Deliciously Me

From Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum to our next destination, Choeung Ek Killing Field took us about half an hour. In the van, despite knowing that the driver didn’t us eating in the van, but I was sooooooooo hungry (as I woke up at 5.30 until 9 something with only few bites of bread in my tummy) and couldn’t help to have more of the bread. But I ate secretly and I SWORE I was very careful when taking each bite.

The Choeung Ek Killing Field was situated about 17km off Phnom Penh city. Less vehicles were seen on the red soil road as our van drove away from the city. Houses and shops were soon ‘gone’ from our sight, replaced with more lands and frequent sights of domestic animals.

Our van turned left and we knew that we’ve reached the destination when we saw these words – Choeung Ek Genocial Centre. Our van pulled to a stop and all of us got out of the van. Few went over the ticket booth for tickets and the rest took pictures of the area. After that we walked in…

Stood majestically in front of us, is a memorial building – a Buddhist stupa where the skulls of the victims stored in it. There is a stall in front of the building; selling flowers and joss-sticks – where some tourists would buy as offering to the victims of the mass killing.

We stopped in front of the memorial to take some pictures. As we saw most tourists walked towards the chain-linked area behind the memorial, we felt we should join them. We didn’t get a guide there since we knew pretty much what happened in the killing field from the lady guide in the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum. Well, we didn’t have a clue on where to go, so we joined the crowd.

There is a wooden hut right at the entrance of the fenced area and more can be found in the area. Walking in, we noticed the land is uneven. Then I realised that it’s uneven due to the holes dug by the victims before they were killed. Heard of the “dig your own grave”? They dug their own graves before the soldiers killed them by either shooting them dead, hit their head/neck with bamboo sticks/knife/stone/anything that can kill. So those holes were actually the places where the victims were buried. In another word, their graves.

-.-”"”"

Carefully, we avoided walking down the ‘holes’ or even stepping at the side of the holes. It wasn’t an easy task as there were grasses covering the holes and some holes were dug very near each other.

Didn’t know why, as we explored deep in the area, we found that we were the only group there. It was sooooo windy (the chilling type of wind – that I had to zip up my jacket) despite the sun was up above our heads. Weird right.

Out of sudden, just as I turned my head to the side to enjoy the view – a boy was standing behind the chain-linked fence with his hand stretched out to me. I gave a scream. Everyone turned their heads to see what happened.

The boy then uttered,

“please… money… one dollar… “

I seriously wanted to strangle the boy for frightened me. You know ler, going to that type of places, very ceh one. -.-”"”

As much as we wanna give him what he asked for but we couldn’t afford to do charity there. So if you’re planning to go Cambodia, please bring along a lot of sweets with you.

We sort of ignored the boy, walked and stopped at the observatory deck at the lake in the area. Nothing much to see there as greenary pratically covered the entire lake – so, we decided to walk back to the memorial.

On the way out of the fenced area,  we walked passed this big tree with a wooden signpost. We walked closer to read the words on the signpost and we found out that the tree is called a magic tree. Why is it called so, I don’t really get what the board meant. B got abit annoyed with me asking him the real meaning. *I’m quite blur sometimes okay!!! *

It wrote there,

Magic tree.. The tree was used was a tool to hang a loudspeaker which make sound louder to avoid the moan of victims while they were being executed.

I know the tree gave a very loud noise when the wind blew against it. My guess is – in the past, the soldiers hang a loudspeaker aka microphone (?) to magnify the sound of the flapping? Hmm.. I think I’m correct gua.. LOL!

We followed the trail – and we saw this!

I was like - OMG!!! The place used to be a chinese cemetery before turning into a mass killing site?! No wonder the execution was held here. -.-”

Few plaques were spotted around the area. Some were badly damaged. Even few Chinese stone candle/joss-sticks holder were brought down. Vandalisme betui!

There’s another wooden looking hut – where most of us peeped in there and we saw pieces of torn clothes soaked with earth soil, and also broken pieces of … if I’m not mistaken human bones. *shivers*

By the time I took picture of the area (the 3rd pictures – top left), everyone was already on the way out – to the memorial building. I quickly ran to where B stood (he stood very near the entrance of the chain-linked fence) and both of us walked to the gazebo in front of us – since we saw many foreigners standing there reading something off the wall.

Realisingly that the wall were ‘telling’ stories about what happened during dark era, we read them. Not sure if the rest read them though. Lol!

After reading the history, B and I went to the memorial building, where on the way in – Emily, Ailing and Leemay were already walking out of the building. We saw William and Aaron in there – busy snapping pictures of the skulls. -.-”

We took our shoes off and climbed the stairs. Some people (I think they’re local) were kneeing on the floor and paying respect to the deceased victims, some laid the flowers on floor, some put them on vase. B opened the door to the building and thousands of skulls greeted us! The skulls were placed on an enormous cupboard in the middle of the building, leaving barely a foot wide for visitors to walk around it. It was hard to walk with backpack carried at my back especially at the four corners – we had to take off our backpack and letting the backpack passed through first at each corner.

I’m not fascinated at taking picture of the skulls – so sorry ya, no tulang picture.

When B and I walked out of the door, Aaron and William still in there, taking pictures. Lol! So the rest of us waited for them at a bench near a shaded tree. The wind was breezy, not as strong as what we felt at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and inside the chain-linked area.

Once Aaron and William walked out of the memorial building, we walked to where our van was. Noticing a souvenir shop nearby our parked van, we went in to have a look. But nothing got anything. Nobody was keen to splurge there gua.

So, 5 minutes later we found ourselves in a van leading back to our guesthouse, the Capitol Guesthouse. Everyone was quiet on the way back – I felt asleep, some were too tired to talk.

… to be continued…