Story and Photo by Alison Moran
The next day’s awakening was anything but comfortable. I read about the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a school converted into a prison camp, torture chamber, and interrogation center for the Rouge. Today, it sits as a memorial. Inside, I found the mentioned photos of the prisoners, the torture devices, and the corpses I read about. According to the tour guide, the Khmer word “Tuol Sleng” means “Hill of the Poisonous Trees.”
“This is where they are shackled to their beds. This is the box for waste. They must dip their heads in there.” The tour guide’s contemporary, first person account of past years’ tragedies was indicative that the Rouge’s terror still lingers. “They are first hit in the head with bamboo stick, knocked out, then throat is cut with rusty knife.”
I tried to imagine Phnom Penh then, nearly abandoned, the screaming from the school, the starvation, the forced labor, the execution. I had a visceral reaction, my stomach turned so I stepped outside for some fresh air. I watched a man sweep the graves. I sat with my back against a warning sign. It read: “DON’T BE A FOOL FOR YOU ARE A CHAP WHO DARE TO THWART THE REVOLUTION. NE FAIS PAS L’EMBICLE!”
As I crossed the street to buy a consoling Coca-Cola a man approached me, his arms outstretched like the phantom in my room the night before. One hand held a newsboy hat with spare change. The greater portion of the left side of his face was missing as if he were a Jack-o-lantern decomposing. If I was having a hard time imaging the devastations of nitric acid attacks—a form of violence and mounting problem amongst Cambodians—it was now right in front of me. Being there and viewing such horror was anything but a passive experience. I was tyrannized by these new feelings. I couldn’t turn off the TV; I couldn’t hide under my blankets. I gave him the few coins I had and walked away.
Visiting a Killing Field
Not too far from Tuol Sleng are the rice fields, lined with morning glories that, though beautiful, local farmers use as pig feed. The area could be described as lovely—even picturesque—though each word seems incredibly inappropriate. We then visited Choeung Ek, an orchard turned Khmer Rouge killing field where 17,000 people lost their lives.
I deterred from the group and zigzagged between the potholes of mass graves. I looked out for human bones, many of which become unearthed during the course of a season. I walked along a trail that strayed from the site. On the left was a marsh and on the right was a fence guarding the rice fields. A girl ran up to the fence, demanding, “Pick-cha, pick-cha!” Sure thing. I took her picture. “Now money.” I told her the truth: I didn’t have any. The day before I went to the Russian Market with $5 USD in my pocket and, amidst the chaos of retail, I found many funky treasures I would love to bring home had I the appropriate funds. There were the blue plates, motorcycle boots, plastic rhododendrons and a Chicago Bulls jersey. I bought a fried tarantula for $1 and then bought a can of Angkor beer for $1 to wash the spider down. I bought a bracelet of shrunken, green skulls. Now I felt like a fool.
A boy came to the fence, and then another. They too asked for cash. “I’m sorry,” I said. The girl began crying. I dug into my purse for something, looking for anything at all to calm them. I took stalk of my earthly possessions, but my only found objects were a bottle of Deet, a package of Pepto, my camera, my pad of paper and a pen. Admittedly, I was at their mercy as soon as I realized this.
One boy asked for “yum yums.”
“No yum yums.”
“Pen?”
I handed him the pen through the chain links. He admired it: “Blue!” Perhaps this was his first. That’s when I really lost it.
“Don’t cry, Madame. You no baby…”
But wasn’t I? I felt like I was crawling, not walking. I felt like my consciousness was awakening for the very first time.
Ending Among Ruins
That night I flew to the city of Siem Reap to explore the grandiose temple of Angkor Wat, which sat hidden deep in the Cambodian jungle until its discovery by Western explorers in the sixteenth century. Today, it is best known as the world’s largest temple and one of the wonders of the world.
Angkor Wat, or the “City Temple,” was constructed under the order of King Surayavarman II in the 12th century as a dedication to Vishnu. The temple is a representation of the allegorical home of the Hindu gods, and the 200-acre layout is a replication of the religion’s cosmological conception. It is truly a mind-blowing site to behold.
A teacher, who had accompanied a group of us on the tour, explained to me that he had been waiting his entire life to visit this incredible monument.
“I remember reading about Angkor Wat in the Encyclopedia Britannica as a little boy. Now…” he hesitated, “Now it all seems downhill from here.”
I nodded. Why? I’m not sure. In truth, I strongly disagreed with such a statement. How could life be downhill after visiting such a multifaceted and awe-inspiring place as Cambodia? If Cambodia had fulfilled some eternal desire for this teacher, it certainly took a piece of my heart. And I gave it away willingly, hoping I would be back there someday – with much more to offer.
As I stood on the high platform where the chief Vishnu shrine once sat, I watched the sunset over the lotus-bud towers and stylish terraces and was over taken by the history, the enormity, and the intricacy of Angkor Wat – and, for that matter, all of Cambodia. And despite the heat, I shivered.
Read the first part to Alison’s story.
