Bird’s Nest Bevarage – 25% bird’s nest

PHNOM PENH – “TO KEEP YOU IS NO BENEFIT, TO DESTROY YOU IS NO LOSS”
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It is impossible to visit Cambodia and begin to understand or get a feel for the country, its history, present, and people without visiting the most infamous site of the Cambodian genocide. So, from the high of the night before, partying in Heart of Darkness, to the depressing low of the Killing Fields. Phnom Penh charms and chills in (un)equal measure.

We hired a taxi to take us through the traffic-clogged streets of the city and out into the countryside along a dusty dirt track. We arrived 17km later with those who had sat in the boot (door wide open) covered in a layer of orange dirt. We paid a small entry fee to the site which was once a former orchard.

Choueng Ek is a picturesque and tranquil area of fields, lakes and trees that belies its tragic past as a burial ground for those murdered during the long nightmare of the Khmer Rouge.

Enemies of the regime were arrested, tortured and then shipped out of the capital at night by truck, many still blindfolded and told not to be scared, they were going to a new home.

The site holds 129 mass graves where an estimated 17,000 men, women and children were executed by the Khmer Rouge on pretexts such as resistance to the regime, counter revolutionary tendencies or religious belief. If you were from the ‘wrong’ background such as a wealthy family, you were at risk. If you had the ‘wrong job’, such as an engineer or a doctor, you were at risk. If you wore spectacles (a clear sign of intellectualism according to the Khmer Rouge) you were at risk. If you knew how to read or open a car door, if you had a white mark on your wrist suggesting you had worn a watch, if your hands did not display signs of manual labour, you were at risk. Anything that suggested you belonged to the middle, upper or professional classes, lived in a town or city, or were tainted by westernisation threatened to attract the party’s unwanted attention.

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