Redefined Timeline

A little recap… I groggily awoke to Hubs slapping my foot with a vengeance, shouting, “The alarm never went off!!!” Twelve minutes later, we were frantically running downstairs apologizing to Tu, our guide. Onward to Cambodia. Let me preface this with a warning – this is probably one of the most somber posts I have ever written, but I’ll try to lighten it up as much as a can. We visited the Killing Fields and the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh. Both were insanely enlightening and interesting, but also acutely saddening and a testament to just how low humans can stoop.

Let’s begin with our entry into Cambodia. It’s okay to break a couple laws in a foreign country out of “necessity,” right? Tu said it was required and who am I to argue with the pro? In order to secure passage into Cambodia from Vietnam, one must first bribe the border guards with money. Not the guards in Cambodia, but instead we bribed the border officials to LEAVE Vietnam. That was unexpected. Anywho… we tour goers were encouraged to place a single US dollar in our passports before handing them over.

While it may seem like a pittance to those residing in Europe or the States, it ultimately secured our safe passage out of Vietnam. Tu used his top notch negotiation skills to get us through, but not without a few hick-ups. Our group’s large stack, dumped on him right when he was about to escape, must have angered the short little man. The border guard was just about to get off shift, and apparently his greedy side reared it’s ugly head as he demanded we pay a higher price ($2 as opposed to $1). He refused to process several of our documents out of spite. Tu worked his magic, suckering a VIP agent, into finishing the rest. Of course mine was square at the bottom, so there was a bit of fingernail biting when I didn’t get called through the gate until the last second. Success! Now to our first stop, Phnom Penh.

Phnom Penh is a very busy southeast Asian capital city with an incomprehensible number of mopeds scurrying around the noisy streets (delved into this in my last post Real Life Frogger & Snake Wine in Vietnam). We were there in April of 2023, so the temperatures were pretty stifling, but that didn’t stop the husband and I from exploring the crowded city on foot. The population is just shy of 2.3 Million, making it the most populous city in Cambodia. Since the end of the Khmer Rouge’s reign in 1979, the city has exploded in size. Hubs and I walked the boardwalk along the Mekong River, passed the Royal Palace, through elaborate parks including the one with the Golden Chicken Dragon (I took it upon myself to name it), and around a multitude of temples dotting the cityscape.

Our city strolls resulted in the following ridiculous conversations:

Me: “It’s a giant golden chicken. Want a photo with the giant chicken thing?”

Hubs: “Look, it’s a cat!”

Me: *Narrow, unamused eyes* – “Who cares?”

Hubs: “It’s a small, skinny cat.”

Me: *Still unimpressed* – “Giant golden chicken wins. Oh!!! It’s a giant golden chicken DRAGON!”

Me referring to the intricate helmets sported by the Royal Palace guards:

“If I didn’t think there was a good chance I’d get arrested, I would have absolutely stolen his helmet. Right next to the heavily guarded royal palace, though… poor life choice.”

Hubs: “That little kid had no underwear on. He was bigger than me, I’m kinda jealous.”

Tu: *Hysterical laughter after overhearing the comment*

Me: “Are you feeling his pain or mine?”

Tu: *More giggling*

As tends to be the case on many of our trips, I turned yet another year older. Our first night in Phnom Penh, I entered the final year of my 30s. How I spent my 39th birthday… almost missing the bus to Cambodia, bribing border agents to leave Vietnam, being the last traveler hastily approved, sitting in a cramped van for hours, exploring Phnom Penh in scorching heat, skipping down Cambodian streets somewhat inebriated after consuming my cocout birthday cake at a restaurant courtesy of Tu! It was an eventful day!

Now enter our disheartening excursions, beginning with the Killing Fields. Comprised of 349 different fields that are situated in the Cambodian countryside, the sites are essentially pits where millions of Cambodians were executed by the Khmer Rouge. Khmer Rouge, written វាលពិឃាត, ruled Cambodia from 1975 – 1979, immediately after the Cambodian Civil War (because the country hadn’t already been through enough). The population shrunk by three million during their reign of terror. Two million were viciously killed in the fields and another million died from starvation. Cambodia’s population at the start was seven million and simple math tells me it dwindled down to four million at the conclusion of the four years.

The Khmer Rouge subscribed to Maos Communism, and they closed the gap between rich and poor by making everyone poor. Tu said it didn’t matter how much money one had, it was all useless. The psychos even closed the borders once people began fleeing the country, which is why most don’t associate Cambodia with mass genocide. The citizens were forced from the cities and towns into manual labor in the rice fields. Intellectuals were arrested in order to quell any chance of an uprising as the rulers feared they posed that threat. Stereotypes exist worldwide and particular identifiers were used to determine who fit the category: light skin, sporting eye glasses, being bi- or multi- lingual, non-calloused hands, etc.

The Vietnamese finally came to Cambodia’s aid in 1979, at which point they overthrew the maniacal tyrants in two weeks. Buildings were demolished in an effort to destroy evidence of their atrocities. To date, only five people have been prosecuted for the genocide. Because of the insanely high numbers slaughtered during the Khmer Rouge’s reign, today’s population is very young with eighty percent between the ages of 14 and 65.

The Killing Fields at Choeung Ek, referred to as the Extermination Camps as well, are comprised of mass graves filled with those murdered by the Khmer Rouge. The fields were very eerie… little had been excavated as no victims have ever been identified. The graves have been left undisturbed. Heavy rains and flooding can bring shredded clothing, bones, and teeth to the surface of the very paths we were walking along, and we did, in fact, encounter all of the above. Children were not spared the horrors, and they had their very own body pit. The entire place was unnaturally quiet. When you reach the outermost corners and look out away from the burial pits, it’s quite calming and serene. A light breeze swept through the fields beyond.

A few monuments had been erected, the most striking being the multi-story glass tomb filled to the brim with skulls and bones of the victims that had been excavated from parts of The Killing Fields. A museum is housed on the property displaying the devious ways in which the killers ended people’s lives – everything from hammers and axes to sharpened bamboo sticks and curved scythes to wooden clubs and farming hoes, generally as a means to save ammunition and keep the loud noise to a minimum so as not to raise suspicion of their evil activities. Remains have been discovered with caved in skulls and various other fatal injuries. Children of adult casualties were killed to avoid them growing up and taking revenge for their parents’ deaths.

S-21 Prison was located in the heart of Phnom Penh. The Khmer Rouge repurposed a school to use as a prison (aka. torture facility). The classrooms were transformed into cells, sometimes with a single bed with a prisoner chained to it. Other rooms had single person brick cells built into the interior, the cell barely large enough for one person to move around in. Prisoners were chained to the walls and floor. In total, 18,000 prisoners were held there.

The Khmer Rouge heavily documented the people held captive at S-21, taking photographs throughout their captivity. Brainwashed adolescent guards were also photographed. These indoctrinated souls then doled out unspeakable acts of violence on those deemed threat to the regime. Torture, beheadings, nothing was off the table for the teenaged soldiers charged with following through with Pol Pot’s murderous agenda.

Meet Bou Meng – One of TWO remaining survivors from S-21 prison. Only twelve people total made it out alive from the Khmer Rouge prison in 1979. Bou lost is wife to the killing fields, and returns to the prison as often as he can to share his story. He wants the world to know what they went through, so society can learn from its mistakes. He’s 82 years old now. Shaking his hand brought tears to my eyes. It was an absolute honor to meet him.

Bou Meng before he personally handed me his book + Survivors – Bou Meng is the shortest

He was an artist by trade. Those gifts are what kept him alive. He was taken from a shackled row of other hostages and put to work painting portraits of Pol Pot (aka. Political Potential), the leader of the Khmer Rouge. Bou has drafted a personal account of the savagery he and others went through. He details the torture he went through, his survival, and the day he was finally able to confront his tormentor in 2009. His jailer bowed and apologized, laying the blame at the leaders of the Khmer Rouge for twisting his mind – he was simply doing what he was told. Bou was unable to forgive. Many Cambodians accept this reasoning for the juveniles that beat and killed so many because it is easier to forgive and forget than wrestle with the pain and suffering of the past. Bou Meng is a remarkable man – he has since painted more than 100 images of the atrocities, worked with the few other survivors to create the museum commemorating the genocide, and even got remarried.

“Now, he said, the ghosts of those who died follow him, hovering over him in the dark… They gather in front of his home, calling out to him to represent them and to find justice for them.” ~ Bou Meng