All Summer Long

Our journey to Phnom Penh was an interesting one. After reading a lot of reviews, instead of going with one of the tourist buses, we opted to travel with the Cambodian Post Service. It’s a relatively new minibus (Government owned) and only sits 11 people as it has to leave room for the post. You make a couple of stops at Post Offices to deliver the mail and use the restroom if required. The rest of the time, you just sit back, relax and say a prayer whilst you speed across the country darting in and out of various vehicles alongside the ongoing sound of honking horns. Also, just to paint a picture of our driver, he doesn’t wear a seatbelt but does wear a neck travel pillow! Comfort before safety seems to be the motto here 😀

Phnom Penh is a great city. As the capital, it has more sky-rises and a cosmopolitan feel to it. It has a lovely riverfront you can walk along and the usual museums, markets and Grand Palace we’ve come to expect in major South-East Asian cities.

However, the places that we really need to talk about are the Choeung Ek Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. We came to Cambodia not really fully understanding what went on during the Khmer Rouge Regime so we were both ready to learn and soak up as much as we could.

The Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia for 3 years, 8 months and 20 days before they were driven from power by a Vietnamese invasion on January 7th 1979. During that time, more than 1.7 million people were killed. Paul Pot was the Marxist leader who led the brutal regime to socially cleanse Cambodia and rid the country of its educated classes to create a pure, self-sufficient society. It was so extreme that if you just wore glasses, you would be executed because it was believed that they displayed intelligence.

Our first stop was the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum which is home to the S-21 prison where Cambodians were taken and tortured for information. Before this, S-21 was a school.

The cells are still in tact and the rooms are filled with various artefacts ranging from tools used for torturing to boxes used as the prisoners’ toilets. If a prisoner’s box overflowed slightly, the prisoner was made to lick it off the floor and if the prisoner turned over in the night whilst they were chained up, they would be badly beaten for making a sound. There are photos everywhere and these do not hide a thing. They are extremely graphic and distressing but this is what happened and the people of Cambodia refuse to shy away from it. One picture of a prisoner stuck with us both as he looked absolutely petrified in his photo when he was arrested. Absolutely heartbreaking to see and I just hope now he’s resting in peace knowing his country survived this tragic time. We walked around and listened to the audio tour and lost ourselves for about an hour and a half. There were only 12 known survivors of the traumatic prison and one of them, Chum Mey, now aged 86, still visits the prison today and signs the book that he wrote about his survival. He is so lovely and gave us both a hug. He lost all of his family during the Khmer Rouge years but still forgives the guards who tortured him and those who interrogated him as they were only doing what they were made to do to keep their own lives. A true inspiration.

This book is my complete story, the story of a village boy whose only ambition was to be a mechanic and to fix cars and trucks, but who became one of millions of victims of the Khmer Rouge. I survived, but I can’t say I was lucky. My wife and children are dead and the torture I endured was horrible. At that time, it would have been better to die than to survive. But I did survive, and I believe it is my duty to tell my story.” Survivor – Chum Mey

After the museum, the next place we went to were the killing fields which is where the blindfolded prisoners were taken in trucks to be murdered and buried. There are 100s of mass graves in various places in the country but some are still not accessible due to being surrounded by land mines. It’s very difficult to imagine the scenes as they are so inhumane and the land feels and looks so peaceful when you arrive which is due to the very hard work of local people.

As you wander round, clothing and rags can still be seen floating to the top of the ground by tree roots. These are collected up by volunteers and placed into a container as memories. There are shelves of skulls inside a tall glass memorial cabinet designed in the style of a Buddhist Stupa and you can see which innocent people were brutally murdered by blows to the head. There is a tree called, ‘The Killing Tree’ and this tree was used to murder babies by hanging them by their legs and smashing their heads on the bark of the tree – right next to the pit where their mothers were thrown in and buried, sometimes still alive. The tree is now covered in beautiful, colourful friendship bracelets with striking yellow and orange butterflies fluttering around the whole place, which to me, brings a strong feeling of life, hope and peace for the future. We lost ourselves listening to our audio tours for about another hour and a half and sometimes, it was just to listen to the music they give you to reflect on your surroundings.

The whole day was deeply moving and gave us the time and space to think about Cambodia during these terrible years as well as all of the other countries that have had to deal with and move forward from mass genocide. I salute you all.

Cambodia is a country that has impressed us immensely and the recovery that it has made is astounding. The people of Cambodia are friendly, funny, warm and welcoming and I would encourage as many people as possible to visit. However, to truly understand the Cambodian people and their country, a visit to Choeung Ek and Tuol Sleng are a must.