Tuol Sleng Museum
This former school was used by the Khmer Rouge as a detention and torture centre in the late
1970s. Today this building houses paintings and photographs of the victims. You can see the crude cells built in the classrooms and the torture devices used to extract confessions by the regime.
Originally the victims were killed, by being thrown off the roof, or hung on the gallows, many times, by extended hanging, being revived and hung again.
Eventually, selected victims were told they were going to a better camp, and trucked to the countryside, killed and buried in mass graves – the so called ‘Killing Fields’
Lunch – a break between the sombre visits.
Not our lunch, but a roadside fruit seller.
Killing Fields
The emotional Killing Fields of Cheung Ek, made famous by the film of the same name. More
than 17,000 civilians were killed and buried in mass graves here making this place a chilling reminder of the brutalities of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime.
It is something you read about, but is very confronting to actually visit.
The atmosphere is very serene and peaceful.
But, as you start to wander along the paths, yourealise that all the hollows are the remains of the mass graves.
At various points there are displays of bones and killing tools.
At the end of the path is the main shrine – the tower of skulls. By this time one’s mood has definitely shifted to sombre.
An interesting side note :almost allthe visitors are westeners- almost no Asians or Cambodians.
Wat Phnom – the shrine on the hill
Phnom => Hill, Phen => Lady Phen, so the cityis named after the lady on the hill
Home to a hilltop temple that carries the cities namesake. Locals flock here to pray
for good luck and success.
Pic 366
