Adventures of Singapore Sue: Phenomenal Phnom Penh

Hi All!

Well, I've been terribly bad at updating, I know. Since I've been on two trips post-Cambodia, I thought I should really, really get going on Cambodia so that I can blog about the other stuff. Sorry about not getting stuff up-wedding planning plus finals equals a very busy Laura! Without further ado, CAMBODIA!

The entire bus ride from Saigon to Phnom Penh (did I mention I spent 40+ hours on the bus that week?) I was a total wreck. I knew we were heading to the killing fields and I was wondering why I agreed to go. Anyone who knows me will tell you I am a very emotional creature and that I don't handle tragedy well (watch Schindler's List with me. You'll understand). I thought that it was important to GO and SEE the killing fields, but I was worried about handling it. I didn't want to vomit, weep, or sink into a deep, existential depression (all things I had done when visiting Holocaust Museum/Anne Frank house).

For those of you who don't know about the killing fields, here is a short history. In the 70s, Cambodia's king was exiled to Thailand. When he left, a faction of the previous government, the Khmer Rouge, decided to remain and overthrow the new government. These Khmer Rouge soldiers made many plans to rusticate Cambodia, similar to China's Great Leap Forward. What the Khmer Rouge actually did was kill 1.7 million people over the course of about 10 years. Kids, adults, pregnant mothers, anyone at all...Khmer Rouge killed them. If you wore glasses, for example, you looked intellectual, which means you were anti-communist, which means you deserved to be (and were) killed. It's hard to process what 1.7 million means. It was a brutal, massive, total slaughter and even now, a month later, I can't really talk about it. Reparations have not come. The International Criminal Court is only now beginning to try the men responsible for all the killing, and many of them have already died of old age. So nothing has been done to bring these people to justice. Pol Pot, the dictator responsible, was captured (and died in custody) so Cambodia is peaceful now, but the ache is still so fresh. It's perfectly safe to travel there, and I highly recommend it, because this is just something that has to be seen to be believed.

I'm not sure what to say about the killing fields, the actual concentration-camp-like area where the people were taken to be slaughtered. I feel like Forrest Gump: "there's only one thing to say about Vietnam....that's all I have to say about that." I know that the land there was once an orchard and it's extrordinarily, if perversely, beautiful there. Now there is a school across the street and you can hear the children playing as you tour the fields. There is a tall stupa made from skulls of those killed. It is horrible to see. Also horrible are all the signs, translated into English. I'm used to seeing bad things put into flowery, dispassionate language, couched in so much rhetoric that it's hard to feel anything but boredom. Here, there is no luxury of good English-signs say what they mean. Often, that is "this is where they beat the children." Once you see something like that, you know you will never be the same.

Flowers tangled in barbed wire outside Tuol Sleng Prison

Afterwards, they took us to Tuol Sleng prison museum but I couldn't face it. I strolled the streets instead, searching for a glimpse of something beautiful to come out of this pain. That night we went to a Tex-Mex joint and had margaritas to dull the pain a bit. We saw many other sights in Phnom Penh-it really is a lovely city. Like all of Cambodia, it is a mystery, a paradoxical juxtaposition of splendor and wildness. I was overwhelmed then and I am overwhelmed now. I could recount the hostel where we stayed, the food we ate...but all of it seems pointless against the backdrop of the killing fields. I think this is why I have avoided blogging for so long about this. I didn't want to face it. So here are the pictures, both of the killing fields and the other things we saw in PP. Please examine them carefully, even if it hurts to do so. We all need to know about what happened there, and do whatever each of us has the power to do in order to make sure it doesn't happen again. Nobody should be able to murder 1.7 million people and get away with it. I'm not talking about retribution for the murders, I'm talking about stopping the killing. Genocide must be stopped. We need to stop it. Until then, I love you all. Singapore Sue, signing off.