To many travelers, Cambodia is known for its infamous killing fields. The prison of horror of the past is not always the choice of every tourist, but perhaps it is where many of them can actually learn the history of the country.
The purpose of our trip to Phnom Penh was to visit the S-21 prison and the Killing Fields, two places were horrific events took place during the reign of the Khmer Rouge. Our guide for the day was excellent and we learned more from him than we could have from a billion books. It’s amazing to me that a few times a week he spends hours walking through those places, remembering the things that he lived through as a young boy (like many people alive during that time he lost people to the Khmer Rouge). The prison was quite sobering and some of things you see and hear about you’d rather not. There are tons of pictures of people who were held there and executed at the Killing Fields, as well as lots of pictures of the (child) soldiers. There was also an excellent photography exhibit done by a foreigner where he took pictures of the pictures, capturing their reflections in the glass, with visitors in the shots, kind of “bringing them to life”. Hard to explain, but very cool, and it really does make you think about and feel the people that were lost.
We went to the Killing Caves - in similar morbid style to the Killing Fields, these were caves where the Khmer Rouge threw Cambodian civilians into the caves and left them to die, if they had not already died from the fall. The rock is actually still stained from all the blood shed at the time.
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