Phnom Penh: Killing Fields / Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (S-21 High School) / Prek Bang Kong
We were forewarned yesterday that today would not be a "happy day" but that it would be a significant day for our excursions. We set out from the ship through the city of Phnom Penh - I took the above photo of the electrical wires that are commonplace in SE Asia. Apparently it's much like it was in the early 19th century in America where virtually every building has their OWN electrical wire! Not the safest design, especially with all the rain they get here! We left the city proper and traveled to the outskirts to visit two sites that are reminders of the genocide that was carried out by the Khmer Rouge in the 1980s. The first stop was at the Killing Fields. We were given about a 30 minute walk around the area with narration from our guide Mr. Chantah as explained where the victims were brought by truck and dumped unceremoniously before they were killed by all manual tools - such as clubs, spears, etc. Then the bodies were dumped into mass grades and covered up. When this site was discovered and excavated they found eighty-six (86) mass graves with over 9,000 victims. One mass grade was full of bodies that were all headless. There was a memorial building in the central part of the grounds where all the skulls discovered here were on display. Very sombering morning......especially when you realize what actually happened here and it happened during our lifetime.
The second stop of the morning came at a local high school, what was formerly known as Tuol Svay Pray High School. If you didn't know any better and looked around it's a fairly nice looking campus with four academic buildings of classroom that frame a rectangular courtyard. When when the Khmer Rouge came to power the converted several schools like this one, renamed them - this became known as "S-21" - and they these became torture prisons where the captives were chained to a bed and tortured over and over until they told their captors what they wanted to hear, and then they were killed. Statistics vary, but it seems widely accepted that at this single site more than 12,000 people (and as many as 15,000) went through here and only SEVEN survived. One of the surviors was here today and we got to see him. What is also very eerie is that the authorities that ran the camp photographed every individual prisoner - we were told it was for two reasons......(1) in case they escaped they could be identified and (2) for later "glorification" of how the society had been cleansed. Much like the Killing Fields it's just hard to "wrap your head around" the fact that what we were told DID in fact happen here, right where we are standing......and during our lifetime.
The afternoon excursion was a MUCH more plesant experience, and it's one that Avalon prides itself on for this particular cruise - an emersion right into the villages and individual homes and businesses of the locals. The primary focus of this afternoon's excursion was to see silk weaving in the individual homes. It was an interesting afternoon that lasted about 1 1/2 hours as we walked from the ship, through a village and made two stops at local homes. At the second one it was a combination shop and home and we had the opportunity to buy some silk goods, but we both passed. Interestingly, today, like about half the stops along the river, we simply pulled up to the riverbank and put out the gangplank!
The second stop of the morning came at a local high school, what was formerly known as Tuol Svay Pray High School. If you didn't know any better and looked around it's a fairly nice looking campus with four academic buildings of classroom that frame a rectangular courtyard. When when the Khmer Rouge came to power the converted several schools like this one, renamed them - this became known as "S-21" - and they these became torture prisons where the captives were chained to a bed and tortured over and over until they told their captors what they wanted to hear, and then they were killed. Statistics vary, but it seems widely accepted that at this single site more than 12,000 people (and as many as 15,000) went through here and only SEVEN survived. One of the surviors was here today and we got to see him. What is also very eerie is that the authorities that ran the camp photographed every individual prisoner - we were told it was for two reasons......(1) in case they escaped they could be identified and (2) for later "glorification" of how the society had been cleansed. Much like the Killing Fields it's just hard to "wrap your head around" the fact that what we were told DID in fact happen here, right where we are standing......and during our lifetime.
The afternoon excursion was a MUCH more plesant experience, and it's one that Avalon prides itself on for this particular cruise - an emersion right into the villages and individual homes and businesses of the locals. The primary focus of this afternoon's excursion was to see silk weaving in the individual homes. It was an interesting afternoon that lasted about 1 1/2 hours as we walked from the ship, through a village and made two stops at local homes. At the second one it was a combination shop and home and we had the opportunity to buy some silk goods, but we both passed. Interestingly, today, like about half the stops along the river, we simply pulled up to the riverbank and put out the gangplank!
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