Today was another early morning because Rachel, Jamie, and I
had booked a tour to S21 and the Killing Fields leaving at 9am. I made my way
downstairs early hoping to have a nice breakfast but the prices at the hostel
are pretty crazy so I went to the convenience store down the street instead. I
made the right choice because I came back with a big bottle of water that was
the same brand as the one Rachel had purchased at the hostel and I only paid
half as much.
The drive to S21 was much shorter than I anticipated. For
some reason I was expecting it to be right next to the Killing Fields which I
knew were about half an hour away. S21 is a former school that was turned into
a torture, interrogation, and execution centre under Pol Pot’s reign. It has
since been turned into a museum and the Khmer Rouge kept very thorough records
so it was pretty graphic. The floors were still stained with blood. A few of
the rooms were full of the prisoners’ mug shots and the expressions on their
faces broke my heart. Some of them looked happy (prisoner number 1), clearly he
had no idea what was happening, others looked angry or scared, and some looked
like they had already given up hope, they new they were going to die and there
was no life left in their eyes.
It took us an hour or two to make our way through the four
buildings in the museum before we climbed back into our tuk-tuk and started the
drive to the Killing Fields. When we arrived I was shocked by what I saw. I was
expecting the area to be completely desolate, just a field of dirt really but
that’s not at all what we found. The area was actually quite pretty. Full of
trees and there was even a lake towards the back of the property. There were
however several large depressions in the ground that had formerly been mass graves.
Although they have been excavated and the remains moved to a building near the
entrance there are still bits of bone and clothing in the ground and every time
it rains more comes to the surface. I actually found myself accidently stepping
on a bone at one point, it was a little freaky.
Although it was a pretty depressing morning it was also very
educational. The hardest part for me I think was the fact that it all happened
so recently. I mean during my parents’ lifetime 25% of a countries population
was wiped out under the orders of one man. If this had all gone down in Canada
my mom and dad either would have become communist soldiers or they would have
died a horrible death. That’s probably a weird way to think about it but I
couldn’t stop my mind from wandering there.
We headed back to the hostel shortly after two and we were
all starving despite what we had just seen and learned. We decided to stay at
the hostel for lunch even though it’s quite expensive because we were too
hungry to walk anywhere else. After my experience with vinegar noodles last
night I wasn’t in the mood for Asian food so I ordered myself a BLT, it was
delicious, expensive but delicious.
After lunch I decided I should probably try to figure out
what I’m doing tomorrow since this is the last night I have booked at the
hostel. I considered going to Sihanoukville on the south coast but it would
have been a pain in the ass to get to Siem Reap from there so I decided to pass
leaving me with two options: stay in Phnom Penh a while longer or make my way
to Siem Reap. If I go to Siem Reap tomorrow then I will be there for a whole
week and I’m really not sure I need to spend that much time there. I decided to
spend one more night in Phnom Penh so I went downstairs to extend my stay by
one night and learned that I wouldn’t be able to as the hostel was full. Shit!
I did some more thinking and decided to head to Siem Reap and tried to book the
same bus as Jamie but apparently it was full also. After a very painful process
I finally got myself booked onto a bus leaving early tomorrow afternoon. The
hostel I want to stay it isn’t available until Sunday so I will be staying at a
guesthouse tomorrow and moving on to the hostel I wanted the following day.
Once I finally had my life sorted out we headed out for a
walk. We made our way to the central market, stopping for ice-cream along the
way. It was quite hot outside and the market looked crowded so we didn’t really
stop to browse, just walked past a few of the outer stalls then kept on
wandering. Our next stop was Wat Phnom where we encountered some dirty
cops/security guards (it was hard to tell what there actual position was) we
climbed the hill to the temple where they stopped us and told us it was $1 to
enter. A man was walking past as this was happening and told us not to pay
because it was free. I kept walking but Jamie and Rachel were behind me and
hadn’t heard everything that was going on so they were still standing on the
stairs. Several men were yelling at me and I was all by my lonesome so I ran
back to the steps, scared of what they might do to me if I didn’t. If there was
actually an admission to the temple we all would have been happy to pay it but
because these guys were just being scumbags we refused to pay and missed out on
the temple.
From there we made our way to the night market which was
much more spread out than the central market so we perused a little before
moving on. We planned on heading home from here but we tried to take a detour
to avoid a giant roundabout and ended up getting lost. Jamie became our
fearless leader and every time we saw a lit up building he insisted it was the
palace. I’m sure he pointed it out at least 4 times and we hadn’t made enough
turns to be walking in circles. I asked him how many palaces he thought there
were and he insisted there was only one and it was the same building we were
seeing every time. Eventually we made our way home, passing a few more palaces
along the way.
We relaxed at the hostel for a bit before heading out for
dinner. Rachel was supposed to meet some friends at a bar so we started to
wander in that direction while looking for restaurants. We found a place that
looked okay but we all left disappointed. Jamie and Rachel both ordered curries
and were served soup and I ordered a bacon sandwich because it was the cheapest
thing on the menu and I got two slices of white bread with 2 strips of bacon.
We should have just paid an arm and a leg to eat at the hostel.
With food in our bellies we started to make our way to the
bar and quickly found ourselves on the sketchiest road I have ever been on. We
passed a bunch of guys who were either loading or unloading a coconut truck who
made crude comments as we passed and that was while things were looking good.
We walked a bit further and soon there were no streetlights and the street was
littered with filth. There was even an overflowing dumpster on the side of the
road at one point. I asked Jamie if he could see the palace and shockingly he couldn’t.
We walked a bit further before we all felt like we were going to be raped and
murdered if we continued on so we turned around and went home.
I’m just lying in bed now trying to relax. Tomorrow I’m off
to Siem Reap, a six-hour journey, so I should have some fun bus stories to
write about. Might even bump into Jamie and see how many palaces we can find in
a new city.
No comments:
Post a Comment