1st May - Phnom Penh

One of the reasons we came to Phnom Penh was to find out more about the Khmer Rouge and so we started the day by walking just a block away to Tuol Sleng Museum, former Security Prison 21 (S-21). After the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh on 17th April 1975 and forced the entire population (500,00 people) into the countryside, the city became the residence of senior military leaders, factory workers and trusted personel.  Tuol Svey Prey High School was taken over by Khmer Rouge and turned into the largest detention and torture centre in the country, Over 17000 people were taken from there to the killing fields at Choeung Ek.

One of the more disturbing aspects the prison was just how ordinary it was. It was like any other school you might see in the UK or anywhere else in the world. There were several simple buildings arranged around a communal area and I could easily imagine students milling about and pushing and shoving to get past one another on the stairs on their way to the classrooms inside. The only difference from the outside was the barbed wire that surrounded the perimeter and shielded the outside walkways of 'Building B'.

We started in 'Building A', where there were several classrooms containing just one rusted metal bed frame. Some of the beds had a metal bowl or shackles or a blunt intrument on them. These were the rooms where the last 14 people to be tortured to death were found. On the walls were faded pictures of how their decomposing bodies were found. They were layed to rest in a series of graves in the play-area just outside.
Other rooms contained seemingly endless pictures of men, woman and children, nearly all of whom were killed, either at the prison or at Choeung Ek. Some of the women were holding small babies and many of the pictures of children were just toddlers. In the simple surroundings of the school, I found some parts even more appalling than the Holocaust Museum in Israel. Children were considered to be equally as dangerous as adults as they may already be indoctrinated or may seek revenge. The Khmer Rouge had a saying about how if one wants to get rid of the grass, one must also dig up the roots.

Because the Khmer Rouge shared the Nazi's desire for order and record-keeping, there were not only photos from before and after torture, but also rooms of documentation and false confessions that had been beaten out of terrified prisoners.

Other rooms contained classrooms that had been subdivided further into tiny brick or wooden cells.  One the floor there were embedded chains and occassionally tiny metal boxes where prisoners had been allowed to keep their personal belongings. Most however, were empty.

We'd decided that taking pictures was inappropriate but were trying to respect the decision of others who were trying to capture the misery of the place. I did however, very nearly lose my rag at the couple who were happily snapping away with the girlfriend posed, slightly seductive and smiley against the doors of the cells. The place had seen enough anger and so I held it in but I was fuming and had to steer clear of them.
There had been 7 people still alive in the prison when the Vietnamese closed in and they had survived by making themselves useful, mostly with their skills of painting or photography. One of the survivors, Vann Nath, had since painted a number of harrowing pictures, which were also on exhibition there. The pictures were of torture, mutilation and humilation but as one of the few survivors, he felt duty-bound to tell the world what happened there.

Other exhibits included details of the Khmer Rouge senior members and their current legal trials as well as personal histories of people who had joined them thinking that it was a just a noble cause. Overall, it was an exhausting place just to visit as an outsider and I can't imagine how you would feel knowing that that was the resting place, or the work place, of your parents, children or siblings.

In need of a distraction, we took a tuk tuk to palace but, in a typically British style, it was closed for the Labour Day bank holiday.  Instead we stumbled across Wat Ounalom, where the head of the Buddhist Brotherhood lives, along with lots of other monks. The temple and some of its icons took a battering from the Khmer Rouge as they tried to show that Buddhism was no longer the driving force of Cambodia but it has now been restored.

Behind the main building there was apparently an eye brow hair of Buddha with a Pali inscription but we did not see it.  We only saw bottom floor of the main building but there were so many Buddha statues at the shrine that it looked like a shop. The other buildinds appeared closed to we had a closer peak at some of the animal statues in the gardens and continued our explorations of the city.

Unfortunately, Matt is in need of new shoes again and so we embarked of the seemingly endless task of finding some. We passed loads of markets and has several stall owners desperately showing us what they had but no luck (for Matt, them or me). The closest we found to anything Matt might like was some fetching black and bright yellow 'Asia Sports' trainers but ewas worried that the soles were too thin and wouldn't commit to the $8 pricetag.

I however, bought a photocopied book of 'At First They Killed My Father' from a a shiny, smiley guy without any limbs who was selling them to make money instead of begging, and somehow, some new, purple, fake Chanel sunglasses because my last pair broke.

After a longish walk back to guesthouse, Matt went out to get dinner again. He came back a little later saying that he'd had a conversation with the guy on the stall about how he volunteered for an AIDS charity and he was sure that he kept referring to it as 'Men Sex Men' and 'MSM' so will have to look that one up later. A kooky name and a worthy cause sounds just up my street.