Cambodia Day 2

It is a beautiful morning today, that is the front view from the hotel from the balcony. That's the Mekong river, but the smell ain't so great :P
That's a view of the hotel from below. The street is already buzzling with cars, tuk-tuk, motor and etc. Today as planned from yesterday night, we will be heading to the Tuol Sleng Museum. This place used to be a school but it is transformed into a prison for interrogation and torture place, during the Pol Pot regime, also known as S21. This place gives me the creeps when the tuk-tuk first stopped at the entrance.
It gets even more eerie when I stepped around the area of this picture above. This is the Block A, where prisoners are held for interrogation, facing lashes and electric shocks. Classrooms are transformed into interrogation cells. On the walls, they are pictures of people that were found dead (either from starvation or torture) in the room after the end of Pol Pot Regime. Nobody knows what goes inside this place until the regime ended. People just know that nobody ever comes out after they enter the place. Just right in front of the Block A there is the security of regulations, explaining how each prisoners should behave and the punishment they will receive if they disobey.
This is the information board describing Block A.

This is how each classroom looks like. There we have a guide explaining about the room. Here is one of the signboard in front of the graves commemorating the victims.

Next, we move on to Block B. This area is not as eerie as the Block A area. This building has been wrapped with electric barb wire to avoid prisoners from jumping down to commit suicide. Each classroom is transform into tiny cells to hold the prisoners.

There is basically nothing in this small cell except for a tiny hole for the guards to provide water. According to the guide, the prisoners are only fed twice a day and they are not allowed to do their business without the permission of the guards. If they did, they will have to eat up their own shit/pee.

As we move on to Block C, this block exhibits a lot of prisoner's pictures when they are taken into the place. There are also pictures of how Phnom Penh looked like after and before the ruling of Khmer Rouge.

The two pictures above are just some of the torture device used for interrogation.

The trip to Tuol Sleng Museum was a very disturbing experience to me. This is my first time entering a post-war site, a place where genocide happens. The amount of people that are being killed, pictures of women, children and men that have been murdered without rational reasons...they all haunt me for a few days. Such cruelty done to humans are just very sad. It took me a while until today, before I can blog about this place that I have been. Its just very sad...I do not know how to describe it but it is for you to experience it. Pictures above may just be pictures, it does not really describe the feeling of being there and stories shared by the Cambodian guide. War is horrible. Maybe peace be with those souls that have died innocently.

As for our next destination, it is the Killing Fields of Chong Ek. This is the place where mass graves are being found. It is located about 12km (or 20 km, cant remember) from town, rather outskirt. The prisoners from S21 are being transported here to be killed.

This place looks like an empty ground. The first view you will see is this memorial stupa. From the top of this building till the bottom holds many human skulls of the victims dug out from the mass grave found in this area.

Some of the skulls has a crack on the head (beaten to death by bambook stick) and some with bullet holes.

These are the clothings and others that belongs to the victims.

This is how the excavated graves looks like. This place feels very peaceful now and they are lots of butterflies hovering around the grave.

This tree is what they call the Magic Tree. I don't know what so magical about it. It is said that on this tree is used as a tool to hang a microphone which make sound louder to avoid the moans of victims while they are being executed. After these two places. We head back home. Tired, emotions all hair wired for me. I cant sleep for that night. Beer to relax for the night.

Finally, it is dinner time after such a disturbing trip. This is a Malaysian restaurant that serves halal food. What's more, it is the cheapest place among the rest. One meal cost US1. This guy called Weni can speak Malay, and it has became our hang out place for the past few days in Phnom Penh.