Phnom Penh, Cambodia

That day we made the pleasantly straightforward bus journey from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We were unsure of what to expect- we had heard from many travellers that Cambodia is the epitome of "roughing it," and that the country still exhibits many scars from its horrific history in the '70's under the Khmer Rouge. What we found was nicer than what we anticipated, and wonderfully hospitable and friendly locals. Phnom Penh has some very quaint parts, although it is still streets behind Vietnam in terms of infrastructure, garbage disposal, etc. Cambodia also uses the US dollar (it even dispenses from ATMs,) which makes for another Lao-style confusion when changing money or paying for anything. The Cambodian currency is the riel, and at the time of our visit in November, the exchange rate was roughly $1 to 4,000 riel.

There are many beautiful examples of traditional and classical Cambodian architecture in Phnom Penh, most notably the impressive Royal Palace, but undoubtedly the most famous sites to visit are the Killing Fields and the S-21 (or Tuol Sleng) Prison. These place are horrific and chilling to visit, but necessary to truly comprehend the damage and destruction wrought on this small country in the name of revolution from 1975- 1979.

We ended up staying at a brand new guesthouse called "Fancy Guesthouse" a few blocks off of the waterfront. The streets on our walk were clogged with garbage and had a bit of a rotting smell. The guesthouse itself, though, was run by a very friendly guy named Joe, and the rooms were spotless. They had never even been used before, as we were the first guests. We settled into a great triple, and headed to the waterfront for some dinner.

Signs of the Khmer Rouge period and Pol Pot's brutal regime are everywhere in Phnom Penh. Everyone you meet lost friends and relatives during those terrifying years. Because it was Pol Pot's aim, specifically, to destroy urbanites and the educated class, this is especially felt in the city, which was famously completely evacuated in the '70s when he turned the year back to "Year Zero" and closed all hospitals, post offices, and schools in the aim to transform the society into an agrarian collective. Cham people in particular and also other members from ethnic minority groups suffered greatly under Pol Pot's rule. Here is a quick historical blurb regarding the city, although there are doubtless many fascinating books you can pick up on the subject:

Phnom Penh first became the capital of Cambodia after Ponhea Yat, king of the Khmer Empire, moved the capital from Angkor Thom after it was captured by Siam a few years earlier. There are stupa behind Wat Phnom that house the remains of Ponhea Yat and the royal family as well as the remaining Buddhist statues from the Angkorean era. There is a legend that tells how Phnom Penh was created.

It was not until 1866, under the reign of King Norodom I, that Phnom Penh became the permanent seat of government, and the Royal Palace (pictured) was built. This marked the beginning of the transformation of what was essentially a village into a great city with the French Colonialists expanding the canal system to control the wetlands, constructing roads and building a port.

By the 1920s, Phnom Penh was known as the Pearl of Asia, and over the next four decades continued to experience growth with the building of a railway to Sihanoukville and the Pochentong International Airport.
The exterior of the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, Phnom Penh
The exterior of the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, Phnom Penh

During the Vietnam War, Cambodia was used as a base by the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong, and thousands of refugees from across the country flooded the city to escape the fighting between their own government troops, the NVA/NLF, the South Vietnamese and its allies and the Khmer Rouge. By 1975, the population was 2,000,000, the bulk of them refugees from the fighting. The city fell to the Khmer Rouge on April 17. Many of its residents, those who were wealthy and educated, were forced to do labor on rural farms as "new people". Tuol Svay Prey High School was taken over by Pol Pot's forces and was turned into the S-21 prison camp, where Cambodians were detained and tortured. Pol Pot sought a return to an agrarian economy and therefore killed many people percieved as educated, "lazy" or political enemies. Many others starved to death as a result of failure of the agrarian society and the sale of Cambodia's rice to China in exchange for bullets and weaponry. Tuol Svay Prey High School is now the Tuol Sleng Museum in which Khmer Rouge torture devices and photos of their victims are displayed. Choeung Ek (The Killing Fields), 15 kilometres (9 mi) away, where the Khmer Rouge marched prisoners from Tuol Sleng to be murdered and buried in shallow pits, is also now a memorial to those who were killed by the regime.

The Khmer Rouge were driven out of Phnom Penh by the Vietnamese in 1979 and people began to return to the city. Vietnam is historically a state with which Cambodia has had many conflicts, therefore this liberation was and is viewed with mixed emotions by the Cambodians. A period of reconstruction began, spurred by continuing stability of government, attracting new foreign investment and aid by countries including France, Australia, and Japan. Loans were made from the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank to reinstate a clean water supply, roads and other infrastructure. The 1998 Census put Phnom Penh's population at 862,000;[3] by 2001 it was estimated at slightly over 1 million.

Joe had offered for his brother to take us around to the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng Prison the next day, so we decided to go for it. We visited the Killing Fields first. There is really nothing you can do to prepare yourself for a visit to a place like this. Over 17,000 people were killed here, usually by being forced to first dig their own graves, and then beaten to death by blunt objects. Bullets were viewed as expensive, and were "not to be wasted," so most were killed in beatings performed by poor young peasant men and women. Pol Pot sought to exterminate entire families, so babies and the elderly were killed here is well. Perhaps one of the most disgusting parts of the visit is a stop at the tree against which babies were killed. It's simply horrifying.

The Killing Fields have been maintained, though, as a reminder of what happened, and are pretty much in the same state they were before. Due to erosion, new skeletons and bodies are revealed each year from the many mass graves. As you walk around to the different mass graves, you can easily see human bones and remnants of clothing poking through the earth. At one point, our guide simply stooped down and pulled out a tooth. There is a Buddhist monument in the center that is filled with skulls of the victims. It is a very, very sobering spot.

Here are some pictures... not for the fainthearted:

Remains of human skulls at the Killing Fields

Monument at the Killing Fields... the inside is entirely filled with skulls... extremely sad

Bones and clothing coming through the earth as a result of erosion at the Killing Fields

Our tour guide at the Killing Fields

After our visit to the Killing Fields, we ventured back into Phnom Penh to visit S-21 Torture Prison, or Tuol Sleng Prison, which used to be a highschool before the Khmer Rouge regime. The building has been left largely as it was when the Khmer Rouge lost power in 1979, and knowledge of this fact makes the visit extremely eerie. Here is some history of this horrific, terrible place. It is the most disturbing spot we visited during our travels, but it is important to understand what happened here:

Formerly the Tuol Svay Prey High School, named after a Royal ancestor of King Norodom Sihanouk, the five buildings of the complex were converted in August 1975, four months after the Khmer Rouge won the civil war[2], into a prison and interrogation centre. The Khmer Rouge renamed the complex "Security Prison 21" (S-21) and construction began to adapt the prison to the inmates: the buildings were enclosed in electrified barbed wire, the classrooms converted into tiny prison and torture chambers, and all windows were covered with iron bars and barbed wire to prevent escapes.

From 1975 to 1979, an estimated 17,000 people were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng (some estimates suggest a number as high as 20,000, though the real number is unknown). The prisoners were selected from all around the country, and usually were former Khmer Rouge members and soldiers, accused of betraying the party or revolution.[1] Those arrested included some of the highest ranking communist politicians such as Khoy Thoun, Vorn Vet and Hu Nim. Although the official reason for their arrest was "espionage," these men may have been viewed by Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot as potential leaders of a coup against him. Prisoners' families were often brought en masse to be interrogated and later murdered at the Choeung Ek extermination centre.

Upon arrival at the prison, prisoners were photographed and required to give detailed biographies, beginning with their childhood and ending with their arrest. After that, they were forced to strip to their underwear, and their possessions were confiscated. The prisoners were then taken to their cells. Those taken to the smaller cells were shackled to the walls or the concrete floor. Those who were held in the large mass cells were collectively shackled to long pieces of iron bar. The shackles were fixed to alternating bars; the prisoners slept with their heads in opposite directions. They slept on the floor without mats, mosquito nets, or blankets. They were forbidden to talk to each other.

The day in the prison began at 4:30 a.m. when prisoners were asked to strip for inspection. The guards checked to see if the shackles were loose or if the prisoners had hidden objects they could use to commit suicide. Over the years, several prisoners managed to kill themselves, so the guards were very careful in checking the shackles and cells. The prisoners received four small spoonfuls of rice porridge and watery soup of leaves twice a day. Drinking water without asking the guards for permission resulted in serious beatings. The inmates were hosed down every four days.[1]

The prison had very strict regulations, and severe beatings were inflicted upon any prisoner who tried to disobey.

Most prisoners at S-21 were held there for two to three months. However, several high-ranking Khmer Rouge cadres were held longer. Within two or three days after they were brought to S-21, all prisoners were taken for interrogation[1]. The torture system at Tuol Sleng was designed to make prisoners confess to whatever crimes they were charged with by their captors. Prisoners were routinely beaten and tortured with electric shocks, searing hot metal instruments and hanging, as well as through the use of various other devices. Some prisoners were cut with knives or suffocated with plastic bags. Other methods for generating confessions included pulling out fingernails while pouring alcohol on the wounds, holding prisoners’ heads under water, and the use of the waterboarding technique (see picture). Females were sometimes raped by the interrogators, even though sexual abuse was against DK policy. The perpetrators who were found out were executed.[1] Although many prisoners died from this kind of abuse, killing them outright was discouraged, since the Khmer Rouge needed their confessions.

In their confessions, the prisoners were asked to describe their personal background. If they were party members, they had to say when they joined the revolution and describe their work assignments in DK. Then the prisoners would relate their supposed treasonous activities in chronological order. The third section of the confession text described prisoners’ thwarted conspiracies and supposed treasonous conversations. At the end, the confessions would list a string of traitors who were the prisoners’ friends, colleagues, or acquaintances. Some lists contained over a hundred names. People whose names were in the confession list were often called in for interrogation.

Typical confessions ran into thousands of words in which the prisoner would interweave true events in their lives with imaginary accounts of their espionage activities for either the CIA or KGB. The confession of Hu Nim ended with the words "I am not a human being, I'm an animal". A young Englishman named John Dawson Dewhirst who was arrested in August 1978 claimed to have joined the CIA at age 12 upon his father receiving a substantial bribe from a work colleague, also an agent. Physical torture was combined with sleep deprivation and deliberate neglect of the prisoners. The torture implements are on display in the museum. The vast majority of prisoners were innocent of the charges against them and their confessions produced by torture.

Tuol Sleng Prison from the outside

Rules sign at Tuol Sleng Torture Prison

Pictures of victims at Tuol Sleng. May they rest in peace...

After our sobering morning, we decided to visit some of Phnom Penh's beautiful spots. The Royal Palace was our choice. The kings of Cambodia have occupied this complex of buildings since it was built in 1866 (except for during the Khmer Rouge Period.) It is a beautifully constructed, atmospheric spot:

Kate and Meg at the Royal Palace

Royal Palace grounds in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Acting silly

Catt and Meg at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Catt and Kate at the Royal Palace

Meg and Catt reviewing our pictures at the Royal Palace. Hey, that's a good one!

We also checked out a great place to eat in Phnom Penh, called "Friends Cafe." This is an awesome place to grab a bite to eat, not only because the food is delicious, but because it is for a great cause, too. You can check out their website here: http://www.streetfriends.org/. Phnom Penh, and Cambodia in general has a huge, sad problem of street children, small children begging, working, and homeless on the streets. Street Friends is an organization that strives to protect, care for, and empower young people and children through training programs and education. The servers and hosts at the Friends restaurant are all being trained through this great organization. Did I mention that the food (and smoothies) are also phenomenal?

We love Cambodia!

In a tuk-tuk in Phnom Penh

After spending the night at the atmospheric street market in Phnom Penh and doing some shopping, we arranged to continue by road onto the hub of Siem Reap the next day, and the awe-inspiring temples of Angkor Wat.