The Killing Fields

My first full day in Phnom Pehn begins with breakfast in the hotel whilst I work out my itinerary. I begin to panic unnecessarily that I am not going to be able to see everything in the time that I have here, so I quickly finish my eggs and get ready. My first stop is the Killing Fields which are a few kilometres out of town, so I hire a taxi for the duration of my trip – best way really and I didn’t fancy the day being driven about in a tuk-tuk, so I made it clear to the hotel that I wanted a car, with doors…

My driver is called Lat and he's great, pointing out all the interesting spots on our way out of town. We reach the place, signposted rather grimly as "Genocide Centre" and the entrance to the centre is littered with tuk-tuks and victims of either war or exploding land mines and (rather like a bad taste arcade game) they all make a beeline for me with their begging bowls out. I don’t give them anything, but make a mental note to myself to pledge some money in support of these victims.

First stop is the genocide memorial, which macabrely has the skulls of the victims from the killings in the 1970s under the Pol Pot regime. It’s really harrowing and very moving. It’s hard to imagine the horrors that went on here, especially now as the place is extremely beautiful, peaceful and all the remnants of the torturing have long since been removed. I wander about the place looking into the pits of the mass graves and it’s not until watching a short documentary in the museum that I realise that not all the mass graves have been exhumed yet, and the flat fields nearby still contain the remains of those poor victims.

Very sad indeed.