Cambodia - 2016: A sobering day

I have to admit my recollection of the history of Cambodia is pretty poor, and I'm not sure how much I even remember from the late 1970's. And I didn't get around to doing my reading in advance so today was the day to come to grips with the terrible more recent past. It seems that for much of its relatively modern existence, Cambodia has been the Poland of Asia, constantly torn between the Thais and the Vietnamese, and not winning overall. The 1970's were the time of the Vietnam war, which resulted in a lot of bombing by the Americans and thus disruption, and then the three years eight months and 20 days of Pol Pot's insane and genocidal spree which killed up to 25% of the population and destroyed the country. So today was the day to visit both the Killing Fields in Choeung Ek, where men, women and children were taken to be executed by blunt trauma after they had revealed as much as the regime thought they were going to by torture, and the Tuol Sleng (S021) Genocide museum where imprisonment and torture took place. It was certainly sobering - a reminder yet again of how cruel and inhumane humans can be, even to their own people. In this case along political, rather than racial lines.

Once I had as much of that as I could stomach, Ani, my tuktuk driver for the day, did the apparently standard version of suggesting and guilting me (as in the tourist) to visit an orphanage and take along an enormous sack of rice to help support them. So off we went, rice on board, for delivery and a bit of a chat at a local orphanage. Many of the orphanages were set up for children orphaned during the troubles, but these days they are often from families destroyed by HIV. In any case, this particular orphanage is now run by a woman who herself grew up there and has 50 children, mostly boys, between the ages of 7 months and 20 years. They leave when they finish school, which takes some longer than others.

The evening was a time of "small world" experiences. Through various connections I was hooked up with Mathieu Pruvot, a veterinary epidemiologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society and we met for a drink. Turns out he is french, and went to pre-veterinary school with my ex-graduate student Pauline Delnatte, and then was a year behind her in veterinary school. He also did his MSc and PhD at the Vet School in Calgary, working with friends and acquaintances. Go figure. After a beer in a rather trendy cafe (draft beer - 1$) accompanied by a black kitten and a very floppy golden retriever puppy, we walked back towards central Phnom Penh, me holding tightly to his arm and almost closing my eyes as we navigated on foot through the streams of traffic on the major roads, and then I continued on past his house and found a random restaurant that seems to have a good quota of westerners in it. I ended up sitting next to a chatty Australian couple, who when they found out I was in Canada asked me if I knew her sister-in-law, a Jo Lampert. The name sounded familiar, and after a bit I recalled that this woman is a friend of a neighbour in Guelph and we had visited her when we lived in Brisbane. Who would have thought!

Gas station attendant with cloth mask - a lot of people wear these - both to keep the dust and fumes out (although I don't think these would cut any chemicals) and also for germs - although hard to say whether to keep them in or out.

Small Western style eatery

Entrance to Choeung Ek - the Killing Fields

There are multiple mass graves, some excavated and some not, and every year after the rainy season bones and fragments of clothing rise to the surface of the soil. These are collected and placed in the monument or another respectful place.

Bracelets put on the fencing around many of the "exhibits" at Choeung Ek

This was built as a memorial to the victims of the genocide in order to honour them and as an education centre - so as not to forget.

The bones from the excavated graves were forensically examined and the gender, age and genetic origin (ie, Cambodian or westerner) determined. Within the monument, the centre is a column of shelves. The bottom holds clothing fragments, skulls next, and other bones on the upper levels.

Small river on the way to Choeung Ek. Note the houses up on stilts.

Entrance to Tuol Sleng. Originally this was a high school.

Stones for the last 14 persons killed at Tuol Sleng, their bodies were found after the city was liberated by a combination of anti-Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese troops.