My Little Southeast Asia Adventure - Seventh Stop: Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Because the movie The Killing Fields is one of my all-time favorite movies, I couldn't afford to skip Phnom penh and actually seeing it for myself. A little bit of story about how I got to see the movie before I share the experience... Although it was an 80's movie, I only got to see it in 2000 when I was in Indonesia to visit my dad. Remember how VCDs used to be? There usually were 2 discs for one movie right? So I was already crying my eyes out on the first disc when the player requested for the second disc... and it WON'T PLAY. My eyes were red and puffy from crying and I was dying to see how the movie ends and the damned 2nd VCD won't play! My dad bought these VCDs from Medan, which was 12 hours drive from where we lived. I can't just drive 12 hours for a VCD. When I got back to the Philippines, and I see a video shop, I always looked for i but since it was a very old movie, it wasn't easy for me to find them there and (cough) torrent was not yet available then. You know how long it took me to finally see the whole movie? After more than TWO YEARS. But it was worth it.

I can't watch movies with too much gore because I can't stand it. But having been to Phnom Penh's Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng S-21, I realize those were just movies… just products of our imagination… products of how our MINDS can conceive brutal and sickening violence.

But actually having the heart (or the lack of it) to do it, to mass-murder in thousands, to brutally, cruelly, and coldly torture and kill men, women, and children in ways one can not even seem to believe another human being can be capable of, to train adolescents and turn them into monsters who torture and kill even their own parents, relatives or friends is just an entirely different story.

While in Cheung Ek's Kiling Fields, I still had the tenacity to take pictures of the thousand skulls within the stupa that has been built to commemorate the victims of the Pol Pot regime. Having had taken up Physiotherapy in college, I have opened up dead bodies to study the human anatomy and seen many human bones and skulls (believe it or not, I've even fallen asleep with my arms around a real human skull while studying for my Anatomy finals exam back in college) that it doesn't creep me out anymore.

But the Tuol Sleng's S-21 (Security Office 21) museum was a different story. The S-21 used to be a secondary school that has been turned into a prison where the victims were imprisoned, questioned, tortured and exterminated. No one was exempted. Men, women, old, young, children, babies. The prison was surrounded with a double wall of corrugated iron and dense barbed wires. According to one of Lonely Planet's contributors, "This is one museum where silence doesn't have to be requested – the power of speech is simply lost here." I knew what he or she meant when I got there. I couldn't even get myself to take photos. The only photo I've taken from Tuol Sleng was the board that contained the description of what the S-21 was about. Seeing all those devices and modes of torture the victims had gone through, seeing the mug shots of these people you know had been mercilessly tortured and killed and knowing that I am standing in the very grounds were these unspeakable and unthinkable horrors have happened, I couldn't even get myself to complete the museum. I had to get out because I had felt I was going to break out and cry if I stayed any longer.

On my way out of the last building I went to see (it may have been C or D), there was a room at the end that had the letter "V" on top of the entrance. If you've seen the movie "V for Vendetta", you'd understand why this was very interesting and uplifting for me. Not only because the movie is one of my favorites, but also because none could be more appropriate. The "V" may have been added recently and whoever had "V" put there may have been inspired by the movie. Inspiring and well-wishing messages for Cambodia and her people were written on the walls by visitors.

Cambodia seems to have witnessed the extreme ends of what man can do. Ankor clearly shows the greatness humans can accomplish, while the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng shows the unthinkable horror man can do.

Below are pics around Phnom Penh