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“Shivers down the spine” |
Arriving in Phnom Penh, I was struck by what an amazing city it is. The traffic flows like a viscous liquid. No rules really - Everybody goes where they want to go but slowly enough to not have accidents. Its a wonderful example of how lawlessness doesnt actually cause anarchy - we feel safe behind our strictly enforced traffic code so drive fast causing all kinds of accidents. Here there is no safe code, so everyone better drive slowly or they'll kill themselves - and it works! Ok so it also works because most people are travelling on some motorbike or bicycle derivative so there is space on the roads for all the teaming people. But generally its a great sight to behold - although I was very glad not to be driving myself! We decided that it was important to try to understand a bit about the the Khmer Rouge and what they had done so the next day we decided to visit the torture museum and the site of its 'killing field'.
First up was S21 or Tuong Sleng, initially a secondary school, but then turned into the horrific detention and torture centre of the Khmer secret police, and now a museum. This place is eerie. From the outside, it looks like a very bland school, bleached by the scorching sun. And step inside and each room does indeed look like a classroom. But some of the rooms have cells in them, others remance of torture implements, and others filled with thousands of pictures of the people who were systematically detained to get 'confessions', tortured, and then executed. Face after face, men, women and children. The KR were systematic in how they recorded inmates, meticulously photographing each one and its possible to track the 'improvements in efficiency' by the way the numbers against each persons face are logged. Its an incredibly emotive place. I could only imagine the fear and hopelessness of the people detained here. I couldnt help but cry. Out of 14,000 recorded inmates, 21 survived it. It struck me how strange it is that the same place at a different time can be so different. A room of bored yet excitable schoolchildren - fast foward - same room now full of terrified innocent people plucked from their families -or with them - chained to oneanother, not allowed to speak, awaiting torture, then death - fast forward - same room now has me standing in it, one of thousands of tourists who have walked this route, or Cambodians looking amongst the pictures for an answer about their loved ones who disappeared... Shivers down the spine. And a feeling of how unbelievably arbitary life is - had I been born in a different country...
At the museum there was a great documentary which explained well some of the personal stories and the museum had a number of exhibitions including testimonies of those who werpart of the regime - most of whom are all still around - there has been no tribunal or truth and reconcilation committee -since the end of the regime in 1979 everyone kind of went back to their (broken) lives and got on with things. This was a really good introduction to the Killing fields and anyone doing this trip should definitely go to the museum before the fields.
The killing field of El Chouk is slightly out of town and is where most of the 14,000 inmates of Tuong Sleng were massacred in mass graves. Here the passage of time was also apparent. How horrendous this place would have been then - music blaring to drown out the noise of other things, huts to store people, murder utensils. Now, hollows in the ground are grown over with grass and thousands of butterflies and dragonflies cover the area. Its as if nature is redressing the balance and filling the place with life. I like to think that each of the beautiful butterflies was a tribute to each soul who suffered there.
This wasnt genocide voyeurism. This felt like paying homage to the Khmer people (what cambodians call themselves - it seems the word Cambodian is only used when speaking to foreigners in English). I felt humbled by what they have suffered, and every smile and warm welcome I have received feels ten times as precious because I know that they choose not to be bitter.
That evening Ali Mckenzie flew in and he, Charlie and I took in some Phnom Penh nightlife, it being Saturday. A bit weird perhaps after the day we had had, but then again maybe not - I felt like reveling in my freedom and celebrating being alive.
previous travel blog entry
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