Today I visit the Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Phnom Penh.
The site is a former high school which was used as the notorious Security Prison 21 (S-21) by the Khmer Rouge regime from its rise to power in 1975 to its fall in 1979. Tuol Sleng (Khmer [tuəl slaeŋ]) means "Hill of the Poisonous Trees" or "Strychnine Hill". Tuol Sleng was only one of at least 150 execution centers in the country, and as many as 20,000 prisoners there were killed. - Wikipedia
This is an intense place, of course. I walk through the four buildings there, through the rooms where prisoners were crammed like sardines, interrogated, tortured, and murdered. For those with a strong constitution, read the section in the Wikipedia article regarding the torture that took place here. What happened here, unfortunately, is not unique. Things I know about prisons and torture under other regimes come to mind - The Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Pinochet's Argentina.
I'm getting more used to the hectic nature of this place, to the tuk tuks, the bikes, the dust, the street-side sellers of stir fry noodles, coconuts, pork rolls, sugar cane juice, iced coffee, fried limpets (I still haven't been brave enough to try these), and so on.
My devices suck, and where I'm staying
there's no internet. I'm wary of taking my computer out with me due to stories of bag snatching in Phnom Penh, and I'm not the kind of person to go to a
cafe or bar just for the wifi. So, I just find out now Mandela has
passed....ah, the lack of news you get while travelling. All these
catastrophes and 'significant' news stories you would normally hear about, read about, think about, and
talk about, go by without you ever noticing. I'm not sure if this is a
good thing or not. In the short term, I can do with a break from the
worries of a sometimes seemingly broken world. In the long term, I'd
rather be informed about these things. Mandela's passing means nothing to these tuk tuk drivers, the street sweepers, the coconut sellers, nor me right at this moment, if I'm honest. Sorry Madiba, bro.
I'm planning my movements within Cambodia
for the next two weeks. I had planned on seeing Vietnam, but I've decided to leave it for another trip. It was too ambitious of me, and would have stretched my time too thin, to see Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, AND Vietnam.
No stomach rumbling yet. Maybe thisis another case of preconceived ideas of a country, or region, which are quite untrue, or more
untrue than they actually are. I was worried about safety, crime,
food poisoning, fraud, stitch-ups - none of these are really any
more cause for alarm than most places you would travel (although, I'll report back at the end of this trip about this). As is usual
when you travel, you're worried and afraid of what is unknown to you,
and the more you understand a place and its people/culture/practices
etc. the less scared and worried you become. I actually felt more
unsafe in terms of being accosted, and crime and so forth, in Paris,
than I do currently in phnom penh. True. Physical harm may be more of a threat
here, just from the lower standards (or complete lack) of OHNS – tangles of wires,
motorcycles driving on the wrong side of the road, babies on motorcycle handlebars – the threat from people seems to be much less than in most
European capitals.
Seb and Anja take me to a Khmer BBQ with a group of other ex-pats. Superb! The grilled meat is magnificent, I get sloshed in the process, and I learn a new fantastic dipping sauce/
Khmer BBQ dipping sauce:
salt
LOTS of ground pepper
fresh lime juice
garlic
Thank me later.
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| Tuol Sleng. Where 'special' prisoners were kept and tortured. |
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| Pol Pot. What a champ. |
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| The Khmer Rouge had a morbid, yet fascinating policy of photographing every single victim... |
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| ...including children. |
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