Disturbing sights in Cambodia
My 10-day stay in Cambodia took in the capital Phnom Penh (sad and disturbing Killing Fields, the place where Pol Pot was allowed to slaughter thousands of innocent people from 1975-79), and Siem Reap, home to the Khmer era's famous Angkor Wat ruins.
Phnom Penh is a big city with an edge but not as visually captivating as Saigon or Hanoi. It seems to be a much poorer place than any of the cities in Vietnam. There's greater poverty here - more people living rough, in some cases whole families, and more beggars. Some are evidently victims of the Khmer Rouge era (1975-1979) which saw the evil Pol Pot inflict horrific atrocities on his own people. A visit to the Killing Fields is a sobering affair. There's a collection of skulls of some of many thousands of people tortured and murdered, some buried alive, under his murderous regime. Explanations of the "odious executioners" deeds, together with seeing some of the 86 burial pits, give some idea of the scale of the man's brutality. One of the buildings is described in literature as "the waiting room for death". Disturbing and sad.
After this visit, i headed to the S21 Museum, a former school, where 20,000 innocent people were imprisoned and tortured before being sent to the Killing Fields, a small area of land in the countryside about 15km from Phnom Penh. What stands out is the hundreds of black and white photos on the walls of innocent people facing almost certain death - sad and haunting images of men, women and children wearing tags, fear in their eyes. They were no more than numbers or pieces of meat to the Khmer Rouge. And to think that all this took place only 30 years ago. How he was allowed to do this without the US and other countries intervening is not clearly explained, although it seems that they stood their distance because they had nothing to gain from stopping Pol Pot's barbaric acts of unspeakable depravity. He followed some kind of warped communist ideology, which also saw him torture/wipe out intellectuals, artists and some of the country's brightest minds. Obviously, he took a leaf out of Mao Tse Tung's book - China's Chairman Mao was responsible for the slaughter of several millions of people during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, with intellectuals among the targets.
The day i visited the Killing Fields became even more disturbing when I heard about the terrorist attacks in London, more deaths, horror, pain...yet more human suffering. Just 24hrs earlier i was watching the euphoric scenes in Trafalgar Square following the IOC's awarding of the 2012 Olympics to London. Within the space of a day, people's tears of joy at London's triumph had been replaced with tears of horror, shock and sadness. Hard to take all this in.
Next stop was Siem Reap. Its Angkor ruins were all they were cracked up to be. Although Angkor Wat was overrun with tourists, some of the other temple ruins were less crowded. The best was a temple left to rack and ruin with no attempt made to maintain it for visitors. It was covered in huge tree roots which were growing between its massive stone structures. An ideal film setting. I learnt later that it was in fact the place where Angelina Jolie had filmed Tomb Raider. There was a photo of her in one of the local restaurants, looking lovely as ever. Of course i took a photo of her photo... for the records.
Throughout Vietnam and Cambodia i had been travelling with an amiable, hard-drinking scouser, Dangerous Dancing Disco Dave. But it was in Siem Reap where we parted ways. A top-draw travelling companion - many happy and drunken shenanigans that will live long in the memory. He fled for the bars of Bangkok, i went into detox in Laos!
Phnom Penh is a big city with an edge but not as visually captivating as Saigon or Hanoi. It seems to be a much poorer place than any of the cities in Vietnam. There's greater poverty here - more people living rough, in some cases whole families, and more beggars. Some are evidently victims of the Khmer Rouge era (1975-1979) which saw the evil Pol Pot inflict horrific atrocities on his own people. A visit to the Killing Fields is a sobering affair. There's a collection of skulls of some of many thousands of people tortured and murdered, some buried alive, under his murderous regime. Explanations of the "odious executioners" deeds, together with seeing some of the 86 burial pits, give some idea of the scale of the man's brutality. One of the buildings is described in literature as "the waiting room for death". Disturbing and sad.
After this visit, i headed to the S21 Museum, a former school, where 20,000 innocent people were imprisoned and tortured before being sent to the Killing Fields, a small area of land in the countryside about 15km from Phnom Penh. What stands out is the hundreds of black and white photos on the walls of innocent people facing almost certain death - sad and haunting images of men, women and children wearing tags, fear in their eyes. They were no more than numbers or pieces of meat to the Khmer Rouge. And to think that all this took place only 30 years ago. How he was allowed to do this without the US and other countries intervening is not clearly explained, although it seems that they stood their distance because they had nothing to gain from stopping Pol Pot's barbaric acts of unspeakable depravity. He followed some kind of warped communist ideology, which also saw him torture/wipe out intellectuals, artists and some of the country's brightest minds. Obviously, he took a leaf out of Mao Tse Tung's book - China's Chairman Mao was responsible for the slaughter of several millions of people during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, with intellectuals among the targets.
The day i visited the Killing Fields became even more disturbing when I heard about the terrorist attacks in London, more deaths, horror, pain...yet more human suffering. Just 24hrs earlier i was watching the euphoric scenes in Trafalgar Square following the IOC's awarding of the 2012 Olympics to London. Within the space of a day, people's tears of joy at London's triumph had been replaced with tears of horror, shock and sadness. Hard to take all this in.
Next stop was Siem Reap. Its Angkor ruins were all they were cracked up to be. Although Angkor Wat was overrun with tourists, some of the other temple ruins were less crowded. The best was a temple left to rack and ruin with no attempt made to maintain it for visitors. It was covered in huge tree roots which were growing between its massive stone structures. An ideal film setting. I learnt later that it was in fact the place where Angelina Jolie had filmed Tomb Raider. There was a photo of her in one of the local restaurants, looking lovely as ever. Of course i took a photo of her photo... for the records.
Throughout Vietnam and Cambodia i had been travelling with an amiable, hard-drinking scouser, Dangerous Dancing Disco Dave. But it was in Siem Reap where we parted ways. A top-draw travelling companion - many happy and drunken shenanigans that will live long in the memory. He fled for the bars of Bangkok, i went into detox in Laos!
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