Cambodia day 7: Khmer Rouge day

Well today has definitely been an interesting day, but quite a tough one.
First of all it was a holiday, International Women's Day, and most of the volunteers were off work. So five of us decided to go visit The Tuol Sleng genocide museum and the Killing Fields, where the Khmer Rouge massacred thousands of Cambodians just some 35 years ago.



The museum was a former high school, until it was made into a prison by the Khmer Rouge and baptised S-21. It is in the middle of Phnom Penh city and was host to incredible horrors from 1975-1979 when the Pol Pot regime wavered and fell. Not only were the people there detained in terrible conditions, but they were questionned, tortured and often killed.




Some of the faces of the children murdered



A cell, just enough for one person to sit or lie down




The barb-wire fence were there to prevent the detainees from committing suicide by jumping off the balcony



After seeing all this, I was quite shaken. I think we all were and it was a silent 30 minute ride over to the Killing Fields...where we remained quiet







The holes in the ground are excavated mass graves







I must say we were all quiet on the way back as well. What could one say?
After getting home, we decided to all go and chill out on the roof for a bit and have a beer. Once we were up there we heard sirens on the street...an unusual amount and the sky was growing orange. A couple of girls in the apartment said there was a huge fire not too far away. So I grabbed my camera and headed out, barefoot, in the streets with hundreds of cambodians, and found myself separated from the others as I realized the great mess it was on the street. People were everywhere, traffic was jammed, people were trying to get up on some higher level to see better...I crossed the road, without shoes (I realized afterwards that it was quite crazy to go barefoot not knowing what I was walking on), and got to the other side where the fire was. I managed to get into a field where a lot of people where grouped, as if it were 4th of july or something, to watch the blaze. It was huge. I have never seen anything like that (also I haven't really seen a fire before either), apparently around 158 houses burnt down to the ground leaving a lot of poor homeless people including some monks.














Seen from a distance

Crazy people on the wall right near the flames

People watching the blaze


After getting home and getting over the heat and the situation I already wanted to go back for more, to get even closer. When the fire was under control, I went back with 2 other girls and got to the same field I was in before. It was a sad sight, a lot of people were sitting on what they were able to save from the flames, the few items that made their home.













There was a hole in the wall that separated us from the fire scene so we went through it and saw this:

















That night I had trouble sleeping. Not because I smelt like smoke, not because I had taken some cool pictures or seen something I had never really seen before...but because I was thinking about all those who no longer had a roof over their heads, who were probably going to be sleeping in the field next to the smoky remains of their lost homes.


sgdjgas