Nathan’s Blog

Well, we’ve arrived in Cambodia!

We got the bus up from Saigon this morning and arrived just after lunch.

We’re staying in a French Colonial house that has been converted into a fairly upmarket guest house (Boddhi Tree Umma) – no need for the silk sleeping bag here.

After lunch we headed the 10 meters across the road (how convenient, almost as if Laura had planned it!) to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Here’s where the mood changes.

With a grotesque irony, Tuol Sleng was a primary school that was turned into a “security compound” by Pol Pot’s brutal Khmer Rouge regime; classrooms turned into cells, gym equipment turned to torture equipment.

Tuol Sleng, or Section 21 as it was known, was the biggest facility of it’s kind and 100 victims were killed a day at the height of the horror.

Haunting, and to think that this all went on only 30 years ago with some killings still going on 10 years ago, if not today.

25% of population was murdered within 4 years (1975-1979), leaving the remaining population comprising 70% women.

The old classrooms and torture chambers were filled with graphic pictures of the victims and the Khmer Rouge. I’ve never seen a face caved in from the impact of a blunt instrument before – I have now.

I wasn’t as moved as I was when I visited the War Remnants Museum (Vietnam War) in Saigon. I think this is because genocide is so unilateral that it doesn’t stir up the usual emotions associated with war; it just leaves you feeling empty.

First impressions are that Cambodia is very chilled (I think they have to be given their recent history) with lots of smiling people, quite different to the hustle and bustle of Vietnam, with it’s sometimes harsh face.

We’re off down to Kep tomorrow for a week or so down by the coast and islands.

Time to drop it down a gear …