In the first photo you can see me standing in front of the royal palace! It was a gorgeous building, carved with glistening golds and silvers everywhere. It was about 100 degrees that day though, so we didn't stick around to admire it as long as we wished we could have.
The man you see in front of the Buddha statue was gracious enough to let us come into their holy temple without our shoulders and knees covered. He prayed with us and blessed us with holy water with a Buddhist chant. It was amazing to be shown a small glimpse into the life of a buddhist in Cambodia!
The last few pictures are of the biggest market in Phnom Phen! It had absolutely everything you could think of! I snagged a new backpack for my travels and a ballcap while I was there. It was super hot on the inside, so we didn't stay too long. It was still fun to peruse through the aisles and see all the fun and creative items they had to offer!
The Cambodian Genocide
Phnom Phen is home to the Killing fields and the S21 Prison of the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge took control of the Cambodian government in 1975, with the goal of turning the country into a communist agrarian utopia. In reality, they emptied the cities and evacuated millions of people to labor camps where they were starved and abused. Pol Pot was the man in charge, who can be seen in the second photo. His right hand man can be seen in the photo to the left of him. Doctors, teachers and anyone considered as educated, as well as monks, the rich, and anyone perceived to be in opposition were tortured and killed. In other words, anyone and everyone was killed. It's known as the purest genocide in history, as no one certain population was targeted. They would ruthlessly torture people until they admitted to crimes they didn't commit, and then torture them further until they named other innocent people as guilty, such as their friends or family. Can you even imagine torturing someone to that point? The photos I saw cast across the walls of the prison made me so nauseous that it took me over two hours to complete only three exhibits. You can see a pointing below of a prisoner being carried by his captures across the yard as an example.
I sat in a theatre with one other couple as a documentary played where prisoner survivors were interrogating the guards that had tortured them and killed their families. My heart cracked and tears filled my eyes as they stared into the eyes of these men and begged them to see the crimes they had committed for what they were: cold and ruthless murder. To their dismay, all the guards were still completely brainwashed and held resilient to the pleading. All except one guard, who broke down in tears as he was shown pictures of the piles of dead bodies they had accumulated in the killing fields. It shakes you to the core to see the guards justify their actions with words like "destiny" and "justice." These men were promised they were making a better society and truly believed what they had done was right. You can even see children below holding guns that were already trained soldiers of the Khmer Rouge.
An excavated picture of the Killing fields can be seen below, where they have dug up thousands of bodies and put them into mass graves. The skulls of the victims are held in the pagoda you see below as a tribute to their memory. The museum is filled with entire rooms of the faces of the prisoners that they killed plastered side by side in never-ending rows. You feel so empty and helpless as you stare into the depth of these poor souls. The bracelets that hang along the tree and the poles below have accumulated by the thousands of visitors that pass through these fields each year as a tribute to the people who were killed during this reign. I left mine on the tree below, which was known as the "killing tree." The tree was used to kill children by slamming their heads against the trunk.
It is estimated that between 1.7 and 2 million Cambodians died during the 4 year reign of the Khmer Rouge, with little to no outcry from the international community. They were horribly successful in covering up the monstrosities that were taking place in their country. Across the world, countries lived in ignorance of the people that died here day after day. Cambodia still struggles terribly even after this regime has fallen, as they lost so much of their educated population. It will be a long time before their country begins to successfully recover from the damage that occurred. They are taking steps every day though. For instance, it is now illegal for anyone to deny or defend the crimes that occurred during the genocide and all guards or personnel involved in the Khmer Rouge have been sentenced to prison for their crimes to humanity. Sadly though, Pol Pot himself died before he was ever sentenced to pay for his own crimes.
