Killing Fields... ANDDD Lady Boyssss

May 31

8:12am Cambodian time

I don't know why but I have had Shakira's "Waka Waka" stuck in my head for a few days now. I'm traveling through Cambodia in South East Asia, not anywhere near Africa. I can't get it out of my head though. Dat played it when we were in Angkor Wat. So I've been jamming out to Africa in my head all day long.

Yesterday was a good day. We woke up pretty early so we were ready to leave for the killing fields by 8am. We loaded into a private bus and drove on.

Our guide, Run, was a little hard for me to understand at first but my ears adjusted quickly. Phnom Penh has more of a city feel than the small town feel of Siem Reap. Lots more tall buildings and city lights and people. Here there pare a lot of cars. Still a lot of motor bikes and tuk tuks but the streets aren't like in India or Nepal where its just covered in tuk tuks and you barely see a car. There are even some regular sized/looking gas stations here. The regular gas is 5,300 riel for a liter which is maybe $1.50.

The tuk tuks here are larger as well and have a motor bike that is then pulling or attached to the tuk tuk part. There are seats facing forward and backward. It sits comfortably 4 people but we squeezed 5 into one today. The driving is also not as crazy as India.

Again, I can't guarantee all of this information is correct and that I understood everything. I also know I missed a lot of things he was saying. I need to ask Matt to help me piece some things together.

We started our tour at S-21. This place was a school building that was then turned into a prison during the rule of the Kampuchea democratic. The genocide happened in the 1970s... Only 30 years have passed since the end of it. The Cambodian population used to be pretty large and after the genocide, they were down to 4 million in the entire country. 20,000 people were killed at the killing fields, 17,000 people died in S-21 and 3 million people fell fatally sick or went missing. The population then went from 4 million to 15 million people in---------. 54% of the population are women. 50% of the population are children under 18 years old. I think he also said there is only about 4% of elderly people.

The average Khmer family has 7-12 children. Farmers need more children to help in the fields. Unfortunately, those children are not schooled. School is similar to how it is in Thailand. It is technically free but not really since they still have to pay for their books, uniforms, supplies, and sometimes even the teacher will tell them they need to pay money or they won't pass the year because the teachers make so little money. Run said that some people don't even make enough money to feed their families. He has to feed 10 people from his job alone. No one else in his family has a job. He has 6 children. And I think the grandparents live with them probably but that is just a guess. He said everyone is either too young or too old to work. Some families live off $2.50 a day. AN ENTIRE FAMILY!

Side bar. Later last night, at dinner, we talked to a few of the young girls who were hasting us to buy their stuff. She said that sometimes she may sell 5 things and on bad days she sells none. They buy the thing they are selling from the market. It's really sad... And eye opening... We complain about the minimum wage being $7 whatever. But we also are guaranteed to at least make that much an hour AND (usually) we only have to support ourselves... Not 9 other people as well.

Back to S-21. The whole area is surrounded with a high wall that then has a lot of barbed wire wrapped in circles at the top. Once you enter, there are 14 tombs lined up in the first part of the courtyard area. There were 14 VIP prison cells and these are the 14 people who were murdered before the Kampuchea democratic soldiers went to escape from the Vietnamese soldiers who came in to raid the country and stop what was happening. These 14 people were murdered in disgusting ways. Some people had their stomachs slit open and the soldiers are the liver because they were told they would then be strong. Faces were cut off and pulled away from the skull. Limbs were chopped off. The soldiers wanted to show they could do what they wanted.

7 men survived because they had jobs working for the prison as mechanics or painters or electricians. 2 of the men come back to S-21 3 or 4 days a week. One was a painter and one was a mechanic. We heard the mechanics story from Run (ill talk about this later) and got to take pictures with him. It felt a little wrong to take a picture next to him, smiling. Run said he wants people to do that though so they can go home and show their families. He has a book as well about his life. There were also 5 children who survived. The Vietnamese soldiers found them in the kitchen hiding and looking terrified. Only 4 survived however because one of them died from starvation shortly after the Vietnamese found them.

The government wanted to kill anyone who was educated or old. This is some of the criteria I can remember about how they decided if someone was educated:
1. They have glasses
2. Their hands are smooth because that means they aren't working in the fields
3. Their skin is light because that means they work indoors in AC, not out in the fields.
4. If you were a foreigner. Almost all the foreigners were killed because the genocide was secret and they had already found out too much about the government and what was happening.
5. If you spoke a foreign Language it meant you were educated.
There were others like this as well.

They would find people and tell them they were going to get a good job and work for the government and then they were taken to the prison. Here, the conditions were obviously shitty. Everyone was chained all the time. They were in really tiny cells alone, or a large room with a bunch of people jammed pack in it.

People were asked to confess their sins. Going against the government or being educated or any of that. They would have them write it down and they would ask them about the other people they worked with and their friends, and then they would blind fold them, tie their hands behind their backs, and then put them into transport vehicles to the killing fields where they were killed.

People were tortured in horrendous ways as well. They were fed breakfast, lunch, and dinner but it was porridge and you could count the grains of rice in it. Run said it was usually 3 grains. That is obviously not enough for people to survive on. He said people ate anything they could find, even insects, to survive. There were 163 prisons in Cambodia. I think the 7 and 5 survivors were just from S-21 because obviously there were still 4 million people in the country at the end of the genocide. The children, like Run, were put to work in the fields. Not the killing fields. They were farming and planting and things like that. They used them to pull the carts and other things that normally oxen would pull. Essentially they were working as animals. There were a number of rules as well. This is the sign that was posted:
1. You must answer accordingly to my questions- don't turn them away.
2. Don't try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that. You are strictly prohibited to contest me.
3. Don't be fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.
4. You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
5. Don't tell me either about your in mortalities or the essence of the revolution.
6. While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.
7. Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting.
8. Don't make pretext about Kampuchea Kromin order to hide your secret or traitor.
9. If you don't follow all the rules above you shall get many lashes of electric wire.
10. If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either 10 lashes or 5 shocks of electric discharge.

Everyone had a box to go to the bathroom in. The boxes were made in America and were not made for bathroom use but to hold bullets. They were only allowed to empty their boxes once every 2 weeks.

I think they wanted to get rid of the old people and the educated people so that they would have all the less educated people to follow them into the revolution. We all seem to have different ideas as to by though so either he didn't tell us and were speculating or none of us understood what he told us. He also said that the prisons and killing fields were kept secret. I'm not sure if it was a secret as in no one talked about it or if people really didn't know. At one point, for a few years maybe?, Phnom Penh was entirely evacuated.

The soldiers had to kill each other even at points to survive. They were working together toward the same mission even.

The survivor, as I mentioned, was a mechanic. He was told he would have a great job working for the government and he was thrilled but then he was taken to S-21. Here he was asked what he does and hey thought he was a CIA agent. His response over and over again was that he didn't know what the CIA was and that he is just a mechanic. He continued to get lashes and his back was welted and swollen. If he cried out he would get more lashes. They broke his fingers at one point as well. He never changed his answer. They ended up bringing him a type writer to fix and he could fix it. They put him in a cell in one if the 4 buildings. He was in building B I think. His cell is labeled with a plaque. He was then put to work as a mechanic and fixed things for the prison but even during this time he was on a very short chain in a small room. He was one of the 7 survivors at S-21. His name is Chum Mey.

If a family came in together, children would be killed with their parents if their parents were educated, even if the children had never been to school. Run's parents were both educated and his father was smart enough to separate their family before they were all killed. Women were raped and tried to slit their own throats or throw themselves over the side of the building to escape the torture.

There were gallows left over from where the students used to do their exercise when it was a school but the soldiers converted it into a torture technique. They would tie their hands behind their back and lift them up in the air until they were upside down. People would suffer from dislocated shoulders, etc. and they would normally pass out. Then, they would be dipped into a pot of really rank water that was normally used for fertilizer which would bring the person back to consciousness so they could do it all over again.

There were pictures on the walls of the 14 VIP cells showing the way they were found by the Vietnamese soldiers. They were black and white but still pretty graphic.

The executioner still is alive and he lives on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. He was living for free by the government for a while until the world complained. He can still make money off of telling foreign journalists about what he did and how people were killed and tortured. He is worried The Khmer people may come to him for revenge one day.

Some if the other ways people were tortured was women with babies would have their baby taken from them and told if they don't confess that their baby will be smashed into the wall. People were electrified with a little wire in their ear and sparks would come from their eyes and it felt like their head was going to explode. People had chemicals shoved up their noses. I can't even remember everything. Fingernails and toenails were pried with pliers from the hand or foot and alcohol was poured over the top so it stung. They were very creative in their torture techniques I guess. But I also don't know too much about torture so maybe those are all normal.

After seeing S-21 we got on the bus to drive out to the killing fields. While we were on the bus, Run was telling us more information but it was really hard to even listen to him because I needed time to kind if process and think about everything we had just leaned and seen at S-21. So I totally missed all of that information. The same thing happened after we came back from the killing fields. Run was talking and telling us information that I just wasn't able to process at that moment in time.

When you first enter the killing fields there is a very tall stupa. When I first walked in I just thought it was a stupa to go in and pay respect to the millions who died. I didn't realize what was in it though until the end. People had to excavate the killing field area to figure out how many people had died and other information. Inside the stupa there was shelf upon shelf upon held of skulls from the victims they have so far found in the killing fields. At the bottom there was a collection of clothing and at the top, which was so high up that it was impossible to see, Run said there were bones. It was really intense to see that. Literally just skulls stacked up. Thousands I am sure. It was crazy. At the end of the tour when we were walking up to it I caught a glimpse of the inside with all the skulls and I was baffled. Definitely not what I was expecting.

There isn't too much to see at the killing fields. Some of the areas have wood around them with the number of people who were buried there and if they were Children or soldiers, etc. the areas are surrounded by bamboo sticks and on all the bamboo sticks there are millions of bracelets people left to pay respect. There is a grave of children and there is a "killing tree" next to it where the soldiers would throw the babies at the tree before putting them into the grave. The tree was also covered in bracelets.

They didn't want to waste bullets on people because their lives were not as expensive as the bullets were so they killed them by beating them with sticks and other things like this. Many people didn't totally die and they were buried alive in a huge heap of dead bodies. There are sugar palm trees there and the trunk part of the tree would be used for many things but a lot of people and soldiers used it to slit their own or victims throats because it is really sharp. I can't remember if it was here or at S-21 but people would also have their hands tied and they would put tires over them and burn them alive. I'm not sure if they did this at the prison but I know at the killing fields they would put powders over all of the bodies to try to mask the smell from anyone walking by and for the soldiers own sake since they live and work right there.

There are bones literally still in the ground everywhere. Like you walk over them. They have been exposed due to weathering. You are legit walking on a mass grave site the entire time you are walking around that area. There are also displays of mandibles (jaw bones) and clothing collected and bones that have totally come up from the ground. There was a stretch where I felt really nauseous. I don't know if it was from the heat or because it was really upsetting or what. I think it was because at one point it started to smell like puke to me for a stretch of the walk. I couldn't handle the smell and I felt fine until then.

It was definitely a very intense morning.

We got dropped off at the Russian market where we ate lunch. I had a steak sandwich and it was amazing. It was also only $6. It had Swiss cheese and caramelized onions on it. Very good. I was surprised I could eat though.

We then wandered the market for half an hour. It was in a big building kind of... It had open sides. Many stalls in it. It was hot as hell in there because the middle of the whole area had a food area where hot stuff was being cooked. It was soooo hot.

Then, Mars, April, Kristen, Sandra, and I took a tuk tuk to Wat Phnom. ($1 each. It was pretty tight. I was sitting on the arm rest. Not too comfy! kristen and sandra walked back to the hotel and the 3 of us went to the wat). Apparently this is how the city got its name but I haven't heard the story yet from Matt. It was on a hill and it is very lavish inside. It was beautiful. Lots of statues and Buddhas and incense. There were birds in cages outside and I guess you are supposed to buy them to set them free. I'm not sure where the money goes. I didn't buy a birds freedom though haha.

We then took a tuk tuk for another $1 each to Wat OunaLom meaning eyebrow. We got to talk to some monks and took pictures of them/with them. April went pretty close to the monk during the photo and it startled him and he backed away quickly. She didn't know they aren't allowed to touch women. Their bright orange robes are really appealing colors. Matt had said not to miss this little gem of a temple. There is a 1000 year old brick wall that is the oldest in the world inside the temple. We were walking around and got directions from one of the monks who spoke English.

We had to go behind the building we were in into another smaller courtyard and there were a bunch of statues and a little building. There was an old man there who had a key and opened the building for us. The area was really small. It was lavishly decorated with a Buddha and other temple like things. It really only fit the 3 of us with the shaman. The ceiling was also very low. He blessed us. It involved holy water like the blessing in Thailand. He flicked it onto each of us with his brush thing and then we also had to hold out our hand for him to rub water all over it and then we were supposed to wipe it all over our face. It was interesting. The Buddha also had a spinning thing above its head. Before we walked into the temple there was a door and another door. Above the second door before the little temple was a laying down Buddha.

After that, we went to the Royal Palace. Unfortunately, we didn't have a ton of time left at this point so we really rushed trough the palace. The other group that went had gotten a guide and they said it was really great. We just went through and took pictures. It was beautiful. You weren't allowed to take pictures inside any of the rooms though. There was one room with a mass amount of gold boxes or something stacked up to the ceiling with a solid emerald Buddha at the top. It was crazy.

Apparently the King is a great ballet dancer. He is also gay. It is not really discussed but it also isn't frowned upon. The tour guide told the other group that he just prefers to be alone. Matt confirmed that wasn't true for us. The King has never had a girlfriend either.

We rushed back to the hotel around 4:35 to get changed and meet the group at 5pm for our boat cruise along the river. We had a free beer (Cambodian) and got to watch the river front pass us by. They had a doc for an iPod and we hooked that up and got to dance and take pictures and see the sunset. We also passed a Vietnamese floating village which was really cool to see. When we first started it was raining but it ended quickly. When it rains it rains for 5 or 10 minutes and then it stops. It's not monsoon yet though.

After the boat cruise, we went back to the same place from last night to eat dinner. It's called Chat and Chew and is on street 172. I think our hotel was on 184. I had the other traditional Cambodian dish called beef luk lak. It was so good! It comes with rice and a fried egg. I think oyster sauce as well but to me it just tasted like peppercorn. It was a really flavorful dish. I was glad I got it. It also only cost $3.50. I also had a mango milkshake for $1.75.

After dinner, which paying has been so much easier. They still have you pay 1 by 1 and have to write each thing down individually when you tell them what you had but it seems to go way faster. It only takes like 10 minutes to pay instead of 30. So after dinner we were supposed to meet Matt at a bar called Blue Chili which on Friday and Saturday nights has the best drag queen shows. (Its a Friday). It was only 9:30 when we got there but there was a Latin bar right there so we went and danced salsa for a little bit. Literally everyone in the group danced and had fun. It was cool because I feel like that rarely happens. Liz is from Mexico and was teaching us all salsa.

We then headed over to the Blue Chili. At this point it was only half of us left. Kristen, Sandra, Ashleigh, Imad, Mars, and Liz. The show didn't start until 11 and we had already ordered drinks an found a table by 10:10. It was a good thing though because the place got really crowded, it was very small to start off with as well, so we had prime seats right near the stage, which was also very small.

I ordered a grasshopper for $3. For all you non hip parents, that isn't an actual grasshopper, its a mixed drink. Felt like I needed to make that one clear since I've been eating some strange things. I don't know if their ice is okay or not, but I haven't gotten sick yet.

While we were waiting for the show to start we danced. Like my kind of dance. It was fun. Lots of American pop and rap songs were played. And we didn't really need to worry about creepy men since Imad was the only one anyone was watching. Matt came in around 10:30 and started dancing with us and we were all singing the songs so he motioned giving us all a turn on the microphone. It was a good time.

The show finally started and it was an hour long. There were 4 different girls. They pretty much looked like women. Some of them you could still see a little bit of an Adam's apple or more manly hands but it was kind of incredible. Sometimes you could tell by their thighs as well. Some of them had. To be post op because they were wearing really tiny costumes that didn't really allow you to hide anything. Some of the girls were more talented than others. And 2 of them had amazing bodies. Like better than all of ours haha. Which is weird since they're originally male. One of the girls really had the whole body roll and shake going on too. It was impressive. They also get all over people in the audience. So that's really different than America, or even the show I saw in Budapest.

Then we walked home... It was a few blocks away... And went to sleep. I left packing for this morning.

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Here is the information Matt told us. It isn't in order and is based on the questions and how he answered them.

There was a lady that lived in the hills 500 years ago and there was a flood. She saw a tree was floating by and took it and there were 4 roots that had a Buddha carved on them. The temple was built on the hill to protect the roots. She was originally called Ping (sp?) but over the years it turned into Phen. Phnom is Khmer for hill so it is literally Phen's hill.

Earlier i mentioned the executioner was still living in the city. Perpetrators were granted amnesty from the king. It was basically a deal that if he wanted to be king then he had to grant them amnesty. They shook hands and that was that.

I asked matt about the secret thing. he said that Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan knew about what was happening. However, they didn't want Vietnam taking over Cambodia and spreading communism. They had already lost the Vietnam war. So they funded and supplied arms to Cambodia to fight Vietnam.

In Cambodia the people can technically can vote at 18 and have the ability to participate in a democracy. But it's not a democracy. The Cambodia peoples party is pretty much the only party that you can vote for. You pretty much just don't get involved in politics. If you vote for one of the 4 other parties then you pretty much go through hell.

Pol Pot was the head leader of the Khmer Rouge which is the same as the Kampuchea democratic. The king was the face of the Khmer Rouge though. The revolution started because the Khmer Rouge really wanted to gain southern Vietnam back because Ho Chi Minh used to be part of Cambodia but the Vietnamese had taken that land at some point. Pol Pot wanted everything to go back to the way it used to be in year 0 and he wanted to equalize everything which is why there was a genocide. Matt explained a lot to us but it was all really complicated and confusing so this is the very simplified explanation of the information I was provided with.

He also said that the original point was to harvest rice and start a large export business. Since Pol Pot wanted to bring everyone back to agriculture and have everyone do the same thing and be equal.

There were 2 waves of Khmer Rouge soldiers. The first was from 1975 to 1977 and they were older and knew too much information. So they then trained younger soldiers, teenagers, and had them take over from 1977-1979. The younger soldiers wiped out the older soldiers.

1953 Cambodia gained independence from the French