Phnom Penh – the Killing Fields
Aside from one day alone in Singapore, I had spent three weeks with Amanda. But after our time in Brunei, it was time for her to fly home and for me to fly to Cambodia. I needed a little down time, so I literally did not leave the hostel my first day there. I spent the day in the hostel’s restaurant enjoying the wifi and catching up on my blog, emails, reading other people’s blogs, sorting pictures. (By the way, I stayed at the Mad Monkey, and they have the nicest staff ever!)
My plan for the next day was the Killing Fields and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, not exactly a barrel of laughs, but two places so important to Cambodia’s not so distant past. I won’t go into great detail about the history, but if you don’t know much about it and want to read more, please click here for more information.

One of the tuk-tuk drivers who works for the hostel drove me out to the Killing Fields late in the morning. It’s a little ways outside of the city and the roads are pretty bad, usually just dirt, so I had to cover my nose and mouth with my sarong to lessen the amount of dirt and dust I inhaled. When we finally arrived, he told me where he’d be waiting, and I walked through the gate to pay my entrance fee, not really knowing what to expect. I was given a headset that told me all about the Killing Fields and the details of what happened there in the late 1970s.

One of the first things you see when you walk past the entrance is a tall building with glass walls. It’s a monument to those who died there, and it contains skulls and other bones sorted by age and gender. It’s rather disturbing but I understand that having something so graphic to look at makes it that much more real. You can read about the horrible killings, but actually seeing the skulls, many not fully intact, is a shock and really tugs at your emotions.
After that, the recording directed me around what looked like a pleasant, pretty park on the surface. But I was led to mass graves, trees that children were beaten against, and bits of victims’ clothing still sticking up from under the dirt. It was incredibly difficult to listen to all the horrible things that happened, and to think about how someone could’ve possibly thought he was creating a perfect society by enslaving and torturing people.
Almost a third of Cambodia’s citizens were tortured and killed, all because Pol Pot thought that a society based entirely on agriculture was ideal, and that anyone with any amount of education (doctors, teachers, lawyers, even people who wore glasses) needed to be killed. And all of this happened just a few years before I was born. Travel isn’t always about having fun, sometimes it’s about learning about a country’s painful past. Sights like this are important so that we never forget the horrors that took place, and so that hopefully nothing like this will ever happen again.
You might also enjoy:
- How Much We Spent Traveling in Southeast Asia for Two Months
- How Much We Spent Traveling in Cambodia
- How Much We Spent Traveling in Thailand
December 8, 2011 @ 3:16 AM
It’s a strange thing this human mind of ours. It can be used to do much good in the world or it can be used to cause much pain and suffering as is the case in Cambodia and many other parts of the world. I long for the day when human beings no longer kill each other but instead reach out to love one another. When that happens we will really be getting somewhere.
December 8, 2011 @ 10:49 AM
I totally agree. It pains me that things like this still happen. Thank you for the wonderful comment, Matthew!
December 8, 2011 @ 2:20 PM
I have been here as well as Nazi concentration camps in Europe and the feeling is the same. It is almost like your body just shuts down to try and absorb what you are seeing. Similar to seeing something shocking then slamming the door shut and then you open it slowly on your own terms…by reading books and watching documentaries to take it in slowly in retrospect.
December 9, 2011 @ 12:20 AM
Thanks Kurt. I like your comparison with slamming the door. It such a horrible thing that happened to these people, and it makes me want to read more about it. I’ve been to one Nazi concentration camp but I was 16 and I would probably appreciate it better now than I did then.
December 9, 2011 @ 11:00 PM
It’s such a sobering experience visiting the KF – thanks for sharing this.
December 10, 2011 @ 12:00 AM
Thanks for reading! I totally agree with you. And I actually thought the school/museum was even worse than the Killing Fields. That post is coming in a day or 2.
December 10, 2011 @ 12:37 PM
Oh wow that is tragic, I have heard of them before, and know I want to visit it one day my self. I have to agree it is so disturbing, but has to be taught so it doesn’t repeat itself. I love that you mentioned that travel is not always fun and sometimes its about learning about a countrys horrible past. That is so true.
December 10, 2011 @ 1:28 PM
Thanks Jaime! #1 thing about travel is learning about other cultures. Sometimes that means great fun, but sometimes it’s horribly tragic. You can’t go to Cambodia without learning at least something about the tragedy that happened just 30-35 years ago.