2023 Travelling trip

Today we got a tuk tuk with Aron and Rachel to the killing fields. We experiences constant rush hour traffic and more crazy roads! The Killing fields upset me more than I even thought it would. We did the audio tour which guided us around the choeng ku killing fields which were used in the pol pot regime. It showed us where certain buildings were, where graves were, weapons used etc. Pol Pot and his party would build their 'army' by recruiting young children under the age of 17 from the jungle and essentially brainwashing them into murderers. The killing fields were created because they were killing too many people and it was discrete. There was a wooden shed where they would store the prisoners which had no windows, a steel roof and double wooden walls so they could not see each other. They would use the branch from a sugar cane tree to slit their throats along with other weapons. We saw where the mass grave was where 450 bodies were found, a grave where 166 headless bodies were found and there were some under the river who have been left there to rest. The most shocking part for me was the killing tree which makes me sick! 100 women with babies were found here, naked as they were most likely raped. The babies were killing by bashing their heads against the tree and then dumped in the grave. When the killing fields were found, there was blood and brains on the tree. Another tree was used to hang speakers off, so in the night, nobody could hear the screams of the victims. Bone fragments and teeth are still found to this day, along with clothes and rags that surface from the rain. The stupa was build with Buddhism in mind, as a sacred place for these souls. It has 17 tiers and organised into different bones and skulls. These have been analysed to inform gender, how they died and age. Every year there's a memorial service. The most shocking part to me is this was happening 1975-1979!Read more

We went to S-21 which has now been turned into a museum. This was somewhat even more upsetting than the killing fields. We paid for the guide, who was a local woman who was 8 at the time of this genecide. She escaped to Vietnam with her mother and 1 sister but her father and brother and sister were murdered. She told us how she wanted to lesnr English so she could be a tour guide to tell people about what happened but she used to cry every day but now she is okay. The prison was once a secondary school, where the classrooms had been turned into prison cells. We first saw the rooms where it was 1 persons cell. These were people who once worked for the regime but Pol Pot was a paranoid man who didn't trust anyone and they would end up dead. He killed for anything, he wanted anyone clever dead and anyone who didn't agree with him but he would make up reasons why they should be dead. We saw the shackles where they would be tied to the metal hospital beds. The once volleyball beams were turned into a torture system where they would tie their hands behind their backs and hang them up and put them in the water jars. We saw prisons cells which had 11 cells in a room. These were build up with cement and brick. Nobody was allowed to talk. There were 20000 prisoners and only 7 survived + 4 children. One of the survivors was an artist, who drew many of the pictures on display to show us his experience such as the water hose into the room as their 'shower' every week. The finals prisons were 16 in a room and separated with wood. They would sleep with their feet in shackles sometimes 20 people in a row. They were tortured beyond belief. There were pictures of the victims everywhere and there were so so many faces, with many young faces in and amongst along with the babies and their mothers. We saw photographs of how some victims were found. There was still blood on the floor from the tortures and the deaths and the rapes. The museum was really informative and provided many documents including from the trials. The sickening this is, none of this was known about universally for another 20 years. By the time there was a trial, Pol Pot was dead at the age of 73 and there were 5 more senior leaders. The man named Duch was one of the main leaders who ran the prison.

Later on, we went for our final meal with Aron and Rachel to a delicious vegan Indian restaurant and had a 'dopa' daal and paratha. We then went to a rooftop bar and enjoyed cocktails before finally parting ways!Read more