Day 68: S21 Prison & Killing Fields

Awake early, too early, clock reads 6am. Stretch my back, pop, shut my eyes. Awake 7am, still too early, mind's racing, I fear and anxiously look forward to what lies ahead. I get up, Take care of morning necessities, head for the lounge of our Happy Guesthouse, wifi enabled there, talk smack about bball, try to jump into a few tourney challenges and friendly competitions for March madness, and order the muesli with fruit and yoghurt (their spelling). Wake up Mike, grab our driver, head out the door by 10:30.

First stop, post office. I bought a few paintings of Angkor Wat for way too much, now sending them back to the states. Shocked by the $34 price tag for slow boat shipping ... that's more than I've paid for most my transportation around Asia. Watch them cram both round bamboo containers into a flat square box, clearly not wide enough for them. Uhh, I will assume they know what their doing and that they will make their way to my post office box, aka, my friend Carey Usher's place.

Next stop, S21 Prison. The Democratic Kampuchea (Khmer Rouge) called it "Security Office 21", created by Pol Pot right after occupation and evacuation of Phnom Penh, but don't be confused, it was a torture center in the worst way. Surreal to think that it was originally a school, one day kids are running through the halls, playing with blocks, writing on chalk boards and the next day, bars go over the windows, barbed wire goes up, rooms with laughter now cry out in pain from torture. Horrifying.

Background: The Khmer Rouge was a rebellion against the current government and capitalism, touted by Pol Pot to be the purest form of socialism, no money, no class structure, no worries. In reality, the cleared all the cities, forced everyone to work in the fields, they were god all other Cambodians were expendable. Anyone with any higher education or critical thinking was taken out first, they called them dissidents. They burned books and pharmaceuticals, buried teachers and doctors, made everyone move out of the cities and work the land. Millions died in the Khmer Rouge's genocide ... and this is in the 70's folks, not long ago at all!

I find myself getting increasingly angry being here. At the injustices, at the lack of recognition of the UN and international communities to do anything about it, that the perpetrators were not brought to justice after these discoveries shortly after the Khmer Rouge's atrocities were discovered. It makes you want to secretly become a vigilante, to rid the world of the maggots who do this sort of thing - comic book?

Leave the S21 Prison on our way to the Killing Fields. This is the location they would take the S21 Prison inmates to have them killed. As I pull up, looks like any other piece of Cambodia land save the large gates and monument at the entrance. Pay the $2, walk through the gate, staring you right in the face is a 60 foot tall White Stupa (religious monument that usually holds Buddha relics), beautiful from a distance, upon closer observation, it's a monument full of 17,000 peoples skulls, thigh bones, teeth, remnants of the victims of Pol Pot's Rouge.

Reach the fields, the infamous fields, realize that the grave sites typically are no bigger than 10 feet squared, containing 100's of bodies. As seen today, just looks like a field with some divots and signs with a few large trees. Two trees in particular have significance, one used to smash babies skulls against to not waste bullets, another to hold a speaker to drown out the screams. If those trees could talk, cry, scream, fight ...

"Hey mister, where you from?" I had not noticed him before, but a child of 8 or 9 stands at the fence. Up to this point, somber state, now distracted. Uh what? America. "You take picture of me? Us?" 3 more young boys round a corner and run up to my location, only a fence dividing us. Sure. Take the picture, they want a gander, not 2 seconds later, "5 dollars". Excuse me? "5 dollars for the picture. Come on mister, you have it." Actually, I only have a $20 and I need it to pay the tuk tuk driver and eat tonight. "You lie, show me. Show me your pockets." Wow, really? Going to try an call me out like that. Pull out my pockets, show them the $20, eyes get big. "You give for me and all my friends." Mind you, never a question, always a demand. No way dude. Plus I hear that if I give you money, it encourages you not to go to school but to beg. You want money? Get an education and make it. "No, we go to school, right over there, half day." Talk about a salesman and knowing how to overcome objections, impressive. I tell him to go into sales when he grows up and walk away.

Return to the main fields area and the museum in time to catch the movie. I'm fairly certain it was made by a Cambodian in 1980 and they have never updated it. Everything they said was accusatory, as though they were still trying to convince people it happened. It's sad that they ever felt like that, not only to live through an atrocity like this, but then not be believed.

Mike and I left and headed back to Happy in the tuk tuk, mostly in silence. Tomorrow I leave for Vietnam, tonight I'm grabbing some dinner at Happy and hitting the hay.

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