The Ghosts Of Cambodia - Pol Pot's Victims

After touring Vietnam last summer, Cambodia was on the list this year. In Vietnam I saw remnants of the Vietnam war and some of the terrible pain inflicted on people there.

On the first day in the Cambodia I visited the Tuol Sleng Museum, a former high school turned prison during the Khmer Rouge regime in the late 1970s. Then we traveled to the Killing Fields outside of Phnom Penh where about 20,000 people were murdered in a gruesome way, many of whome were transfered from Tuol Sleng.

Visiting these places is thoroughly depressing, as you can imagine. The school/prison has furniture, blood splatters and torture gear on display in addition to many walls filled with photos of the people who were imprisoned there, tortured and ultimately murdered on the killing fields. The prisoners were accused of being intellectuals or against Pol Pot's regime.



The Killing Fields are another experience altogether. A monument contains the skulls of thousands of the victims in a tower of many levels, starting with the youngest and then up to adults. As you walk around the fields you see white bones peeking through the soil as well as teeth and victims' clothing. It is a very powerful and surreal experience.

I will soon add some photos.