Cambodia Part Deux

Forgot to mention our first stop in cambodia was Phnom Penh (P-nom Pen, H is silent). On our second day we had a private tour with our guide Zenith. I like Zenith, he is my favorite guide so far out of all guides we have had. Judy woke up sick with stomach issues. She was a trooper and tried to go out with us but we got about a block before she had to ask the driver to turn around and drop her back off at the hotel. Like a good husband I leve her behind to sleep and be miserable while I went out with the guide. I felt special and cool to have my own private guide of the city. We cut lines VIP stylee and I smiled arrogantly at the tour groups with 15 people to a guide. They looked at me with curiosity asking themselves "Is he important? Is he rich?" If only they knew. I am not cool. I am not rich. I am but only a commoner just like they. First Zenith and I went to the royal palace. It was neat. Opulent and richly decorated. I was not supposed to take photos while inside. I did. Covertly of course. Every seen Pulp Fiction? I wondered if I will have to smuggle my camera out like Christopher Walken did the watch. I am glad I did not, happily stowing my contraband in my pocket. Touring the palace grounds was more interesting than the palace itself. Beautifully lush and maticulously cared for the gardens were a woderful site. On the grounds of the palace there were wats, residences for royalty and guests and even a house that stored the musical instruments for ceremonies. It was quite large. I think to myself "They could fit a lot of poor, homeless Cambodians in that place." The expense put into such places while the people suffer annoys me. I know better than to voice this out loud. Judy would be pissed if I 'disappeared' during our honeymoon for spouting off my grievences of the government. I wonder where they keep their Guantanamo Bay? In the instrument house maybe. Anyway also on the grounds were the emerald and crystal budda statues (more contraband pics taken here). The crystal budda has 2000 diamonds the largest of which is 25 carets (insert impressive whistle here). The emerald budda is really jade. Zenith mentions this after I point out it does not look emerald. We toured a couple more buildings and a museum and some more wats and headed off. I think the wats look incredible on the outside. Huge tempels with beautiful coloring and architecture I could stare at these for hours. Alas we do not have time for me to stare only to look and go, look and go. SE Asia is gong by too fast. I need to come back to Cambodia. At lunch we go back to the hotel so I can check on Judy and see if she is feeling better. Luckily she is so we pack her up and take her with us for some lunch. She does not eat much so I finish her plate and mine. Did I mention the food is really good here? It's too bad she got sick and continued to feel sick for the next couple of days. I was excited to go, go, go and do, do, do and she just did not have the energy. I felt really bad for her, I hate getting sick. In fact it is usually me who is the one that is sick. Over the next couple of nights she tells me to go out on my own but I don't want to leave her behind so we keep our nights shorter and make our excursions briefer than usual. She is a trooper for allowing me to drag her along for longer than she would prefer. Thanks love. That afternoon we visited Toul Sloung or S21. A high school that was turned into a prison during the reign of the Khamer Rogue (Ka-mer Roo) and is now a museum. Horrible. So very horrible the things done here to cambodians and during this time. They killed everyone deemed an enemy of Angkor. Not just certain people or types of people (like the Nazis to Jews). EVERYONE. Children were turned into child soldiers forced to kill, including their parents. They were told these are not Mom and Dad these are enemies of Ankor. You are not killing Mom and Dad you are killing enemies of Angkor as they were sometimes forced to shoot their parents. If you were suspected of being an enemy your whole family was killed including children. Like a weed you have to destroy the whole plant even the root or else it grows back. These are the paranoid thouhts of those in control. Madness, paranoia, it goes beyond comprehension. Sheer and utter burtality under Pol Pot aka Brother #1, the leader of the Khmer Rogue. Figures go up to 3 million killed. There was a room where they showed pictures of those put into the camp, put to death, tortured and brutally murdered. I point out that very few, almost non of them look afraid. Some of them even smile. Zenith says that this is because they know what is about to happen and they know that there is nothing that can be done. They know this. They have come to resolve at this point and they can no longer be afraid. What can they do? Wholy sh*t! Everyone knows if you 'disappear' you never come back. Everyone knows that if you are here, you are dead. Plain and simple truth. Wow. Old people, young people, kids, poor, rich, foreigners, even members of the regime. Pictures of everyone and everyone with a picture is killed. No exceptions. Bullets are expensive too so clubs, hammers, knives, anything else is used to kill 'enemies of Angkor'. Some are even buried alive. This was exponentially worse than what we learned was happening in Dachau. So many people were 'disappeared' and families killed that the majority of the people in the pics (we saw maybe 500 of the millions), no one knows who they are, there are no surviving relatives or those who survived were so young they cannot identify. They cannot even identify the dead because there is no one to identify them. Hundreds of thousands of unknown people. Dead. Zenith was one of these children, he has much to say. Members of the regime still alive. Some in politics still. Very few have been arrested and only in the last couple of years. Still no trial. This happened from 1975 - 1978. Wow. Judy and I are pretty speechless after we leave here to go to the killing fields which is one of many sites of mass graves. Zenith has much to say about all of this. The killing fields is an area of mass graves. Pits where bodies have been exhumed. In the middle of the area is a monument with hundreds of skulls of some of those killed and buried in this area. Not all the graves have been dug up yet. The government sold the site to a private Japanese company. Neither the company or the gov. are putting much effor to memorialize, excavate, dig, identify or really do anything about the remains. We're walking arund this area and Zenith points out clothes half buried in the dirt. These are victims clothes that are bing exposed over time by weather. Everywhere we walk he points out "there is some teeth" "here are some bones". Everywhere! On the paths, in the grass. In the holes. Everyhwere! Exposed by weather. WTF??? We are litterally walking on bones and parts of murdered people. Why?? Like I said above nothing or very little is being done to excavate any longer. I feel dirty. I feel humble. I also feel disrespectful because I am walking on dead people. It is just not right. I haver never experienced anything like this before. Speechless. The utter senseless brutality and lack of concern astonishes me. Sickens me. This experience will stay with me for a long time. On the ride home we wax some philosophical with Zenith which is very interesting and enlightening. I like him, he is a good man. Judy and I head to the waterfront that night for dinner and head home early so she can get some good rest. We leave early the next day for Siam Reap (Sy-am Reap, not Si-am as we had been saying) to see Angkor Wat. A couple of the books we bought had to do with Pol Pot and the Khamer Rogue. I have read one so far 'First they killed my father.' Written by one of the people who was a kid during these times. Very sad. I recommend. My words do not do justice to what happened. This book gives one good perspective. Read it if you get a chance.