Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia and when the Khmer Rouge took it over in 1975 they cleared out all of the people and began the horror of the Killing Fields. When it finally ended in 1979/80 they estimated that between 2 and 3 million Cambodians were killed.
We went to the Killing Fields of Cheung Ek and the Toul Sleng prison which were two places in this tragedy. At the Killing Fields you walk around an area where mass graves once were. As you walk you see clothing still in the ground and peices of bones and teeth. You also see many holes that once held over 9 000 bodies ( which they have found and many they have not) . The centre peice of this field is a stupa that contains several thousand sculls and bones that have been removed from the graves. It was really disturbing that as we walked around there were a few children begging and wanting us to take their picture for money. We also heard in the distance the sounds of children playing at school in the next field away.
On returning to the city we went to the Toul Sleng prison which was once a high school. Here is where they held and tortured people before taking them to the Killing Fields. In the school now are thousands of pictures that were taken of the prisoners before they were killed. They also have exhibits of many of the people who worked for the Khmer Rouge and stories of survivors. What may have been most disturbing here was seeing pictures of people like Pol Pot ( the main leader of the Khmer Rouge ) who were 70 or 80 and died of old age in 1997 never to have been prosecuted for what he did to the people of Cambodia.
This was quite a depressing day as it is sad to see what these people have been through and that it was not that long ago. Phnom Penh is still recovering as most of the road are not paved,but areas like the river have been developed and show great progress.
