January 7, 2007
Rest Day Phnom Penh: Choeung El Killing Fields
As if yesterday's prison wasn't depressing enough, today our tuk tuk driver takes us to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek.
The ride is about an hour from the city, down a very dusty road that's under construction. We leave the city behind and amongst flood plains, canals and rice paddies is a compound surrounded by a wall.
First thing we see is a pagoda with four glass sides that houses skulls and bones of anonymous victims that were recovered here. An area about the size of a football field is pock marked with pits where victims were killed and buried. 43 of the 129 graves have not been exhumed, it is estimated more than 17,000 people were murdered here, almost 9000 are now in the Memorial Pagoda. Everywhere you look and walk are shards of clothes and bones that poke through the dry red dirt.
At the memorial pagoda Rachel spots a girl carrying an Ortlieb handlebar bag: must be a cyclist. She's Dutch and came cycling from Beijing with another girl. About an hour is enough here, Rachel visits the souvenir shop to support this place, and we take a tuk tuk back to town.
We have lunch then Patrick watches a football (soccer) game, while Rachel heads into town to wander in the market.
The Killing Fields is a very sobering place and shameful to the world.
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