Mar.2 - Phnom Penh, Playing tourist (PART II)

The second half of our day is spent touring re-constructed sites of Cambodia’s recent genocidal history. We enter the Khmer Rouge (KR) central prison, S-21 or Toul Sleng, where members of the elite class (including politicians, foreign diplomats, successful entrepreneurs, professors, etc.) and their captured family members were brought for questioning, torturing, and imprisonment. We snake in between panels displaying the portraits of prisoners. (On arriving here, prisoners had their pictures taken and their family trees recorded—the KR went after whole families. Naturally, most prisoners lied about their relations). Over 14,000 prisoners were brought here; few survived. It is appropriate that the name Toul Sleng translates into “poison on a higher level”. Scarily, Toul Sleng was Auntie Laura’s former high school.

(Ma poses at Toul Sleng; in her hair one of the beautiful, dainty white flowers from a tree that now adorns this once awful place).

Afterwards, our driver drops us off at this scenic restaurant for lunch. It is a place for tourists, which is clear by the modernized décor and the more subtle flavoured foods. While ma and I are ecstatic about the cleanliness of the restaurant (particularly the bathroom), we agree that food at real Cambodian restaurants taste better. Must the trade-off exist—savory food or cleanliness? Sounds like a business opportunity here…

Next, we tour the grounds of the Killing Fields at Choeungek. Here, prisoners of Toul Sleng were taken to be executed alongside thousands of other blind-folded inhabitants of the country. A stark white erect monument (seemingly rising to the sky) with glass panels showcases a square tower of skulls unearthed from the mass graves nearby. We burn incents and pray for the deceased and their families. We walk solemnly in between the mass graves which look like rolling grass craters in the ground. The prison leader of Toul Sleng, the one who commanded death, was here just the week before. He is on trial now for his role in the atrocities. Ma and I leave the place, relieved that her immediate family and pa’s were never caught.