The bus from Ho Chi Minh City to Pnomh Penh was pretty rough. It was a local bus and made frequent stops to pick up random passengers on the side of the road. One passenger in particular was carrying a bag of fish and smelt so awful I nearly vomited in my seat. The border crossing was relatively easy, but the actual bus ride seemed to drag on forever. I was very happy to finally reach our destination, but was shocked to step off the bus into sweltering heat. It was ten times hotter in Pnomh Penh than in Vietnam !! The heat was worse than Bangkok and I actually couldn't believe the amount I was instantly sweating. Our time in Pnomh Penh was by far the most interesting and educational part of our journey. It was also the saddest part of our trip.
Pnomh Penh is the capital city of Cambodia and is also the home to the largest genocide memorial and museum in the country. In the 1970s the rebel group, the Khmer Rouge, lead by Pol Pot, conducted a "social cleansing" of Cambodia. They evacuated Pnomh Penh and wanted to strip the country of any Western Influence. They wanted to restore the country to its original rural farm state and stopped at nothing to achieve their goal. They brutally murdered anyone who lived in cities, had an education or posed any sort of threat to their "ideal" society. Many of the soldiers recruited by the Khmer Rouge were average citizens who were forced to torture and kill innocent people because they were too scared to resist the rebel leaders. Over 2 million Cambodians were killed during this genocide and I am embarrassed to say that I had never even heard of these devastating events until my time in Vietnam. To think that something so awful happened so recently, and I had absolutely no idea is mind boggling. I guess that's what happens when you make it through 4 years of college with no history credits...
Our first visit in Pnomh Penh was to the genocide museum that was originally a school house, turned into a prison and torture center by the Khmer Rouge. The prison has been preserved to show tourists the horrible conditions that prisoners were forced to live in. The cells were tiny and barbed wire lined every single window. The gallows still remain in the school yard where prisoners were hung upside down, beaten until they blacked out, then forced into buckets of dirty water to regain consciousness. The museum is filled with photographs of the victims - Cambodians ranging from children to elderly citizens. The Khmer Rouge had no restrictions on their victims. From the prison, the victims were transported to what they were told were "work camps" but were actually mass killing fields. They were transported in trucks and usually transported in the middle of the night. At the end of our prison tour, we were blessed with the opportunity to meet a survivor of the prison. He had the kindest eyes I have ever seen, and even though he couldn't speak English I could tell he was a very caring individual. I was able to purchase his book and I am looking forward to learning more about his story. I cannot imagine living through such a traumatic experience, and I have an enormous amount of respect for him. He is much stronger than I ever will be.
The next day we visited one of the many killing field sites in Cambodia. The site we visited was one of the largest, where over 20,000 people were killed. We toured the fields with an audio guide and some of the quotes that the Khmer Rouge used to defend their actions really haunted me:
"To keep you is no gain, to lose you is no loss."
"Better to kill an innocent by mistake than spare an enemy by mistake."
"To dig up the grass one must remove even the roots."
Throughout the tour of the fields, we saw tooth, bone, and clothing remains of the victims. One site was particularly disturbing, known as the "killing tree" where soldiers would beat babies and small children against the tree until they died. The Khmer Rouge did not use guns, for they were expensive and the noise could give them away. Instead they used common farming tools to beat the victims to death. Another very haunting experience was the alarm that went off at night. The audio tour played loud music with loud horns blaring in the background, this was the sound played at night to mask the screams of the victims. This tour was incredibly eye opening and the images that I saw, and heard described to me, will last with me forever. I cannot believe I was so unaware of such a horrible event. I have been doing alot of research on these events since my visit to Pnomh Penh and feel so terrible for the innocent Cambodian victims. I would highly recommend the book "First They Killed My Father" by Loung Ung, which is the story of a survivor told through the eyes of a child. The history of Cambodia is devastating and I am happy to learn that leaders of the Khmer Rouge have been sentenced to life in prison, Pol Pot died in captivity, and others are still on pending trial. Their acts are unforgivable and I hope that not only in Cambodia, but throughout the rest of the world, something like this never ever repeats itself. Pnomh Penh continues to suffer from the repercussions of the Khmer Rouge's actions and it angers me to think that human beings are capable of such cruelty.
While the overall vibe of our trip to Pnomh Penh was disturbing and sad, I was happy to be submerged in a first hand history lesson. RIP to the victims of the Khmer Rouge and I hope the future of Cambodia is brighter than their past. <3
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