The Khmer Way

I was going to write this as two different enteries, but have decided to create just the one. Why? As what I have witnessed over the past few days is not so different, as it is all about the Khmer way of life.

Firstly, the day before yesterday we went to S-21 and the Killing Fields. This had a big impact on us all I feel. Despite the fact that we got split up on the moto ride, Sam and I going to S-21 first and Brendon and Huw going to the Killing Fields first. We actually passed them as we went in opposite directions. But no matter, the feelings were still the same.

S-21 the school used as a prison and a place of horrific torture is bizzare to say the least. It looks like an average high school, but is so much more. Hundreds if not thousands of faces greet you when you walk in to the rooms. These are the faces of desperate people, each destined to be tortured to death. 14,000 people went through this place, and only 6 came out alive. The faces of the dead are forever impressed into my mind. The tiny cells, the barbed wire fences to prevent suicides from the upper floors, the shackles concreted into the floor, the idea that children as young as 10 were the torturers and murders in this place.

The Killing Fields is basically a field. A field with lots of holes in it. They dug up the bodies, nearly 9000 of them. The skulls are held in a large stupa standing a 100 feet of so high. As you walk around the holes you realise that you are also walking on the dead. Literally on the bones of the dead. Bones still stick up out of the dirt along with pieces of clothing. Bits of bone and teeth still litter the place. To describe the feeling you get from this place is beyond words, it must be seen to be understood. Man's inhumanity to man!

Yesterday we arrived in Siem Reap, to do the Angkor thing. Today we set off and paid for the 3 day pass at $40 a shot. Worth it though. To see one of the greatest wonders of the world up close and personal, is special. Images everyone has seen on TV there to be touched, there to be climbed over, there to be taken in and awed by.

I was going to write more about Angkor, bt time is getting on. Tonight in New Years Eve, so I have to get back to the guest house and put my glad-rags on. Tonight we party, tomorrow we suffer. But hey we'll be suffering while taking in the pleasures of Angkor. How many other people could claim that?!