More on Phnom Penh

Killing Fields

Our visit to the Choeung Ek Memorial was educational but very disturbing at the same time. When Pol Pot took over Cambodia (1975-1979) he had a vision of a classless and agrarian society. In his mind, western culture, religion, foreign influences was to be extinguished to form an extreme peasant communism. During his regime, foreigners were expelled, embassies closed, foreign economic or medical assistance refused, use of foreign languages banned, TV and newspapers were shut down, even money was forbidden, education halted, and thus Cambodia was sealed off from the rest of the world.

The Khmer Rouge regime tortured and eliminated by mass slaughtering the old society which included the educated, the wealthy, Buddhist monks, police, doctors, lawyers, teacher, and former government officials. Cambodians who were accustomed to city life were forced to work in the fields while many died of overworking long hours, malnutrition and disease. Anyone who was suspected to be disloyal to Pol Pot was killed.

To eliminate all those who did not fit into Pol Pot’s “ideal” society ad hoc places of execution and dumping grounds for dead bodies were established and named “Killing Fields”. To date at least 300 killing fields have been found throughout Cambodia. It is estimated that over 17,000 people died at the Killing Field we visited near Phnom Penh while over two million Cambodians died during the Khmer Rouge regime. As a result of the Pol Pot years, Cambodia is now one of the poorest countries in the world.



Life in Phnom Penh
When walking around we saw in one part of the city a few people who had set up their own “barber shop” directly on the sidewalk. I asked Alain if he wanted to try the “Cambodian hair cutting or shaving experience”, he declined…I don’t understand why!

As mentioned previously, the motorbike is a very common and affordable mode of transportation in Cambodia. The two pictures below are examples of what we have seen out of the ordinary but not the most extravagant. Sometimes, I just don’t have my camera at hand to capture the ingenuity or craziness of what people come up with when it comes to motorbike usage.

The picture below is not an uncommon site in Phnom Penh where “restaurants” are set-up on the sidewalk and where Cambodians will eat. So far we have not ventured "in" one of those since we do not speak nor understand Cambodian and would not know where to begin to order food.