The Killing, Killing, Killing Fields

As I guess everyone knows by now, we've left Laos behind and are now in the smelly, smelly city of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The main thing we wanted to do here was check out the historical Khmer Rouge sites, which we'd planned on doing yesterday, but I spent yet ANOTHER day in bed sick with whatever the region has to offer. Thank you bacteria, how I'll miss you when I'm in Canada. Dustin has still remained completely healthy, lucky dude.

The Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng Prison are pretty well must sees if you're at all interested in the short but brutal history of the region. We hired a tuk tuk for the day, his name (the driver, not the tuk tuk) was some linear combination of Magh, Matt, and Mag. You never know, their names are so dissimilar from American names that there's no hope of guessing. He was a cool guy, and I actually think we got a bit of a deal? Though I don't think that concept exists here. After trying desperately to take us to the shooting ranges, he first took us to the Fields. Shooting ranges are these things that the army has set these up to rope in sick puppy tourists enamoured with the non-existent legal system, and who want to lob grenades or shoot rocket launchers at live cows for about $200 a pop. Anything to make a buck eh? Anyways...

The whole day was such a strange superposition of violence and calm, I don't know. I mean the Killing Fields are really beautiful, if you don't look under your feet and notice that you're walking on scraps of clothing and shards of human bone that stick out from the dirt. Birds tweet, there's lots of shade and even a nice breeze. It's pretty morbid. Ideas are very, very dangerous things.


We bought our driver a cold drink (what can we say, he was such a nice guy!) and off we went to Tuol Sleng, or S-21, which is a converted high school literally in the middle of town. Pol Pot made it the region's 'premier' detention centre for anyone that the Khmer Rouge saw as counter-revolutionary, which was essentially everyone. Anyone educated, religious, business owners, essentially everyone who wasn't a sheep that is. Same feeling as before. Birds sing, the grounds are fairly nice and well maintained, but as soon as you get inside and start looking at the cells, the pictures on the wall, and the devices you get a better idea as to what really went on here. The inmate/death toll is unreliable and depends where you get it from so I won't mention it. Gross.



I know this is a short post but there isn't much I can say to do justice to the sites. They're pretty well the grittiest places I've been on Earth. The details are pretty graphic so ask us when we get home.