We left Saigon at 12:30 am for Phnom Penh in Cambodia and at about 5 am we arrived at the border. The bus driver told us we could either buy our visas from the bus company directly (at an inflated price of course) or get them from the Cambodian border officials however the bus would leave if we took more than 15 minutes getting through customs. We decided to take our chances at the border and when we arrived at the visa counter, the officer told us it cost $22 each. I pointed to the very large sign which read “tourist visa: $20” and asked why he was trying to charge me more. He claimed that the extra 2$ was the fee for an “express” visa which is obviously bullshit – it’s actually just a form of bribery to avoid a 45 minute hassle and having our bags searched. Regardless, we decided to just pay the extra money to avoid the headache but some of the other passengers didn’t and after 15 minutes the bus just left. It took a lot of yelling by one of the passengers friends for the bus to stop and wait while those left behind came running down the highway to get back on the bus.
In Phnom Penh we visited the notorious S-21 detention facility (now a museum) which was used by the Khmer Rouge to interrogate, torture and execute during the genocide which took place here from 1975 – 1979. Thousands of people passed through its doors including women and children all of whom were brutally tortured and murdered except for about 7 survivors. Similar to the Nazi’s, the Khmer Rouge kept detailed records of everyone they executed including photographs. These photographs now line the walls and rooms along with some very graphic pictures of what took place here. It’s quite an eerie feeling to stand in one of the rooms knowing that you are in the exact spot where thousands of people had been tortured and to imagine what must have been going through their heads as this was happening.
Afterwards we visited what are known as the Killing Fields which is where the majority of the executions took place. Today the area is very quiet and peaceful but it is very obvious what existed before. The craters created by mass graves, the pieces of bone stuck in the mud and the mountain of skulls that are housed in a Pagoda. What happened here was barbaric; people being decapitated and thrown into a pit with hundreds of others, babies being held by their feet and having their skulls smashed against into a tree which is now called the “killing tree”. It’s hard to believe that this all took place only 30 years ago.
Yes, very reminiscent of the Nazi death camps I visited in Poland - even the peacefulness of the land as it now is. Unbelievable what human beings can do to each other in the name of an ideology, isn't it? I assume you guys have heard of what has happened recently in Norway? It was on a much smaller scale, of course, and it seems that the perpetrator, although ideologically motivated, is mentally ill, but the underlying thought processes seem similar. Very sad. Mom (V)
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