27th August, The Genocidal Tour, Phnom Penh

The next morning I arranged for a driver to take me to some of the more recent relics of Cambodia's past.

The first stop was the Killing Fields, or as the government calls it the 'Genocidal Centre'. It was quite a haunting place, the first stop is a glass-walled building that stands in front of you. As you get closer you see it's filled from top to bottom with human skulls. I think the first level are the skulls of girls aged 10 to 20. There are remains of the victims clothes at the bottom, the fact that some of the clothes are branded drives home how recent this part of their history is.

Looking at the skulls you can see whether the victim was shot or bludgeoned to death... the Khmer Rouge wanted to save bullets so the guards occasionally had to kill with farm tools or rifle butts etc.
I noticed bits of bone and clothing still sticking out from the ground where I was walking.

What's crazy is that next door is a place that tourists can pay to shoot an assortment of guns and explosives.... what the guide book doesn't tell you is that they'll actually bring out a live cow for you to shoot with a rocket launcher! What kind of person would visit a place like the Killing Fields then go "Right, now I feel like blowing up a cow!".

Next stop was the S21 Detention centre where all the prisoners were taken and tortured before being taken off to the killing fields. Again this told some pretty shocking stories of Pol Pot's reign. I didn't know that among other ex-pat's at least one kiwi was tortured and killed there.

Another crazy thing is that these sights have been sold by the Cambodian Government to a Japanese company who are profiting from the entry fees!

Later in the day I visited some other areas of the city including the Russian markets (not Russian whatsoever). When I came out I was looking for my driver who wasn't at his tuk-tuk. Turned out that he was having a couple of beers with his mates. He invited me to join him for a few... it was his shout so I was happy. Just a little worried as to how much he'd had before driving me back though.