Svay Rieng

We arrived by bus from Ho Chi Minh to Phnom Penh, Cambodia with a successful border crossing managing to avoid an on-bus scam. Unfortunately, we've read numerous stories about various scams and corrupt officials refusing entry to tourists without payment, but we didn't encounter any problems. A group of three travellers on our bus were unfortunately scammed by a guy standing at the border crossing. Having read countless online articles about border crossings in Cambodia, the number one rule is to ignore everyone unless they are official border control. We could see a man selling SIM cards prior to boarding the bus so figured he was not an official. He then came on board and told the three travellers they needed physical paper copies of Covid passes otherwise they would be refused entry by the police up ahead. He came onto our bus and was rather persistent in asking them each for 20,000 VND to print their passes. Long story short, he never returned and there were no police. It was a real shame the bus company let him on board to cause evident disruption but we suspect they may have been in on it too.

Only a quick stop in Phnom Penh but we really wanted to see and understand the terrible history suffered by Cambodians in the 1970’s by the Khmer Rouge under the leadership of Pol Pot. As soon as we arrived in the city, we walked straight to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, previously operating as S21 prison in the 1970s and a school prior to that. Before visiting the museum, we hadn't really heard about this, so hired a guide to give us a tour. Our young guide was absolutely fantastic and gave us a really good introduction to the history of the Communist party and the events leading up to the genocide. Here is a brief summary…

After winning a civil war, Pol Pot came into power as leader of the Khmer Rouge in 1975, with a regime of ‘remaking’ Cambodia into a classless yet self sufficient, agricultural society. The entire population were forced from urban cities to walk hundreds of miles to rural areas and were organised into communal units (known as communes) to live and work on the fields, creating an extensive labour output. Due to horrific working conditions and treatment, hundreds of thousands died from starvation, disease or injuries incurred from the work or abuse. As part of his regime, the Khmer Rouge executed anyone considered an enemy of the movement including foreigners and all intellectual and skilled Cambodian citizens. This also stretched to all family members of such enemies including babies and children too. His reasoning was that these skilled or intellectual people were more likely to revolt against his vision so he chose to eradicate them.

The genocide museum covered a small area of S21 prison which was one of 196 prisons across the country where people were detained, tortured and killed. At S21 prison alone, over 18,000 prisoners were killed. Only 8 survived following the invasion of Cambodia by the Vietnamese army in 1979, where they were then rescued. Over 3 million Cambodians (men, women, children and babies, commonly entire families) were executed during a 4 year period between 1975-1979 out of a total population of what was only 10 million at the time.

At the museum we learnt about the incredibly brutal events that occurred. Whilst being detained, prisoners were tortured, kept in tiny cells, given limited food rations and then killed. Given the number of dead bodies that quickly piled up around the prison, the Khmer Rouge decided to take prisoners away and execute them in mass killing fields. Child soldiers, perceived as easily brainwashed and manipulated, were an essential component of the Khmer Rouge regime. Hearing about the prison and acts committed was very difficult but vital in understanding the atrocities that happened in the not too distant past. In fact, photos show a disturbingly few key individuals behind the movement standing trial in modern day courts. Unbelievably, the trials of the Khmer Rouge regime only began in 2006 and were finally concluded in 2021 - incredibly disturbing in its own right!

The following morning we visited Choeung Ek Killing Fields, an area 15km south west of the city where prisoners were transported, executed and buried. This was one of the largest of the 19,000 killing fields scattered all over Cambodia and was directly linked to S21 prison. So many mass graves were excavated in this particular killing field, one of which uncovered over 450 victims in an area no more than the size of a large driveway. There were various monuments to remember those who were brutally killed. Inside one monument was a huge glass tower of skulls with notes detailing the expected cause of death, grouped into various categories such as beaten, smashed or impaled. There was also various information about what took place in different areas of the site. We shall leave the details out but Choeung Ek Killing Field is a must visit to understand the incredibly dark history of Cambodia.Read more