S21 and The Killing Fields

On Wednesday most of us slept in to recover from the karaoke shenanigans that took place the night before. Unfortunately the air-con in our room wasn't on so it got pretty hot in our room. Brenda and Fiona were growing tired of the on and off rain all day, so they took the morning to plan a holiday-within-a-holiday to the islands of Thailand. Around noon we left the hostel to see the must-do S21 Genocide museum and Killing Fields.

I want to preface the next paragraph or two by saying that I'm not nearly a good enough writer to convey what it's like to see these sites. If you've ever been to the utterly depressing Holocaust museum in DC then you will have a general idea.

S21 is a relatively small group of buildings that were once a school but were transformed into a prison, interrogation and torture facility by the Khmer Rouge in the 70's. As you would expect the cells were tiny, prisoners were given an old ammo box to do their business in and there was barbed wire on the upper floors to prevent prisoners from jumping. Some of the rooms also contained pictures of the faces of many of the people killed by the Khmer Rouge. Most of the prisoners were given numbers and were photographed when they were detained. There's plenty more to say about S21, but there's really not much point in doing so here. If you're ever in a particularly depressing frame of mind just google Pol Pot, Khmer Rouge, S21 etc.

After S21 we went to the Killing Fields which is a good ways outside of the center of Phnom Penh. Similar to S21, this was depressing. This is basically a bunch of fields the Khmer Rouge used to torture and kill people. A lot of bone fragments, tattered clothing and the like can be seen around. There are also numerous signs explaining what various parts of the fields were used for.

The courtyard at S21 is actually quite beautiful these days

A view into one of the wooden cells

Who's hungry? After a few depressing hours learning about the heinous acts of the Khmer Rouge we headed back into town and had a late lunch at the Pink Elephant on the river front. Katie and I shared a vegetarian pizza that was surprisingly good (especially compared to the pizza in New Zealand). Before we went back to the hostel we asked our tuk-tuk driver to bring us some place shopping and we ended up at the Central Market (also known as the French Market). We all perused the wares but didn't buy anything.

The French Market

Back at the hostel Brenda and Fiona got ready for their 16 hour overnight bus to Bangkok while Katie surfed the internet and I helped Hin with his computer (naturally). Around 7 we had a sad farewell with Brenda and Fiona and off they went to Bangkok. Katie and I both had chicken burgers at the hostel for dinner. (yum!)