We returned to our tuk-tuk and tried to scrape the sorrow from our souls as we rode to the Killing Fields.
G- I simply cannot get over the way the juxtaposition of wealth and poverty. It is so in your face. The number of Lexus and Land Cruisers astounds me and the number of motorcycles carrying chickens, ducks, bananas, and every other commodity sharing the street with them is almost comical.
P- I hate the way that LEXUS and LAND CRUISER is written in big letters on the side of the cars. Is that really necessary.
G- It's just so gauche!
G- It's so Al Copeland. New money, lacking in class. It screams, I am wealthy, look at me.
P- How is that different from anyone driving around in vehicles that cost more than the average person earns in a year?
G- It's just worse when the name of the luxury sedan/SUV is printed on the side of the car.
P- Look! There goes another bike with chickens hanging off it!
G- Damn! I can't seem to get a good picture. Do you think they're dead or alive?
P – They must be dead!
P- How do you know?
G- He flapped his wings.
P- You sure that wasn't the wind from the moving bike?
G- No, it was when they stopped because that cart came out in front of them.
P- I wouldn't want to be an animal in this country.
G- They may fare better than our chickens. At least their whole lives are not spent in tiny cages.
P- True.
P- Let me use it too.
The dust was terrible, but we did enjoy the breeze and the sights. Cambodia simply takes the cake for shocking things we saw on a motorcycles. It's just over the top! We enjoyed passing the “shops” and seeing what and HOW things are displayed and sold. We passed several places that had wall to wall chairs (like lawn furniture chairs) facing a TV in the back. I guess people without TVs go there to watch important shows or soccer.
We arrived at the Killing Fields after about 30-45 minutes. By 1977 the S-21 prison and a nearby cemetery were filling up with the dead so the Khmer Rouge seized a Chinese cemetery, about 15 kilometers southwest of Phnom Penh, near the town of Choeung Ek. At the time this was a substantial enough distance that the area was far into the country. The site was equipped with electric power to facilitate night executions and to help guards complete paperwork of execution lists. Nearly all executions occurred at night, to hide the activities at the site, and just next to holes in the earth so that the bodies would drop directly into the shallow pits. Prisoners were executed immediately after arrival, making holding cells unnecessary. I am unsure why the prisoners were not executed at the prison and carried, dead, to Choeung Ek, except that it took less manpower to have the prisoners get into and out of the trucks of their own accord.
In 1980 the site was discovered and excavated. Pits of mass graves were found including one of over 100 headless bodies and one filled with only naked women and children. The tree next to this particular grave, still covered with bone and brain matter, was red with the blood of babies that had been held by their feet, their heads battered against the tree. Babies and children were killed so that there would be no one to grow up and avenge the deaths of their parents. Most were killed by blows to the head with very primitive implements such as hoes, ox cart axles, metal bars, and wooden clubs.
Many fell into the pits still alive and died from suffocation or were poisoned by the powders sprinkled on them to prevent the smell of decay. Approximately 9,000 bodies have been exhumed, but only about 1/3 of the graves have been unearthed. 17,000 people were killed there.
We walked around the fields viewing the various shallow graves. The dirt path through the holes in the earth still contain clothing, bones and teeth all of which rise to the surface during heavy rains. We walked carefully as we could see clothes, bones, and teeth just under or escaping from the dirt under our feet.
P- Be very careful where you walk. Look! There is a tooth.
G- This big white section here is a bone.
G- This is horrific, but somehow it is not as difficult to bear as the prison itself.
P- I was thinking the same thing. Maybe it's a sunny day and we're outside or because this setting is pretty.
G- I think it's because there are no photographs of the victims here. Looking into the eyes of those poor people haunted me. Seeing their bones is horrible, but doesn't quite penetrate my soul the way looking into their eyes did.
P- Yes, I think that's it.
Today Choeung Ek is a memorial, marked by an 11 level Buddhist stupa filled the with skulls and bones of the approximately 9,000 victims who were exhumed.
We left the Killing Fields in a somber mood and rode quietly back to Phnom Penh. We had our tuk-tuk driver drop us off at Karma Cafe where we had several beers and ultimately ate dinner. During the evening we met Allison & Brian, Americans who recently graduated from college and are now living and teaching English in China. They were on holiday for Tet Celebration (the Chinese New Year). We sat and spoke to them for several hours, got a little buzz on, and made plans to visit them when we were in China. We then went to the Lazy Gecko for chocolate cake and ice cream, a rare treat in Asia!!
We returned to our room, booked a hotel for the next night, and fell asleep.
