Choeung Ek Memorial: With Peep's scheduled business meetings essentially complete, we stayed an additional day to continue seeing the sites within and just outside Phnom Penh. We had arranged for a driver the evening before to take us 15 kilometers (9 miles) outside the city to the Choeung Ek Memorial.
History of Choeung Ek: Originally a Chinese cemetery and an orchard, this area was used as the site of mass executions by the Khmer Rouge starting in 1975. Prisoners from the S-21 Prison, a converted high school located within Phnom Penh, and other places nearby were brought here after confessing to their crimes, oftentimes after months of abuse and torture by their captors, and being sentenced to death. This and other places like it located throughout the country are known as the Killing Fields.
Those killed were often teachers, lawyers, scientists and other intellectuals deemed to be living off the backs of the farmers and a drain on a utopian agrarian society, as well as anyone else believed to be a threat to the regime or to speak out against it, as well as their entire families.
After our slow ride past major road construction, we arrived at Choeung Ek, where we purchased our tickets and grabbed our audio tours, which guided us through the sites within. The following narrative on Choeung Ek is quite descriptive, so if you are sensitive you may want to skip it and go directly to the National Museum paragraph.
Truck Stop, Detention Center & Executioner's Office:We first stopped at the truck stop, where the trucks carrying the prisoners unloaded and the passengers checked against the manifest to ensure none had escaped during the ride. The condemned were not told of their fate at Choeung Ek. Rather, they simply believed they were being transferred from one prison to another. Once their identities were confirmed, the executioners were tasked with killing them the same night they arrived.
When the influx of prisoners became too much to handle, a building was constructed next to the truck stop to hold them in complete dark and total isolation until they could be dealt with. Unlike the holding cells, the Executioner's Office, as well as the Killing Fields, where the executions took place, were electrified to allow Choeung Ek to operate well into the night.
Chemical Storage & Tool Storage: The last two significant building that were at Choeung Ek while it was in operation were the Chemical Substances Storage Room and the Killing Tools Storage Room. Executions were carried out mainly by either slitting the victims' throats or by a severe blow to the head. Both methods utilized common farming and construction tools, which were stored in the Killing Tools Storage Room. The bodies were then placed in mass graves, and chemicals poured over them, not only to mask the stench of decaying bodies, which would alert nearby villagers of the activities taking place at Choeung Ek, but also to finish killing those victims on whom the other methods weren't totally effective. All the buildings were demolished in 1979, shortly after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, as people desperately searched for building materials for their homes.
Mass Graves & The Killing Tree: Just beyond the location of where the buildings at Choeung Ek stood can be seen many craters that were once the mass graves of the people killed there. Bones and scraps of clothing of those killed still appear in this area through natural erosion.
Three of the pits were featured in the audio tour, each one surrounded by a fence and covered with a roof. Every fence post around these graves was adorned by many brightly colored thread bracelets, honoring those that had died there. The first featured grave we saw was the burial site of 450 victims.
The second grave had contained 166 bodies, all without heads. These were the bodies of army deserters, mostly from the Eastern Zone, who failed to reach safety in neighboring Vietnam.
Standing next to the third, and last, grave on the tour is a tree upon which forensics found small bits of bone. Rather than killing the youngest of victims in the usual manner, the executioners would hold them by the legs and swing them into the tree until they were dead, then toss their lifeless bodies in the nearby grave, all while their mothers were forced to watch. The naked bodies of the women were also among the 100 victims buried here. The children killed were as young as two years old.
The Magic Tree: This tree was called the Magic Tree due to the speakers hung in it blasting out revolutionary songs. The loud music probably not only lead to confusion among the prisoners as to the true purpose of Choeung Ek and their ultimate fate, but also drowned out their screams as they were executed, making it seem to outsiders that nothing more sinister than a Khmer Rouge meeting was taking place.
Memorial Stupa & Museum: Towering high in the center of the killing fields is the Choeung Ek Memorial Stupa. Designed in classic Buddhist style, the memorial is ten stories high and contains the excavated and scientifically categorized skulls of nearly 9,000 of Choeung Ek's victims, the fatal wounds clearly visible on some.
In a front corner of the site is a small museum that touches on life under the Khmer Rouge regime and on the history of some of its leaders.
National Museum: After our somber tour of the Killing Fields, we had our driver take us back into the city and drop us off at the National Museum. Inside we saw the largest collection of Khmer art in the world. Most of the floor space is taken up by large, stone statuary of Hindu and Buddhist religious figures, but the museum also includes ceramics, bronzes, wood carvings and traditional ornaments and utensils. One of the more impressive galleries showcased huge tapestries made from pre-dyed, multicolored threads that then had to be woven in the correct order and lined up properly to create the final image.
Phsar Thmey: From the museum we headed to nearby Sisowath Quay, where we stopped for lunch before continuing on to Phsar Thmey (Central Market). Built in 1937, this art deco construction consists of a central dome with four arms extending out, one in each direction. The entire floor space is packed with stalls, with more stalls in the plazas between each of the radiating arms. We didn't spend much time here, as mostly what was for sale was jewelry, clothes, some household and beauty products as well as some electronics.
Wat Ounalom: From the market we continued our tour on foot, making our way to Wat Ounalom, which serves as the center of Cambodian Buddhism. The temple has been dated as far back as 1422 and today consists of 44 structures, including a stupa which is said to contain an eyebrow hair of the Buddha, referred to as ounalom and giving the temple its name.
Statue of King Father Norodom Sihanouk: Further along on our walking tour we came across the Statue of King Father Norodom Sihanouk, which we had seen by night a couple of days earlier. Norodom Sihanouk was King of Cambodia twice (1941-1955 and 1993-2004) and was the effective ruler of Cambodia from 1953 to 1970. He served not only as king, but also at times as sovereign prince, president, prime minister and others as leader of governments-in-exile. With so many titles, he is recognized by the Guiness Book of World Records as the politician holding the greatest number of political offices.
Independence Monument: From the statue we walked a short distance to Independence Monument. Originally constructed in 1962 to celebrate Cambodia's independence from foreign rule, this structure today also commemorates Cambodia's war dead. It is styled after the towers of Angkor and is in the shape of a lotus flower bud adorned with Naga heads.
Evening: We headed back to the hotel to rest before our scheduled river cruise with Peep's boss. However, a short time later he contacted Peep to let her know that he would not be able to make the cruise. Instead of going by ourselves, we again tried to make plans to meet with a couple of graduate students Peep studied with while at the University of Akron. She had been in contact with them earlier in the trip, but was unable to find a time we could meet, which also happened to be the case this, our final night, in Phnom Penh. It was just as well, because Peep's boss called back to let her know that although he could not make the cruise, he was available for dinner. So, just the three of us went out to eat before wrapping up our day.
Return Home: Our flight out of Phnom Penh left early the next morning, so we made arrangements for transport to the airport before heading to our room. We were ready when our driver pulled up the next morning. Once at the airport, we boarded our plane for the flight to Bangkok, where we had a short layover before continuing on to Savannakhet.