My Cambodian Travels: Days 18, 19, 20

Day 18, 19, 20

Friday 22^nd October, 2011

If we were going to die at any point during our adventure in Cambodia, this weekend would have been it. It started Friday afternoon after a great morning at the school and an excellent lunch with Dayvy and Vannarith.

We were getting ready to go to Phenom Penh for a bit of a weekend away. We go on a small courtesy bus which cost us a small $13 both ways… Well we certainly quickly found out why. When hiring the bus driver, I am convinced that the job interview went a little like this…

Interviewer: “Do you drive like an absolute maniac and speed at least 3 times the limit?”

Prospective Driver: “Yes!”

Interviewer: “You’re hired”

I have been in the car with a few speed demons in my time but nothing comes close to this… I felt like I was in a car in Grand Theft Auto where the rules are:

· Drive as fast as you can at all times

· Constantly beep your horn to warn people, cars, bikes, motobikes, animals and basically anything in your way to GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY

· And, making sure no one is ever in front of you… over take at all costs (even if someone else is over taking someone… overtake them both at the same time…)

We honestly feared for our lives and even if we made it to Phenom Penh… we still had to make it back to Siem Reap on Sunday. There was no sleeping on this 5 hour bus trip, just constant gripping of the chair, closing our eyes and praying for a good outcome, ongoing gasps of disbelief and horror and never ending “close calls”.

Once looking past our fear, we began seeing the funny side. We witnessed THE funniest things outside our windows. We saw…

· Hundreds of vans with their front wheels barely touching the road because there was too much wood shoved in their vans – back doors had to be removed and rope tied around the whole car to try and support. Just to add to that, there would be 2 or 3 people perched on the roof.

· MANY chickens nearly died.

· There were motorbikes carrying the largest amount of bread, baskets, pig pens, you name it and they were transporting it. Sometimes bulging so much at the sides other cars needing to pull over for them to fit.

· There were road works in the middle of the highway, no sign, us driving through at 100 km/h closing our eyes because we were coming head on to a massive bus, basically playing chicken to see who would swerve and break first… It wasn’t us. We were so close to the bus, if I had my pinky out the window, I would have lost it. There was a lot of holding our breath throughout this trip.

The worst part for me though was half way through the driver hit a dog, we heard the yelp and felt the bump, a started tearing up and the driver didn’t even flinch… just kept driving… I have no idea what happened to that dog but I just hope it is no longer in pain… L the saddest part…

We did make it though, we got there in one piece… barely… and got in a tuk tuk, went for dinner and got completely ripped off hahaha. But oh well, the joys of it all…

Saturday 23^rd October, 2011

The following day, Saturday… this is the day we were doing all the important stuff… the history. It started at the Genocide Museum – S-21. I must admit I went with some sort of expectation of an experience that is depressingly heart wrenching and unforgettable but this exceeded that. This history, this museum, so recent and fresh, alive today in the small but beautiful country… something you can hardly imagine, something I will never forget, images permanently ingrained in my brain.

20 000 civilians have passed through these doors – 7 survived. We were lucky enough on our tour to meet one of the last survivors. While standing there talking with him, I had to hold back my tears… he said although it was hard to come back to this place, he wanted to tell people how lucky he was and tell the stories of the other soldiers…what an amazing and beautiful man. He told us of his torture… 8-11 then again at 1-4 and again at 6-10. Throughout this torture he had shocks to the brain, had his toenails pulled our and a range of other horrific brutalities inflicted on him. His wife and 3 children were also captures and killed.

Walking through S-21 prison formally a school in Phenom Penh, we saw thousands of photographs of prisoners and soldiers. During the Khmer Rouge, similar to the NAZI’s they kept records of everything, every victim, ever soldier (who later became victims themselves). We saw mug shots through to horrible and confronting images of the dead victims after they had been tortured, throats slashed, stomaches on the floor… anything you can image.

Victims who died during their interrogation or in S-21 due to the wild spread of diseases, were randomly buried on those grounds, however the majority of those captured were tortured and then taken to Cheoung Ek (also known as “The killing fields”), where they were stripped, blindfolded and belted over the head with a mental pole. After this they had their throats slashed and kicked into a large pit… full of other dead bodies. One grave containing as many as 450 peoples remains…

After going to the museum we made the trip to “The Killing Fields” and this again was a major heart wrenching experience… Signs showing where they found the majority of the bodies… identifying the pits where the women were buried… No graves have been dug up, simply the ones that had surfaced were retrieved. It also said that sometimes when it floods, bone fragments and teeth resurface.

The most horrible aspect for me and the girls though was next to a large pit which they had identified as women and children was a large tree. This tree was the tree where the children were killed. The most horrifying part of this is that later a Khmer Rouge officer admitted that they would kill the babies and children by holding them by their legs and smashing their heads on the tree before throwing them in the pit. As you can image… these images have been playing on our minds… dreaming about them at night and constantly thinking about it… Another aspect of these events that affected me was the fact that out of the thousands of Khmer Rouge soldiers, 5 were arrested and held accountable… of these 5, 1 has admitted and apologised for his malicious crimes and the others… deny any involvement and are being ‘detained’ in a lovely suburban house, together while the trials continue. What a load of shit… AND the one who admitted to his crimes, ones being the baby and children killings, only got jailed for 35 years… even bigger load of shit if you ask me.

After this… our mood was rather glum so we decided to go to the markets and get some food… this cheered us up a little and we managed to find some amazing places to eat and drink. On the flip side, we were sitting at a nice restaurant eating dinner and drinking cocktails and happened to glance out of the window to see a massive Elephant walking down the main road… hahaha I don’t think I will ever get tired of this place. Nothing shocks me anymore. We went from place to place, drinking a range of cocktails, got rather drunk and went home to bed.

Sunday 24^th October, 2011

Sunday… Today we went and saw the Royal Palace and more shopping and more eating… I do believe I will be returning to Australia a very obese individual. All we seem to be doing is eating like pigs and I must admit, I am enjoying every last bit of it.

The Royal Palace was amazing, Gold, Diamonds, Silver… you name it and it was here. There were so many different buildings… buildings that the King stays, where shows are put on for the king when he comes… statues, many many different Buddha’s and all of them containing diamonds, gold or silver or a combination of all 3. It was crazy beautiful and well looked after.

Needless to say, as you can tell I have had a massive weekend, full of a range of emotions and experiences. The highlight of my month away so far. Although such a shocking and horrible thing that has happened to this country no more than 30 years ago and now look… slowly but surely this country has rebuilt itself and it is such an amazing experience to be a part of at the moment.

More school tomorrow… I think I will be struggling to get up in the morning…

Until then…

Kim xx