Cambodia
Cambodia has been an intersting ride.
In 1975 the Khmer Rouge killed about 2 million Cambodians, they actually killed their own people and knocked the country back into the stone age. The wanted to create an agrarian society and ended up killing off anybody even suspected of enough intelligence to oppose them.
In Phnom Phen they have a place called ‘The Killing Fields’. A huge tower filled with skulls stands in the middle and is surrounded by pits that were used as mass graves. Chilling. Actually, its really fucked up. They have peoples skulls piled up in this glass tower, the bottom case filled with the scraps that were their clothes. Some skulls are cracked or shorn from being beaten in with blunt objects. Some have bullet holes. There are pits that were just filled with the bodies of women and children. Sick stuff.
Before we got to the Killing Fields ( there is a movie of the same name out..), we pulled up to this outdoor building thing, which I thought was Killing Fields.. Wrong I was. It was the shooting range. Fuck signatures or liability, or safety really, you just roll in on a motorcycle and see 3 Cambodians with shotguns and full automatic weapons on the wall rack.
‘Sit down, Sit down’ , he says. I do as he says. Some guy next to me is pumping a shotgun when they hand me a menu. You can get an AK-47 ($30), and M50 ($30), a Tommy Gun($25) , a grenade ($15), anti-aircraft gun ($35), rocket launcher ($200) , coke ($1), or fanta ($1). I went with the AK-47.
The guy hands me a camo jacket and tells me to come with him. We go through door after putting on earphones and here we are at the shooting range. A brick/rock wall at the end with a target up. I sit down at a wooden table to the sounds of machine gun fire next to me. We are seperated from the next guy by a black tarp. I empty my clip first on semi-auto, then he flicks it to automatic and I unload the rest of the clip in about a second and a half. As we were driving away I kept thinking I should go back to throw a grenade, but we never did.
After that we went to S-21 , which was an old school building converted to into a torture chamber building. The Khmer Rouge had thousands of people chained up to beds or small brick rooms where they tortured/killed them. 14,000 people went there, 7 made it out alive.
Cambodia hasn’t been all death and genocide though. We went to Kampot, a small town south of the capital and visited Bokor national park. A huge national park protected by armed Rangers who undergo extensive training on capturing poachers.
It takes about 2 hours by truck (they pack about 8 of us in the back of a pickup) to get to the top of the mountain where everything is. The roads, well, the dirt track up there is shit. The ride was ridiculous and with nothing to hold onto you had to hope that you wouldn’t get tossed out and onto the rocky path.
In the 1920s the French built a whole community on the top of this mountian. A casino, a church, houses, a water tower, etc. Its all abandoned now, but its cool to see all the old buildings.
On New Years Eve, the Cambodian people had a huge party in the old casino and 2 people were shot to death. Apparently people didnt really think anything of it and carried on partying. I’ve heard from a couple people that Cambodia now is like our Old West.
The story we got from a few people is this: There was a Cambodian gangster at the party sitting in the middle of the road in front of the casino drinking. A 4-wheel drive vehicle came up the path and I guess the lights shone in the guys eyes and he didnt much appreciat that, so he took out his gun told them to turn off the headlights. When the guy did, the gangster started shooting into the car. What he didnt know is that the guy driving was a bodyguard from the Capital, Phnom Phen. He was strapped as well and shot back. I dont know who got killed, maybe the bodyguard or the gangster, or people they were with, but 2 people ended up dead.
Still travelling with Becky, but now we are soon off to Vietnam to meet up again with Myra and Marjos from Holland. ‘Nam man.
If its not keeping you up nights, then whats the point.
pace.
Tags: Cambodia, killing fields, Tag Index
J
October 13th, 2006 at 7:41 pm