Decide that I'm going to do something today. So we decide to take the city tour that includes the killing fields. We arrange with the hostel and we jump in the back of the tuk tuk. First stop is S21, which is a school in central Phnom Penh. Quick run down of the history. The Khmer Rouge were the political group in power, in 1975. Pol Pot was the leader and decided to return Cambodia to a pagan state. No private property, everyone works for the state, the idea to increase agriculture output. Anyone who was educated, doctors, lawyers etc were executed to remove all classes from society. 1.5m people killed during a 4 year period. S21 was one of the prison camps, where people were taken and tortured before transport to the killing fields. So it's a pleasant place. Not that much English, but very interesting. You can see the torture rooms, some of them even have bloodstains on the floor, with footprints running through them. I have never got to experience something so close to the actual event. It sends a chill through my body just imagining the atrocities. The school have 3 blocks, one of torture rooms, one of detainment rooms and one with photos and testimonials from survivors. The whole thing feels so eery. For me it highlights again, the insanity of humanity. I mean, at one point, Pol Pot had to present this idea to his party, I find it amazing that it actually got translated in to reality. Rooms and rooms of photos, of all the victims, including some unlucky foreigners who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. What is even more unbelievable is that this party was put back in power after the removal by the Vietnamese in 1979. After a chilling few hours it's back in the tuk tuk and on to the killing fields.
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This is where people were taken to die. Truck loads of people were brought here on a daily basis to be killed. No bullets were to be wasted, so hoes, clubs or iron bars. The most disturbing image was the tree where they killed children, just by swing them by their legs and smashing their skulls in to this tree. Horrible. In the centre of the area is a monument which houses some 8000 skulls excavated from the killing fields. Again another chill washes over me as I am inside and lot from floor to ceiling at the skulls. We decide not to get an audio tour, I don't really fancy listening to survivor accounts of the devastation. When I walk round the area, there I little information available to read, though many audio stations. It is really set up for the audio guide and not really to not have one. In fact as I walk round, I am the only person that does not have one. I know about the history and so just to be here is enough for me. After I walk round the area we head out and get some lunch before heading to the Royal Palace.
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The tuk tuk pulls up at the Royal Palace, which is located centrally in the city. It is an impressively grandiose building. Where the king lived up until his death a month ago. There are swathes of Cambodians here paying respects to the king, and a sizeable self portrait of the man on the front of the building. We try to get inside the grounds but are told that it is now closed, 7-11 in the morning is the time to be back. As we are there parades of monks come flowing out of the palace, there are people waiting in the street to give them water and food, and of course, sunglasses. There are a lot of monks around the city normally, you can see them walking up to shops, waiting for donations and then offering up a prayer while the patron falls to their knees. I think this collection of monks is heading to some other holy building nearby, it's nice to observe the sea of orange robes passing by.