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I was up again at 4:30. I guess that’s the new normal. I’ve been making a habit of going up top to watch the sunrise every day which has been great. It rained very hard last night. I didn’t realize that the openings to the stairs to the upper deck had hatch covers but it certainly makes sense. They were of course closed for the rain and I came very close to ramming my head into it as I went up the stairs before I realized it. I stopped just in time.
We got a new guide for the day – Polly (Poli?) She’s a Khmer Rouge survivor. She lived a lot of the story we saw in First They Killed My Father – forcibly removed from her town and sent to a forced labor camp, separated from her family. She managed to survive without starving to death or being killed. And later she was able to reunite with her family after the Vietnamese removed the Khmer Rouge. She lost her brother (who was killed for scavenging food). But was generally lucky in that the rest of her family (5 other siblings and parents) survived and were able to find each other again.
We took the bus out past the urban sprawl (lots of new developments by the Chinese on the outskirts of town) to the Choeung Ek Genocide Museum (aka the Killing Fields) a former orchard and site of a mass grave of victims of the Khmer Rouge. There wasn’t one Killing Field. There were hundreds spread all over the country. But this was the nearest one to town (not counting the prison where there was plenty of killing but no fields).
The whole thing is very sobering. There were millions killed. Similar to the Nazis in that it was organized and targeted specific people but without the killing technology available that the Nazis used. The focus was on the non-agrarian classes – military, political, teachers/professors, other professionals. Basically anyone who wasn’t a farmer. They were trying to create an agrarian utopia. But it didn’t work.
The museum is at the site of a killing field where 20,000 (ish) were killed. They were brought by truck from the prison in town, 2 or 3 times a week, 30 or so at a time, blindfolded and bound. They pretty much took them off the truck and one by one killed them and threw them into a mass grave. As the guide said, bullets were more valuable than people, so many were killed by knives, hit with axes or hoes or pipes, clubbed to death, etc. It was pretty gruesome. Women, children and babies too. Babies were hit against a tree to kill them. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to be waiting your turn in line, unable to see, listening to the people ahead of you being killed. Hell is too good for these people.
The story is terrible but there isn’t a lot to see. It’s more about the place. You can see the mounds from the mass graves and in some places there are still pieces of bone or clothing that come up after heavy rains. There’s a big stupa (a burial tower) in the center of the site with a series of shelves of skulls that have been removed. They’re sorted by age and have little colored dots on them that indicate something about them and how they were killed (i.e. their sex, age, and likely what killed them). It’s only a small percentage of the people killed but is still a lot of skulls. Like I said, very sobering.
The Cambodians have a tradition of leaving Buddhist bracelets (like the ones people who got blessed yesterday at the monastery got) on the fence posts around the pits as a remembrance. It’s a nice touch. They hung them on the tree they beat the babies against too.
From the Killing Field it was back into town to visit the S21 prison. This was a former high school converted to a prison by the Khmer Rouge and now a museum. This is where the people were held (and tortured) before being sent to the Killing Field. The Khmer Rouge took photographs of the people to show their leaders they were doing what they were told. So there were many photos on display (kind of like passport photos or wanted poster pictures) of people who were there. It’s very poignant. There was one young girl in particular that both Marion and I were drawn to (separately). She had such sad and beautiful eyes.
The museum was a series of buildings (A, B, C and D). We were in building C when it started to rain pretty heavily. And it kind of spooked the herd. They were standing in the doorway of building C with about a 50-foot walk (as it turned out) to building D but unwilling to go forward. By now it was getting late for lunch and Marion and I were both fading. When it became fairly clear that the group was planning to wait out the rain, Marion took charge and said “can’t we just soldier on” (or something like that) and got us going again. It’s 80 degrees and humid. The rain feels good people. Anna said “I can’t go in the rain. I’m so sweet I’ll melt”. I caught myself before I said “Promise?” out loud. Bros returned just in time with umbrellas and off we went again. Marion and I skipped the umbrellas. We’re Oregonians! I was wetter from sweat at the temples but whatever.
We are seriously ready for some food at this point. But we’re back on the bus for a slow ride through town to a restaurant. I had thought Bros said it was a French restaurant but when we got there, I realized what he had been saying was ‘Friends’. This is an organization that helps marginalized youth to get jobs. Marion had actually heard of them before. The food was great and it probably didn’t hurt that we were very hungry. I was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t French, because a change a pace would have been nice by this point.
After we sat down and had been chatting for a bit, Marion noticed a sign on the table saying there was Wi-Fi and said so out loud. There was a great rush to get connected. This managed to bring the conversation to a halt for a while. We are such slaves to our devices.
The Friends group had a store across the street. A couple of women headed over to check it out so Marion tagged along. I figured I’d come over too. After a few minutes pretty much everyone else showed up as well. It became an unscheduled tour stop. Marion found a bunch of stuff she liked and many others did too. Many of the women commented they liked shopping with Marion because she always found the cool stuff.
As we got on the bus to head out, I noticed this guy across the street making noodles
Then it was on to the Royal Palace. The guide was handing out tickets and was one short. She said to Marion and me ‘you two are together, so you can use one’. What? Things didn’t actually work that way at the palace but ok, I’m game. So I got on the right side of Marion who handed her ticket to the ticket taker on the left and we both walked through. I just acted like I belonged and was not tackled by the secret police. So a two for one deal!
The palace is beautiful and is actually a series of buildings, all a golden yellow with orange roofs covered with whatever those snake-like things are called along the ridge lines. The grounds are pretty as well and we saw a number of gardeners working to keep it so. Sadly, pictures were not allowed inside the actual palace but we got to peek inside. There’s a throne and various gold objects. The floor was covered in an elaborate carpet. I didn’t get a good look actually, but it “seemed-a nice-a”.
We wandered the grounds looking in the treasury building, the dance hall and a few other things. The place was very crowded. There were some Europeans (I got behind some Germans while putting my shoes back on after the silver pagoda) and loud obnoxious Chinese. We have on these radio controlled headsets so we can hear our guide. The Chinese? Their guide just had a megaphone and blasted his voice loud enough for everyone in his group (and the surrounding countryside) to hear. A solution, yes. But not a good one.
There were 4 stupas with the ashes of a famous king, his father and a couple of other relatives. There was a mural, similar, but in better shape, to the one at the monastery around one building. It was very pretty.
In the treasury building they had a display of various ceremonial costumes that were quite pretty, golden pointed helmets like the statues at the temples had, a set of four colored jackets that I thought looked like Cambodian Sergeant Pepper outfits, and a display of seven women wearing the same outfit but each a different color. Apparently, there was a ‘color of the day’ and these costumes showed people what today’s color was (today’s episode is brought to you by the color blue, and the letter C).
We all filed out of that room to go to the next place while the German tour group waited to come in. Marion got sidetracked by some object she was looking at and got trapped by the influx at the door. I was waiting outside for her, and a few people managed to get out in time, then an onslaught of people going in. It’s probably a lot like how the Belgians and French felt in ’41. But anyway, she ultimately made it out alive and we moved on, but it took a while.
The silver pagoda (or emerald pagoda depending on which side of that argument you fall on) is a big building with what was an emerald Buddha in the center with a floor covered in silver tiles. The Buddha is now jade but the floor is still silver. It needs polishing though so it’s not as impressive as it might be but still, a few hundred kilos worth (or more) of silver and that’s not too shabby. The pagoda also had a lot of artifacts. Many Buddhas of various sizes, a few weapons (although there have been very few examples of weapons anywhere, a mostly peaceful people), some metal flowers that were cool, and other assorted odds and ends.
The last stop was supposed to be the National Museum. But there wasn’t much enthusiasm. Especially since the guide said it was very similar to the one in Siem Reap. And, to top it off, it was not air conditioned. I toyed with the idea of going for a while but ultimately decided it wasn’t worth it. About 4 people (out of 16) actually went. And they agreed the museum itself was probably not worth it, but the building was quite impressive. Ah well, I’ll have to look at their pictures. The gift shop, which was why at least 2 of the 4 went, turned out to be small and not worth it.
We left Phnom Penh and headed off down the lower Mekong. We’ll spend the night on the Cambodia side and head into Vietnam tomorrow.
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