour of depression awaits on Cambodia’s recent past. Something’s going to have to prep me for the killing fields, can’t go through what happened to me in the concentration camp…

So, the night market’ll be an experience when I leave. Quiet now, most of the stalls are just opening. Throw in some tourists, locals etc and I’m sure it’ll be a veritable hotbed Siem style!

So, the cinema. They tried to pawn me of with local currency and a ripped dollar as change (nobody takes ripped dollars here). So, I decide to go to the bar to get my own change, minus a beer.

One beer? One dollar. I get why people love it here…

Throw in a very charming bartender (farm boy made good, going to uni. Think Khymer Clarke Kent and we’re on the same page), but the little fucker makes me have two local shots with him too. Lovely as they were, come what may, I MUST make my 8am templeage tomorrow.

Cinema lady is currently beating the shit out of something on the roof. Am assuming it’s the projector.

Roll film….

Iain could be in for a long night. Just a feeling in my bowels.