Roluos Village, Sangkat Cheung Aek, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Daily: 8.00am - 6.00pm
Situated approximately 17 km outside from central Phnom Penh, Choeung Ek used to be the biggest killing field under the Khmer Rouge regime. From the genocide museum, it took us slightly more than an hour to get there by chartered bus due to traffic jam. Over a million people were executed there between 1975 and 1979.
The admission fee at the point of writing is
US$6.00 (~S$8.55). I suppose our tour guide had made a prior arrangement as he immediately escorted us in that morning without getting any tickets.
The towering memorial stupa, having acrylic glass sides, stores more than 5,000 human skulls. We paid respect to the victims, buying freshly cut flowers at US$0.50 (~S$0.70) per stalk.
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| The skulls are marked according to the instruments used to kill the victims, such as wooden stick, bayonet and bullet. |
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| Probably not the original instruments used for the execution... |
We then walked through the boardwalk, where our tour guide unraveled more stories about the mass killing. The huge tree shown in the picture below was where the soldiers hanged loudspeakers to blast music every night to cover up the screams of the victims. It's said that people living near the killing field were enjoying the music without knowing what was actually happening.
The government has decided not to do any more excavation after 1980. As there are presumably still a lot of bodies buried in the mass graves, it's thus not uncommon for bones and pieces of clothing to surface after heavy rainfalls.
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| Do respect the victims by not stepping on any bone fragments. |
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| I did see one or two of these among the grasses as I walked through the boardwalk. |
I couldn't help but let my tears trickle down my cheeks as I continued hearing what our tour guide shared with us, especially when he told us how babies were bashed to death against a particular tree.
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| Dear tree, should you have a mouth to speak, I wonder what would you say? |
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| Those holes filled with water are mass graves. |
Some of the known mass graves have got roofs installed. I remember seeing one containing more than a hundred children and women and another containg 450 victims.
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| Anyone knows what this red house was for? I forgot to ask the tour guide. |
There is a small museum within the centre. I only took a quick glance inside as there wasn't much time left, and what I can recall are photographs of Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge officials. Anyway, photography isn't allowed inside the museum.
There's a souvenir shop, as well as a refreshment stall near the entrance of the killing field. A cold drink is something that you may want to get to beat the hot weather.
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| A fresh coconut was what I needed at the end of the tour. |
As with the genocide museum, do prepare yourself mentally before visiting these two depressing places.
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